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This research investigates the impact of corporate donations on the cost of equity capital. We argue that corporate donations reduce firm risk and improve reputation, affecting the cost of equity.

We employ a large international sample of 44 countries from 2002 to 2019. We use several econometric methods and conduct a range of sensitivity tests to examine the robustness of findings.

We find that corporate donations reduce the cost of equity capital. In terms of economic significance, the study shows that one standard deviation increase in corporate donations leads to a 12.9 to 14.9 basis point decrease in the cost of equity capital. The additional analyses reveal that donation patterns, country-specific attributes and macroeconomic characteristics likely influence the findings. Our results are robust to a batch of sensitivity tests, including GMM regression analysis and tests with alternative measures for corporate donations and the cost of equity capital.

Our research findings have practical implications. Policymakers can encourage firms to undertake philanthropic activities to reduce business risk, which benefits both firms and investors.

We contribute to the theoretical discussion about the role of corporate philanthropy. We argue that firm risk is reduced due to philanthropic activities such as corporate donations. Overall, our results suggest that corporate donations affect worldwide external financing costs.

Corporate ESG performance has attracted widespread attention from various sectors of society. This paper aims to investigate whether analysts’ ESG attention can convey additional information to the market and consequently influence stock pricing efficiency.

Using A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2021 as the research subjects, this paper employs a deep learning algorithm, word2vec, to construct an ESG dictionary. Text analysis is then applied to create an analysts’ ESG attention index, delving into its impact on stock pricing efficiency.

Empirical research reveals that: (1) Analysts' ESG attention effectively enhances stock pricing efficiency, with a more significant impact from analysts’ attention to environmental (E) and social (S) factors compared to governance (G); (2) Further analysis indicates that this effect becomes more pronounced when there is higher disparity in corporate ESG ratings, greater marketization in the province where the company is located, and a higher institutional ownership percentage and (3) The mechanism by which analysts' ESG attention influences stock pricing efficiency is through an elevation in investor attention and stock liquidity. Additionally, it is observed that analysts prioritize ESG information to enhance their reputation and business capabilities.

From the perspective of ESG rating divergence, this paper innovatively uses analyst reports to construct ESG attention indicators and analyzes their impact on the efficiency of stock pricing.

Metadiscourse is an important dialogue technique used in productive knowledge building to help a group evaluate and advance their knowledge progress. Previous studies have identified and defined various types of metadiscourse. However, there is scant knowledge about how different metadiscourse types emerge among different groups or what implicit correlations lie between progressive discourse and metadiscourse. Moreover, research on how different types of metadiscourse influence groups' knowledge advancement and artifacts is still inadequate. Therefore, this study aims to further examine the roles that different types of metadiscourse play in the collaborative knowledge building community on both a fine-grained (i.e. progressive discourse) and coarse-grained (i.e. group knowledge advancement and group artifacts) level.

Data for this study are drawn from the behaviour of undergraduate students participating in a 12-week course at a key university in China. On the fine-grained level, epistemic network analysis (ENA) is applied to illustrate how metadiscourse promotes the development of progressive discourse. On the coarse-grained level, two different chi-square tests are conducted to examine the roles of different types of metadiscourse in groups' knowledge advancement and artifacts.

The analysis allowed several conclusions to be drawn. First, the types of metadiscourse that students most often adopted were reflecting on ideas development (RD) and commenting on ideas (CI); they less frequently adopted setting group goals (SG) and making group plans (MP). Second, most types of metadiscourse correlated with developments in progressive discourse, particularly RD and CI. Third, the metadiscourse types RD, CI and coordinating group efforts (CE) played essential roles in knowledge advancement. Fourth, higher-quality artifacts could be created by using the metadiscourse type reviewing the state of knowledge building progress (RP).

A more profound comprehension of the role that metadiscourse plays in the collaborative knowledge building community not only contributes to the literature in the knowledge building field but also carries a significant meaning in regulating community, promoting learner agency and sustained knowledge, and consequently improving collaborative learning performance.

Although several studies evidence the positive outcomes of facilitation coaching style in various professional settings, it has received less attention in the health-care context. Thus, drawing on previous research and the tenets of Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985), Job Demands-Resources Theory (Demerouti et al., 2001) and Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study aims to investigate the relationship between facilitation coaching style and adaptive performance in health-care professionals, considering a serial mediation mechanism in which job-related anxiety and informal field-based learning are antecedents of positive psychological capital (PsyCap).

Self-reported data were collected from 253 Romanian health-care professionals using a cross-sectional research design.

The authors found that facilitation coaching style reduces job-related anxiety and promotes informal field-based learning, thereby improving PsyCap and, ultimately, contributing to higher adaptive performance.

These results emphasize the critical role of facilitation coaching style in the health-care sector and provide actionable insights for health-care organizations seeking to enhance their staff’s adaptive performance and, consequently, patient care.

Organizational justice plays a crucial role in shaping employee work attitudes. This study examines how and when procedural, distributive, interpersonal, and informational justice affects employees’ affective commitment and work engagement. The research is grounded in an extended job demands-resources model, incorporating the social identity theory. The integrated model hypothesizes that all four dimensions of organizational justice positively influence employees’ commitment and engagement by fostering organizational identification. Furthermore, it is posited that this cognitive-affective process is particularly significant when employees face high job demands, as opposed to low job demands.

A three-wave prospective study was conducted with a sample of 400 employees in the social and personal services industry in Hong Kong, China. Data were collected at baseline, three months, and one year.

The findings support the hypothesized conditional indirect associations between organizational justice (procedural, distributive, and informational justice) and both measures of work attitudes.

This study highlights the importance of fair, ethical, and just procedures, resource distribution, and communication in organizations, particularly in stressful industries. Employers and supervisors are encouraged to adopt employee-oriented management practices, foster positive leader-member exchange relationships, and acknowledge and reward valuable contributions.

This study contributes to the existing literature on organizational justice by elucidating its underlying cognitive-affective mechanism and identifying the boundary conditions under which it operates.

In Ghana, the adoption and application of green building concepts and technologies have not been fully explored. The study aimed to look into the key barriers and how they affect this.

Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select a total of 292 construction industry stakeholders in Ghana who provided information via a questionnaire survey used for the data collection. Exploratory factor analysis and Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) were used for computing the data analyses.

According to the study findings, the top five most critical barriers to the uptake of green building concepts and technologies (GBCs and Ts) in Ghana are: lack of government incentives/supports for implementing green building technologies (GBTs), lack of knowledge and awareness of GBTs and their benefits, lack of GBTs databases and information, Lack of green building (GB) expertise/skilled labour and Higher costs of GBTs. Principal Component Factor Analysis was used to further analyse the data, which allowed for the reduction of the 27 (27) factors to just four (4) underlying critical barriers: (1) government and knowledge-associated barriers, (2) technical barriers, (3) cost and finance barriers and (4) stakeholders’ attitude barriers. PLS-SEM techniques were used to analyse this collection of barriers, and the results showed that stakeholders’ attitude-associated barriers and cost and finance-related barriers have a significant negative influence on the uptake of GBCs and Ts in Ghana. This study’s findings have provided empirical evidence of the critical barriers to the uptake of GBCs and Ts from all stakeholders. Stakeholders desirous of implementing GBCs and Ts would work against the negative influences on the uptake of GBCs and TS.

Although there has been an abundance of research to examine the critical barriers to GB, however, the uniqueness of this study is nested in modelling the influence of the barriers on the adoption of GBCs and Ts using the PLS-SEM path modelling.

The purpose of this study proposes a strategy based on vehicle kinematics, dynamics and fusion estimation. The estimation signal of vehicle driving state is crucial for vehicle driving safety and stability control, and the issue of fault-tolerant reconstruction estimation of vehicle driving state under the failure of yaw rate or lateral acceleration sensors is a significant research topic.

A strategy based on vehicle kinematics, dynamics and fusion estimation is proposed. To address the issue of inaccurate calculation of tire forces because of sensor failure, a method combining adaptive sliding mode observer, genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed to accurately calculate tire forces, and the Square Root Cubature Kalman Filter algorithm is used to reconstruct the estimation of vehicle driving state under sensor failure. To improve the accuracy of fault-tolerant reconstruction estimation of vehicle driving state, an error-weighted multi-method fusion estimation strategy for vehicle driving state is proposed. A fast terminal sliding mode control algorithm is proposed to control the stability of the fault-tolerant reconstruction estimation signal of vehicle driving state.

Simulation results show that the proposed fault-tolerant reconstruction estimation algorithm for vehicle driving state can accurately estimate the actual driving state of the vehicle and stably participate in the vehicle stability control system, achieving fault-tolerant reconstruction estimation and control of vehicle driving state under sensor failure.

The problem of vehicle motion state estimation under yaw velocity sensor fault or lateral acceleration sensor fault is solved, and fault tolerance control under sensor state is realized.

This study aims to investigate the impact of indium (In) content on the thermal properties, microstructure and mechanical properties of Sn-3Ag-3Sb-xIn (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Wt.%) solders to enhance the performance of tin-based solder under demanding conditions and to meet the urgent need for high-reliability microelectronic interconnection materials in emerging sectors such as automotive intelligent technology, 5G communication technology and high-performance computing.

In this study, Sn-3Ag-3Sb-xIn solder alloys were prepared. The thermal properties of the solder alloys were characterised by differential scanning calorimetry. Subsequently, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and an electron probe X-ray microanalyser were used to analyse the influence of the In content on the microstructure of the solder. The mechanical properties of solder alloys were determined through tensile testing.

As the In content increased, the melting temperature of the Sn-3Ag-3Sb-xIn solder decreased, accompanied by less nucleation undercooling and an expanded melting range. The incorporation of In led to an enhancement in the yield and tensile strengths of the Sn-3Ag-3Sb-xIn solder alloys, but with a concomitant decrease in plasticity. In comparison to commercial Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu solder alloys, the yield strength and tensile strength of the Sn-3Ag-3Sb-3In alloy increased by 8.64 and 21.69 MPa, respectively, while the elongation decreased by 11.48%.

Sn-3Ag-3Sb-3In solder alloy was the most appropriate and expected comprehensive properties. The enhancements will provide substantial assistance and precise data references for the interconnection requirements in high-strength interconnection fields, such as automotive intelligent technology, 5G communication technology and high-performance computing.

This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the interdisciplinary literature on drones in last-mile delivery (LMD) to extrapolate pertinent insights from and into the logistics management field.

Rooting their analytical categories in the LMD literature, the authors performed a deductive, theory refinement SLR on 307 interdisciplinary journal articles published during 2015–2022 to integrate this emergent phenomenon into the field.

The authors derived the potentials, challenges and solutions of drone deliveries in relation to 12 LMD criteria dispersed across four stakeholder groups: senders, receivers, regulators and societies. Relationships between these criteria were also identified.

This review contributes to logistics management by offering a current, nuanced and multifaceted discussion of drones' potential to improve the LMD process together with the challenges and solutions involved.

The authors provide logistics managers with a holistic roadmap to help them make informed decisions about adopting drones in their delivery systems. Regulators and society members also gain insights into the prospects, requirements and repercussions of drone deliveries.

This is one of the first SLRs on drone applications in LMD from a logistics management perspective.

This study investigates Generation Z’s perceptions of entrepreneurial innovation through the Metaverse, including user perceptions of privacy and trust, and their impact on the acceptance of Metaverse technology.

Using a quantitative approach to examine relationships between the targeted factors, this study employs a structural equation modeling (SEM) based on the technology acceptance model extended with the variables related to privacy, trust and product innovation. The data were collected through a survey distributed to a representative sample of Gen Z individuals.

The results reveal that user perception of trust and product innovation positively influences attitudes toward using the Metaverse and the behavioral intention to use it. However, while privacy risk is found to significantly influence trust, it does not affect user attitudes or intention to use the Metaverse.

The results of this study provide useful insights for enterprises, raising considerations to maximize the innovative potential of the Metaverse in the current business ecosystem. The understanding of Gen Z’s perceptions can help enterprises to better adapt their innovation management practices so as to effectively engage this demographic, ensuring the successful adoption of Metaverse technologies.

This study is among the first empirical investigations on the impact of Gen Z on innovation management through the Metaverse, which is an emerging and increasingly important area.