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Facing the increasing competition and uncertainty, when and how to improve service innovation performance with the help of digital business strategy has become an important issue for global service firms. In this study, organizational memory level and dispersion are regarded as moderating variables and market intelligence response is introduced as a mediator, aiming at clarifying the boundary conditions and mechanism of digital business strategy affecting service innovation performance.

A survey was conducted among middle and senior managers from 245 service firms in China. The data were analyzed using SPSS and Mplus software for reliability and validity analysis, hypothesis testing and robustness testing.

Digital business strategy was positively related to the service innovation performance of service firms. Market intelligence responsiveness mediated the positive effect of digital business strategy on service innovation performance of service firms. The positive effect between digital business strategy and market intelligence responsiveness was strengthened when the level and dispersion of organizational memory were moderate.

This study suggests that it is a very effective approach for service firms to initiate digital business strategy to improve service innovation performance. Furthermore, market intelligence responsiveness is crucial because it can help service firms quickly respond to market changes and adapt them accordingly. Managers of service firms should recognize that the benefits of digital business strategy are maximized only when the level and dispersion of organizational memory are moderate.

This study is the first to address the question of how and when digital business strategy drives service innovation performance in the context of digitization. In addition, this study enriches and advances organizational learning theory because it discusses the differential impact of digital business strategy on service innovation performance under varying degrees of organizational memory level and dispersion.

This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron rice bowl and the fancy spring rice jobs.

Based on in-depth interviews in Zhejiang, the entrepreneurial hotbed in coastal China, this study examines the experiences of self-employed female entrepreneurs who used to work in the iron rice bowl and the spring rice jobs and explores their nonconventional career transition and its gendered implications.

This study finds that these women quit their previous jobs to escape from gendered suppression in wage work where their femininity was stereotyped, devalued or disciplined. By working for themselves, these women embrace a rubber rice bowl that allows them to improvise different forms of femininity that are better rewarded and recognized.

The study contributes to studies on gender and work by framing femininity as a fluid rather than a fixed set of qualities and fills the research gap by illustrating women’s agency in reacting to gender expectations in certain workplaces. The study develops a new concept of rubber rice bowl to describe how entrepreneurship, a seemingly women-unfriendly sphere, attracts women by allowing them to comply with, resist, or improvise normative gender expectations.

The purpose of this paper is to address the urgent need for transformation and upgrading in the construction industry amid the accelerating industrialization process. The focus is on understanding how value-added for construction enterprises can be achieved through servitization.

Grounded in the perspective of added value of construction enterprises, this paper uses a multicase analysis method, selecting four internationally renowned construction enterprises as the research subjects. The analysis investigates how these case study enterprises transition toward servitization and explores the trends in servitization in construction.

The research results indicate that servitization manifests in two aspects: contractor transition to servitization, and the shift of the construction industry toward integrated delivery. Furthermore, servitization in construction can achieve value-adding through three pathways: increasing product value, creating market demand and providing customized services.

This study contributes by providing insights into the manifestations of servitization and pathways for value-added. It provides a reference for the overall direction and basic strategy of servitization in construction.

The study conceptualises universities as “cities of flows” to examine the East-West University Partnership (EWUP) in China, which is a pioneering initiative of cross-regional university collaboration linking over 220 institutions across China since 2001. The study explores the strategic enhancement of connective and collaborative capacity of universities to facilitate diverse flows of talent, knowledge and other resources within the broader context of China's sustainable development in higher education.

The study employs a qualitative single-case study design to investigate the EWUP within its real-life context using participant observation and documentary research. As an analogical inquiry, the study merges the insider and outsider perspectives of the researchers to identify patterns between theoretical constructs and empirical evidence.

The EWUP as a policy entrepreneurship has significantly contributes to coordinated, inclusive and sustainable development. Its spatial dynamics consists of structural, temporal and collaborative dynamics. They are characterised by centrality, connectivity and adaptability which are generated through the interplay among the nodes, linkages and fields of influence within the EWUP network. These dynamics showcase EWUP as a novel approach to managing long-term university partnerships between more and less developed regions.

The study reimagines universities and higher education systems through vivid analogies of cities and transportation networks and elucidates connectivity as a pivotal dimension of sustainability. It advocates for reexamining spatial theories in higher education, deepens insights into the dynamics of cross-regional university partnerships in coordinating educational and territorial development, and enriches discussions on Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD).

One of the most cited literature in SHRM is Schuler and Jackson’s (1987) behavioural model. This model proposes that organisational performance is dependent on the extent to which HRM practices can be effectively connected to competitive strategy and desired employee behaviours. Importantly, this model recognises the salient role of employee behaviour in performance outcomes and, moreover that different competitive strategies imply both promulgation and reinforcement of different sets of employee skills and behaviours. Surprisingly, despite its significant influence on SHRM, studies rarely examine this model in its entirety. Motivated by the need to better understand this model’s arguments in contemporary settings, our study uses a multi-actor design to explore the connections between competitive strategies (cost reduction and differentiation), employee behaviours, and HRM practices in service environments.

Adopting a multi-level, multi-actor survey design, our exploratory deductive study assesses the utility of strategic HRM’s (SHRM) behavioural model. Drawing on data from a sample of service organisations and using univariate analyses, we compare operationalised HRM practices and employee behaviours across different strategy types.

Results lend provisional support for the behavioural model, particularly in the case of a differentiation strategy where notable differences in HRM practices and employee behaviours were observed. Findings suggest growing levels of memetic and competitive isomorphism may be occurring, with this likely attributable to the increased incidence of idea generation and information sharing about best practices occurring amongst practitioners, as well as a growing nuance in operating markets, managerial preferences, employee expectations, stakeholder objectives, and the like.

Our study suggests refinements to the behavioural model are needed. Some support for the model’s key tenets is found, but these appear context specific. Thus, the merit in developing a priori typologies linking strategy type to HRM practices and employee behaviours where organisations operate in environments which are particularised and tumultuous appears debatable.

This study highlights the behavioural model’s nuance to modern service organisations and, by doing so, practitioners are provided with a behavioural pathway for achieving competitive advantage through their HRM practices. Findings also suggest that increasingly competitive environments might be encouraging practitioners to engage in isomorphic behaviours.

The use of a comparative research design allowed our study to contribute much needed empiricism to the largely conceptually informed stylised typologies depicting the linkages between different competitive strategies, implied employee role behaviours and HRM practices, thereby supporting the need for model refinement.

Effective knowledge management has played a crucial role in propelling the green transformation of organisations and industries. Nevertheless, its underutilisation in the real estate sector has impeded the progress of green transformation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical and practical analysis of the green transformation of the real estate industry through the lens of knowledge management and to provide a valuable reference to facilitate the industry’s green transformation.

This study entailed applying induction and deduction method, using China’s real estate industry as a typical case, and collecting and analysing the public data, corporate reports and literature of China’s real estate industry. On this basis, the authors conducted an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms through which the green transformation has empowered the sustainable development of China’s real estate industry, as well as the critical role of knowledge management.

The study has revealed that the primary challenges encountered by China’s real estate industry during the green transformation have stemmed from significant disparities in the knowledge base among different industry entities, the complexities related to knowledge integration and the “difficulty” of applying green knowledge across the entire life cycle. To address these issues, the authors recommend several strategic actions, including creating a dedicated green knowledge platform for the real estate industry, establishing a knowledge-sharing mechanism, enhancing knowledge acquisition on both the supply and demand sides and intensifying the focus on the application of green knowledge within the real estate industry.

This research holds considerable theoretical and practical significance concerning the comprehension and promotion of knowledge management’s role in the green transformation of China’s real estate industry. These insights can be applied to significantly enhance the theoretical framework of knowledge management, and the research outcomes provide substantial support for propelling the green transformation in China’s real estate industry and contributing to the sustainable development of the overall economy in China.

From a knowledge management perspective, this study introduces a series of solutions and recommendations, presenting new research ideas and pathways for advancing the green transformation of the real estate industry. In addition to guiding the industry’s sustainable development, it also significantly contributes to enhancing the theoretical framework of knowledge management.

This study aims to provide data references for deposit cleaning, fuel formulation and lubricant formulation.

The engine disassembly procedure was carried out based on the IO540 operation manual part number 60297-10-1-7 document. Except for the normal disassembly and assembly of the engine and the measurement of parts, the main test contents included break-in run operation, cylinder pressure test, oil consumption run, pretest calibration run, post-test calibration test and the most critical endurance test. The Lycoming IO-540-V4V5 engine and the customized Hartzell CK319 propeller were selected for the test run.

The deposits were mainly composed of C, O, B, Al, Br and Pb, which were mainly sourced from fuel, lubricating oil and body materials. XPS analysis showed that the presence of O determined the richness of the deposit components, giving the deposit structure with organic and inorganic components.

This work provides certain data support and reference for subsequent aircraft maintenance, fuel formula and lubricating oil formula. The long-term stability and safety of the aircraft run can be ensured through continuous research, improvement and optimizing the operating of the engine.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2024-0300/

This study aims to reveal the mechanism of CEO overconfidence in the digital transformation of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative (SRDI) enterprises, thereby enriching research related to upper echelons theory and corporate digital transformation.

This study uses listed SRDI companies in China from 2017 to 2022 as a sample and adopts a fixed-effects regression model to analyze the direct, mediating, and moderating effects of CEO overconfidence on corporate digital transformation.

First, CEO overconfidence significantly promotes SRDI enterprises' digital transformation. Second, according to the “cognition-behavior-outcome” model, we found that entrepreneurial orientation plays a mediating role. Third, based on the principle of procedural rationality and the interaction perspective between the CEO and the executive team, we introduce the heterogeneity of the executive team as a moderating variable. Our findings indicate that age heterogeneity within the executive team has a negative moderating effect, whereas educational and occupational heterogeneities have positive moderating effects.

This study expands on earlier research that focuses primarily on CEO demographic characteristics. It enriches the analytical perspective of upper echelons theory on corporate digital transformation by analyzing the psychological characteristics of CEOs, that is, overconfidence and its mediating pathways. Moreover, this study goes beyond the previous literature that does not differentiate between CEOs and executive teams by introducing the concept of CEOs' interactions with the executive team and including the heterogeneity of the executive team as a moderating variable in the literature. Thus, continuing to deepen the application of upper echelons theory to corporate digital transformation. Additionally, this study contributes to the literature on the positive consequences of overconfidence.

This study aims to address these challenges by enhancing the resistance of Ag-based pastes to corrosion and sulfurization, thereby improving their performance and weatherability in high-power and high-frequency electronic applications.

This study investigates the influence of Sn doping in W-doped Ag paste to enhance resistance against electrochemical corrosion and sulfurization. A systematic examination was conducted using transient liquid phase sintering and solid–liquid inter-diffusion techniques to understand the microstructural and electrochemical properties.

This study found that Sn addition in W-doped Ag paste significantly improves its resistance to electrochemical corrosion and sulfurization. The sintering process at 600°C led to the formation of an Ag₂WO₄ phase at the grain boundaries, which, along with the presence of Sn, effectively inhibited the growth of Ag₂WO₄ grains. The 0.5% Sn-doped samples exhibited optimal anti-corrosion properties, demonstrating a longer grain boundary length and a passivation effect that significantly reduced the corrosion rate. No Ag₂S phase was detected in the weatherability tests, confirming the enhanced durability of the doped samples.

The findings of this study highlight the potential of Sn-doped Ag-W composites as a promising material for electronic components, particularly in environments prone to sulfurization and corrosion. By improving the anti-corrosion properties and reducing the grain size, this study offers a new approach to extending the lifespan and reliability of electronic devices, making a significant contribution to the development of advanced materials for high-power and high-frequency applications.

In the context of innovation-driven development strategy, open innovation has become an important way for enterprises to gain competitive advantages on the path of innovation and development. However, with the increasing competition, enterprises' open innovation is restricted by some constraints. How to promote open innovation in the restricted situations has become an existing research gap. Based on the perspective of digital transformation, this paper discusses how to promote the open innovation of enterprises under the restricted situations and find its breakthrough path, and analyzes the moderating effect of innovation persistence and political relevance.

Due to the complexity and confidentiality of military–civilian integration enterprises, they have become typical innovation-restricted enterprises. In this study, it selects a-share listed companies in the field of military–civilian integration in China in 2016–2020 as the research sample, and uses the two-way fixed-effect model to analyze the proposed variables. Finally, the robustness of the results in this paper is verified by a series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests.

The results show that digital transformation facilitates open innovation in military–civil integration enterprises, and that innovation persistence and political relevance positively moderate the relationship between the two. Further, digital transformation can promote open innovation in military–civil integration enterprises by easing the financing constraints and reducing information asymmetry. Innovation persistence has a more pronounced positive moderating effect among civilian-to-military and SMEs, and digital transformation of firms in the South has a negative effect on open innovation, but innovation persistence and political relevance dampen this negative effect.

Previous studies on the restrictions of open innovation or its dark side are mostly case studies and qualitative research. In contrast, the superiority and novelty of this study is in the form of a typical innovation-restricted enterprises “civil-military integration enterprise” as the research sample, based on the perspective of digital transformation, through empirical analysis method to explore how to better implementation of open innovation in the restricted situations. The findings of the study can not only enrich the application of digital transformation and open innovation theory, but also provide practical guidance for military–civil integration innovation in restricted situations.