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The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical historical analysis of the business (mis)behaviors and influencing factors that discourage enduring cooperation between principals and agents, to introduce strategies that embrace the social values, economic motivation and institutional designs historically adopted to curtail dishonest acts in international business and to inform an improved principal–agent theory that reflects principal–agent reciprocity as shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, strategic and ideological forces

The critical historical research method is used to analyze Chinese compradors and the foreign companies they served in pre-1949 China.

Business practitioners can extend orthodox principal–agent theory by scrutinizing the complex interactions between local agents and foreign companies. Instead of agents pursuing their economic interests exclusively, as posited by principal–agent theory, they also may pursue principal-shared interests (as suggested by stewardship theory) because of social norms and cultural values that can affect business-related choices and the social bonds built between principals and agents.

The behaviors of compradors and foreign companies in pre-1949 China suggest international business practices for shaping social bonds between principals and agents and foreign principals’ creative efforts to enhance shared interests with local agents.

Understanding principal–agent theory’s limitations can help international management scholars and practitioners mitigate transaction partners’ dishonest acts.

A critical historical analysis of intermediary businesspeople’s (mis)behavior in pre-1949 (1840–1949) China can inform the generalizability of principal–agent theory and contemporary business strategies for minimizing agents’ dishonest acts.

This paper aims to examine employees’ online learning continuation intentions (OLCI), exploring factors such as performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), perceived benefits (PB) and management support (MS) influencing their commitment to online learning engagement.

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was expanded to include PB and MS constructs. This study used a quantitative research approach using purposive sampling techniques. Three hundred and eighty-six responses from Indian information technology (IT) professionals at various levels were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences-Analysis of Moments Structures tool.

This study found a strong positive influence of PE, EE, PB and MS on OLCI in the context of post-pandemic. Workplace learning rapidly generates outcomes if employees associate it with their career growth. However, the authors found that SI does not significantly affect OLCI.

This research is unique work in the area of workplace learning by evaluating the OLCI of IT professionals using the extended UTAUT model in a new normal. Moreover, this study contributes to online learning literature with a combined study of technology usage, continuance intention and organization learning and development.

This study aims to construct a “contractual–relational–governmental” 3D governance framework for new infrastructure projects (NIPs) within China’s distinct institutional context. The primary objective is to explore the impact of multiple governance mechanisms on the NIP performance, thus identifying the key governance mechanisms and proposing targeted performance improvement strategies.

The research design follows a sequential mixed methodology of integrating qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. Firstly, project governance and performance indicators were collected from relevant literature and expert interviews. Secondly, a questionnaire was developed, and data were collected through on-site and online means. Finally, the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was utilized to examine and analyze the relationships between governance mechanisms and NIP performance.

Contractual, relational and governmental governance all have a certain role in promoting the NIP performance. Specifically, contract stringency, trust and governmental decision are the core elements of contractual, relational and governmental governance, respectively, while commitment does not significantly affect NIP performance. Generally, relational and governmental governance exert a more substantial influence compared to contractual governance, with governmental decision and trust being the most effective.

This paper contributes to the field by introducing PLS-SEM as a measurement tool for exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms on governance performance in NIPs. The results offer valuable insights for project managers, enabling them to concentrate on core factors while refining and optimizing governance mechanisms and strategies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications pose a potential threat to users' data security and privacy due to their high data-dependence nature. This paper aims to investigate an understudied issue in the literature, namely, how users perceive the threat of and decide to use a threatening AI application. In particular, it examines the influencing factors and the mechanisms that affect an individual’s behavioral intention to use facial recognition, a threatening AI.

The authors develop a research model with trust as the key mediating variable by integrating technology threat avoidance theory, the theory of planned behavior and contextual factors related to facial recognition. Then, it is tested through a sequential mixed-methods investigation, including a qualitative study (for model development) of online comments from various platforms and a quantitative study (for model validation) using field survey data.

Perceived threat (triggered by perceived susceptibility and severity) and perceived avoidability (promoted by perceived effectiveness, perceived cost and self-efficacy) have negative and positive relationships, respectively, with an individual’s attitude toward facial recognition applications; these relationships are partially mediated by trust. In addition, perceived avoidability is positively related to perceived behavioral control, which along with attitude and subjective norm is positively related to individuals' intentions to use facial recognition applications.

This paper is among the first to examine the factors that affect the acceptance of threatening AI applications and how. The research findings extend the current literature by providing rich and novel insights into the important roles of perceived threat, perceived avoidability, and trust in affecting an individual’s attitude and intention regarding using threatening AI applications.

The integration of women higher education leaders into the ideal discourse of educational leadership is a significant issue, as the discourses on women and leadership are continually reshaped in a changing social background, with their compatibility directly influencing women leaders’ construction, understanding and presentation of their leadership identities. In recent years, the Ministry of Education in China has issued a series of documents encouraging the promotion of academic and innovative development in higher education. In response, local governments and higher education institutions (HEIs) have introduced policies that directly link the achievements of university teachers and leaders to evaluations, promotions and performance assessments. The concept of ‘academic and innovative’ encompasses both research and innovation – the ideal educational leader is expected to demonstrate stable research outcomes while actively promoting educational reforms. This chapter focuses on the narratives of women higher education leaders. In particular, the study explores the structural challenges faced by women leaders within the higher education system in integrating this seemingly non-conflicting new ideal leadership discourse with their identities. The research is derived from narrative interviews with eight women leaders in HEIs in China, focusing on their understanding, construction and presentation of their leadership identities. The study suggests that the discourse surrounding the ideal ‘academic and innovative’ higher education leader, while not directly opposing traditional notions of ‘feminine traits’, brings a set of performance management-like evaluation criteria for leaders. However, due to structural challenges within higher education, women face significant hurdles in attempting to integrate into the emerging ideal leadership discourse.

This paper investigates the relationship between institutional ownership and idiosyncratic volatility in Chinese and the USA stock markets and explores the potential explanations.

In this paper, the authors use the panel data regressions and the dynamic tests of two-way Granger causality in the panel VAR model to examine the relationship between institutional ownership and idiosyncratic volatility in Chinese and the USA stock markets.

The authors find that the institutional ownership in the Chinese (the USA) stock market is significantly and positively (negatively) related to idiosyncratic volatility through various tests. This paper indicates that institutional investors in the USA are more prudent and risk-averse, while the Chinese institutional investors are not because of high risk-bearing capacity.

This paper deepens the authors’ understanding on the relationship between institutional ownership and idiosyncratic volatility and in the USA and the Chinese stock markets. This paper explains the opposite relationships between institutional ownership and idiosyncratic volatility in the stock markets in China and USA.

Live streaming commerce has emerged as an essential strategy for vendors to effectively promote their products due to its unique content presentation and real-time interaction. This study aims to investigate the influence of viewer-streamer interaction and viewer-viewer interaction on consumer trust and the subsequent impact of trust on consumers' purchase intention within the live streaming commerce context.

A survey questionnaire was conducted to collect data, and 403 experienced live streaming users in China were recruited. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was used for data analysis.

The results indicated that viewer-streamer interaction factors (i.e., personalization and responsiveness) and viewer-viewer interaction factors (i.e., co-viewer involvement and bullet-screen mutuality) significantly influence trust in streamers and co-viewers. Additionally, drawing on trust transfer theory, trust in streamers and co-viewers positively influences trust in products, while trust in co-viewers also positively influences both trust in streamers and products. Furthermore, all three forms of trust positively impact consumers' purchase intentions.

This study enriches the extant literature by investigating interaction-based trust-building mechanisms and uncovering the transfer relationships among three trust targets (streamers, co-viewers and products). Furthermore, this study provides some practical guidelines to the streamers and practitioners for promoting consumers’ trust and purchase intention in live streaming commerce.

The contractors’ consummate performance behavior is the key to achieving the project’s value added, but existing research has paid little attention to how to stimulate this behavior. Based on contractual functions and regulatory focus theory, this study examined how the allocation of contractual functions and the contractors’ regulatory focus affect their consummate performance behaviors. At the same time, considering the important position of guanxi between owner and contractor, this study also examined the moderating effect of guanxi on the relationship between the contractors’ regulatory focus and consummate performance behaviors.

This study first constructs a conceptual model that incorporates contractual functions (control, coordination and adaptation), contractors’ regulatory focus (promotion focus, prevention focus) and the effect of guanxi on contractors’ consummate performance behavior. Next, partial least squares structural equation modeling is used to analyze the survey data of 297 Chinese construction project professionals.

This study has the following four findings. First, contractual control has a negative effect on contractors’ promotion focus but a positive effect on their prevention focus. Contractual coordination and adaptation have a positive effect on contractors’ promotion focus but a negative effect on their prevention focus. Second, contractors’ promotion focus has a positive effect on their consummate performance behaviors, while their prevention focus has a negative effect on such behaviors. Third, both of contractors’ promotion focus and prevention focus play a mediating role in the relationship between contractual functions and their consummate performance behaviors. Finally, guanxi plays a moderating role in the relationship between contractors’ regulatory focus and their consummate performance behaviors.

Theoretically, this study enriches the research on the antecedents of contractors’ regulatory focus and extends the literature on contractual and guanxi management in construction projects. In practice, this study can provide guidance for improving contractors’ consummate performance behaviors and reasonable allocation of contractual functions.

This study aims to analyse the relationship between a patent’s network position in a knowledge search network and the likelihood and speed of patent transactions. Additionally, it explores whether patent scope moderates these relationships.

In this empirical study, the authors collected a sample of patents in the artificial intelligence industry over the period of 1985–2018. Then, the authors examined the direct roles of degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality on the likelihood and speed of patent transactions and the moderating role of patent scope in the knowledge search network using the logit and accelerated failure time models.

The findings reveal that degree centrality positively affects both the likelihood and speed of patent transactions, while betweenness centrality enhances the likelihood, and closeness centrality significantly boosts both. However, regarding the speed of patent transactions, closeness centrality is the most impactful, followed by degree centrality, with no significant influence of betweenness centrality. Additionally, the patent scope moderates how betweenness centrality affects the likelihood of transactions.

This study has limitations owing to its exclusive use of data from the Chinese Intellectual Property Office, lack of visibility of the confidential terms of most patent transactions, omission of transaction directionality and focus on a single industry, potentially restricting the breadth and applicability of the findings. In the future, expanding the data set and industries and combining qualitative research methods may be considered to further explore the content of this study.

This study has practical implications for developing a better understanding of how network structure in the knowledge search network affects the likelihood and speed of patent transactions as well as the identification of high-value patents. These findings suggest future directions for patent holders and policymakers to manage and optimise patent portfolios.

This study expands the application boundaries of social network theory and the knowledge-based view by conducting an in-depth analysis of how the position characteristics of patents within the knowledge search network influence their potential and speed of transactions in the technology market. Moreover, it provides a theoretical reference for evaluating patent value and identifying high-quality patents by quantifying network positions. Furthermore, the authors construct three centrality measures and explore the development of patent transactions, particularly within the context of the developing country.

With the uptake of prefabricated construction (PC) facing serious obstacles in China, networked innovation can break the technical constraints while also containing the risks in individual innovation. However, the construction community has paid little attention to PC innovation, especially networked innovation. This study aims to gain deep insights into what impacts the formation and dynamics of a prefabricated construction innovation network (PCIN). With the uptake of PC facing serious obstacles in China, networked innovation can break the technical constraints while also containing the risks in individual innovation.

The research design follows a sequential mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. It first conceptualizes the PCIN based on the quadruple helix model and formulates a corresponding system dynamics model based on causality analysis. After validating the PCIN model using empirical data, simulations are carried out using Vensim PLE software. Finally, this study identifies key factors that promote the formation of PCIN in China through sensitivity analysis.

The results show that PC predicts a continuous increase in practice as of 2030. The tested drivers all positively influence the formation of the PCIN, with market demand and risk sharing having the greatest influence, followed by competitive pressure, profit government support, scientific and technological advancement and collaborative innovation strategy.

The study makes three major contributions. First, it provides a novel angle for a deeper understanding of the PC innovation. Second, it proposes a new approach for probing the formation and dynamics of the PCIN. Finally, it offers a theoretical reference for promoting the formation of innovation networks and the development of PC.