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Enhancing total factor productivity through digital transformation is a crucial pathway for the high-quality development of manufacturing enterprises. This research aims to investigate the impact mechanisms of manufacturing enterprises’ total factor productivity in the context of digital transformation.

Using the data from 536 Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises from 2018 to 2021, this research divides digital transformation into two dimensions (i.e. digital transformation breadth and digital transformation depth) and examines their impacts on total factor productivity as well as the mediation effects of innovation capability and reconfiguration capacity.

It is found that digital transformation breadth, digital transformation depth and their interaction can positively affect manufacturing enterprises’ total factor productivity. The innovation capability and reconfiguration capacity of manufacturing enterprises act as mediators between digital transformation breadth and total factor productivity, as well as between digital transformation depth and total factor productivity.

This study is one of the first attempts to investigate the impact mechanisms of manufacturing enterprises’ total factor productivity from the perspective of digital transformation breadth and depth.

In the current competitive era of industrialization, a significant level of innovation is necessary to meet the growing competition. There are many economic forces that determine the pace of innovation within a country. Among others, this study aims to focus on exploring the relevant role of corruption control (CC) in determining the innovation level.

For empirical analysis, the authors sample the 24 years of data (1996–2019) of Asian economies and use the fully modified ordinary least square (OLS) and dynamic OLS models to check the regression among variables. The selection of both techniques is based upon the empirical suggestions offered by unit root testing and the Johansen cointegration test.

The empirical findings infer the positive and statistically significant role of CC in boosting innovation. Strengthening the corruption-free environment encourages innovation activities within the country. In addition, foreign direct investment has a negative relationship with CC while financial development, economic growth, export volume and government subsidies positively determine the innovation level.

Based on empirical analysis, it is suggested that the policy officials should do more focus on CC to enhance the competitiveness of the country through more innovation.

The empirical analysis robust the findings of existing literature in an alternative data set and offers innovative views regarding the role of other factors in boosting the innovation level.

In recent years, the trend of hiring external CEOs has become increasingly prevalent. However, the impact of these CEOs' prior experiences in different firms on the innovation of their successor firms has not received sufficient attention. Drawing on upper echelons theory and management power theory, this study explores the non-linear relationship between prior CEO experience and breakthrough innovation, as well as the moderating effects of different types of CEO power.

We selected China’s A-share listed manufacturing companies as samples and used zero-inflated Poisson regression to verify the hypothesis. We employed instrumental variable methodology to address potential endogeneity issues and conducted robustness tests by substituting core variables, changing measures, adding additional control variables, and shrinking the core variables.

We conclude that there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between prior CEO experience and breakthrough innovation. Furthermore, we analyze the effects of formal and informal CEO power on the role of prior CEO experience in breakthrough innovation and find that the inverted U-shaped relationship is contingent upon the level of CEO power.

The findings extend research on CEO succession and offer a reference for firms aiming to hire external CEOs with prior experience to foster breakthrough innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a thorough study of the current research status and trends of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC), which is thriving and exerting significant influences on society, the economy and technology. This study will encompass both the ample opportunities and the array of emerging risks and challenges associated with AIGC. Furthermore, this paper seeks to propose practical optimization strategies to facilitate its continued development.

A total of 12,702 documents in Scopus, CNKI and Altmetric.com databases are analyzed in this paper. The visualization tools of CiteSpace and Netdraw are used to systematically analyze AIGC from macro, meso and micro perspectives based on bibliometric indicators. The analysis is combined with altmetrics indicators to identify hotspots in AIGC-related research and predict future development trends. Finally, substantive optimization suggestions for the development of AIGC are put forward.

Research has found that firstly, both domestic and international research in the field of AIGC is actively catching up with the pace of the era. Institutions and authors recognize the indispensability of collaboration, leading to the emergence of interdisciplinary cooperation trends. Secondly, at the thematic research level, both domestic and international studies cover the overall trends of AIGC, including technology, applications, challenges and coping strategies. However, international scholars tend to focus more on technological breakthroughs, while domestic researchers emphasize the formulation of national laws and regulations. Finally, through the analysis of hotspots and trends, it is predicted that future research will focus more on addressing the legal issues regarding the originality of AIGC, enhancing its interactivity, optimizing its applications, emphasizing ethical considerations and efficiently addressing major social issues such as pandemics using AIGC technology. Corresponding optimization strategies are proposed to ensure the development of AIGC is consistent with global consensus and values, creating a beneficial environment for its sustainable development.

Firstly, this paper integrates data from three databases and uses multiple software tools to conduct a comparative analysis of the research trends in AIGC from both domestic and international perspectives. Secondly, this paper not only analyzes the academic influence of AIGC-related research through bibliometric indicators but also combines altmetrics indicators to explore the public’s attitude toward AIGC. This method systematically reveals the overall development trends, leading institutions and researchers, thematic research areas, hotspot evolution and future development trends of AIGC-related research, providing theoretical references for subsequent scholars in AIGC research. Additionally, this paper helps governments, institutions and organizations to precisely and wisely formulate policies and investments, as well as to effectively comprehend the development trends of AIGC and promote the advancement of AIGC technology and applications.

This study aims to investigate the impact of board skill diversity (BSD) on corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In addition, this study explores the moderating effects of formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure.

This study uses Chinese high polluting companies as the sample and uses regression analysis. Robustness checks, including instrumental variable regression, Heckman two-stage model and propensity score matching method, are performed to test the robustness of the results.

The findings suggest that BSD significantly improves CER performance. Both formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure strengthen the positive impact of BSD on CER. Further channel analyses reveal that BSD improves CER performance by promoting corporate proenvironmental behaviors rather than by restricting environmental violations; skill diversity of executive directors has a more significant effect on CER than that of independent directors. Finally, the moderating effect of regulatory pressure is only significant after the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law, and the moderating effect of media pressure mainly concentrates on negative media coverage.

The involvement of directors with more diverse skills is essential to improve corporate proenvironmental behaviors. Companies should select qualified directors with different skills to further improve their performance on environmental protection and sustainable development.

Regulators and standard-setters should develop efficient guidelines on corporate board governance to enhance the positive role of companies in environmental and sustainable development.

This study broadens the research on the determinants of CER by examining the influence of BSD on CER and the moderating roles of various stakeholder pressures, thereby providing a deeper understanding of corporate environmental performance and sustainable development.

In this research, we explore the adverse impact of foreign ownership on operational security, a critical operational implication of the liability of foreignness (LOF).

The empirical analysis is based on a multi-country dataset from the World Bank Enterprises Survey, which contains detailed firm-level information from over 8,902 firms in 82 emerging market countries. We perform a series of robustness checks to further confirm our findings.

We find that a high ratio of foreign ownership is associated with an increased likelihood of security breaches and higher security costs. Our results also indicate that high levels of host countries’ institutional quality and firms’ local embeddedness can mitigate such vulnerability in operational security.

This study is one of the first to uncover the critical operational implication of the LOF, indicating that a high ratio of foreign ownership exposes firms to operational security challenges.

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.

Organizations are partly responsible for the pollution in the world and are expected to contribute towards curbing climate change. Despite the growing importance of the environmental aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR), i.e. corporate environmental responsibility (CER), current literature focuses more on its antecedents and outcomes rather than drilling deeper into the essential elements of the concept. This has resulted in conceptual confusion as researchers use different aspects to define, understand and measure CER. Hence, this study aims to identify the critical dimensions of CER from a practitioner’s point of view.

Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior sustainability professionals across top Bombay Stock Exchange-indexed organizations in India. Manual content analysis and the Gioia method were used to arrive at the findings.

The critical components of CER are as follows: encompassing environmental responsibility mindset; optimized resource consumption; neutral water, energy and air status; multi-level environmental responsibility approach and targets; compliance, disclosure, reporting and policy formation; and green supply chain.

Our research introduces a comprehensive framework of dimensions to study, measure and represent CER, addressing a critical gap in the current literature. The authors identify and propose novel dimensions, such as the CER mindset and a multi-level approach, which are essential for a holistic understanding of CER. These dimensions, presently absent in academic definitions, render existing research based on those definitions incomplete. Integrating these new dimensions will significantly enhance the rigor and relevance of CER studies, offering a more robust foundation for future research and practical application.

There have been numerous publications on human monkeypox since it was reported. With the help of bibliometric analysis, this study examined research hotspots and future trends related to human monkeypox. Science mapping was used in this study to identify influential monkeypox researchers, institutions, articles, keywords, thematic structures, and clusters of articles.

Based on a validated search query, bibliometric analysis of data collected from Web of Science from 1989 to September 2022 was conducted. Using the “Title-Keyword-Abstract” search option, the search query consisted of keywords “Monkeypox” OR “Monkeypox virus” OR “monkeypox” OR “monkey pox” OR “MPXV.” With the state-of-the-art tools Bibliometrix package of R Studio and VOSviewer, performance analysis and science mapping, as a part of standard bibliometric research of monkeypox research were conducted.

Researchers published 708 monkeypox papers from 1989 to September 2022, with American researchers publishing 460 papers. Further, USA had the highest international cooperation in terms of collaborative research output. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a global leader in monkeypox research since it is the most prolific and collaborative organization. There have been the most published papers on monkeypox in the Journal of Virology. Damon Inger K is also the most prolific and influential researcher in monkeypox research, with the highest number of publications and citations. In total, 1,679 keywords were identified in the study. From the cluster analysis four themes were identified in monkeypox research. They are (1) clinical features, (2) monkeypox virus epidemiology, (3) monkeypox virus vaccine defense, and (4) monkeypox virus-related treatment measures.

Analysis of collaboration, findings, networks of research, and visualization separates this study from traditional metrics analysis. Currently, there are no similar studies with similar objectives based on the authors' knowledge.

The purpose of this research is to improve the antibacterial and anti-pilling properties of polyester-cotton fabrics by applying a chitosan-silica coating through sol-gel technology. By optimizing the process parameters, the study aims to enhance the fabrics’ resistance to germs, prevent pilling and maintain their mechanical and functional properties.

A transparent sol-gel was obtained by hydrolysis and condensation reactions using silane coupling agent (KH-560), ethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), chitosan and ethanol as precursors and co-solvents, respectively. This sol-gel was employed for the purpose of applying antimicrobial and anti-pilling multifunctional finishes to PC fabrics. An orthogonal experimental design method was employed to optimize the process parameters. The surface morphology and chemical structure of the fabrics were studied using scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy, both before and after finishing. The fabrics were subjected to testing and analysis to evaluate their antimicrobial and anti-pilling properties, as well as the wearing performance.

The best antibacterial and anti-pilling properties are achieved when the volume ratio of TEOS to KH-560 is 1:3, the concentration of chitosan is 10 g/L, the dipping time is 60 min and the water content is 1:2. The fabric exhibits an anti-pilling grade of 4–5 and an antimicrobial rate of 99.99%. The silica/chitosan gel generated a thin and elastic coating on the fiber surface, acting as a protective barrier against external abrasion and enhancing the anti-pilling property by 2–3 grades. The fabric strength increased significantly, while the air permeability remained practically unaltered compared to untreated fabric.

The development of advanced materials such as chitosan-modified silica sols holds significant social implications. These materials, with their enhanced properties, can lead to innovations in healthcare, environmental remediation and energy storage, improving living standards and fostering sustainable development. Their widespread adoption could also stimulate economic growth and job creation, fostering a more resilient society.

This research introduces an innovative approach using sol-gel technology to enhance the antibacterial and anti-pilling properties of polyester-cotton fabrics. By optimizing the ratio of TEOS to KH-560, chitosan concentration, dipping time and water content, it achieves remarkable results in both performance metrics, offering significant practical value for the textile industry, especially in healthcare and fashion sectors.