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This study aims to empirically investigate how knowledge paradox affects collaboration performance. Knowledge paradox, which arises from the simultaneous need for knowledge sharing and protection, is common in interorganizational collaboration. Using the ambidexterity perspective, this paper aims to reexamine the effect of the knowledge paradox on collaborative performance to explore the moderating roles of structural and contextual ambidexterity.

This study used a sample of 153 firms involved in vertical and horizontal collaboration, collected via questionnaires. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis.

This study demonstrates that the stronger the knowledge paradox is, the higher the potential for value creation. Thus, knowledge paradox has a positive impact on collaborative performance. The functions of structural ambidexterity and contextual ambidexterity strengthen this positive relationship.

This paper not only expands the theoretical application of the knowledge paradox and ambidexterity theory in the context of interorganizational relationships but also provides significant managerial implications. By comprehending the dynamics of the knowledge paradox and the role of ambidexterity, managers can make well-informed decisions to enhance their collaborative performance.

This study seeks to establish a new framework for categorizing incivility, differentiating between explicit and implicit forms, and to investigate their respective abilities to proliferate and mobilize conversations, along with behavioral outcomes in various social contexts.

Employing computational techniques, this research analyzed 10,145 protest-related threads from the HK Golden Forum, a prominent online discussion board in Hong Kong.

Our analysis revealed divergent effects of explicit and implicit incivility on their diffusion, influences on deliberative discussions, and user participation. Explicit incivility was found to impede deliberative conversations, while implicit incivility tended to provoke more responses. Explicit uncivil expressions encouraged the propagation of incivility but reduced the likelihood of individual involvement. In contrast, implicit incivility had a stronger dampening effect on further uncivil comments and achieved greater thread popularity. The results showed strong associations between uncivil expressions and the contextual norms surrounding social movements.

Theoretically, this research introduced a classification of incivility and underscored the importance of differentiating between implicit and explicit incivility by examining their effects on deliberation and engagement. Although previous studies have extensively covered explicit incivility, this study goes further by analyzing implicit incivility and comparing both forms of uncivil discourse in a less-studied context. Methodologically, the study developed a Cantonese dictionary to differentiate between two types of incivility, providing a practical reference for more nuanced analyses. By revealing how varying movement norms moderate the interplay between deliberative and uncivil expressions, the study drew attention to the highly situational nature of incivility.

This study analyses the way various components of intellectual capital (IC), namely, human capital (HC), structural capital (SC), relational capital (RC) and innovation capital (INNC), act as mediators in the relationship between managerial ability (MA) and a firm’s ability to achieve growth.

This study employs data envelopment analysis to quantify the MA of 825 Taiwanese listed electronics companies from 2017 to 2022. The proxies of firm growth are return on asset growth, operating income growth and total asset growth. This study then utilises a three-step mediation analysis methodology to examine the relationships between MA, IC and firm growth.

Findings indicate that HC, SC, RC and INNC mediate the link between MA and firm growth. This suggests that competent managers can capitalise on the potential benefits of these investments to achieve firm growth.

Competent managers can utilise different IC investments to grow the financial performance and strength of their businesses. Managers should continually scan, secure opportunities and adjust their investments in knowledge assets in accordance with the dynamic capabilities view. That is, managers, in general, and operations managers, in particular, can implement guidelines that prioritise IC investments in the future to expedite firms’ development.

This study extends the existing frameworks that study investment variables as mediators between MA and firm outcomes. Most particularly, this study adopts four components of IC for measurement. Moreover, firm performance is measured using dynamic growth indicators rather than static measures.

The current education paradigm is often criticized for fostering human dependence and failing to reduce environmental impacts. This has led researchers to propose alternative approaches. One alternative approach, place-based education, integrates a specific location’s natural and social context into learning experiences. By deepening students’ connection to their surroundings, place-based environmental education aims to enhance students’ sense of interdependence with a place and their place attachment in cognitive and affective dimensions. While widely practiced, its effectiveness remains largely unevaluated, particularly in the East Asian context. The gap hinders the development of impactful pedagogical approaches for educators.

The authors examine a river environmental education program located upstream of Taiwan’s capital, offering a valuable case study within the East Asian context. The program’s design is analyzed, and its impact on enhancing students’ place attachment is assessed through a pre- and post-survey approach.

The results indicate a substantial increase in students’ place attachment following program participation, particularly pronounced among children with limited prior experience with the river. Importantly, this increase is comparable to or exceeds those observed in similar studies from other regions.

The considerable increase in place attachment observed in this program demonstrates its effectiveness in fostering environmental connections, particularly among children with limited prior experience. The magnitude of the increase might be partially attributable to the interdependent orientation of Taiwanese culture. This suggests that place-based education might yield significant positive outcomes in other non-Western countries with strong interdependent cultural orientations.

Virtual reality (VR) offers unprecedented immersion and interactivity in education, and working and learning from home have become the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study empirically investigated the factors affecting the use of a VR online learning system (VROLS).

To explore factors affecting users’ continuance behavioral intentions toward using VROLSs, a research framework was formed comprising factors that constitute benefits (i.e. pull factors) and costs (i.e. push factors); these factors included perceived value, flow and social influence. The data for this study were collected via online survey questionnaires. A total of 307 valid responses were used to examine the hypotheses in the research model, employing structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques.

Perceived value, flow experience and the number of peers using VR primarily affect the decision to adopt a VROLS. The pull factors of spatial presence, entertainment and service compatibility, along with the push factors of complexity and visual fatigue, affect perceived value. Therefore, we conclude that perceived value is a primary factor positively influencing both flow experience and the decision to adopt the service.

This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of factors that explain users’ intention to use VROLSs.

Knowledge management (KM) capability plays an important role in the promotion of firm performance in the knowledge economy era. However, empirical evidence on how KM capability affects firm performance is still limited. The study therefore aims to explore the impacts of internal and external KM capabilities on firm performance via the parallel mediation of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model innovations (BMIs).

The authors empirically analyzed a survey data of 295 Chinese innovative enterprises by applying partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

According to the results of PLS-SEM, the relationship between internal KM capability and firm performance is not significant, instead it is fully mediated by efficiency-centered and novelty-centered BMIs. External KM capability can directly and positively affect firm performance, while the relationship is also partially mediated by BMIs. Furthermore, the authors recognized the antecedent conditions for high-level and low-level firm performance by fsQCA analysis, which substantiate the above findings.

It not only enriches the literature that links KM and innovation management but also contributes to the new theoretical perspective on firm sustainable growth. Methodologically, it combines symmetric and asymmetric analyses together. Additionally, it provides some insights for managers to understand how KM capability drives firm performance through BMI.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the financing channels and carbon emission abatement preferences of supply chain members, and further examine the optimal contract design of the retailer.

This paper develops a low-carbon supply chain composed of one retailer and one manufacturer, in which the retailer provides trade credit to the manufacturer. Considering the cap-and-trade regulation, the manufacturer with uncertain yield makes decision on whether to invest in emission abatement. There are bank loan and trade credit to finance production for the manufacturer and green credit to finance emission abatement investment. Meanwhile, the retailer may provide the manufacturer with three kinds of contracts to improve emission abatement efficiency, namely, revenue sharing, cost sharing or both sharing.

The results show that the retailer prefers to offer financing service at lower interest rate, but trade (and green) credit financing is always optimal for manufacturer and supply chain. The investment in emission abatement is value-added to all players. The sharing contracts offered by the retailer at lower sharing ratios can realize Pareto improvement of the system regardless of the financing scheme. However, comparing with the revenue or cost sharing contract, the existence of optimal sharing ratios makes the both sharing contract more favorable to the retailer.

The findings provide guidance for the emission-dependent manufacturer in financing and emission abatement decisions, as well as recommendations for the retailer to offer loan service and sharing contract.

This paper integrates green credit into bank loan or trade credit to analyze the financing decision of the manufacturer with uncertain yield and further considers the influence of three kinds of sharing contracts introduced by the retailer on improving operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to fill low content of silica to improve the wear resistance of graphite/polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) composites, and to discuss the effect of low content of silica on the morphology of terrace-like transfer film.

The tribological properties of silica/graphite/PTFE composites were tested by rotating pin-on-disk friction and wear tester, and the morphology of terrace-like transfer film was observed by 3D laser scanning microscope and quantitatively analyzed through the multi-Gaussian function linear combination model.

The results showed that adding 3 wt.% silica in graphite/PTFE composites can reduce the wear rate by 87%. More importantly, the morphology of terrace-like transfer film changed significantly after filling a small amount of silica, including the increase of the number of layers and the coverage rate of transfer film.

This work is of great significance for further understanding the transfer film and achieving its morphology control to optimize the wear of high performance PTFE composites.

This study aimed to optimize the dyeing scheduling process with uncertain job completion time to reduce resource consumption and wastewater generation, and while reconciling the conflicting objectives of minimizing the makespan and the need to limit the production on specific machines to minimize rework.

We employed a UNISON framework that integrates fuzzy decision tree (FDT) to optimize dyeing machine scheduling by minimizing the makespan and water consumption, in which the critical attributes such as machine capacity and processing time can be incorporated into the scheduling model for smart production.

An empirical study of a high-tech textile company has shown the validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach in reducing the makespan and water consumption by over 8% while high product quality and efficiency being maintained.

High-tech textile industry is facing the challenges in reducing the environmental impact of the dyeing process while maintaining product quality and efficiency for smart production. Conventional scheduling approaches have not addressed the relationship between machine groups and reworking, resulting in difficulty in controlling the makespan and water consumption and increasing costs and environmental issues. The proposed approach has addressed uncertain job completion via integrating FDT into the scheduling process to effectively reduce makespan and wastewater. The results have shown practical viability of the developed solution in real settings.

This study analyses the effects of firm efficiency on firm performance and how controlling shareholders moderate the link between the two variables.

This study employs data envelopment analysis to estimate firm efficiency and the panel regression method to assess the hypothesised relationships among 1,295 firm-year observations of publicly listed firms in Malaysia from 2015 to 2019.

The results indicate that firm efficiency (technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency) has mixed relationships with firm performance (return on assets, market-to-book ratio and operating cash flows), all of which are being moderated by controlling shareholdings.

This study highlights the importance of assessing firm efficiency as the key success factor for improving firm performance. Industrial managers should manage efficiently their resources or operating costs in achieving their corporate financial goals. Moreover, this study notes the presence of controlling shareholders, who can be either self-interested or company goal aligned.

This study suggests becoming efficient in transforming inputs into outputs is a prerequisite before investigating accrual-based and cash-based firm performance measures, and the presence of controlling shareholders matters in these regards.