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This paper aims to examine the impacts of unstable off-farm employment on the probability and stability of farmland rent-out and explore its mechanisms.

The paper adopts Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Probit, Tobit, Order probit models with two-way fixed effects to conduct empirical analysis based on the balanced panel data collected in 2016 and 2023 with a national representativeness sample of 1,206 rural households in 100 villages across 5 provinces in China.

The empirical results showed that unstable off-farm employment had negative effects on the probability of farmland rent-out, but it had no effects on the stability of farmland rent-out. The mechanism analysis showed that unstable off-farm employment affected the probability of farmland rent-out by decreasing the probability of purchasing houses in city and endowment insurance with high pension. Heterogeneity analysis indicated that the negative effect of unstable off-farm employment was much larger for the households with higher share of labor engaging in off-farm employment outside home county, elder members in the households and those located in the villages of mountain areas.

This paper is the first to define the unstable off-farm employment from the perspective of incontiguous off-farm employment for several years, which could capture the normality rather than particular case in a certain year of off-farm employment among rural labors. Using these new measurements of unstable off-farmland, this paper examined the impacts and mechanisms of share of unstable off-farm employment on the probability and stability of farmland rent-out.

External institutional policy and its impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been widely discussed by researchers, but its effect still remains controversial. This study aims to use the minimum wage policy as an illustrative example to analyze its impact on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of tourist enterprises. Furthermore, the research seeks to examine the boundary conditions that influence the minimum wage’s effect on CSR.

This paper takes the data of 42 listed tourism companies from 2010 to 2020 in China as samples and uses the mixed OLS regression method and the fixed effects panel model to examine the effect of the minimum wage on CSR.

Findings show that increasing wages has a significantly negative impact on their total CSR investment. Also, low-operating-capacity enterprises and private enterprises will react more adversely when faced with increasing minimum wages. And found that the increase of minimum wage has no significant negative impact on the strategic social responsibility of tourism enterprises; however, it has a significantly negative impact on their tactical social responsibility. In addition, as far as employees’ rights and interests are concerned, the minimum wage increase has effectively increased employee salaries, but the nonsalary benefits of the employees have significantly decreased.

The contribution of this paper not only expands the research on the antecedents and boundary mechanisms of CSR but also clarifies the specific effect of the rise of the minimum wage on corporate social responsibility; it further deepens the impact of institutional policy factors on CSR, which also opens new perspectives for policy evaluation and provides a theoretical basis for government policymakers.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development underscores eradicating global poverty (Goal#1) and empowering women and girls (Goal#5) to foster sustainable, inclusive communities (Goal#11). The World Bank recognises female entrepreneurship as a catalyst for global economic growth, poverty reduction and gender equity. This chapter delves into the challenges hindering female entrepreneurship, obstructing poverty alleviation and community sustainability efforts worldwide. Public–private collaborations are crucial to support women in launching start-ups, adopting new technologies, enhancing digital skills and accessing financing in the era of Industry 4.0.

Our focus is on women entrepreneurship in BRICS nations due to their diverse growth trajectories and global economic significance. Employing a qualitative approach, we analyse public and private initiatives promoting female entrepreneurship in BRICS countries. Our findings highlight both commonalities and distinctions in their strategies and policies, implicitly contributing to poverty reduction and social and economic growth. This chapter not only identifies barriers faced by women entrepreneurs but also underscores factors fuelling their ventures. It offers a practical toolkit for scholars, policymakers and practitioners (entrepreneurs and consultants) to devise tailored strategies and actions for local growth and intervention. The study comprises four parts: the introduction, setting the chapter's goal and previewing outcomes; the second part, exploring female entrepreneurship as a key to poverty alleviation and community sustainability; the core, the third part, unveiling in-depth BRICS country analysis; and the conclusion, summarising implications and highlighting avenues for further research.

The sustainable development of contractor organizations depends highly on bidding decision-making of projects. This current study, leveraging the risk decision-making theory, attempts to elucidate the process of contractors’ bid/no-bid decision-making and reveal how the process is influenced by their perception of risk. In particular, this study aims to explore the multiple mediating effects of contractors’ trust in owners and risk perception in explaining the relationship between contractual governance outlined in owners’ bidding documents and the bid/no-bid decisions.

A questionnaire survey was used to obtain data from the Chinese construction industry. The PLS-SEM technique was employed to analyze a dataset of 557 available questionnaires.

The findings indicate that (1) the contractual governance provided by owners’ bidding documents positively impacts contractors’ bid/no-bid decisions; (2) both risk perception and trust serve as multiple mediators in this relationship and (3) trust mediates the relationship between contractual governance and contractors’ risk perception.

Drawing upon the risk decision-making theory, this study proposes a multiple mediation model for understanding contractors’ bid/no-bid decision-making processes. It contributes to a better understanding of contractors’ bidding decision-making mechanisms, thereby offering theoretical guidance for contractors to make reasonable and informed risk decisions.

This study aims to examine the effects of Internet of Things (IoT) technology on efficiency and patient care in Italian and Israeli intensive care units (ICUs). The goal is to study how IoT might improve care settings by controlling health dynamics and responding to life-threatening circumstances.

This survey-based research explores IoT use, challenges and adaptability in ICUs in both countries. Interviews and surveys of ICU health-care workers are used to get both quantitative and qualitative data on integrating experiences and perspectives.

The research found significant variations between Italy and Israel due to technology infrastructures and health-care practices. Israel shows a more concentrated deployment in a major medical centre with advanced but limited uptake, whereas Italy shows application throughout ICUs highlighting regional health-care system disparities. Interoperability, data security and IoT training are common difficulties.

This research has limitations. One drawback is the geographical dispersion of study sites, with a bigger sample size in Italy than in Israel. This discrepancy may affect findings applicability. However, these preliminary findings provide a foundation for further research into the complexities of deploying IoT in various health-care settings.

This study compares IoT integration in two national health-care systems, adding to health-care technology literature. Regional variations affect technology adoption, but IoT may enhance ICU operations and patient care, according to one research. This study helps health-care practitioners, academics and policymakers understand the pros and cons of IoT in health care.

E-entrepreneurship is developed based on digital platforms, having specific technical opportunities, such as the interactive ecosystem, fast payment method and online store function, without strict requirements for online entrepreneurs. Considering China’s e-entrepreneurship environment and cultural background, this paper aims to analyse individuals’ e-entrepreneurship motivation based on the capability–opportunity–motivation–behaviour (COM-B) behaviour changing theory.

Through testing 602 samples based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling, the factors from the opportunity and capability units positively affect individuals’ e-entrepreneurship motivation. Meanwhile, because of the economic and social environmental differences between China’s urban and rural regions, this study promotes the multi-group analysis based on individuals’ regional backgrounds.

First, as opportunity factors, technical and policy opportunities have significantly positive relationships with individuals’ e-entrepreneurship motivation. Second, entrepreneurial and cultural capabilities are essential for Chinese entrepreneurs while making an entrepreneurial decision. Third, because of the e-entrepreneurial environment difference and educational system gap, entrepreneurial capability exerts a greater influence on the e-entrepreneurship motivation for Chinese individuals from urban regions, and cultural capability exerts a higher impact on the e-entrepreneurship motivation for Chinese individuals from rural regions.

Whilst the phenomenon of e-entrepreneurship is emerging as a popular entrepreneurship area of study, little research has systematically explored individuals’ e-entrepreneurial motivation and analysed influencing factors from macro and minor aspects. According to the COM-B behaviour changing theory, this paper discovers influencing factors from environmental opportunity and personal capability units, and it is helpful to present individuals’ attitudes to the platform-based business model.

This paper aims to examine the role of local/provincial government in influencing corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) in China, and more specifically, how the underlying economic and political factors associated with local government have influenced the quality of CSER.

The authors used 234 environmentally sensitive companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during 2013 and 2015 as the research sample to test the relationship between CSER and local government’s political connection and economic prioritisation and the potential mediating effect of local economic prioritisation.

The analysis provides evidence that local/provincial government’s political geographical connectedness with the central government has directly and positively influenced the level of CSER, while local prioritisation of economic development has a direct but negative effect on CSER in China. In addition, local/provincial prioritisation of economic development has mediated the relationship between local–central political geographical connectedness and CSER.

While local/provincial governments are heavily influenced by the coercive pressure from the central government, they also act in their own political and economic interests in overseeing CSER at the local level. This study raises the question about the effectiveness of the top-down approach to improving CSER in China and suggests that the central government may need to focus more on coordinating and harmonising different local/provincial governments’ interests to enable achieving a common sustainability goal.

The authors provide evidence revealing how the economic and political contexts of local government have played a significant role in shaping CSER in China. More specifically, this paper addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting the importance of local government oversight power for CSER development and how such oversight is determined by local prioritisation of economic development and political geographical connectedness of local and central governments.

In recent years, climate for innovation has attracted wide attention from industry and academia. It is perceived as a critical component of innovation performance in the built environment sector, especially in architectural design firms (ADFs). This study attempts to assess the degree of climate for innovation in the Vietnamese ADFs under the organizational climate theory.

A list of 13 innovation climate variables was found by reviewing previous studies and discussions with industry practitioners. These variables were then categorized into three principal factors (personal commitment, tolerance of difference, and support for creativity), forming the inputs of the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) analysis.

The results showed that the overall level of innovation in the climate is moderate, implying that it is still necessary for more improvements to the Vietnamese ADFs. The fuzzy analysis revealed that support for creativity was the most critical factor, followed by tolerance of difference and personal commitment.

The proposed climate for innovation model is practical and reliable for architectural professionals and can be applied to assess other research areas. Few studies have emphasized the innovation climate in the construction sector, so this research may broaden the knowledge and literature on the industry, especially for the ADFs.

This paper examines how firms respond to local government’s environment initiatives through textual analysis of government work reports (GWRs). This study aims to provide insights into how firms strategically respond to government’s environmental initiatives through their disclosure and investment practices.

This study uses a textual analysis of GWRs from China’s provinces. The frequency and change rate of environmental keywords in these reports are used as a measure of the government’s environmental initiatives.

This study finds that environmental disclosure scores in environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports increase with the frequency or change rate of environmental keywords in provincial GWRs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms in highly marketized provinces or those listed in a single capital market. However, there is no significant relationship between firms’ environmental investments and government initiatives, except for cross-listed firms in provinces with consistently high frequency of environmental keywords in their GWRs.

The findings indicate that government environmental initiatives can shape firms’ disclosure behaviors, yet have limited influence on investment decisions, suggesting that environmental disclosure could potentially be opportunistic. This underscores the need for more effective strategies to stimulate firms’ environmental investments.

This study provides valuable insights into the differential impacts of government environmental initiatives on firms’ disclosure and investment behaviors, contributing to the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility in the context of government initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to approach predictive maintenance (PdM) of brushless direct current (BLDC) motors using audio signal processing and extracting statistical and spectral features to train classical machine learning (ML) models.

The proposed methodology relies on classification predictive model that shows the motors prone to failure. To verify this, the model was implemented and tested with audio data. The trained models are then deployed to an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) application built using Django.

The implementation of the methodology allows for achieving performance as high as 92% accuracy, proving that spectral features should be considered when training ML models for PdM.

The proposed model is an effective decision-making tool that provides an ideal solution for preventive maintenance scheduling problems for BLDC motors.