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Small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in e-commerce often invest in information technology (IT) to stay competitive. However, whether and how IT capability (ITC) translates into financial performance requires further research. This paper examines the role of ITC in enabling value proposition innovation (VPI) as an important mechanism that improves financial performance for Chinese e-commerce SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that ITC is critical for enabling innovation because it elevates SMEs’ understanding of changing customer needs, especially when SMEs operate on multiple e-commerce platforms (multihome).

We used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and tested the hypotheses that ITC mediated by VPI and moderated by multihoming increases the financial performance of e-commerce SMEs through a survey among 206 Chinese SMEs operating on Taobao.

We find that not only higher levels of ITC lead to better financial performance, but also that the effect is fully mediated by VPI. Moreover, the effect of ITC on innovation is enhanced when vendors operate on multiple platforms.

The study identifies VPI as an important mechanism through which SMEs can leverage their ITC to adapt, innovate and thrive in competition. Our work suggests that using technology to develop innovative ideas and identify opportunities (which are reflected in VPI) is key to success and that doing so is more likely when vendors multihome. Thus, this study contributes to the innovation literature by explicating a concrete link between ITC, multihoming, VPI and increased financial performance. Different e-commerce stakeholders, including SME owners, IT and service providers and e-commerce platforms, can benefit from the findings of this work.

Job seekers frequently experience incivility during interactions with recruiters, which can negatively influence their job search behaviors. However, the underlying causes of such incivility remain underexplored. Based on attribution theory, this study examines how recruiters’ attributions about leader–member exchange (LMX) influence their psychological entitlement, which in turn shapes incivility toward job seekers.

The survey data was collected in three waves from 320 recruiters involved in the recruitment process.

The results found that when recruiters hold high levels of self-serving attribution, LMX quality is positively related to their psychological entitlement, which, in turn, promotes incivility toward job seekers.

Leaders should pay special attention to recruiters with high self-serving attributions when establishing LMX with them, as high-quality LMX may elicit a sense of psychological entitlement and potentially influence their uncivil behaviors.

Unlike prior studies that have focused on the negative outcomes of incivility experienced by job seekers, this study empirically reveals the potential antecedents of such incivility.

Online complaints have emerged as a pivotal avenue for customers to voice their dissatisfaction. In this context, bystanders, as third-party observers, actively engage in evaluating and judging these complaints. However, studies pertaining to bystanders in online customer complaints remain limited. Therefore, this study aims to integrate deontic justice theory and attribution theory to construct a research model of bystanders’ support for online customer complaints.

Leveraging a questionnaire and two scenario experiments, SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used to examine the relationship between bystanders’ moral outrage and their support for online customer complaints, the mediating role of responsibility attribution and the moderating role of experience similarity and online anonymity.

Based on the statistical analysis, the results show that bystanders’ moral outrage significantly enhances their support for online customer complaints; responsibility attribution plays a mediating role between moral outrage and bystanders’ support for online customer complaints; experience similarity and online anonymity can moderate the relationship between moral outrage and bystanders’ support for online customer complaints.

The findings of this study not only enrich the literature on online customer complaints but also provide valuable insights for companies to understand the diffusion of online complaints and effective strategies with which to address them.

Based on the job demands-resources model (JD-R model) and conservation of resources (COR) approach, this study aims to examine how role overload and leader–leader exchange (LLX) affect leaders’ voice rejection, and explore when the positive relationship between role overload and voice rejection is weakened.

This study used three-wave data from 205 leader–employee pairs and tested the hypothesized moderated mediation model using hierarchical regression and bootstrapping.

Results revealed that two parallel paths influence leaders’ voice rejection. The first path was “LLX → change self-efficacy → voice rejection”, and the second path was “role overload → emotional exhaustion → voice rejection”. LLX weakened the direct relationship between role overload and emotional exhaustion, and weakened the indirect relationship between role overload and voice rejection via emotional exhaustion.

Organizations need to provide team leaders with additional resources and reduce their workloads to enhance their effectiveness in fulfilling the role of voice managers.

This study provides a comprehensive explanation, according to the JD-R model and COR theory, of how and when job demand and job resource influence leaders’ voice rejection, thereby enhancing our understanding of the formation. It provides new insights into leader voice rejection.

This paper aims to address the safety concerns of path-planning algorithms in dynamic obstacle warehouse environments. It proposes a method that uses improved artificial potential fields (IAPF) as expert knowledge for an improved deep deterministic policy gradient (IDDPG) and designs a hierarchical strategy for robots through obstacle detection methods.

The IAPF algorithm is used as the expert experience of reinforcement learning (RL) to reduce the useless exploration in the early stage of RL training. A strategy-switching mechanism is introduced during training to adapt to various scenarios and overcome challenges related to sparse rewards. Sensor inputs, including light detection and ranging data, are integrated to detect obstacles around waypoints, guiding the robot toward the target point.

Simulation experiments demonstrate that the integrated use of IDDPG and the IAPF method significantly enhances the safety and training efficiency of path planning for mobile robots.

This method enhances safety by applying safety domain judgment rules to improve APF’s security and designing an obstacle detection method for better danger anticipation. It also boosts training efficiency through using IAPF as expert experience for DDPG and the classification storage and sampling design for the RL experience pool. Additionally, adjustments to the actor network’s update frequency expedite convergence.

Revenue management (RM) is a significant technique to improve revenue with limited resources. With the macro environment of dramatically increasing transit capacity and rapid railway transport development in China, it is necessary to involve the theory of RM into the operation and decision of railway passenger transport.

This paper proposes the theory and framework of generalized RM of railway passenger transport (RMRPT), and the thoughts and methods of the main techniques in RMRPT, involving demand forecasting, line planning, inventory control, pricing strategies and information systems, are all studied and elaborated. The involved methods and techniques provide a sequential process to help with the decision-making for each stage of RMRPT. The corresponding techniques are integrated into the information system to support practical businesses in railway passenger transport.

The combination of the whole techniques devotes to railway benefit improvement and transit resource utilization and has been applied into the practical operation and organization of railway passenger transport.

The development of RMRPT would provide theoretical and technical support for the improvement of service quality as well as railway benefits and efficiency.

Customer value co-creation behavior is promising but undertheorized. To bridge this gap, this study examines the viability of a social cognitive theory positing that customers' value co-creation behavior is shaped by their co-creation experience, self-efficacy, and engagement.

Using healthcare as a case, a stratified random sample comprising 600 patients from 40 hospitals across eight metropolitan cities in an emerging economy was acquired and analyzed using co-variance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM).

Customers' co-creation experience has a positive impact on their co-creation self-efficacy, co-creation engagement, and value co-creation behavior. While co-creation self-efficacy and engagement have no direct influence on value co-creation behavior, they do serve as mediators between co-creation experience and value co-creation behavior, suggesting that when customers are provided with a co-creation experience, it enhances their co-creation self-efficacy and engagement, ultimately fostering value co-creation behavior.

A theory of customer value co-creation behavior is established.

This research looks at the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental performance, considering the immediate mutual interaction and the potential mediation of specific variables like green innovation and green human resource management (GHRM).

Partial least squares path modeling was used to investigate a sample of 460 respondents in multinational textile manufacturing companies in Ethiopia.

The findings of this study reveal a direct and positive relationship between CSR and environmental performance. In addition, the researchers observed an indirect effect on the relationship by using GHRM and green innovation as mediators.

The study applied a cross-sectional methodology, and experts are not sure that CSR, GHRM, and green innovation in Textile manufacturing companies provide the same results over time. Consequently, future researchers can utilize the same method of investigation to see if outcomes change or stay the same over time. Second the study was conducted in Ethiopia. As a resut, it is possible that our study results will not be generalizable to other emerging nations. We propose expanding research to include more nations with developing markets.

Executives of textile manufacturing companies can adopt the present study framework of performance in developing economies to reduce waste, pollution and air emissions, and conserve water, energy and nonrenewable resources that enhance environmental performance.

The discovery of the present research makes significant contributions to the literature on the impact of CSR on environmental performance as a pioneering study by incorporating CSR, GHRM, green innovation and environmental performance under one research model in an emerging economy context.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose a mediated moderation showing how proactive personality (PP) and job crafting toward interests (JC-interests) influence the relationship between interest incongruence and cyberloafing.

We used a three-wave survey and collected data from 429 full-time employees working in different industries in China.

We found that interest incongruence was positively related to cyberloafing. Furthermore, this positive relationship was more significant when employees were low in PP or engaged in low levels of JC-interests. In addition, the moderating effect of PP was mediated by JC-interests.

These findings are helpful for organizations in figuring out how to mitigate the detrimental effects of interest incongruence by providing more support to proactive employees and implementing various JC interventions.

This study suggests that PP and JC-interests (resource gain strategy) could mitigate the positive effect of interest incongruence on employees’ cyberloafing.

This research aims to investigate the trajectory tracking problem for a four-wheel independent drive autonomous vehicle (4WID) and propose an integrated, coordinated control strategy to address the mutual interference between trajectory tracking and stability control in extreme cases.

The authors establish an adaptive preview model that modifies the preview distance based on vehicle speed. They utilize a three-degrees-of-freedom vehicle model and employ model predictive control to calculate the necessary front wheel angle for trajectory tracking. In terms of longitudinal control, a longitudinal coordinated control mechanism is established to achieve the two conflicting objectives of trajectory tracking accuracy and dynamic stability through early deceleration. A stability controller based on sliding mode control (SMC) is designed, considering tire constraints and tracking the optimal yaw angle and sideslip angle. Furthermore, a lateral coordinated control strategy is developed, considering the weight coefficient of stability control, and the yaw moment is calculated and distributed based on the vehicle torque requirements.

The proposed integrated, coordinated control strategy successfully addresses the mutual interference between trajectory tracking and stability control in extreme cases for the 4WID vehicle. The strategy achieves trajectory tracking accuracy, dynamic stability and reduced energy consumption while taking into account tire constraints.

We have proposed a cooperative control strategy for the trajectory tracking problem of autonomous driving vehicles. This strategy is different from previous methods in that we have taken into account the integrated dynamic control in both longitudinal and lateral directions, balancing the conflicting control requirements and reducing energy consumption, improving trajectory tracking accuracy and vehicle dynamic stability. We have verified the feasibility of this strategy through joint simulation under different driving conditions.