Ge Zhang, Pengfei Chen and Si Xu
Given that the current sustainability assessment in higher education institutions primarily relies on qualitative methods with relatively limited quantitative tools, the purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Given that the current sustainability assessment in higher education institutions primarily relies on qualitative methods with relatively limited quantitative tools, the purpose of this study is to design a tool that could be used to comprehensively assess the overall state of higher education institutions’ sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors based the “Model to Assess the Sustainability of Higher Education Institutions” on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework of economic, environmental and social factors, and established its primary dimensions as educational level, research capacity, community outreach, campus operations, campus experience and assessment reports. They designed the College Organisational Sustainability Scale (CO-SS) based on this research model, drawing their inspiration from the qualitative research tool, the Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire, and taking the following validation steps: expert review (n = 10), pilot testing (n = 150) and formal experiments (n = 1108). These steps were taken to optimise the scale items, test the model’s validity and assess its reliability.
Findings
After undergoing rigorous scientific validation, CO-SS was unequivocally confirmed as an effective and reliable tool, demonstrating its accurate reflection of the level of sustainability in higher education institutions.
Originality/value
The authors took an industry-specific approach by relying on the TBL and the Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire to construct and validate the CO-SS. Furthermore, the CO-SS has the potential to evolve into a self-assessment tool for higher education institutions, and a reliable foundation for data-driven decision-making in the realm of organisational sustainability at universities.
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Ivy S.H. Hii, Jie Min Ho, Yuyue Zhong and Xinyue Li
This study investigates the factors influencing the saving behaviour of Chinese Generation Z (Gen Z) through Internet wealth management (IWM) services. It adopts the unified…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the factors influencing the saving behaviour of Chinese Generation Z (Gen Z) through Internet wealth management (IWM) services. It adopts the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as the theoretical framework, focusing on key determinants such as performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) and facilitating conditions (FC). The research also explores the mediating role of the intention to save via IWM and its subsequent influence on actual saving behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were assessed using data collected from 274 Gen Z users in China. The data were analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling.
Findings
The results suggest that the formation of intention among Gen Z to save through IWM services is directly affected by factors such as PE, EE, SI and FC. Intention to save via IWM positively influences actual saving behaviour. Mediation analysis further confirms the mediating role of intention to save via IWM in these relationships.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have direct implications for financial institutions and policymakers engaged in promoting the practice of saving via IWM services among Gen Z, thereby fostering a culture of proactive financial management and encouraging saving behaviour.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the existing literature by being among the first to examine Gen Z’s IWM adoption as a personal saving tool through the theoretical lens of the UTAUT.
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Jun Huang, Haijie Mo and Tianshu Zhang
This paper takes the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect as a quasi-natural experiment and investigates the impact of capital market liberalization on the corporate debt…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper takes the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect as a quasi-natural experiment and investigates the impact of capital market liberalization on the corporate debt maturity structure. It also aims to provide some policy implications for corporate debt financing and further liberalization of the capital market in China.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing the exogenous event of Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and using the data of Chinese A-share firms from 2010 to 2020, this study constructs a difference-in-differences model to examine the relationship between capital market liberalization and corporate debt maturity structure. To validate the results, this study performed several robustness tests, including the parallel test, the placebo test, the Heckman two-stage regression and the propensity score matching.
Findings
This paper finds that capital market liberalization has significantly increased the proportion of long-term debt of target firms. Further analyses suggest that the impact of capital market liberalization on the debt maturity structure is more pronounced for firms with lower management ownership and non-Big 4 audit. Channel tests show that capital market liberalization improves firms’ information environment and curbs self-interested management behavior.
Originality/value
This research provides empirical evidence for the consequences of capital market liberalization and enriches the literature on the determinants of corporate debt maturity structure. Further this study makes a reference for regulators and financial institutions to improve corporate financing through the governance role of capital market liberalization.
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Wanru Xie, Yixin Zhao, Gang Zhao, Fei Yang, Zilong Wei and Jinzhao Liu
High-speed turnouts are more complex in structure and thus may cause abnormal vibration of high-speed train car body, affecting driving safety and passenger riding experience…
Abstract
Purpose
High-speed turnouts are more complex in structure and thus may cause abnormal vibration of high-speed train car body, affecting driving safety and passenger riding experience. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the data characteristics of continuous hunting of high-speed trains passing through turnouts and propose a diagnostic method for engineering applications.
Design/methodology/approach
First, Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN) is performed to determine the first characteristic component of the car body’s lateral acceleration. Then, the Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) is performed to calculate the marginal spectra. Finally, the presence of a continuous hunting problem is determined based on the results of the comparison calculations and diagnostic thresholds. To improve computational efficiency, permutation entropy (PE) is used as a fast indicator to identify turnouts with potential problems.
Findings
Under continuous hunting conditions, the PE is less than 0.90; the ratio of the maximum peak value of the signal component to the original signal peak value exceeded 0.7, and there is an energy band in the STFT time-frequency map, which corresponds to a frequency distribution range of 1–2 Hz.
Originality/value
The research results have revealed the lateral vibration characteristics of the high-speed train’s car body during continuous hunting when passing through turnouts. On this basis, an effective diagnostic method has been proposed. With a focus on practical engineering applications, a rapid screening index for identifying potential issues has been proposed, significantly enhancing the efficiency of diagnostic processes.
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Zicheng Zhang, Xinyue Lin, Shaonan Shan and Zhaokai Yin
This study aims to analyze government hotline text data and generating forecasts could enable the effective detection of public demands and help government departments explore…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze government hotline text data and generating forecasts could enable the effective detection of public demands and help government departments explore, mitigate and resolve social problems.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, social problems were determined and analyzed by using the time attributes of government hotline data. Social public events with periodicity were quantitatively analyzed via the Prophet model. The Prophet model is decided after running a comparison study with other widely applied time series models. The validation of modeling and forecast was conducted for social events such as travel and educational services, human resources and public health.
Findings
The results show that the Prophet algorithm could generate relatively the best performance. Besides, the four types of social events showed obvious trends with periodicities and holidays and have strong interpretable results.
Originality/value
The research could help government departments pay attention to time dependency and periodicity features of the hotline data and be aware of early warnings of social events following periodicity and holidays, enabling them to rationally allocate resources to handle upcoming social events and problems and better promoting the role of the big data structure of government hotline data sets in urban governance innovations.
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Sheng Liu, Xiao Lin and Xiuying Chen
This paper aims to reveal the green governance role played by stock connect in transition economies from the perspective of corporates’ environmental violations and provides…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to reveal the green governance role played by stock connect in transition economies from the perspective of corporates’ environmental violations and provides implications for the coordination and optimization of subsequent stock market liberalization and green transformation policies in pursuit of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
Design/methodology/approach
With the data of Chinese listed enterprises, this paper takes the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect or Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect in China as a quasi-natural experiment and applies the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model to identify the impact of stock market liberalization on the corporates’ environmental violations.
Findings
The findings reveal that the stock market liberalization significantly restrains the corporates’ environmental violations. These findings are robust to a series of sensitivity tests, including excluding two-way effects, adjusting the year of policy implementation, replacing the core variables, introducing the regional fixed effects and excluding the interference effect of other relevant policies during the sample period. Furthermore, the stock market liberalization is beneficial for upgrading information disclosure quality, improving internal governance capability, strengthening environmental protection incentives, and thus restrains corporates’ environmental violations. Meanwhile, heterogeneity tests show that the inhibitory effects are more significant in those grouped samples which is large scale, state-owned nature, located in eastern region, with poor evaluation performances and heavy tax burden.
Originality/value
We make two marginal contributions to the current literature. First, this paper enriches the literature on the factors influencing corporate environmental violations by focusing on how the macro-level financial policy influences the micro-level corporate environmental violations. One the one hand, prior studies mainly focused on the consequences of corporate environmental violations; however, there is still a puzzle that the effect of stock market liberalization cannot be fully justified to influence corporate environmental violations. The findings help explain this puzzle by examining that stock market liberalization can restrain corporate environmental violations. Moreover, prior studies mainly focused on corporate share price (Yunsen Chen et al., 2022), market liquidity (Han Kim and Singal, 2000), information disclosure (Liang, Lin, and Chin 2012), corporate governance (Bae and Goyal, 2010) and corporate violations (Lingyun Xiong et al., 2021), but not on corporate environmental violations. We assume that the suppression effect of stock market liberalization on corporate environmental violations can help reduce corporate environmental violations, improve corporates’ awareness of environmental compliance. Second, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the literature on stock market liberalization by investigating the restraining effect of Stock Connect on corporate environmental violations from the perspective of information channel, corporate governance channel and motivation channel, which is of practical significance. Moreover, we investigate the differences in the inhibitory effects of stock market liberalization on different enterprises' environmental violations, from firm size, property rights, enterprise assessment results, tax burden to geographical location, which is conducive to the construction of a green financial system and the promotion of sustainable economic development. Our results show that firms which are large scale, state-owned nature, located in eastern region, with poor evaluation performances and heavy tax burden tend to compliance with environmental laws. These findings emphasize the importance and benefits of Stock Connect.
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Xiaoying Li, Xiujuan Jin, Heng Li, Lulu Gong and Deyang Zhou
Considering the substantial benefits derived from the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in construction projects, governments and its related sectors have introduced…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the substantial benefits derived from the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in construction projects, governments and its related sectors have introduced mandatory policies requiring the use of BIM. However, little is known about the impact of mandatory policies on BIM-based project performance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a systematical understanding on the impact of policy interventions on the implementation practice of innovative technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper utilizes the propensity score matching and difference in differences (PSM-DID) method to investigate the impact of policy interventions on BIM-based project performance. Using the panel data collected from 2015 to 2021 in the Hong Kong construction industry, this paper explores the impact of the first mandatory BIM policy on the BIM-based project performance of three key stakeholders.
Findings
The subjective BIM performance and BIM return on investment (ROI) have significantly improved after implementing the mandatory BIM policy. The promotion effect of mandatory BIM policy on BIM-based project performance gradually increases over time. Moreover, the promotion effect of mandatory BIM policy on BIM performance shows significant heterogeneity for different stakeholders and organizations of different sizes.
Originality/value
This study examined the impact of policy interventions on BIM-based project performance. The research findings can provide a holistic understanding of the potential implications of innovative mandatory policy in performance improvement and offer some constructive suggestions to policymakers and industry practitioners to promote the penetration of BIM in the construction industry.
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Ranran Yang, Zhaojun Liu, Jingjing Li and Jianling Jiao
Waste classification plays an important role in reducing pollution, promoting waste recycling and resource utilization. This paper aims to explore the multiple reasons that affect…
Abstract
Purpose
Waste classification plays an important role in reducing pollution, promoting waste recycling and resource utilization. This paper aims to explore the multiple reasons that affect the performance of waste classification governance.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis of the existing waste classification policies is conducted using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model. Based on this analysis, influencing factors are identified through the technology-organization-environment (TOE) research framework. The condition configurations and action paths that cause differences in governance performance are derived using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method (fsQCA).
Findings
The results show that there are spatial and temporal disparities in waste classification policies among different provinces/cities. In most situations, the implementation effect of policy combinations is better than that of a single type of policy, with mandatory policies playing a key role. Additionally, a single influencing factor cannot constitute the bottleneck of high governance performance. Policy topics coordinate with environmental and technical factors to influence governance performance. Finally, in light of China's actual governance situation, several targeted implications are proposed for the practical optimization of local government waste classification governance.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel approach by integrating multiple heterogeneous data sources from both online and offline channels, adopting a public-government perspective and applying the fsQCA method to investigate the combined effects of technical, organizational and environmental factors on waste classification governance performance across 31 provinces and cities in China.
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Wei Chen, Yucheng Ma, Xingyu Liu, Enguang Xu, Wenlong Yang, Junhong Jia, Rui Lou, Chaolong Zhu, Chenjing Wu and Ziqiang Zhao
The purpose of this paper is to improve the mechanical and tribological properties of Si3N4 ceramics and to make the application of Si3N4 ceramics as tribological materials more…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to improve the mechanical and tribological properties of Si3N4 ceramics and to make the application of Si3N4 ceramics as tribological materials more extensive.
Design/methodology/approach
Si3N4-based composite ceramics (SN-2L) containing nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) were prepared by hot press sintering process through adding 2 Wt.% nanolignin as precursor to the Si3N4 matrix, and the dry friction and wear behaviors of Si3N4-based composite against TC4 disc were performed at the different loads by using pin-on-disc tester.
Findings
The friction coefficients and wear rates of SN-2L composite against TC4 were significantly lower than those of the single-phase Si3N4 against TC4 at the load range from 15 to 45 N. At higher load of 45 N, SN-2L/TC4 pair presented the lowest friction coefficient of 0.25, and the wear rates of the pins and discs were as low as 1.76 × 10−6 and 2.59 × 10−4mm3/N·m. The low friction and wear behavior could be attributed to the detachment of N-GQDs from the ceramic matrix to the worn surface at the load of 30 N or higher, and then an effective lubricating film containing N-GQDs, SiO2, TiO2 and Al2SiO5 formed in the worn surface. While, at the same test condition, the friction coefficient of the single-phase Si3N4 against TC4 was at a range from 0.45 to 0.58. The spalling and cracking morphology formed on the worn surface of single-phase Si3N4, and the wear mechanism was mainly dominated by adhesive and abrasive wear.
Originality/value
Overall, a high-performance green ceramic composite was prepared, and the composite had a good potential for application in engineering tribology fields (such as aerospace bearings).
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0161/
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Bin Li, Shoukun Wang, Jinge Si, Yongkang Xu, Liang Wang, Chencheng Deng, Junzheng Wang and Zhi Liu
Dynamically tracking the target by unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) plays a critical role in mobile drone recovery. This study aims to solve this challenge under diverse random…
Abstract
Purpose
Dynamically tracking the target by unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) plays a critical role in mobile drone recovery. This study aims to solve this challenge under diverse random disturbances, proposing a dynamic target tracking framework for UGVs based on target state estimation, trajectory prediction, and UGV control.
Design/methodology/approach
To mitigate the adverse effects of noise contamination in target detection, the authors use the extended Kalman filter (EKF) to improve the accuracy of locating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Furthermore, a robust motion prediction algorithm based on polynomial fitting is developed to reduce the impact of trajectory jitter caused by crosswinds, enhancing the stability of drone trajectory prediction. Regarding UGV control, a dynamic vehicle model featuring independent front and rear wheel steering is derived. Additionally, a linear time-varying model predictive control algorithm is proposed to minimize tracking errors for the UGV.
Findings
To validate the feasibility of the framework, the algorithms were deployed on the designed UGV. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic tracking algorithm of UGV under random disturbances.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a tracking framework of UGV based on target state estimation, trajectory prediction and UGV predictive control, enabling the system to achieve dynamic tracking to the UAV under multiple disturbance conditions.