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Disruptive technologies are transforming the insurance market, affecting individuals' and organizations' behavior and adaptability. Effective data utilization has become critical to success in the dynamic insurance sector.

The current research utilized electronic Scopus databases to include all pertinent prior studies. Employing cutting-edge technology, highlighting benefits, resolving challenges, identifying emerging trends, and identifying new practices, the study chapter explores how data practices alter the insurance industry.

The emergence of novel technologies, namely the Internet of Things, mobile devices, blockchains, cryptocurrencies, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive systems, alter the competitive environment on multiple fronts and at different stages. Insurance companies gain essential insights to enhance their decision-making procedures by addressing data accuracy, integration, and regulatory compliance.

The overview highlights new developments that are radically changing the evolving domain of the insurance business, including augmented analytics, blockchain, predictive analytics, telematics, and ethical AI. This technology is being used so insurers can improve client happiness, handle risks more effectively, and stay competitive. The insurance industry achieves increased efficiency, stimulates innovation, and strategically uses data to strengthen resilience in today's data-centric economy.

Agricultural science and technology (AST) often need the form of industry-university-research cooperation in successfully completing breakthrough agricultural technology innovations. Therefore, AST industry-university-research cooperation is not only the need of the AST development strategy in China but also the only way for the development of agricultural colleges and universities, agricultural scientific research institutions and agricultural enterprises. Among them, in the process of cooperative breakthrough agricultural technology innovation, the correct selection of partners is the basis for ensuring its effective operation.

Aiming at the time-series characteristics and information ambiguity of decision information in the dynamic selection process of AST industry-university-research partners, this research introduces the dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method of time degree and orthogonal projection. On this basis, field theory is used to construct the cooperative innovation capability field model of the partners, and the threshold for the partners to enter or exit the system is designed to dynamically select and eliminate the partners.

Results show that this method fully considers the situation of cooperative innovation resources within the AST industry-university-research system and the resource complementarity of candidate partners.

Combined with examples from agricultural scientific research institutions, the applicability and superiority of the model are verified.

This study aims to investigate the impact of supply chain concentration (SCC) on corporate research and development (R&D) investment and determine the moderating roles of industry concentration and financing constraints on the relationship between SCC and R&D investment.

The study collected data from Chinese listed companies, used the fixed effects model to test the research hypotheses and further used the two-stage Heckman test and propensity score matching (PSM) to address potential endogeneity issues.

The result reveals a negative impact of SCC on corporate R&D investment. In addition, industry concentration mitigates the negative impact of SCC on corporate R&D investment, but financing constraints strengthen the negative impact.

This study introduces the concept of SCC and empirically tests its effect on R&D investment, further explaining the lack of corporate innovation. This study inspires companies to strengthen SC management and weigh the level of SCC with environmental factors.

Social media is booming in the digital age, and its rich availability provides many opportunities for companies to innovate across borders. In reality, how enterprises use social media to achieve cross-border innovation also faces important challenges such as breaking path dependency.

This paper explores how social media can facilitate cross-border innovation from the perspective of strategic capability, combined with the path dependency theory and attention-based view. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap method are adopted to test the hypotheses based on survey data provided by 173 firms in China.

The findings show a positive relationship between social media strategic capability and cross-border innovation, with path dependency playing a mediating role. In addition, two internal and external contextual factors, namely customer embeddedness and competitive pressure, play moderating roles, with customer embeddedness negatively moderating the negative relationship between social media strategic capability and path dependency and competitive pressure negatively moderating the negative relationship between path dependency and cross-border innovation.

These findings provide not only new insights into social media and cross-border innovation but also theoretical guidance on how companies can effectively use social media in practice.

This study aims to investigate whether public attention influences corporate decisions on environmental disclosure, thereby revealing how society perceives and understands environmental issues and how corporations respond to these expectations.

We selected publicly listed Chinese firms as our sample. An “Environmental Disclosure Greenwashing” (EDG) Index was developed through textual analysis of their annual reports using natural language processing. Financial data were obtained from the CSMAR database, and multivariate regression was used for analysis.

The impact of public attention on EDG primarily manifests as an oversight pressure effect rather than a legitimacy incentive effect. As public attention intensifies, firms tend to adopt more substantial environmental actions instead of merely symbolic environmental disclosures. Formal regulatory frameworks might inadvertently trigger corporate EDG, but public attention can correct the adverse effects possibly introduced by formal regulations. Notably, in firms facing lower institutional pressure, the influence of public attention is more pronounced.

The evidence suggests that public attention reduces corporate EDG. These findings have significant implications for the regulation of environmental disclosures among firms in emerging economies.

The study integrates research in environmental disclosure with the concept of “greenwashing”, unveiling the limitations of the “disclosure as governance” viewpoint. It elucidates the impact of an informal external oversight mechanism (i.e. public attention) on complex corporate environmental disclosure decisions.

Given the complexity and increasing interdependence of supply chain networks, a broader perspective beyond a simple binary relationship is needed to analyse the impact of supply chain networks on firms. Based on social network theory, this study aims to explore the relationship between firms’ network position in the supply chain network and digital transformation, as well as the moderating effects of structural holes and network partners’ digitalisation.

This study analyses a sample of Chinese A-share companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges for the period 2011–2020 using regression analysis to test hypothesised relationships.

A firm’s centrality in the supply chain network is positively related to its digital transformation, and that the firm’s structural holes and the level of network partners’ digitalisation can both strengthen the positive influence of network centrality on digital transformation. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive effect of firms’ network centrality on digital transformation is more pronounced in non-SOEs and upstream firms.

In the pursuit of digital transformation, firms should recognise the significance of their position in the supply chain network and enhance their capability for information and resource acquisition by proactively strengthening their business cooperation with other network members. Moreover, firms should emphasise the value of open networks and their partners in supply chain networks.

This study applies social network theory to investigate the role of a firm’s external supply chain network in its digital transformation, clarifying the context and boundaries in which a firm’s position in the supply chain network influences digital transformation. The results extend the research and theoretical perspective on digital transformation and the consequences of supply chain networks.

The aging and deterioration of engineering building structures present significant risks to both life and property. Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, acclaimed for their outstanding reusability, compact form factor, lightweight construction, heightened sensitivity, immunity to electromagnetic interference and exceptional precision, are increasingly being adopted for structural health monitoring in engineering buildings. This research paper aims to evaluate the current challenges faced by FBG sensors in the engineering building industry. It also anticipates future advancements and trends in their development within this field.

This study centers on five pivotal sectors within the field of structural engineering: bridges, tunnels, pipelines, highways and housing construction. The research delves into the challenges encountered and synthesizes the prospective advancements in each of these areas.

The exceptional performance of FBG sensors provides an ideal solution for comprehensive monitoring of potential structural damages, deformations and settlements in engineering buildings. However, FBG sensors are challenged by issues such as limited monitoring accuracy, underdeveloped packaging techniques, intricate and time-intensive embedding processes, low survival rates and an indeterminate lifespan.

This introduces an entirely novel perspective. Addressing the current limitations of FBG sensors, this paper envisions their future evolution. FBG sensors are anticipated to advance into sophisticated multi-layer fiber optic sensing networks, each layer encompassing numerous channels. Data integration technologies will consolidate the acquired information, while big data analytics will identify intricate correlations within the datasets. Concurrently, the combination of finite element modeling and neural networks will enable a comprehensive simulation of the adaptability and longevity of FBG sensors in their operational environments.

The structure and protective effect of Al-coated Nd-Fe-B magnets before and after grain boundary diffusion were studied to explore the feasibility of improving the corrosion resistance of Nd-Fe-B magnets by Al coating and Al grain boundary diffusion.

The Al coating was deposited on sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets by magnetron sputtering, and then the Al-coated Nd-Fe-B magnets were put into the vacuum tube furnace for grain boundary diffusion process. The influence of Al coating and grain boundary diffusion process on the corrosion resistance of Nd-Fe-B magnets was investigated using electrochemical tests.

Results showed that the Al coating thickness increases, the corrosion current density of Al-coated magnets first increases and then decreases with increasing coating time. The Al coating particles transform from small millet shaped particles to equiaxed polygonal particles, and finally to big millet shaped particles with increasing coating time. The diffusion temperature has little effect on the corrosion potential, and the corrosion current density of Al-diffused magnets after grain boundary diffusion is much higher than that of Al-coated magnets before grain boundary diffusion. The corrosion potential and corrosion current density of magnets first increase, and then decrease with increasing tempering temperature.

As for high intrinsic coercivity Nd-Fe-B magnets, Poor preparation of Al coatings can result in Al coatings lacking protective properties, and the Al coating should be used cautiously as the surface protective coating of magnets. Grain boundary diffusion leads to the disappearance of Al coating, and reduces the corrosion resistance of Nd-Fe-B magnets, while tempering treatment can improve the corrosion resistance of Al-diffused magnets.

The constant population growth and inappropriate consumption patterns have led to abnormal use of the earth's capacities, destruction of natural resources, enormous spread of diseases, and increased waste materials. Thus, these issues should be highlighted to avoid serious problems for the earth. Accordingly, this study examines the effect of environmental knowledge (EK), environmental responsibility (ER), and environmental concern (EC) on sustainable consumption behavior (SCB), with the mediating role of customer attitude (CA).

The present applied study is descriptive-correlational. The statistical population includes customers of Hyperstar stores located in Tehran. Overall, a sample size of 384 people was selected based on Cochran's formula. The data were collected using standard questionnaires and analyzed using structural equation modeling and Smart PLS version 3 software.

The fit of the proposed model was confirmed at measurement, structural, and general levels. Thus, it indicates that the structural model has an acceptable fit. Furthermore, the findings emphasize that ER and EC have a positive effect on CA, and ER and EC have a positive impact on SCB. ER and EC have a positive effect on SCB through the mediation of CA, while EK does not have any significant effect on SCB but EK has an effect on SCB through the mediation of CA.

Given the growth of environmental destruction, it is necessary to consider the change of CA toward buying sustainable products. Therefore, this study pays attention to the mediating role of attitude and examines the effects of EK, EC, and ER that cause SCB among customers of Hyperstars.

Female smallholder farmers in low-income countries face barriers to accessing capital and commodity markets. While agricultural cooperatives provide services that contribute to the income and productivity of small-scale producers, evidence of cooperatives' social and economic empowerment of female smallholders remains limited. We apply Sen's capability approach to female entrepreneurs' socioeconomic empowerment to examine whether women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative from rural western Uganda benefits their social and economic position within their household. First, we study the relationship between women's cooperative participation and their household coffee sales and savings. Second, we investigate the link between women's cooperative participation and their intra-household decision-making and whether the inclusion of the husband in his wife's cooperative strengthens or lowers women's decision-making power.

We carry out a case study of a hybrid coffee and microfinance cooperative that promotes social innovation through the integration and empowerment of female smallholders in rural Uganda. Using a cross-sectional survey of 411 married female cooperative members from 26 randomly selected self-help groups of Bukonzo Joint Cooperative and 196 female non-members from the identical area, employing propensity score matching, this paper investigates the benefits of women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda. We present and discuss the results of our case study within an extensive literature on the role of institutions in collective action for women's empowerment.

Our findings provide new empirical evidence on female smallholders' participation in mixed cooperatives. Our results indicate that women's participation in microfinance-producer cooperatives appears to be a conditional blessing: even though membership is linked to increased women's intra-household decision-making and raised household savings and income from coffee sales, a wife with a husband in the same cooperative self-help group is associated with diminished women's household decision-making power.

The focus of this study is on female coffee smallholders in an agricultural cooperative in rural western Uganda. In particular, we focus on a case study of one major coffee cooperative. Our cross-sectional survey does not allow us to infer causal interpretations. Also, the survey does not include variables that allow us to measure other dimensions of women's empowerment beyond decision-making over household expenditures and women's financial performance related to savings and income from coffee cultivation.

Our empirical results indicate that female smallholders' cooperative membership is associated with higher incomes and coffee sales. However, husband co-participation in their wives' cooperative group diminishes wives' decision-making, which suggests that including husbands and other family members in the same cooperative group may not be perceived as an attractive route to empowerment for female smallholders. For these reasons, an intervention that encourages the cooperation of both spouses and that is sensitive to context-specific gender inequalities, may be more successful at stimulating social change toward household gender equality than interventions that focus on women's autonomous spheres only.

While the literature thus far has focused on microfinance's potential for women's empowerment, evidence on agricultural cooperatives' affecting women's social and economic position is limited. First, our findings provide novel empirical evidence on the empowering effects of women's participation in a self-help group-based coffee cooperative in rural Uganda. Second, our data allows us to explore the role of husbands' participation in their wives' cooperative and SGH. We embed our hypotheses and empirical results in a rich discussion of female entrepreneurship, microfinance and cooperative literature.