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Balancing economic development with social challenges such as gender inequality has become critical in the current times. Structural barriers persist as obstacles to women's professional opportunities despite evolving gender roles in the modern era. This chapter investigates the ‘motherhood penalty’, which is a concept couched in sociology and describes the disadvantages that working mothers face including lower wages and fewer opportunities of career advancement. This chapter explores economic, physical and mental health impacts of this penalty and sheds light on its detrimental effects on women's well-being and organisational success. Potentially, virtual reality (VR) technology is a solution through which working mothers can alleviate stress and improve well-being. In this chapter, existing literature on the motherhood penalty has been reviewed, and the innovative use of VR in workplace settings has been examined. There is limited research on the nexus between VR, motherhood penalty and working mothers' well-being, and therefore, this chapter seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of this intersection and proposes VR as a tool to mitigate the motherhood penalty, promoting gender equality and enhancing overall workplace well-being. Future research should explore VR's long-term benefits and ensure inclusive applications for diverse demographic groups.

This paper aims to develop an optimal maintenance and spare parts policy for an urban micro wind power system, focusing on two urban micro wind farms (UMWF). The reliability and efficiency of these systems are sought to be enhanced by considering the relationship between urban wind parameters and wind turbine degradation.

A proportional hazards (PH) model is utilized to describe how urban wind conditions impact turbine degradation. The maintenance strategy includes preventive maintenance (PM), corrective maintenance (CM) and opportunistic maintenance (OM). A multi-objective optimization algorithm is developed to optimize the joint policy of OM plans and spare parts resource allocation.

The proposed maintenance and spare parts policy effectively balances the trade-offs between PM, CM and OM strategies. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the policy improves the reliability of UMWF, reducing downtime and maintenance costs while ensuring the availability of spare parts when needed. The results show a significant enhancement in system performance compared to traditional maintenance approaches.

A novel maintenance policy and spare parts management approach for urban micro wind power systems is proposed. A multi-objective optimization algorithm is developed to optimize the OM schedule and maintenance spare parts resource management strategy for wind farms in urban wind environments.

This study aims to explore the factors influencing the evolution of emerging technology innovation network (ETIN) in combination with the key attributes and life cycle of emerging technologies, particularly the impact of multiple knowledge attributes and technology life cycle on the ETIN evolution.

This study collects 5G patent data and their citation information from the Derwent Innovations Index to construct a 5G technology innovation network (5GIN) as a sample network and conducts an empirical analysis of the 5GIN using the temporal exponential random graph model (TERGM).

The results indicate that during the 5GIN evolution, the network scale continues to expand and exhibits increasingly significant core-periphery structure, scale-free characteristic, small-world characteristic and community structure. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the multiple knowledge attributes based on the key attributes of emerging technologies, including knowledge novelty, coherence, growth and impact, have a significant positive influence on the ETIN evolution. Meanwhile, the temporal evolution of ETIN is also found to be correlated with the life cycle of emerging technologies.

This study extends the exploration of emerging technology research from a complex network perspective, providing a more realistic explanatory framework for the factors influencing ETIN evolution. It further highlights the important role that multiple knowledge attributes and the technology life cycle play within this framework.

As China is on an inevitable march into the digital era, firms have accumulated abundant digital assets, such as algorithms and data. Facing the possibility of using digital assets as a new type input, besides traditional inputs such as capital and labor, would powerful managers perform better? Would managerial power help managers increase the efficiency of how a firm combines traditional and digital inputs and converts them into outputs? Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether powerful managers promotes corporate productivity by using digital assets as a new input.

Using data from listed Chinese firms between 2008 and 2020, the authors constructed panel regressions with three-way fixed effects to examine whether and how managerial power influences corporate productivity in the current digital context, particularly under market uncertainty.

The findings reveal no consistent relationship between managerial power and corporate productivity. The results explain this from two contrasting effects: while managerial power promotes technological change it hinders technical efficiency – two components of total productivity. Moreover, this study identifies market uncertainty as a significant external contingency. In uncertain markets, strong managerial power positively impacts corporate productivity.

The results extend extant theoretical insights in the literature on how managerial power might influence corporate productivity.

Data assets and digital resources (DADRs) are among the world’s most valuable resources, yet their economic value is often underrepresented in GDP statistics and corporate financial statements. This underrepresentation stems from several factors, such as the complexities of valuing data assets, the absence of standardized accounting principles for data and other intangible assets and conflicting views on the need for such accounting. In this study, we strive to reconcile conflicting views by empirically investigating whether such accounting is necessary from the perspective of investors, namely, do investors care about the accounting treatment of DADR?

We leverage a unique event and adopt a well-established event-study approach to examine investors’ responses to a recent regulatory announcement regarding the accounting treatment of data assets. In August 2023, China’s Ministry of Finance introduced the Interim Provisions on the Accounting Treatment of Enterprise Data Resources (hereafter referred to as the Interim Provisions), marking the world’s first formalized framework for data asset accounting. This event provides an ideal context for this inquiry.

Our findings indicate that markets respond positively to the announcement, particularly for firms with more DADR proxied in different ways. However, the positive market reaction is significantly smaller for companies with higher levels of intangible asset intensity. This result aligns with the emerging literature, suggesting that firms with high intangible intensity experience greater information asymmetry and reduced value relevance of financial statements due to inadequate accounting treatment of intangibles. Moreover, the economic implications are notable. A long–short portfolio strategy, which involves buying stocks of firms in the top quartile of DADR proxies and selling those in the bottom quartile, yields an annualized cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of over 3.00%.

The novel insights from this study help reconcile conflicting views on the need for accounting treatment of data and other intangible assets because investors care about the accounting of data assets. Moreover, our research indicates an urgent need for the development of clear accounting guidelines for data and other intangibles, which would improve the consistency and reliability of financial reporting, benefiting all stakeholders. Finally, our findings hold important implications for regulators and accounting standard setters, especially given the ongoing debates regarding accounting for intangible assets.

Building a smart city is a necessary path to achieve sustainable urban development. Smart city public–private partnership (PPP) project is a necessary measure to build a smart city. Since there are many participants in smart city PPP projects, there are problems such as uneven distribution of risks; therefore, in order to ensure the normal construction and operation of the project, the reasonable sharing of risks among the participants becomes an urgent problem to be solved. In order to make each participant clearly understand the risk sharing of smart city PPP projects, this paper aims to establish a scientific and practical risk sharing model.

This paper uses the literature review method and the Delphi method to construct a risk index system for smart city PPP projects and then calculates the objective and subjective weights of each risk index through the Entropy Weight (EW) and G1 methods, respectively, and uses the combined assignment method to find the comprehensive weights. Considering the nature of the risk sharing problem, this paper constructs a risk sharing model for smart city PPP projects by initially sharing the risks of smart city PPP projects through Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to determine the independently borne risks and the jointly borne risks and then determines the sharing ratio of the jointly borne risks based on utility theory.

Finally, this paper verifies the applicability and feasibility of the risk-sharing model through empirical analysis, using the smart city of Suzhou Industrial Park as a research case. It is hoped that this study can provide a useful reference for the risk sharing of PPP projects in smart cities.

In this paper, the authors calculate the portfolio assignment by EW-G1 and construct a risk-sharing model by TOPSIS-Utility Theory (UT), which is applied for the first time in the study of risk sharing in smart cities.

As the two sides of the same coin, usefulness and usability have emerged as pivotal research themes in user experience field. This study compares cognitive effort and cognitive resource allocation strategy across documents varying perceived usefulness and then across documents with different objective usability (unimodal vs multimodal discourses).

A controlled user study of four identifying tasks related to public health epidemics was conducted to collect data, including document usefulness as perceived by participants, presentation modes of the document and gaze behaviors on each document.

Usefulness and modality discourse impact cognitive effort and resource allocation strategy in health information search. In useless health documents, spatial encoding resource spending increased significantly with multimodal discourse, and a spatial browsing strategy with an evident exploratory feature was applied; while in useful documents, including low-useful and high-useful, both spatial and information encoding resource spending increased significantly with multimodal discourse, and an information processing strategy with an evident comprehensive feature was applied. Notably, multimodal discourse failed to enhance decision-making effectiveness. Furthermore, in useful documents, the interaction effect of the presentation mode of useful information and multimodal discourse on cognitive effort followed an inverted U-shape pattern.

This paper sheds new light on the interaction effect of usefulness and usability on cognitive effort and resource allocation strategy, highlighting its significance in cognitive effort detecting for multimodal discourse and improving effectiveness and efficacy of health information identification by optimizing information presentation mode design.

This study aims to examine the association between mobile payment usage and financial anxiety and explore the mediating role of financial behavior. Moreover, this research also compares the moderating effects of financial education and financial knowledge.

A sample of 18,584 consumers from the 2021 National Financial Capability Study in the USA was analyzed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to explore indirect associations between mobile payment usage and financial anxiety. Two undesirable financial behaviors, overspending and overindebtedness, were used as mediators between mobile payment and financial anxiety. Moreover, multi-group analyses were conducted for two financial knowledge groups and two financial education groups to examine the heterogeneity. A robustness test is employed to ensure the reliability of the results.

The SEM results showed that the positive association between mobile payment and financial anxiety was mediated by overspending and overindebtedness in a parallel multiple mediation relationship. In addition, financial knowledge moderated the relationships between financial behaviors (overspending or overborrowing) and financial anxiety, while financial education moderated the associations between mobile payment use and overspending and between overspending and financial anxiety.

This study is limited by its use of cross-sectional data, which restricts conclusions on causality and temporal dynamics. Additionally, the study does not account for the potential bidirectional relationship between financial anxiety and mobile payment usage, which warrants further exploration. The mediating variables examination focus mainly on overspending and overindebtedness, suggesting the need to explore other factors like budgeting and saving. Finally, the study’s findings may not generalize to other populations, highlighting the need for research in diverse cultural contexts.

Consumers should be cautious of increased financial anxiety linked to overspending and debt. Platforms can help by enabling spending limits, sending alerts and providing detailed expenditure analysis. Stricter controls on loans and government regulations may also be needed to curb overindebtedness. Additionally, financial knowledge does not mitigate these risks, so even knowledgeable users should be cautious. Financial education programs should address debt management alongside overspending to provide a more comprehensive understanding of financial well-being.

This study explored the association between mobile payment use and financial anxiety and how undesirable financial behaviors like overspending and overindebtedness mediate this process. Furthermore, multi-group analyses were employed in financial education subsamples and financial knowledge subsamples. Based on the findings, implications were discussed for individual users, government regulation and education programs of mobile payment.

Firms are increasingly digitalizing their business processes and expanding them into digital platforms, which are believed to generate digital and relational resources that can facilitate and deliver innovations for firms. Instead of focusing on the extent of digital integration capability (DI), this paper seeks to empirically evaluate whether the DI asymmetry between the buyer and supplier firms influences bilateral information sharing and the buyer’s product innovation. We also examine the moderating effects of firms’ external (environmental dynamism) and internal (innovative climate) environments on these relationships.

Primary and secondary archival data on 180 buyer-supplier Chinese dyadic relationships were collected and analyzed using multiple linear regression models. Additionally, the Process macro was used to shed a nuanced light on the moderation effects of environmental dynamism and innovative climate.

The results show that DI asymmetry negatively impacts buyer firms’ product innovation through decreased information sharing. Environmental dynamism weakens the negative relationship between DI asymmetry and information sharing. Meanwhile, the innovative climate negatively moderates the relationship between information sharing and product innovation.

This study adds knowledge to the literature regarding the dark side of “one-sided digitalization.” By exploring the influences of unbalanced DI in buyer-supplier relationships, this study yields essential theoretical and managerial implications for product innovation success in a digital era.

This study aims to investigate an adaptive notch filtering approach to suppress the effects of elastic vibration on the attitude control of flexible launch vehicles.

First, the dynamics model of the flexible launch vehicle and baseline PID controller are presented. Furthermore, the frequency identification algorithm based on a second-order notch filter is developed to identify the elastic vibration frequency. Finally, a frequency holder is developed to update the notch frequency of the adaptive notch filter.

The proposed adaptive notch filter with a frequency holder can identify the vibration frequency accurately, update the notch frequency appropriately and suppress the effects of the elastic vibration on the attitude control of flexible launch vehicles effectively.

A novel adaptive notch filter with a frequency holder is proposed to address the adaptive filtering problem of elastic vibrations under nonelastic interference and elastic frequency uncertainty. Compared with the conventional filter for attitude control of flexible launch vehicles, an adaptive filter with a proposed frequency holder is developed to solve the problem of the frequency real-time update during the vibration suppression and frequency keeping after the vibration suppression.