Fangli Mou and Dan Wu
In recent years, owing to the rapidly increasing labor costs, the demand for robots in daily services and industrial operations has been increased significantly. For further…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, owing to the rapidly increasing labor costs, the demand for robots in daily services and industrial operations has been increased significantly. For further applications and human–robot interaction in an unstructured open environment, fast and accurate tracking and strong disturbance rejection ability are required. However, utilizing a conventional controller can make it difficult for the robot to meet these demands, and when a robot is required to perform at a high-speed and large range of motion, conventional controllers may not perform effectively or even lead to the instability.
Design/methodology/approach
The main idea is to develop the control law by combining the SMC feedback with the ADRC control architecture to improve the robustness and control quality of a conventional SMC controller. The problem is formulated and solved in the framework of ADRC. For better estimation and control performance, a generalized proportional integral observer (GPIO) technique is employed to estimate and compensate for unmodeled dynamics and other unknown time-varying disturbances. And benefiting from the usage of GPIO, a new SMC law can be designed by synthesizing the estimation and its history.
Findings
The employed methodology introduced a significant improvement in handling the uncertainties of the system parameters without compromising the nominal system control quality and intuitiveness of the conventional ADRC design. First, the proposed method combines the advantages of the ADRC and SMC method, which achieved the best tracking performance among these controllers. Second, the proposed controller is sufficiently robust to various disturbances and results in smaller tracking errors. Third, the proposed control method is insensitive to control parameters which indicates a good application potential.
Originality/value
High-performance robot tracking control is the basis for further robot applications in open environments and human–robot interfaces, which require high tracking accuracy and strong disturbance rejection. However, both the varied dynamics of the system and rapidly changing nonlinear coupling characteristic significantly increase the control difficulty. The proposed method gives a new replacement of PID controller in robot systems, which does not require an accurate dynamic system model, is insensitive to control parameters and can perform promisingly for response rapidity and steady-state accuracy, as well as in the presence of strong unknown disturbances.
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Shuifa Ke, Dan Qiao and Zhangchun Chen
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of different factors on forestry production, with an aim to explore the degree of connection between forestry economic growth…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of different factors on forestry production, with an aim to explore the degree of connection between forestry economic growth and influencing factors such as forestry investment, labor input, afforestation area, scientific and technologies progress, and the reform of property-rights regimes.
Design/methodology/approach
According to the data of China Forestry Statistical Yearbook from 1978 to 2017, this paper uses the grey correlation analysis to observe and analyze the factors influencing China’s forestry economics growth.
Findings
The results show that capital investment demonstrates the largest impact on the forestry output value, followed by property system, afforestation area, labor input and technologies progress. The correlation coefficients of the above factors are 0.874451654,0.85827468,0.835138412,0.832985604 and 0.825747493. This means that forestry capital investment plays a major role in contributing to forest economic growth; forest property system also plays a positive role in the growth of forestry economy.
Originality/value
This paper uses continuous data collected during 1978‒2017, which are quite extensive as compared to data used in the existing research, considering the influencing factors are comprehensive, especially the impact of property right system reform on forestry economic growth.
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Dan Qiao, Shuifa Ke, Xiaoxiao Zhang and Qiya Feng
The paper aims to explore the impact of marketization on forestry economic growth. Firstly, the development process of forestry marketization was summarized. Secondly, from the…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the impact of marketization on forestry economic growth. Firstly, the development process of forestry marketization was summarized. Secondly, from the three dimensions of forestry production factor marketization, production marketization and product marketization, the framework of marketization is constructed by the authors.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the yearbook data from 1978 to 2016, the relationship between forestry marketization and forestry growth was demonstrated through multiple regression and Granger test in this paper.
Findings
The results showed that forestry marketization was one of the important driving factors that impacted on China's forestry economic growth. Since the reform and opening up, China's forestry marketization degree has been constantly strengthened, but there is still room for improvement. China has provided an important model as forestry marketization reform and development sample for the world.
Social implications
Many useful references and inspirations have been provided from China such as gradually promoting market-oriented reforms; paying attention to the important role of reform and opening up in the construction of market mechanism; dynamic coordination of market and government relations; developing and connecting the relationship between domestic and international market; and coordinating the development of forestry state-owned economy, private economy and mixed ownership economy.
Originality/value
This paper creates a measure index of forestry marketization from three dimensions of forestry production factor marketization, production marketization and product marketization.
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Tingwei Gao, Yueting Chai and Yi Liu
The main purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth theoretical review and analysis for the fields of knowledge management (KM) and investigate the future research trend…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth theoretical review and analysis for the fields of knowledge management (KM) and investigate the future research trend about KM.
Design/methodology/approach
At first, few theoretical basis about KM which include definitions and stages about KM have been summarized and analyzed. Then a comprehensive review about the major approaches for designing the KM system from different perspectives including knowledge representation and organization, knowledge sharing and performance measure for KM has been conducted.
Findings
The contributions of this paper will be useful for both academics and practitioners for the study of KM.
Originality/value
For this research, the focus is on conducting an in-depth theoretical review and analysis of KM.
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Weihua Liu, Di Wang, Shangsong Long, Xinran Shen and Victor Shi
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolution of service supply chain management from a behavioural operations perspective, pointing out future research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolution of service supply chain management from a behavioural operations perspective, pointing out future research directions for scholars.
Design/methodology/approach
This study searched five databases for relevant literature published between 2009 and 2018, selecting 64 papers for this review. The selected literature was categorised according to two dimensions: a service supply chain link perspective and a behavioural factor perspective. Comparative analysis was used to identify gaps in the literature, and five future research agendas were proposed.
Findings
In terms of the perspective of service supply chain link, extant literature primarily focuses on service supply and service co-ordination management, and less on service demand and integration management. In terms of the behavioural factor’s perspective, most focus on classic behaviour factors, with less attention paid to emerging behaviour factors. This paper thus proposes five research agendas: demand-oriented management and integrated supply chain-oriented behavioural research; broadening the understanding of the scope of behavioural operations; integrating the latest backgrounds and trends of service industry into the research; greater attention to behavioural operations in service sub-industries; and multimethod combination is encouraged to be used to dig into the interesting research problems.
Originality/value
This study constitutes the first systematic review of service supply chain research from a behavioural perspective. By categorising the literature into two dimensions, the state of existing research is evaluated with an eye towards future research avenues.
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Dongping Cao, Xuejiao Teng, Yanyu Chen, Dan Tan and Guangbin Wang
This study aims to explore how project-based firms, which generally organize most of their work around temporary projects in discontinuous and fragmented types of business…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how project-based firms, which generally organize most of their work around temporary projects in discontinuous and fragmented types of business contexts, proactively formulate and implement digital transformation strategies under institutional pressures in a predigital era.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory case study was conducted in a large-scale construction company in China using multiple data collection methods, including semistructured interviews, documentation collection and observation.
Findings
An integrated framework is developed to conceptualize three key dimensions of digital transformation strategies of project-based firms: strategic adaptation for organization-environment fit through balancing the internal efficiency needs with the external legitimacy pressures; proactive business transformation through comprehensively managing the roles of digital technologies in optimizing defined business processes and fostering new business models; and delicate organizational transformation to integrate temporary project-level operation processes with ongoing firm-level business processes.
Originality/value
This study represents an exploratory effort to empirically investigate how project-based firms strategically organize complex digital transformation imperatives in their discontinuous and fragmented business contexts. The findings contribute to deepened understandings of how complex organizational and environmental contexts can be comprehensively managed for systemic business and organizational transformations to leverage the value of emerging digital technologies for project-based organizations.
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The past decade has witnessed a tremendous and progressive growth in the number of Nigerians who engage in medical tourism from Nigeria to India. Various commentators have…
Abstract
Purpose
The past decade has witnessed a tremendous and progressive growth in the number of Nigerians who engage in medical tourism from Nigeria to India. Various commentators have advanced diverse reasons for this trend. However, there is a dearth of research that has sought to provide empirical insights. This paper aims to investigate the decision-making process of Nigerian medical tourists and why they prefer medical tourism to India to medical care locally.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight Nigerian medical tourists are interviewed on a one-on-one basis with open-ended questions using purposive criterion sampling technique from an interpretivist mind-set.
Findings
The paper identifies two major motivators, namely, inadequate medical infrastructure and poor medical, and customer service from health workers in Nigeria, which spurred medical tourism from Nigeria to India. Further, it finds that first timers premise their decisions on advice from reference groups, while previous personal experiences guide decisions on subsequent medical travels. Findings are explained using the template provided by the theory of planned behaviour.
Originality/value
This exploratory nature of this research provides a useful basis to elucidate the course of decision-making of Nigerian patients so that appropriate marketing communication channels can be applied. It improves the process of recruiting and engaging Nigerian patients and nurturing wholesome relationships between Nigerian patients and hospitals.
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This systematic review aims to examine integrating innovative work behavior through transformational leadership in the Saudi healthcare sector. A thorough literature research was…
Abstract
Purpose
This systematic review aims to examine integrating innovative work behavior through transformational leadership in the Saudi healthcare sector. A thorough literature research was carried out to address this problem.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 50 papers reporting research on innovative work behavior, healthcare organizational performance and transformational leadership were included in the review.
Findings
As employees are motivated and developed, their innovative work behaviors are boosted, which improves organizational performance. It can be concluded that innovative work behavior and transformational leadership are correlated. The capacity of a healthcare company to create and execute benefits to the employees may assure service delivery efficiency in employees' performance.
Practical implications
This systematic review will allow contemporary advancements, efficient health status monitoring and reliable solutions that aid optimal, equal and effective treatment in Saudi’s healthcare industry.
Originality/value
In an innovative workplace, workers may pitch fresh ideas to their management. Hence, employees see their employer as more transformational.
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Lianghui Xie, Zhenji Zhang, Robin Qiu and Daqing Gong
The paper aims to identify and analyze passengers’ riding paths for providing better operational support for digital transformation in megacity metro systems.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to identify and analyze passengers’ riding paths for providing better operational support for digital transformation in megacity metro systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop a method to leverage certain passengers’ deterministic riding paths to corroborate other passengers’ uncertain paths. Using Automatic Fare Collection data and train schedules, a witness model is built to recover the actual riding paths for passengers whose paths are unknown otherwise. The identification and analysis of passenger riding paths between three different types of origin–destination) pairs reveal the complexity of passenger path choice.
Findings
The results show that passenger path choice modeling is usually characterized by complexity, experience and partial blindness. Some passengers choose paths that are not optimal due to their experience and limited access to overall metro system information. These passengers could be the subject of improved path guidance in light of riding efficiency improved through digital transformation.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the improvement of metro management and operations by leveraging ongoing digital transformation in megacity metro systems. Based on the riding paths and trip chains of a large number of individual passengers identified by the proposed method, metro operation management could prevent risks in areas with concentrated passenger flow in advance, optimally adjust train schedules on a daily basis and deliver real-time riding guidance station by station, which would greatly improve megacity metro systems’ service safety, quality and operational efficacy over time.