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The ownership structure in Japanese firms has experienced a significant change recently, fueled primarily by regulatory changes. This has important repercussions on corporate performance and risk. This paper examines the impact of insider ownership on the default risk of Japanese firms.

We collected data from the Nikkei Corporate Governance Evaluation System (CGES) database for the period 2004–2019. Our final dataset yields 36,116 firm-year observations. We apply a firm fixed effect model for baseline regression. Endogeneity was checked by applying propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) techniques. Furthermore, the robustness of baseline regression results was checked using alternative estimation techniques.

Results show a significant positive influence of insider ownership on default risk. Furthermore, ROA volatility and stock price volatility appear to be the major channels through which insider ownership affects a firm’s default risk. We further document that external monitoring mechanisms, including traditional main bank ties, institutional ownership and analyst coverage, are the key risk-mitigating factors.

Our research deals with Japanese firms only. Future research may attempt to analyze the cases of emerging economies. Furthermore, future research might examine the ownership-default risk relationship for financial institutions to see if this relationship differs between financial and nonfinancial firms.

Insider ownership enhances the probability of default. Hence, policymakers may consider instituting a ceiling for insider ownership in Japanese firms. Moreover, we highlight various risk-mediating channels that would help policymakers adopt guidelines for mitigating corporate risk.

Our study is the first to investigate the effect of insider ownership on default risk in Japanese settings. Prior studies identified various determinants that affect firms’ default risk. Our study contributes to this stream of literature by examining the impact of insider ownership on default risk and extending the limited literature related to insider ownership.

This study aims to explore how manufacturing firms master customer lock-in through value creation by servitization innovation strategies from the perspective of asset specificity.

A multiple case study with triangulation fashion is adopted to identify servitization innovation strategies. Several manufacturing firms were investigated, which are distributed in different positions of the value chain. Content analysis and abductive approaches are adopted to analyze the data. Moreover, an in-depth interview and participatory observation were conducted to refine the analysis results.

This study identified four different focusing points of servitization operations. Based on these, the paper further induces an innovative servitization strategy matrix of customer lock-in, concerning communion, intellectual, existential and insubstantial strategies. Furthermore, a conceptual model of customer lock-in by servitization innovation from the perspective of asset specificity is elaborated. It is suggested that companies can use tangible or intangible resources by sharing or storing operations to create servitization value.

This study theoretically proposes a conceptual model to extend servitization innovation as an intangible asset and adopt the new perspective of asset specificity to illustrate the value creation in servitization to generate customer lock-in.

The purpose of this paper is to fill the research and cognitive gap by comparative analyzing of the cluster supply chain (CSC) and supply chains not belonging to the clusters to examine the relational embeddedness as the differentiator of supply chains operating in the clusters.

The conceptual model was tested with data collected from 475 industrial companies cooperating with their partners within supply chains, including 135 CSC. To identify the livraisons between different indicators, the correspondence analysis was applied.

The division of enterprises participating in this study into groups allows for the determination of relatively clear boundaries between enterprises belonging to the cluster and those that do not declare such affiliation. The obtained results confirmed that the relational embeddedness is the differentiator of the CSC collaboration.

The main limitations are referred to as the static character of the data.

The paper contains implications for cluster facilitators, as well as for cluster policy decision makers, to better design support for cluster organizations.

This research is a contribution to the literature on inter-organizational structures, such as clusters and supply chains, and in particular, contributes to the creation of the scientific ground of SCS theory. The research allowed to better understand the nature of collaboration taking into consideration the fact of the relational embeddedness of the companies operating within supply chains located in clusters. It proves the existence of a new type of inter-organizational form that is CSC.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a two-degrees-of-freedom wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring, in order to improve the robot’s athletic ability, load capacity and rigidity, and to ensure the coordination of multi-modal motion.

First, based on the rotation transformation matrix and closed-loop constraint equation of the parallel trunk joint mechanism, the mathematical model of its inverse position solution is constructed. Then, the Jacobian matrix of velocity and acceleration is derived by time derivative method. On this basis, the stiffness matrix of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is derived on the basis of the principle of virtual work and combined with the deformation effect of the rope driving pair and the spring elastic restraint pair. Then, the eigenvalue distribution of the stiffness matrix and the global stiffness performance index are used as the stiffness evaluation index of the mechanism. In addition, the performance index of athletic dexterity is analyzed. Finally, the distribution map of kinematic dexterity and stiffness is drawn in the workspace by numerical simulation, and the influence of the introduced spring on the stiffness distribution of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is compared and analyzed. It is concluded that the stiffness in the specific direction of the parallel trunk joint mechanism can be improved, and the stiffness distribution can be improved by adjusting the spring elastic structure parameters of the rope-driven branch chain.

Studies have shown that the wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring has a great kinematic dexterity, load-carrying capacity and stiffness performance.

The soft-mixed structure is not mature, and there are few new materials for the soft-mixed mixture; the rope and the rigid structure are driven together with a large amount of friction and hindrance factors, etc.

It ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot can meet the requirement of sufficient different stiffness for different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism, and it ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot in multi-motion mode can meet the performance requirement of global stiffness change at different pose points of different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism.

The trunk structure is a very critical mechanism for animals. Animals in the movement to achieve smooth climbing, overturning and other different postures, such as centipede, starfish, giant salamander and other multi-legged animals, not only rely on the unique leg mechanism, but also must have a unique trunk joint mechanism. Based on the cooperation of these two mechanisms, the animal can achieve a stable, flexible and flexible variety of motion characteristics. Therefore, the trunk joint mechanism has an important significance for the coordinated movement of the whole body of the multi-sport mode mobile robot (Huang Hu-lin, 2016).

In this paper, based on the idea of combining rigid parallel mechanism with wire-driven mechanism, a trunk mechanism is designed, which is composed of four spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism in series. Its spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism can make the multi-motion mode mobile robot have better load capacity, mobility and stiffness performance (Qi-zhi et al., 2018; Cong-hao et al., 2018), thus improving the environmental adaptability and reliability of the multi-motion mode mobile robot.

This paper examines the impact of corporate digital transformation on employee satisfaction. Therefore, this study extends our understanding of the economic consequences of corporate digital transformation from employees’ perspectives.

The data used to construct our main proxy of employee satisfaction are collected from Kanzhun.com, which provides reviews by rank-and-file employees on their employers. This study uses a large sample of Chinese firms and adopts various empirical methods to examine the impact of digital transformation on employee satisfaction.

We find a significant positive relationship between corporate digital transformation and employee satisfaction. Moreover, we document that the relationship between corporate digital transformation and employee satisfaction is more pronounced in firms with higher labor intensity and in state-owned enterprises (SOE).

One significant limitation is that corporate digital transformation is constructed based on word frequency analysis. This approach may be influenced by variations in corporate disclosure practices and might not accurately capture the true extent of corporate digital transformation. This limitation is not only present in our research but is also pervasive in many other studies that utilize similar methodologies. Therefore, our results should be interpreted with this caveat in mind.

Our study suggests that corporate digital transformation enhances employee satisfaction, providing direct evidence for managers and regulators to promote corporate digital transformation. Through digital transformation, companies can not only improve operational efficiency but also foster employee satisfaction. This dual benefit underscores the importance of investing in corporate digital transformation for long-term success.

Our study suggests that corporate digital transformation enhances employee satisfaction, providing direct evidence for managers and regulators to promote corporate digital transformation. Through digital transformation, companies can not only improve operational efficiency but also foster employee satisfaction. This dual benefit underscores the importance of investing in corporate digital transformation for long-term success.

Our study contributes to the literature on the economic consequences of corporate digital transformation and extends existing research on the determinants of employee satisfaction. Additionally, it provides a novel measurement of employee satisfaction for a large sample of Chinese firms.

The purpose of this research is to better understand the human aspects of open innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by exploring how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation influence enjoyment in helping others, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding and consequently firms' open innovation.

We collected data with a survey among CEOs in 140 SMEs and performed confirmatory factor analysis applying structural equation modeling in IBM SPSS AMOS (v. 26).

Results reveal that intrinsic motivation is positively associated with helping behavior and knowledge sharing and negatively associated with knowledge hiding. We also confirm the positive relationship between extrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing. Moreover, we find that knowledge sharing increases and knowledge hiding decreases the firm-level open innovation. Especially in high-tech industry, knowledge sharing is a vital determinant of open innovation.

Responding to the calls for a deeper understanding of the individual-level factors that determine organization-level open innovation, in this research we focus on the human aspect of open innovation in SMEs. Open innovation is a widely recognized and implemented concept among large corporations and facilitates better understanding of new technological and market developments both within and outside of organizations. However, understanding of the microfoundations of open innovation in smaller firms is still limited, but this steam of research is growing rapidly.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether China’s public sector can continue to generate advanced genetically modified (GM) technologies that will be competitive in the market.

The authors investigated all the research teams that have been conducting research projects under the variety development special program. The data collected include detail information on research capacity, research areas, performance, and process of their research projects. Based on the survey data, the authors assessed the innovations and progress of the variety development special program.

Unlike other countries, most GM products in China are developed by public research institutes. There is rising concern on the ability of China’s public sector to continuously generate indigenous GM technology that can compete with multinational companies. The study surveyed 197 research institutes and 487 research teams and found that the GM program in China lacks coordination: researchers do not want to share their research materials with others. Due to the lack of coordination, most of the hundreds of research teams often worked independently in the year 2008-2010. Moreover, the authors found the lack of coordination may be due to the reason that the interests of researchers are not well protected. This paper also provided the recent progress and policy changes of GM program in China, and it found that the efficiency in the later three years improved a lot. In order to establish a competitive national public GM research system, China should continuously consolidate and integrate the upstream, midstream, and downstream activities of the whole GM innovation process. China’s public sector may also need to work more closely with both the domestic and international private sectors.

This paper is a comprehensive analysis on the development of transgenic technology in China. The results of this paper can provide evidence for the dynamic adjustment of the policies in the variety development special program and can also provide reference for the future assessment of the variety development special program.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the connections between the capabilities of suppliers, buyer operations and the innovation performance of buyers in service-based supply chains. In particular, the authors use a construct of supplier capabilities comprising the capabilities needed to produce an online store and divided into capabilities related to the product, capabilities related to service delivery and capabilities related to the buyer-supplier relationship.

Data were collected with cross-sectional, random sampling from Finnish companies that have an active online store. A survey was used to collect data on managerial assessments of capabilities of a supplier, the operations of buyers and the innovation performance of buyers. Multiple regressions were used to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that capabilities related to the buyer-supplier relationship are positively connected with the innovation performance of the buyer, but those related to the product and service delivery do not significantly influence the innovation performance of the buyer. The results show that the moderating influence of buyer operations on the relationship between capabilities related to the product and the innovation performance of the buyer is negative. The moderating influence of buyer operations on the relationship between capabilities related to service delivery and the innovation performance of the buyer is positive.

Forming tight relationships with online store suppliers appears to be a successful way to attain innovation performance for online store operators. Online store operators should not expect supplier capabilities related to online store functionality and characteristics of online store delivery alone to improve their innovation performance.

Few studies use an e-business operations model to comprehend the role played by supplier capabilities in buyer innovation performance in service-based supply chains. Building on a resource-based view with inter-organizational management and e-business literature streams, the authors focus on three supplier capabilities and buyer operations to investigate their effects in terms of enhancing innovation performance.

Posting and sharing about food on social media has surged in popularity amongst younger generations such as Millennials and Generation Z. This study aims to analyse and compare food-tourism sharing behaviour on social media across generations. First, this study specifically investigates the factors influencing the intention to share food experiences on social media; second, it examines the impact of sharing intention on actual behaviour and loyalty; and third, it determines whether Millennials and Generation Z differ in these relationships.

A survey was carried out of Millennial and Generation Z travellers who shared food experiences on social media. Structural equation modelling (SEM) and multi-group analysis were performed to examine the cause-and-effect relationship in both generations.

The findings reveal differences in motivation, satisfaction, sharing intention, sharing behaviour and loyalty between generations (Millennials and Generation Z).

This study contributes to the literature on the antecedents of food-sharing behaviour in online communities by indicating factors that influence the sharing of culinary experiences and brand or destination loyalty across generations. Suggestions for future research include exploring online food-sharing behaviour through cross-cultural comparisons in various regions.

As Millennials and Generation Z will expand their market share in the coming years, the findings of this study can help improve marketing strategies for culinary tourism and generate more intense food experiences for both generations.

The outcome of the research provides new insights to develop a conceptual model of food-sharing behaviour and tourism on social media by drawing comparisons across generations.

The objective of this research is to investigate the barriers impacting the integration of Industry 5.0 (I5.0) in supply chain sustainability. By understanding these challenges, this study aims to provide valuable insights that can guide organizations in successfully implementing the transformative potential of I5.0. The ultimate aim is to improve operational efficiency and advocate for sustainable practices within supply chains.

Research has used industry expert interviews, a comprehensive literature review and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory approach for analysis. Industry expert interviews serve to capture first-hand insights from professionals well versed in the field, providing practical perspectives on the barriers to I5.0 adoption.

This study identifies technological challenges, organizational barriers, regulatory impediments and economic constraints as pivotal factors inhibiting the widespread adoption of I5.0 in supply chain sustainability.

This research serves as a foundation for future investigations into overcoming barriers to I5.0 adoption, guiding scholars and practitioners in refining strategies for successful implementation.

The findings offer practical insights for organizations aiming to adopt I5.0, informing decision-makers on key challenges and facilitating the development of targeted strategies to overcome them.

The social implications lie in fostering sustainable business practices through the adoption of I5.0, contributing to environmental responsibility and societal well-being.

This research contributes original insights from practitioners, policymakers and researchers in navigating the complex landscape of I5.0 adoption, ensuring meaningful contributions to both academia and industry.