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The purpose of this paper is to find the optimal environmental quality criteria for a strategic eco-labeling authority with three objectives (i.e. maximizing the aggregate environmental quality, maximizing the industry profit and maximizing the social welfare). Particularly, the authors investigate how the existence of imperfectly informed consumers affects labeling criteria determination and competition among firms.

A game-theoretic modeling approach was adopted in this paper. A three-stage sequential game was modeled and backward induction was used to solve for a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. To investigate the impacts of the existence of imperfectly informed consumers, the equilibrium, if all consumers are perfectly informed of the eco-label, was studied as a benchmark.

A more strict eco-labeling criterion improves revenues for both the labeled and unlabeled firms. It is interesting to find that the eco-labeling criteria to maximize industry profits are stricter than the criteria to maximize social welfare. Moreover, when the fraction of imperfectly informed consumers increases, the eco-labeling criteria to maximize aggregate environmental quality or industry profits will be more strict, while the criteria to maximize the social welfare will be looser.

The authors analyze the equilibrium strategies for firms against the eco-labeling criteria certified by authority with different objectives. The obtained optimal labeling strategies could provide insightful guidelines for the certifying authority to select the best suitable labeling criteria to achieve its goals.

Information technology-enabled gig platforms connect freelancers with consumers to provide short-term services or asset sharing. The growth of gig economy, however, has been accompanied by controversy, and, recently, food delivery platforms have been criticized for using data-driven techniques to set strict delivery time limits, resulting in negative externality. This study aims to provide managerial implications on the decisions of delivery time and subsidy for food delivery platforms.

The authors develop an analytical framework to investigate the optimal delivery time and subsidy provided to delivery drivers to maximize the gig platform's profit and compare the results with those of a socially optimal outcome.

The study reveals that it is optimal for the platform to shorten the delivery time and raise the subsidy when the food price becomes higher; nevertheless, the platform should shorten the delivery time and lower the subsidy in response to a higher delivery fee. Increases in the food price or delivery fee have non-monotonic effects on the number of fulfilled orders and the platform's profit. In addition, the authors solve the socially optimal outcome and find that a socially optimal delivery time is longer than the platform's preferred length when the delivery fee is high and the negative externality is strong.

The food delivery platform's optimal decision on delivery time is derived after taking negative externality into account, which is rarely considered in the prior literature but is a practically important problem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the diffusion of food safety information through social media affects customers’ purchase intentions in China. This leads to the identification of the critical factors that impact the purchase intention of individual consumer through the diffusion of food safety information using social media in China.

A research model is proposed based on a comprehensive review of the related studies. Such a model is then tested and validated using structural equation modeling based on the survey of 199 individuals who have experience in purchasing food products online while having social media accounts.

The study reveals that friend recommendation and perceived risk directly affect consumers’ purchase intentions and opinion leader recommendation, quality of information, credibility of information and demand for information indirectly affect consumers’ purchase intentions through the diffusion of food safety information using social media in China.

This study is the first of this kind in China for exploring the critical factors that affect consumers’ purchase intentions through the diffusion of food safety information using social media. The findings of the study are significant for the government and food enterprises to make a full use of the advantages of social media to improve the communication of food safety information in ensuring the safety of the food supply in China.

Embracing big data has been at the forefront of research for project management. Although there is a consensus that the adoption of big data has significantly positive impact on project performance, far less is known about how this innovative information technology becomes an effective driver of construction project quality improvement. This study aims to better understand the mechanism and conditions under which big data can effectively improve project quality performance.

Adopting Chinese construction enterprises as samples, the theoretical framework proposed in this paper is verified by the empirical results of the two-level hierarchical linear model. The moderated mediation analysis is also conducted to test the hypotheses. Finally, the empirical findings are validated by a comparative case study.

The results show that big data facilitates the development of technology capability, which further produces remarkable quality performance. That is, a project team's technology capability acts as a mediator in the relationship between organizational adaptability of big data and predictive analytics and project quality performance. It is also observed that two types of project team interdependence (goal and task interdependence) positively moderate the mediation effect.

The questionnaire study from China only represents the relationship within a short time interval in the current context. Future studies should apply longitudinal designs to properly test the causality and use multiple data sources to ensure the validity and robustness of the conclusions.

The value of big data in terms of quality improvement could not be determined in a vacuum; it also depends on the internal capability development and elaborate design of project governance.

This study provides an extension of the existing big data studies and fuels the ongoing debate on its actual outcomes in project management. It not only clarifies the direct effect of big data on project quality improvement but also identifies the mechanism and conditions under which the adoption of big data can play an effective role.

Merchant guild culture derives from business practices associated with medieval and early modern merchant guilds. This study aims to investigate the nexus between merchant guild culture and firm internationalization as well as the factors that moderate this nexus.

Based on the distribution of the ten merchant guilds in China and data on Chinese listed companies, this study uses the geographical proximity-based method to measure the intensity of merchant guild culture, which is the nearest distance between the ten merchant guilds’ origins and each firm’s registered address.

This study provides robust evidence that merchant guild culture positively relates to the degree of firm internationalization. It also documents that this nexus is stronger for firms with overseas background executives and those situated in highly marketized regions.

The findings of this study have valuable implications for both governments and firms. Governments can leverage local cultures to promote the internationalization of domestic firms, particularly in emerging economies with rich cultural heritage. Firms can further enhance their internationalization efforts by hiring more executives with overseas backgrounds.

This study advances the imprinting literature, provides a novel perspective on the antecedents of firm internationalization and expands research on the contemporary value of historical business culture.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate cutting-edge coagulant materials and procedures for the removal of harmful microplastics from the water.

Traditional methods of removing microplastics from water bodies, like filtration, face limitations due to the small sizes involved. Hence, coagulation and flocculation emerge as essential strategies to enhance filtration efficacy. This paper summarizes recent research on coagulant materials, including novel hybrids, for water purification. It also looks at the most recent improvements in coagulation and flocculation processes, as well as the factors that influence their efficiency.

This paper highlights recent research on coagulant materials, including novel hybrids, used in water purification. It also examines the most recent advancements in coagulation and flocculation procedures, as well as the elements influencing their effectiveness.

The environmental threat posed by plastics, especially in their non-naturally degradable forms, such as microplastics, has reached alarming proportions. These minute particles pervade our air, soil and water bodies, driven by various factors and sources. Their diminutive size, whether in micro or nano form, renders them ingestible by marine and freshwater organisms, as well as humans, posing significant health risks. Traditional methods of water cleaning are not effective in dealing with very small-sized plastics and hence this paper summarizes recent research on coagulant materials, including various novel hybrids, for water purification from tiny microplastics in detail.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the demographic characteristics of top management teams (TMTs) (i.e. age, gender, administrative level, senior management experience and educational background) and megaproject performance, with respect to schedule, cost, quality, safety and technological innovation. The results shed new light on the effectiveness of different types of TMT.

This paper collected secondary and objective data from 208 TMT members in 42 megaprojects and employed hierarchical regression analysis to test the research hypotheses.

The findings revealed that age has a significant influence on schedule performance; gender has a significant influence on safety performance; senior management experience has a significant influence on cost performance; and educational background has a significant influence on both schedule and technological innovation performance. However, this study did not find evidence of a significant relationship between the administrative level and megaproject performance.

This paper mainly focused on China’s megaprojects, most of which are globally influential (e.g. Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge and Shanghai Expo), however this sampling approach still limits the generalizability of research findings to other contexts.

The results of this paper contribute to a better understanding of how management team capabilities translate into better project achievements. This paper also provides implications on the criteria for selecting top megaproject managers to optimize the composition of the TMT and realize better performance.