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This study aims to examine the impact of intellectual capital (IC) and its three components (human, structural and relational capital) on corporation performance in the Chinese transportation industry. In addition, this study also investigates auditor characteristics (both Big-N and non-Big-N auditors) as a moderating role to examine the relationship between IC and corporate performance.

The data include 398 firm-year observations of transportation companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2020. Value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) model and its modified version (MVAIC) are applied to measure IC efficiency. Finally, the fixed effects regression analysis is used to mitigate the endogeneity issue. To investigate the moderating effect of auditor characteristics, the authors divide the samples based on the clients audited by Big-4 and non-Big-4 firms.

This study reveals that IC can enhance firm performance in China’s transportation sector. Overall, findings indicate that on the whole, IC has a positive and significant impact on corporation profitability and productivity. Human capital and physical and financial assets (capital employed) play highly important roles, but structural capital has no significant impact. The authors also found that auditor characteristics play an important moderating role in the connection between IC and corporate performance. For example, the positive association between IC and corporate performance is more pronounced when Big-4 auditors audit client firms. At the same time, the authors found a negative relationship between IC and firm performance when non-Big-4 auditors audit client firms.

Managers must understand that several components of IC have a total effect on corporate financial performance. Therefore, managers can dedicate more resources to such components based on the performance outcomes to emphasize their business strategies.

This study is the first empirical analysis of the impact of IC and its components on corporation performance in the transportation sector in China, an emerging market. Previous studies mainly focus on developed countries’ high technology and financial industries sectors but the impact of IC in transportation industry largely remains unknown. Thus, the present findings contribute to IC literature by revealing several underlying mechanisms by which the components of IC help achieve good firm performance.

Scholars have examined the possible relationship between information technology (IT) and organizational agility. Although the general-level effect of IT is undisputed, empirical research on how different types of IT contribute to various aspects of organizational agility remains scarce. Therefore, this study aims to propose an integrated framework of internal capability and external environment to address this research gap.

This study investigates the potential mediating effects of absorptive capacity and the moderating effects of information intensity in the IT‒agility relationship. With a dataset comprising 165 organizations in China, this work provides empirical evidence that the effects of absorptive capacity and information intensity are multifaceted and nuanced, thereby revealing the latent mechanisms of IT competency and organizational agility.

Absorptive capacity partially mediates the effects of IT knowledge and IT operations on market capitalizing agility and fully mediates their effects on operational adjustment agility. However, no direct or indirect effects of IT objects are found on both types of organizational agility. Information intensity also positively moderates the effects of IT operations and IT objects on absorptive capacity. However, no significant moderation is found with regard to IT operations.

This study provides novel insights by demonstrating clearly the different mediating roles of absorptive capacity in the relationship among various types of IT competency and diverse aspects of organizational agility. This work also underscores the moderating role of information intensity in shaping absorptive capacity through IT competency.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the joint effects of different types of IT resources and top management support. Especially, the authors attempt to mainly examine a negative synergy or substitution relationship between IT infrastructure resources and CEO support, and a positive synergy or complementary relationship between IT human resources and CEO support among the large-sized enterprises.

A research model that integrates IT infrastructure resources, IT human resources, CEO support and the degree of usage of IT for business objectives (i.e. IT business spanning capability) is developed. Based on a sample of 112 large-sized enterprises, partial least squares is used to analyze the research model.

Whereas the positive moderating role of CEO support in the effectiveness of IT human resources is insignificant, CEO support and IT infrastructure resources have a substitution relationship in predicting IT business spanning capability. Furthermore, the results can explain under which conditions IT infrastructure resources insignificantly or significantly affect IT business spanning capability in large-sized enterprises. Specially, IT infrastructure resources significantly affect IT business spanning capability only when CEO support is low. Thus, in the presence of high CEO support, IT executives in large-sized enterprises should prioritize developing highly effective IT resources, such as IT human resources.

This paper highlights the joint effects of two critical IT resource types (i.e. IT infrastructure and IT human resources) and CEO support in the IT assimilation process among the large-sized enterprises, ultimately contributing to information systems theories and practices.

Using a reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer reaction, a series of resins were prepared by using N, N-diethyl acrylamide (DEA), poly (ß-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) as hydrophilic blocks and poly (glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) as hydrophobic blocks (and as a target for immobilizing penicillin G acylase [PGA]) and the low critical solution temperature (LCST) of which could be adjusted by changing the segment length of blocks.

To make the catalytic conversion temperature of immobilized PGA fallen into the temperature range of the sol state of thermosensitive block resin, a type of thermosensitive block resin, i.e. PDEA-b-PHEMA-b-PGMA (DHGs) was synthesized to immobilize PGA, and the effect of segment order of block resin was investigated on the performance of PGA.

Carrier prepared with monomers molar ratio of n(DEA) : n(HEMA): n(GMA) = 100: 49: 36 presented loading capacity (L) and enzyme activity recovery ratio (Ar) of 110 mg/g and 90%, respectively, and a block resin with LCST value of 33 °C was essential for keeping higher Ar of PGA.

PGA has become an important biocatalyst in modern chemistry industry. However, disadvantages include difficulty in separation, poor repeatability and high cost, which limits the scope of PGA applications. The effective method is to immobilize the enzyme to the carrier, which could overcome the disadvantage of free enzyme.

To achieve digital transformation, organizations have continued to rely on integrating the capabilities of information technology (IT) to facilitate decision-making and developing their reconfiguration capability to enhance agile operations. The pressure imposed by digital transformation necessitates investigations on leveraging different IT capabilities to attain substantial organizational agility in an optimal configuration. This study aims to provide a new perspective on balancing IT structural capabilities and proposes a framework for evaluating their coalignment and complementary returns based on resource orchestration theory.

A multi-method approach is used to evaluate the research model. This study tests hypotheses and explores the potential coalignment and complementary returns of balance in structural models and response surface analysis. Then, it analyzes the qualitative data and provides complementary findings to corroborate and confirm complex relationships.

Balanced structural IT capabilities facilitate organizational agility but cooperate differently with internal (e.g. IT proactive stance) and external (e.g. environmental volatility) environmental factors. Balance between IT integration and reconfiguration must be maintained from several approaches during search/selection and configuration/deployment.

This study theorizes and empirically investigates the interactive mechanisms of two IT capabilities in influencing organizational agility under different boundary conditions. It enriches the understanding of balancing capabilities for organizational agility in digital transformation.

With increasing globalization, supply chain management in various national cultures requires understanding. This study aims to examine the moderating effects of individualistic and uncertainty avoidance cultures on the relationship between supply chain integration (SCI) and different dimensions of firm performance (i.e. flexibility and financial).

This study collected 124 pairwise survey data from supply chain and senior managers of retail firms in 35 countries. Hofstede’s national culture index was used to examine the moderating effects. Structural equation modeling and regression analysis were used to test the model.

Results corroborate that in a higher uncertainty avoidance culture, the positive influence of SCI on flexibility performance is stronger, but that on financial performance is weaker. By contrast, individualism reduces the positive influence of SCI on financial performance, but does not moderate that on flexibility performance.

This paper proposes a contingent model for SCI-performance relationships by integrating the relational view and the national cultural perspective. Critical national cultural dimensions moderate the effects of SCI on flexibility and financial performance. Therefore, operational managers should design differential SCI strategies in various cultural settings.

To save the economic cost and improve the performance of enterprises, this study aims to synthesize high performance immobilized penicillin G acylase (PGA) carriers with fast reaction speed, high recovery rate of enzyme activity and good reusability through corresponding theoretical guidance and experimental exploration.

A diblock resin was synthesized by reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization method using N, N-diethylacrylamide (DEA) and β-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) as functional monomers poly(N, N-diethylacrylamide)-b-poly(β-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PDEA-b-PHEMA) was obtained, and the effect of the ratio of DEA and HEMA on the activity of PGA was investigated, and the appropriate block ratio of DEA and HEMA was obtained. After that, the competitive rate of HEMA and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) under the carrier preparation conditions was investigated. Based on the above work, a thermosensitive resin carrier PDEA-b-PHEMA-b-P(HEMA-co-GMA) with different target distances was synthesized, and the chemical structures and molecular weight of copolymers were investigated by hydrogen NMR (¹H NMR).

The lower critical solution temperature of the resin support decreases with the increase of the monomer HEMA in the random copolymerization; the catalytic performance study indicated that the response rate of the immobilized PGA is fast, and the recovery rate of the enzyme activity of the immobilized PGA varies with the distance between the targets. When the molar ratio of HEMA to GMA in the resin block is 8.15:1 [i.e. resin PDEA100-b-PHEMA10-b-P(HEMA65-co-GMA8)], the activity recovery rate of immobilized PGA can reach 50.51%, which was 15.49% higher than that of pure GMA immobilized PGA.

This contribution provides a novel carrier for immobilizing PGA. Under the optimal molar ratio, the enzyme activity recovery could be up to 50.51%, which was 15.49% higher than that of PGA immobilized on the carrier with nonregulated distance between two immobilization sites.

Live streaming sales (LSS) is an emerging and flourishing practice in the retail industry. While its implementation has been pervasively attempted, there is a lack of systematic and academic exploration of the practice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the LSS ecosystem and its development through a literature review and an industry analysis. Moreover, by pinpointing the pitfalls in current practices, this paper presents the practical implications of LSS and provides recommendations and directions for future academic exploration.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the developing trajectory, exclusive elements (such as multi-channel networks (MCNs) and live streamers) and other critical components of the LSS ecosystem using a mixed-methods approach that comprises content analysis of newspaper articles and press releases, literature view and industry analysis.

The results of the analyses indicate the presence of several nonfungible modular components in the LSS ecosystem, including upstream suppliers, MCNs, live streamers and platforms. It was also found that inequalities and hierarchies are inherent to the LSS ecosystem as it currently exists: low-end participants in the LSS industry and small- and medium-sized enterprise owners, who constitute the majority of LSS practitioners, cannot reach the break-even point via LSS hosted by top-level live streamers or others (low-level live streamers, employees, etc.).

This article discusses the LSS ecosystem based on the nature of the nonfungible modules within it. In addition, it discusses the modules (roles) and relationships among them based on the theory of ecosystem developed by previous studies. Furthermore, drawing from an analysis of the pitfalls in the LSS ecosystem, this article highlights strategies for two critical e-commerce processes: 1) choosing which type of LSS to apply based on the factors of brands, products and consumers and 2) integrating LSS to optimize post-sale service and appeal to the sustainability of development.

Analyses the evolution of China’s telephone and cable systems, in terms of the public interest, discussing current bureaucratic conflicts and policy debates over convergence, and construction of an independent broadband cable network. Looks in depth at China’s problems and the different problems for its citizens with regard to poverty levels and access to the Web.

The system of information technology (IT)-oriented resources and processes that organizations need to develop to achieve operational agility remains unclear. The study research seeks to extend existing competency literature by incorporating the unique contextual nuances of the relationship between IT capabilities and operational agility.

Using a multi-method approach, this paper presents a theoretical framework of IT-enabled operations strategy that conceptualizes the role of IT capability in leveraging resources and processes for operational agility. Drawing on operations and information systems research, the authors advance that IT enables operational agility through two dimensions. From the perspective of a resource-based operations strategy, the authors explore the role of IT in resource-leveraging activities by investigating the nonlinear relationship between IT infrastructure and IT reconfiguration. From the perspective of a process-oriented operations strategy, the authors explore the role of IT in process-enhancing activities by investigating the nonlinear relationship between IT coordination and IT integration.

The study results, based on a sample of 113 organizations in Europe, Asia and North America, show that the interaction between IT infrastructure and IT reconfiguration positively influences operational agility, hence showing complementarity between the two constructs, while the interaction between IT coordination and IT integration negatively affects operational agility, hence indicating substitutability between the two constructs. A series of 62 interviews and a case study of Carrefour were further conducted to validate the field survey's results and to provide a finer grained explanation of the research model and quantitative findings.

The study findings offer an alternative explanation of the inconsistent relationship between IT capability and operational agility.