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This study aims to explore the dynamic capabilities of international intermediaries that cooperate with Chinese factories. The authors determine the structure of these dynamic capabilities and inquire into the manner in which they allow an intermediary to respond to external change. Furthermore, the authors examine these capabilities both before and during a financial crisis in order to better understand how an international manufacturing intermediary can succeed during a poor economic situation.

Based on a case analysis involving multiple organizations, the authors use triangulated data from a variety of sources: five American intermediaries, 28 Chinese factories, and additional source data.

Results from this study show that, compared to other firms, intermediary organizations contain additional dynamic capabilities. This allows for the creation of a new three-tier model of intermediary capabilities: internal dynamic capabilities, external network capacity, and external dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that impression management, guanxi, and other external dynamic capabilities can be used to influence how external firms allocate and re-allocate their resources and thus become a crucial dynamic capability. This case analysis also determines that the financial crisis actually strengthened the dynamic capabilities of these intermediaries.

This paper is the first to determine the structure of the dynamic capabilities for this type of intermediary and to demonstrate that they possess dynamic capabilities that can influence how an external firm re-allocates resources. Additionally, the authors extend the dynamic capabilities literature to the type of firm that operates in an emerging economy.

The emergence of social media as a corporate disclosure channel has caused significant changes in the production and dissemination of corporate information. This review identifies important themes in recent research on the impact of social media on the corporate information environment and provides suggestions for further explorations of this new but fast-growing area of research. Specifically, we first review the evolution of Internet-based corporate disclosure and related regulations, and then focus on three recent streams of research: 1) companies’ use of social media; 2) information produced by non-corporate users and its impact on capital markets; and 3) the credibility of corporate information on social media platforms.

Due to the vital role of frugal innovation (FI) for firms in developing and emerging economies, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of transformational leadership (TL) and knowledge sharing (KS) on FI of firms in supply chains. This study aims to bring deeper insight on the correlation among the constructs by exploring and analyzing the moderating effect of collaborative culture (CC) in the KS-FI relationship.

The paper used the quantitative approach and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the relationship among the latent factors in the proposed research model using data collected from 381 participants in 116 manufacturing and service firms.

The findings revealed that TL might be an important precursor to induce significant influences on FI directly or indirectly through its effect on active and passive KS processes in supply chains. In addition, the paper highlights the moderating role of CC in strengthening the impact of KS processes on FI.

The paper provides a valuable understanding and novel approach for managers to improve firms' FI capability through leadership practice and KS processes. The research findings support the idea that FI capability of firms in developing and emerging nations will be significantly enhanced if leaders are interested in practicing TL style and fostering a climate of collaboration within organization.

This study contributes to bridging research gaps in the literature and advancing the insights of how TL directly and indirectly fosters FI via mediating roles of active and passive KS processes in supply chains under the climate of collaboration.

In this study, a novel grey combined model, termed the logistic-Grey-Markov model, is proposed. This model aims to construct a relation function between transition probabilities and residual errors and fully utilize the information from residual errors to calculate optimal transition probabilities for more accurate predictions.

To address this issue, the logistic function is introduced and improved to accommodate different types of samples. Then the improved logistic function is applied to construct a relation function between transition probabilities and sample residual errors. Additionally, to obtain the optimal coefficients in the relation function, a least square objective function is constructed, and the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm is employed. With these optimal coefficients, the relation function can fully utilize the information of residual errors and calculate the optimal transition probabilities.

The improved logistic function in the logistic-Grey-Markov model ensures that the information from sample residual errors is fully utilized and case studies demonstrate that the proposed logistic-Grey-Markov model can effectively improve the prediction accuracy.

One of the strengths of the Grey-Markov model is its ability to predict outcomes with small and highly volatile samples. However, the prediction accuracy is not ideal due to the information waste of residual errors, especially when only a small sample size is available. The proposed logistic-Grey-Markov model can fully utilize the information in residual errors to calculate the optimal transition probabilities and improve the accuracy of the Grey-Markov model.

The purpose of this paper is to present a control strategy which uses two independent PID controllers to realize the hovering control for unmanned aerial systems (UASs). In addition, the aim of using two PID controller is to achieve the position control and velocity control simultaneously.

The dynamic of the UASs is mathematically modeled. One PID controller is used for position tracking control, while the other is selected for the vertical component of velocity tracking control. Meanwhile, fuzzy logic algorithm is presented to use the actual horizontal component of velocity to compute the desired position.

Based on this fuzzy logic algorithm, the control error of the horizontal component of velocity tracking control is narrowed gradually to be zero. The results show that the fuzzy logic algorithm can make the UASs hover still in the air and vertical to the ground.

The acquired results are based on simulation not experiment.

This is the first study to use two independent PID controllers to realize stable hovering control for UAS. It is also the first to use the velocity of the UAS to calculate the desired position.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Gallic acid is a substance that is widely found in nature. Initially, it was only used as a corrosion inhibitor to retard the rate of corrosion of metals. In recent years, with intensive research by scholars, the modification of coatings containing gallic acid has become a hot topic in the field of metal protection. This study aims to summarize the various preparation methods of gallic acid and its research progress in corrosion inhibitors and coatings, as well as related studies using quantum chemical methods to assess the predicted corrosion inhibition effects and to systematically describe the prospects and current status of gallic acid applications in the field of metal corrosion inhibition and protection.

First, the various methods of preparation of gallic acid in industry are understood. Second, the corrosion inhibition principles and research progress of gallic acid as a metal corrosion inhibitor are presented. Then, the corrosion inhibition principles and research progress of gallic acid involved in the synthesis and modification of various rust conversion coatings, nano-coatings and organic resin coatings are described. After that, studies related to the evaluation and prediction of gallic acid corrosion inhibition on metals by quantum chemical methods are presented. Finally, new research ideas on gallic acid in the field of corrosion inhibition and protection of metals are summarized.

Gallic acid can be used as a corrosion inhibitor or coating in metal protection.

There is a lack of research on the synergistic improvement of gallic acid and other substances.

The specific application of gallic acid in the field of metal protection was summarized, and the future research focus was put forward.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper systematically expounds on the research progress of gallic acid in the field of metal protection for the first time and provides new ideas and directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the historical background of genealogical records and analyze the value of Chinese genealogical research through the study of names and genealogical resources.

The paper examines the historical evolution and value of Chinese genealogical records, with the focus on researching the Islamic Chinese names used by the people living in Guilin. The highlight of this paper includes the analysis and evolution of the Islamic Chinese names commonly adopted by the local people in Guilin. It concludes with the recommendations on emphasizing and making the best use of genealogical records to enhance the research value of Chinese overseas studies.

The paper covers the history of Islam and describes how the religion was introduced into China, as well as Muslims' ethnicity and identity. It also places focus on the importance of building a research collection in Asian history and Chinese genealogy.

This research study has a strong subject focus on Chinese genealogy, Asian history, and Islamic Chinese surnames. It is a narrow field that few researchers have delved into.

The results of this study will assist students, researchers, and the general public in tracing the origin of their surnames and developing their interest in the social and historical value of Chinese local history and genealogies.

The study of Chinese surnames is, by itself, a particular field for researching the social and political implications of contemporary Chinese society during the time the family members lived.

Very little research has been done in the area of Chinese local history and genealogy. The paper would be of value to researchers such as historians, sociologists, ethnologists and archaeologists, as well as students and anyone interested in researching a surname origin, its history and evolution.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between high temperature oxidation and temperature rise rate of engine oil attempted to explore a new indicator to evaluate oil degradation.

Accelerated oxidation test combined with molecular simulation and road test is carried out in this paper. The temperature rise characteristics of mineral oil and synthetic oil under different oxidation temperatures (140°C, 155°C and 170°C) and time (50 h, 100 h, 150 h and 200 h) were determined by accelerated oxidation. The mechanism of temperature change characteristics of used oils was analyzed with molecular simulation. Two experimental vehicles carried six road tests with synthetic and mineral oil.

The results of this study show that the temperature rise rate of oxidized mineral and synthetic oil is higher than the new oil. The temperature rise rate is proportional to the oxidation time and oxidation temperature. The synthetic engine oil temperature rise rate is lower than that of the mineral engine oil. The same result was obtained in road tests. Molecular simulation verifies that small molecules were generated after oil oxidation which results in intermolecular friction and increased heat generation.

This paper indicates that temperature rise rate has potential to be taken as an indicator to evaluate oil oxidation which provides a new way for engine oil analysis.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0177/