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Flexible mechanical gripper has better safety and adaptability than a rigid mechanical hand. At present, there are few soft grippers for small objects on a millimeter scale. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to design a soft pneumatic gripper for grasping millimeter-scale small and fragile objects such as jewelry and electronic components.

By simulating the clamping action of the bird’s mouth and combining the high flexibility of the soft material, the bird’s beak soft pneumatic gripper is designed. First, the internal cavity of the gripping end of the gripper is determined by bending deformation calculation, and the brief manufacturing process of the gripper is outlined. Then, the single finger of the soft gripper is modeled mechanically, and the relationship between air pressure and bending deformation of the single finger is obtained. Finally, the experimental platform of the soft mechanical gripper is built, and the gripping performance of silicone rubber material is tested by comparison test, bending deformation test, stability test, adaptability test and gripping accuracy test.

The designed gripper has the advantages of simple structure, convenient operation, easy grasping of different small objects of millimeter-scale and good adaptability. It can grasp the precise dispensing needle with a minimum diameter of 0.19 mm, and its accuracy meets daily use.

A new type of soft pneumatic, the mechanical gripper is proposed and manufactured. According to the shape of the bird’s beak and the calculation of bending performance, a hollow finger gripper with better bending performance is designed. Various test results show that the gripper has a significant clamping effect on millimeter small objects, which supplements the research field of millimeter small object gripper.

As social network sites (SNS) have increasingly become one of the most important channels for communication, the related privacy issues gain more and more attention in both industry and academic research fields. This study aims to connect the antecedents of information privacy disclosure on SNS.

Based on exchange theory, this study tries to investigate the decision-making process for information privacy disclosure on SNS. Factors from both user’s and website’s perspectives are taken into account in the proposed model.

The results suggest that an individual’s perceived benefits will increase their willingness to disclose information privacy on SNS, but perceived risks decrease this kind of willingness. The authors also find social network size, personal innovativeness and incentive provision positively affect people’s perceived benefits.

Moreover, privacy invasion experience enhances perceived personal risks, but website reputation helps to reduce perceived risks.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the customer satisfaction by offering online personalized recommendation system.

By employing an innovative associative classification method, this paper is able to predict a customer’s pleasure during the online while-recommending process. Consumers can make an active decision to recommended products. Based on customer’s characteristics, a product will be recommended to the potential buyer if the model predicts that he/she will click to view the product. That is, he/she is satisfied with the recommended product. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed recommendation system is validated through a Taobao shop.

The results of the experimental study clearly show that the online personalized recommendation system maximizes the customer’s satisfaction during the online while-recommending process based on an innovative associative classification method on the basis of consumer initiative decision.

Conventionally, customers are considered as passive recipients of the recommendation system. However, customers are tired of the recommendation system, and they can do nothing sometimes. This paper designs a new recommendation system on the basis of consumer initiative decision. The proposed recommendation system maximizes the customer’s satisfaction during the online while-recommending process.

This study aims to investigate the structural characteristics, spatial evolution paths and internal driving mechanisms of the knowledge transfer (KT) network in China’s patent-intensive industries (PIIs). The authors' goal is to provide valuable insights to inform policy-making that fosters the development of relevant industries. The authors also aim to offer a fresh perspective for future spatiotemporal studies on industrial KT and innovation networks.

In this study, the authors analyze the patent transfer (PT) data of listed companies in China’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry, spanning from 2010 to 2021. The authors use social network analysis and the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) method to explore the problem of China’s PIIs KT from the perspectives of technical characteristics evolution, network and spatial evolution and internal driving mechanisms.

The results indicate that the knowledge fields involved in the PT of China’s ICT industry primarily focus on digital information transmission technology. From 2010 to 2021, the scale of the ICT industry’s KT network expanded rapidly. However, the polarization of industrial knowledge distribution is becoming more serious. QAP regression analysis shows that economic proximity and geographical proximity do not affect KT activities. The similarity of knowledge application capacity, innovation capacity and technology demand categories in various regions has a certain degree of impact on KT in the ICT industry.

The current research on PIIs mainly focuses on measuring economic contributions and innovation efficiency, but less on KT in PIIs. This study explores KT in PIIs from the perspectives of technological characteristics, network and spatial evolution. The authors propose a theoretical framework to understand the internal driving mechanisms of industrial KT networks.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to assess the degree of disclosure about compliance with corporate governance code and the explanations provided by Italian firms and second, to analyze the relationships between this disclosure and different variables of ownership structure.

The sample was composed of 75 non-financial companies listed in Italy in 2016. Content analysis of the corporate governance statement and ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression models were used to test the hypotheses.

Companies tended to comply with the corporate governance code and to disclose this information, but when they decided to not comply, they did not provide adequate explanations. Findings revealed a negative relation between ownership concentration and the disclosure analyzed. Results also highlight that a more equal distribution of shares among larger shareholders is beneficial for disclosure. Moreover, the presence of a dominant financial shareholder at a high level of ownership concentration creates inefficiency of the degree of adherence to the comply-or-explain principle.

This study examines in depth the underexplored issue of “explanation” and exceeds the issue of ownership concentration, which has already been examined extensively, raising the issues of counterweight power and shareholders’ identities, which remain underexplored. In this way, results presented contribute to explaining some causes of the diverse findings that research has found about the relationship between ownership concentration and voluntary disclosure, demonstrating the importance of counterweight power and largest shareholder’s identity. Consequently, when self-regulating initiatives are designed and implemented, legislators, regulators and managers should not ignore the characteristics of the firms’ ownership structure.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of board characteristics such as size, independence, busyness and duality on the extent of discretionary disclosures of listed Indian firms.

A disclosure index with 110 items was constructed to assess the discretionary disclosures in the annual reports of listed firms. The study measured disclosure using 1,024 firm-year observations over 8 years from 2009 to 2016. Board characteristics such as size, independence, busyness and duality have been used in the study as indicators of corporate governance.

The results indicate that while the proportion of independent directors positively impacts the extent of discretionary disclosures, boards with duality and the busyness of the director have a negative impact. The size of the board does not significantly impact the extent of disclosures.

This study examines the discretionary disclosures made only in the annual reports. Future studies could examine information disclosed in other media. Moreover, this study uses an un-weighted self-constructed disclosure index, which is subject to its inherent limitations.

This study has examined the impact of the “busyness” of the director on the extent of disclosures. This variable has not been explored in prior studies. The significance of the variable indicates that the number of directorships held impacts the efficiency with which a director performs his/her role in the board. The study reiterates the need for firms and policymakers to focus on improving board independence and to move away from leadership structures with duality.

This study aims to examine psychological mechanisms underlying tacit knowledge-sharing behaviours. The personality trait of conscientiousness is tested in relation to knowledge sharing, and the effect of eagerness and subjective norm on the intention to share is measured in the context of local and multinational knowledge-intensive enterprises in Croatia.

The quantitative study was conducted on a sample of 288 employees of small and medium-sized companies working on knowledge-intensive tasks. The purposive sampling technique and a survey strategy were used in the study. Organizational affiliation, as it was presumed that these individuals possess a higher degree of tacit knowledge. The data collection was conducted in October 2019. Respondents worked in science and technology companies in Croatia on assignments involving information technology, electronics, petrochemicals, medicine and biochemistry. Statistical product and service solutions analysis of a moment structures software was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The findings suggest that the personality trait of conscientiousness has a positive impact on tacit knowledge sharing behaviour. An attitude of eagerness and subjective norm were also confirmed as predictors of tacit knowledge sharing behaviour. Furthermore, conscientiousness influences the eagerness to share knowledge. A significant association between subjective norm and conscientiousness was also established. Finally, the mediating effects were identified, indicating that subjective norm and eagerness mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and tacit knowledge sharing.

Explaining the relationship between personality and attitude in the context of knowledge sharing will result in a better understanding of factors that should be nurtured within individuals. Accordingly, distinct management initiatives are to be developed to suit these factors. Furthermore, to intensify the knowledge exchange when working on knowledge-intensive tasks of significant economic value, organizations tailor a more particularistic application to suit the individual in the domain of leadership, staffing decisions, work organization and incentive systems.

This study provides an in-depth analysis and theoretical understanding of factors salient for knowledge-sharing behaviour. The authors provide an overview of how knowledge sharing evolves during social interaction through intensive problem-solving sessions and teamwork. The authors render the explanation on how the personality trait of conscientiousness, conjoint with the attitude of eagerness to share know-how in the expert surrounding, is conducive to the generation of tacit knowledge sharing. Underpinning this study are employees’ psychological motives and internal drives to communicate individual cognitive capital outweighing the potential negative consequences, such as losing the competitive advantage over the colleagues.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and trend of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in commercial banks in Poland and examine the link between corporate governance characteristics, namely size of the bank, ownership, boards size, board diversity and CSR disclosures in the banks.

The annual reports and CSR reports of the banks were examined between 2008 and 2015 using content analysis and panel data analysis.

The results indicate that banks improved their CSR reporting practices during examined period. There are statistically significant differences in the level of CSR disclosures between banks with a different ownership structure. Both foreign majority shareholder group as well as state majority shareholder group have a positive influence on CSR as compared with Polish majority shareholder (PMS) group (excluding State). Moreover, being listed on stock exchange has a positive influence on CSR as compared with not being listed. Further, the results also revealed that there is a significant positive effect of almost all variables related to the management board, namely, size, female board leadership and foreign board members on CSR disclosure, whereas all supervisory board variables and all considered ownership variables have no statistically significant impact on CSR disclosure.

This research contributes to the existing literature because the banking sector is often excluded from CSR studies due to its specific legal regulations and seemingly little environmental impact. Moreover, there are only few studies analysing the effect of boards characteristics on the banks CSR disclosure, especially in emerging countries. This study is also the first of this kind focusing on the two-tier system. Furthermore, the study provides the instrument to measure CSR in the banking industry. Finally, the research stresses the crucial implications for banking sector, shareholders and regulatory bodies.

This study investigates if and how the board size, the board independence, the CEO duality and the board-specific skills are associated with higher-quality Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) disclosure in European State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

We measured SDGs disclosure through a content analysis of SOE's reports from 2017 to 2022. The characteristics of the boards analyzed are board size, board independence, CEO duality and board-specific skills. We performed multiple regression models to test the association between the SDGs disclosure and the characteristics of the boards.

The results show that board size, independent directors and board-specific skills are positively associated with higher-quality SDGs disclosure, while CEO duality is negatively associated with higher-quality SDGs disclosure.

This study provides several practical implications. Shareholders could equip their firms with larger boards, more independent and highly skilled directors, while avoiding a CEO duality for improving the SDGs disclosure; capital providers could examine the characteristics of a firm's board before allocating financial resources to verify which firms are accountable in reaching the SDGs. Also, standard-setters and policymakers could use the results of this research to define new standards or regulatory pathways to push firms to put more efforts in preparing a comprehensive and high-quality SDGs disclosure.

While prior studies mostly focused on sustainability reporting overall, this study adds a specific insight about SDGs disclosure employing an investigation which has not been previously analyzed.

The authors examine the determinants of ESG disclosure and differentiate between voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes in Hong Kong.

The authors analyse both Bloomberg ESG scores and a disclosure index score, manually constructed according to the 2019 Hong Kong Exchange ESG Guide using regression tests.

The results indicate that the level of concentrated ownership is negatively associated with the quantity of ESG disclosure only in the voluntary disclosure period, suggesting that agency problems are alleviated when ESG reporting is mandatory. The findings also show that larger firms significantly disclose higher levels of ESG information in both voluntary and mandatory disclosure periods. Furthermore, the extent of ESG disclosure significantly increases when firms' sustainability reports are audited by Big 4 accounting firms only in the voluntary disclosure period. Finally, the control variables are significantly related to the level of ESG disclosure showing that ESG disclosure increased over time and is significantly different among industries.

The authors make contributions to the literature on non-financial disclosure in relation to ESG reporting by examining the relationship between firm characteristics and ESG disclosure in the Hong Kong context under both voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes. This study also provides important implications for other stock markets and relevant stakeholders including preparers, users and the sustainability profession.