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This paper aims to examine the contextual embeddedness of female entrepreneurship through a focus on gendered institutions. Specifically, it draws upon Scott’s (1995) institutional categories and explores how the three dimensions of gendered institutions combine to explain both a high level of female Total Early-stage Entrepreneurship Activity (TEA) rates and female/male TEA ratios.

Collecting data from the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank for 63 countries, this study uses the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore causal complexity between the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of gendered institutions (conditions) and the female TEA rates and the female/male TEA ratios (outcomes).

First, this study confirms the complex interactions occurring among institutional components. Second, the results highlight the key role that gender equality in entrepreneurial cognitions plays in achieving high female entrepreneurship. Third, configurations for the high female TEA rates and the female/male TEA ratios share a high similarity.

The study provides policymakers with a holistic viewpoint and alternate solutions with the aim of promoting female entrepreneurship in their respective countries.

The study highlights gendered institutions beyond general institutions, enriching the literature on the gender and institutional determinants of female entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the application of the fsQCA method in the study helps to enhance the understanding of how institutional components complexly interact to shape female entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to investigate female founders’ digital identities (i.e. the founder’s online self-representation) and explore how female founders’ digital identities affect crowdfunding performance.

Leveraging a data set of 3,125 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns launched by women between 2014 and 2019, this study uses the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model to investigate female founders’ digital identities and explore their impacts on crowdfunding performance via logistic and Tobit regression analyses.

This study finds that on crowdfunding platforms, female founders display four main types of digital identities: educational practitioner, experienced entrepreneur, creative innovator and life dreamer. Moreover, our results reveal the differential influences of these identities on crowdfunding performance. Specifically, the experienced entrepreneur or educational practitioner portrayal may benefit fundraising; the life dreamer portrayal may hinder it; and the creative innovator portrayal may have no significant effect.

This study suggests how women can use their digital identities to improve their crowdfunding performance, indicating a fruitful way to overcome female entrepreneurial financing hurdles in the digital age.

This study highlights the digital identities of female founders engaged in crowdfunding, enriching the emerging research on digital identity in entrepreneurship and crowdfunding. Furthermore, the application of the LDA topic model in the study enlightens future research on leveraging big data analytic methods to examine female entrepreneurship in the digital economy context.

This paper aims to investigate the role of informational and relational mechanisms on equity crowdfunding investors' conformity behaviors by focusing on a relational culture of China.

The data of 108 financing projects and 7,688 investment records from a union of Chinese equity crowdfunding platforms are gathered. Lead investors' response to a campaign and follow-investors’ former links explain investors' conformity by social network analysis (SNA) and ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis.

The results show that informational and relational influences drive conformity in Chinese equity crowdfunding. Moreover, the informational influence weakens in a highly centralized structure of linked investors.

The results add new knowledge to follow-investors’ conformity behaviors in equity crowdfunding and enrich the literature on conformity theory by finding the contextual effect of information-influenced conformity and the adaption of conformity theory to cultural uniqueness. Besides, this preliminary work also suggests opportunities for future research.

The paper inspires new consideration on a strategical use of follow-investors’ conformity mentality to promote successfully financing and reminds platform managers to be alert to the interference of small groups formed based on informal relationships to the normal financing order.

This is the first study that discovers the non-informational influence and the limited influence of information on equity crowdfunding conformity through contextual concerns.

Emerging evidence regarding crowdfunding challenges long-standing “gender gap” views of traditional entrepreneurial financing and indicates that female entrepreneurs may have an advantage in crowdfunding. Yet, the literature primarily focuses on influences at the individual level, largely overlooking the interaction between gender and higher-level culture. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, this paper aims to investigate the associations among entrepreneurs' gender, culture and crowdfunding performance, particularly in how entrepreneurs' gender and culture interact to affect crowdfunding performance.

Leveraging a sample of 21,730 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns and combining these data with data from Hofstede's study, the World Bank (WB) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this study applies multilevel models to empirically investigate this question across 22 countries/regions.

This study confirms that the advantageous effect, that female entrepreneurs are likely to obtain better fundraising performance over their male counterparts, does exist in crowdfunding. Furthermore, the findings reveal that this advantageous effect of female entrepreneurs on crowdfunding performance would be reinforced when cultures of individualism and indulgence are high and culture of long-term orientation is low.

This study contributes to the literature on gender gaps in crowdfunding and entrepreneurial financing by adding an important culture-related boundary condition to the gender preference reported in earlier crowdfunding work. Moreover, the paper extends the knowledge about the impact of culture on crowdfunding performance and enlightens future research on leveraging multilevel modeling approach to examine the complex interplay between individuals and situations in crowdfunding.

The Chinese housing market has witnessed rapid growth during the past decade and the significance of housing price forecasting has undoubtedly elevated, becoming an important issue to investors and policymakers. This study aims to examine neural networks (NNs) for office property price index forecasting from 10 major Chinese cities for July 2005–April 2021.

The authors aim at building simple and accurate NNs to contribute to pure technical forecasts of the Chinese office property market. To facilitate the analysis, the authors explore different model settings over algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data-spitting ratios.

The authors reach a simple NN with three delays and three hidden neurons, which leads to stable performance of about 1.45% average relative root mean square error across the 10 cities for the training, validation and testing phases.

The results could be used on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to form perspectives of office property price trends and conduct policy analysis.

The Chinese housing market has gone through rapid growth during the past decade, and house price forecasting has evolved to be a significant issue that draws enormous attention from investors, policy makers and researchers. This study investigates neural networks for composite property price index forecasting from ten major Chinese cities for the period of July 2005–April 2021.

The goal is to build simple and accurate neural network models that contribute to pure technical forecasts of composite property prices. To facilitate the analysis, the authors consider different model settings across algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data spitting ratios.

The authors arrive at a pretty simple neural network with six delays and three hidden neurons, which generates rather stable performance of average relative root mean square errors across the ten cities below 1% for the training, validation and testing phases.

Results here could be utilized on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to help form perspectives of composite property price trends and conduct policy analysis.

This paper presented a new kind of ring spinning frame with four pairs of rollers, and they are the front roller and the front top roller, the first middle roller (FMR) and the first middle top roller (FMTR), the second middle roller and the second middle top roller, the back roller and the back top roller. The FMR is the front roller of middle draft zone, and the back roller of the front draft zone. Therefore, the deformation of FMTR during spinning is an important factor for yarn quality, which was studied in this paper.

In this paper, by finite element method (FEM), the pressure and deformation of FMTR were studied. FMTR made from steel and sleeved carbon fiber were compared. 5.8tex, 4.9tex and 3.9tex cotton yarns were spun, and corresponding numerical simulations of FMTR pressure and deformation were presented in ANSYS software and comparatively analyzed. Then, corresponding yarn qualities were compared.

The results indicate that pressure and deformation of FMTR have little effects on yarn tenacity and hairiness, while have great effects on yarn evenness. For 5.8tex and 4.9tex cotton yarn, yarns spun by FMTR made from sleeved carbon fiber have larger pressure and deformation at the middle of nipper bites of FMR and FMTR, and yarn evenness is better. For 3.9tex cotton yarns, at the middle of nipper bites of FMR and FMTR, FMTR made from steel has smaller pressure. But deformation of FMTR made from steel is larger, and yarn evenness is better.

This paper studied pressure and deformation of FMTR by finite element method (FEM), which serve as a theoretical underpinning for yarn spinning in three draft zones ring spinning machine.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare carbon fiber-reinforced polyimide matrix composites and to investigate the single role of carbon fiber in polyimide composites on tribological performance under distilled water condition.

Three carbon fiber-reinforced polyimide matrix composites were fabricated by using a hot press molding technique. The tribological behaviors of carbon fiber-reinforced polyimide matrix composites sliding against steel ball were evaluated with a ball-on-disk tribotester under distilled water condition. Meanwhile, the effect of different length of carbon fiber on the wear resistance of polyimide matrix composites was investigated during the sliding process.

The friction coefficients and specific wear rates of polyimide composites containing 100 μm carbon fibers were lower than those of other specimens. The wear mechanism of carbon fiber-reinforced composites was delamination under distilled water condition. The interfacial combination between the carbon fiber and matrix became worse with the increase of length of carbon fiber.

This paper reported the effect of the different length of carbon fiber on polyimide matrix composites to prepare mechanical parts in mining industrial fields.

The paper is aimed to obtain a clear understanding of influence factors that can increase the possibility to be business angels (BA).

This study develops the 3A model in the Chinese context to design questionnaire, and 334 questionnaires are obtained via focus group sample and targeted snowball approach, and the multinomial logit analysis is used to test a serious of hypotheses.

The paper confirmed that the entrepreneurial experience and wealth are determinants of investment for potential BA, and the wealth have both directly and indirectly positive influence on investment activity through risk preference, namely that richer people prefer risk which impel them to invest as BA.

There are two limitations in the paper: first, the macro environment in China has not been taken into consideration in the model; second, the source of the sample focuses on the developed cities in the middle and eastern of China, only reflect the characteristic of angels in these areas, which may somewhat diverges from the reality.

The paper would contribute to form the policy which could promote the development of angel investment in China.

This paper conducts a preliminary exploration of the factors that have impact on Chinese BA' investment activity based on current research.