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The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. The purpose of this article is to improve the understanding of how age affects individuals' work-related attitudes and behaviors, the authors take a life span perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).

The authors collected responses from 270 employees of multinational firms operating in India and conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the hypotheses.

The authors found that age profiles are significant predictors of work engagement. Specifically, the relationship between development opportunities and work engagement was stronger for younger employees than for older employees. However, age profiles were neither positively related to OCB nor a moderator of the job resources–OCB relationship.

The findings provide empirical evidence of the life span perspective, suggesting that age profiles influence work engagement. This is pertinent for organizations offering employees development opportunities to enhance work engagement.

Power amplifiers (PAs) play an important role in wireless communications because they dominate system performance. High-linearity broadband PAs are of great value for potential use in multi-band system implementation. The purpose of this paper is to present a cascode power amplifier architecture to achieve high power and high efficiency requirements for 4.2∼5.4 GHz applications.

A common emitter (CE) configuration with a stacked common base configuration of heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) is used to achieve high power. T-type matching network is used as input matching network. To increase the bandwidth, the output matching networks are implemented using the two L-networks.

By using the proposed method, the stacked PA demonstrates a maximum saturated output power of 26.2 dBm, a compact chip size of 1.17 × 0.59 mm² and a maximum power-added efficiency of 46.3 per cent. The PA shows a wideband small signal gain with less than 3 dB variation over working frequency. The saturated output power of the proposed PA is higher than 25 dBm between 4.2 and 5.4 GHz.

The technology adopted for the design of the 4.2-to-5.4 GHz stacked PA is the 2-µm gallium arsenide HBT process. Based on the proposed method, a better power performance of 3 dB improvement can be achieved as compared with the conventional CE or common-source amplifier because of high output stacking impedance.

The Indian context is marked with weak anti-discrimination laws and patchy implementation of protection of civil rights of women at workplaces. The purpose of this paper is to unearth the rationales of the adoption of gender diversity management policies and practices in India, in the absence of laws and regulations.

Inspiration is drawn from previous studies on diversity management in other national contexts, and a survey methodology was adopted. The lead researcher administered the questionnaires personally to all respondents to ensure that the understanding of the questions is uniform across respondents as gender diversity management is a relatively new concept in India.

Size of the organisation (number of full-time employees), the influence of external organisations and perceived enhanced organisational flexibility were found to explain the adoption of gender diversity management policies and practices in the Indian IT/ITeS industry. Findings also indicate that Indian subsidiaries of foreign multinationals tend to adopt more gender diversity management policies and practices as compared to Indian-owned organisations.

This study provides evidence that organisations do not always enact structures or behaviours in the pursuit of normative rationality and also consider the economic value of them, establishing an organisational agency in adopting legitimated norms or practices. The study also shows that gender diversity management policies and practices are not only dependent on the enactment of laws but also are adopted because of the economic benefit perceived.

Diversity management policies and practices have been mostly studied in national contexts with anti-discrimination laws or affirmative action programs and have been claimed to be a successor of equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies. In the absence of stringent laws to reduce or eliminate discrimination against women employees in Indian workplaces, this study contributes to the literature by determining whether the business case for gender diversity drives the adoption of gender diversity management in the Indian context.

The study delves into the influence of wear cycles on these parameters. The purpose of this paper is to identify characteristic patterns of σ_RS and ε_PEEQ that discern varying wear situations, thereby contributing to the enrichment of wear theory. Furthermore, the findings serve as a foundational basis for nondestructive and in situ wear detection methodologies, such as nonlinear ultrasonic detection, known for its sensitivity to σ_RS and ε_PEEQ.

This paper elucidates the wear mechanism through the lens of residual stress (σ_RS) and plastic deformation within distinct fretting regimes, using a two-dimensional cylindrical/flat contact model. It specifically explores the impact of the displacement amplitude and cycles on the distribution of residual stress and equivalent plastic strain (ε_PEEQ) in both gross slip regime and partial slip regimes.

Therefore, when surface observation of wear is challenging, detecting the σ_RS trend at the center/edge, region width and ε_PEEQ distribution, as well as the maximum σ_RS distribution along the depth, proves effective in distinguishing wear situations (partial or gross slip regimes). However, discerning wear situations based on ε_PEEQ along the depth direction remains challenging. Moreover, in the gross slip regime, using σ_RS distribution or ε_PEEQ along the width direction rather than the depth direction can effectively provide feedback on cycles and wear range.

This work introduces a novel perspective for investigating wear theory through the distribution of residual stress (σ_RS) and equivalent plastic strain (ε_PEEQ). It presents a feasible detection theory for wear situations using nondestructive and in situ methods, such as nonlinear ultrasonic detection, which is sensitive to σ_RS and ε_PEEQ.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2024-0005/

Contracts and trust are two prominent governance mechanisms in buyer–supplier exchanges, yet controversy persists regarding the interplay between contracts and trust. This study aims to provide a new perspective to understand the debate by differentiating between- from within-dyad effects of contracts–trust relationships.

Based on survey data of 250 Chinese buyer–supplier relationships collected over two time periods, this study used two-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) with repeated measures to test the influence of contracts (trust) on trust (contracts) over time.

The authors find that for major buyer–supplier exchanges, contracts and trust tend to complement each other when comparing across dyads, but they likely substitute for each other in within-dyad settings.

First, to illustrate the dynamic interactions between contracts and trust, this study collected data at two time periods and assumed continuous linear relationships of time with both contracts and trust. Further research should collect multiple waves of data to explore the complex, varying changes that arise over time. Second, this study’s findings are based on buyer–supplier relationships in China, whose unique cultural features may limit the generalizability of the results to other settings.

Channel managers can structure exchanges by devising detailed contracts that align incentives and demonstrate commitment, which helps build trust in a relationship. Channel managers should also pay special attention to the contingency effects of their transactional and relational features.

This study offers the first explicit test of the dynamic contracts–trust relationship, thereby establishing a more refined understanding of interplay between contracts and trust.

The purpose of this work is to controllably synthesize a carbon aerogel with programmable functionally graded performance via a simple and effective strategy.

This work uses polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) via the controllable sol-gel, lyophilization, and carbonization approach to achieve a programmable carbon aerogel. This design has the advantages of low raw material and preparation cost, simple and controllable synthetic process and low carbonization temperature.

The thermal stability and microstructure of PVA aerogel can be controlled by the crosslinking agent content within a certain range. The crosslinking agent content and the carbonization temperature are the key factors for functionally graded programming of carbon aerogels, including microstructure, oxygen-containing functional groups and adsorption performance. The adsorption ratio and adsorption rate of uranium can be controlled by adjusting initial concentration and pH value of the uranium solution. The 2.5%25 carbon aerogel with carbonization temperature of 350 °C has excellent adsorption performance when the initial concentration of uranium solution is 32 ppm at pH 7.5.

As a new type of lightweight nano-porous amorphous carbon material, this carbon aerogel has many excellent properties.

This work presents a simple, low cost and controllable strategy for functionally graded programming of novel carbon aerogel. This carbon aerogel has great potential for application in various fields such as uranium recovery, wastewater treatment, sound absorption and shock absorption.

Drawing on signaling theory and the “signal transmission–interpretation–feedback” framework, this study explores the effects of perceived distributive justice and respect from managers on nurses' work meaningfulness and work effort in public hospitals in China and examines the moderating role of work self-efficacy.

We collected 341 paired questionnaires for nurses and managers from four public hospitals in China. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis.

Distributive justice and managers' respect for employees are positively related to work meaningfulness. Additionally, work self-efficacy negatively moderates this relationship. Work meaningfulness is positively related to work effort and fully mediates the relationships between perceived distributive justice and respect from the manager and work effort.

This study provides useful insights for healthcare organizations to improve nurses' work meaningfulness from the perspectives of their material and emotional needs, according to their work self-efficacy characteristics, thus promoting their work effort. The findings offer important guidance for improving the effectiveness of grass-roots human resources to cope with unpredictable situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study focuses on the organization's environmental factors that affect the primary staff's work meaningfulness. Further, it analyzes the differences in signal interpretation among nurses with different work self-efficacy characteristics, thus providing new insights into work meaningfulness. Through manager–nurse pairing data, it reveals the important role of work meaningfulness in motivating work effort.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism how the platform obtains and uses undisclosed information to determine individual borrowers’ credit score and to examine the effectiveness of credit scoring in predicting default. The motivation stems from the fact that there is little evidence about the role of P2P platform, which has been positioned as a kind of information intermediary.

Using a sample of 5,176 unsecured P2P loans having expired before December 31, 2015 on Renrendai.com and an approach of two-stage regression, the paper first estimates the undisclosed information embedded in credit score by regressing credit score on four types of public information about a borrower’s creditworthiness. Then, the authors use a Logit regression to examine the role of the excess information in predicting the default probability.

The certification information provided by the platform is the most important determinant for a borrower’s credit score and the undisclosed information embedded in credit score can predict the loan performance better than the public information of posted listings. Moreover, the predictive ability of the undisclosed information is better for high-risk borrowers than for low-risk ones.

Providing a credit score for each individual is a way for P2P platforms to play an information intermediary role. More evidence about whether or how a platform plays its role are worthy to be exploited by investigating a platform’s operating policies in detail and doing cross-platform comparative studies.

The results about the effect of various types of information on loan performance can provide an insightful guidance for P2P platforms to optimize their mechanism on information disclosure and credit scoring.

The existing literature mainly focuses on the effects of information voluntarily disclosed by borrowers and the behaviors of investors on P2P lending outcomes. The paper highlights the information intermediary role played by the platform and presents empirical evidence that credit scoring for individual borrowers is a way for P2P platforms to promote the direct lending for individual.

Conventional machining methods for fabricating piezoelectric components such as ultrasound transducer arrays are time-consuming and limited to relatively simple geometries. The purpose of this paper is to develop an additive manufacturing process based on the projection-based stereolithography process for the fabrication of functional piezoelectric devices including ultrasound transducers.

To overcome the challenges in fabricating viscous and low-photosensitive piezocomposite slurry, the authors developed a projection-based stereolithography process by integrating slurry tape-casting and a sliding motion design. Both green-part fabrication and post-processing processes were studied. A prototype system based on the new manufacturing process was developed for the fabrication of green-parts with complex shapes and small features. The challenges in the sintering process to achieve desired functionality were also discussed.

The presented additive manufacturing process can achieve relatively dense piezoelectric components (approximately 95 per cent). The related property testing results, including X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, dielectric and ferroelectric properties as well as pulse-echo testing, show that the fabricated piezo-components have good potentials to be used in ultrasound transducers and other sensors/actuators.

A novel bottom-up projection system integrated with tape casting is presented to address the challenges in the piezo-composite fabrication, including small curing depth and viscous ceramic slurry recoating. Compared with other additive manufacturing processes, this method can achieve a thin recoating layer (as small as 10 μm) of piezo-composite slurry and can fabricate green parts using slurries with significantly higher solid loadings. After post processing, the fabricated piezoelectric components become dense and functional.

This paper aims to present a new trajectory optimization approach targeting spray painting applications that satisfies the paint thickness requirements of complex-free surfaces.

In this paper, a new trajectory generation approach is developed to optimize the transitional segments at the junction of adjacent patches for straight line, convex arc and concave arc combinations based on different angles between normal vectors of patches. In addition, the paint parameters including the paint gun velocity, spray height and the distance between adjacent trajectories have been determined in the generation approach. Then a thickness distribution model is established to simulate the effectiveness of trajectory planning.

The developed approach was applied to a complex-free surface of various curvatures, and the analysis results of the trajectory optimization show that adopting different transitional segment according to the angle between normal vectors can obtain the optimal trajectory. Based on the simulation and experimental validation results, the proposed approach is effective at improving paint thickness uniformity, and the obtained results are consistent with the simulation results, meaning that the simulation model can be used to predict the actual paint performance.

This paper discusses a new trajectory generation approach to decrease the thickness error values to satisfy spray paint requirements. According to the successfully performed simulation and experimental results, the approach is useful and practical in overcoming the challenge of improving the paint thickness quality on complex-free surface.