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The purpose of this paper is to offer novel and complementary insights into the relationship between product modularity and product innovation by investigating the mediating role of module suppliers' relationship-specific investments which include both property-based relationship-specific investment (PRSI) and knowledge-based relationship-specific investment (KRSI).

This paper is an empirical study based on structural equation modelling, with a sample of 121 core firms of high-tech modular cooperation in China.

The findings indicated that product modularity had a significant positive effect on product innovation; product modularity was positively related to module suppliers' PRSI; module suppliers’ KRSI had a direct effect on product innovation while PRSI had an indirect effect on product innovation through KRSI; the relationship between product modularity and product innovation was serially multi-mediated by module suppliers’ PRSI and KRSI.

Modular product design and modular cooperation governance guidance for core firms and cooperative investment strategies guidance for module suppliers were provided.

This study is the first attempt to analyse how product modularity affects product innovation in the context of inter-firm modular cooperation by revealing the mediating role of module suppliers' relationship-specific investments.

This study aims to investigate Feng Shui elements that can influence housing selection and property pricing in the Malaysian housing market.

A structured questionnaire encompassing 26 Feng Shui elements, which were shortlisted based on relevant previous studies, was distributed to prospective homebuyers in the Klang Valley region. The elements were inferred and ranked according to frequency, significance and importance scores. Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA tests were used to assess the ratings provided by the different respondent groups, while Spearman's rank correlation tests were utilised to measure the degree of agreement or disagreement among each pair of the ethnic group.

The results obtained indicate the following as the five most influential elements: orientation, main entrance, street location, house number and living room. Despite a multiethnic and multicultural society in Malaysia, Spearman's rank correlation tests showed that there are no differences in the prioritisation of Feng Shui elements between three distinct ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese and Indian). However, the distribution scores are statistically different between the groups. Comparing income level with Feng Shui inclinations, the three most frequently considered elements across the three income groups consistently include orientation, main entrance and street location.

The findings of this study are expected to provide guidance to property stakeholders (developers, real estate agencies, architects, local authorities) in their future development projects. For homebuyers, this study serves as a property Feng Shui checklist for home selection and investment.

This study explored the association of Feng Shui principles to housing selection and property pricing based on cultural and income factors. These findings provide useful insights for designing and positioning of residential properties in both primary and secondary housing markets in Malaysia and beyond.

Directly printing molten metal droplets on a build platform to create full dense metal parts is a promising additive manufacturing process. This study aims of to analyse the effects of the thermal conditions on the resulting tensile properties of parts made from aluminium 4047A built in droplet-based metal printing.

A drop-on-demand print head with pneumatic actuation is used to eject droplets on a nickel sheet mounted on the heated build platform. Tensile specimens are machined from cuboid blocks built by successive droplet deposition and tested in a universal testing machine. The ultimate tensile strength, uniform elongation and yield strength are evaluated and presented. Micro-sections are taken from the printed blocks to examine the internal pores and the metal’s microstructure.

With an increase in the interface temperature the uniform elongation increases from 0.5 to 12%, while the yield strength decreases from 130 to 90 MPa. The ultimate tensile strength increases from 130 MPa to a maximum of 190 MPa at an interface temperature of 530º C and slightly falls for higher interface temperatures. Those values are in the same range as conventionally casted parts of the same alloy. The authors’ hypothesis is that the main effect responsible for the mechanical properties is the wetting of solid material by the liquid droplet and not remelting, as has been reported in literature.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that mechanical properties of aluminium 4047A built by a droplet-based additive manufacturing process are published for different interface temperatures. It is also the first time that the main effect on mechanical properties is attributed to wetting instead of remelting.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce several synchronization test methods of Network‐on‐Chip (NoC) at multi‐clock domains by digital logic circuits.

First, the authors gave the structure of NoC, the test methods for NoC in multi‐clock domains, including Built‐in Self Test (BIST) structure and the architecture of embedded core test. Then the authors approached four different synchronization structures: two‐level trigger, two kinds of lock methods, toggle and pulse synchronization methods. Based on the NoC work conditions, the authors built the experiment structures of different methods, and obtained the experiment results at high frequencies.

From the experiments at high frequency, it can be seen that the methods of toggle and the pulse methods are prone to failed synchronization. Therefore, the lock method is more appropriate for NoC under multiple clock domains.

In this paper, several synchronization test methods of NoC at multi‐clock domains are discussed and compared, and the best one determined.

The use of social networking sites (SNSs) can promote life satisfaction mainly because of their social relationship benefits. Although prior studies examined the roles of different types of social capital (SC), the association between online and offline SC is ignored. This research addresses this gap by uncovering a mechanism of transformation between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction.

Categorizing the concept of SC into four sub-types from bonding/bridging and online/offline dimensions, the paper establishes a theoretical framework based on the transformation mechanism among these four kinds of SC. A component-based approach, partial least square method, is chosen for hypothesis testing with a survey-based sample collected from WeChat users.

First, SNSs usage is positively related to life satisfaction and four types of SC (i.e. online/offline and bonding/bridging SC). Second, both online bonding SC and offline bridging SC are positively related to life satisfaction and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Third, offline bonding SC is positively related to online bonding SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and online bonding SC; on the contrary, online bridging SC is positively related to offline bridging SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and offline bridging SC.

In the environment of SNSs, users can take vigorous strategies to better balance online and offline spaces and improve life satisfaction by adapting to the characteristics of SNSs in developing different types of SC. Specifically, it is encouraged for users to transfer online bridging SC into offline space and offline bonding SC into online space.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study exploring the association between online and offline SC when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Instead of the single transformation direction from online to offline in prior Internet research, this research has revealed different transformation directions between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types in the context of SNSs.

Construction and Real Estate NETwork (CORENET) is the flagship information technology (IT) project undertaken collaboratively by various government agencies of Singapore to improve the productivity and performance of the construction and real estate sectors. It is a comprehensive network system consisting of a series of IT systems and services that allows seamless and expedient exchange of information between relevant government agencies and parties involved in the construction and real estate industry. Provides an overview of the concept and services offered by CORENET, and then evaluates how this system could bring about changes to the real estate and construction industry in Singapore. Three areas of IT‐induced revolutions can be expected in the real estate and construction processes, if the CORENET system can be successfully implemented and accepted by users. First, compression of time and process is one of the possible outcomes that can be facilitated via the integrated platform of CORENET. Second, knowledge contents would receive growing attention from the prospective CORENET users. Third, reconfiguration of business concept and scope may take place, which may, as a result, lead to the emergence of a new business model and the creation of ample business opportunities for the CORENET users that possess the first‐mover advantage.

Studies on cross-culture marketing often focus on either localization or globalization strategies. Based on data from pre-communist China (1912–1949), product hybridization – defined as a process or strategy that generates symbols, designs, behaviors and cultural identities that blend local and global elements – emerges as a popular intermediate strategy worthy of further inquiry. After examining the mechanisms and processes underlying this strategy, a schema for classifying product hybridization strategies is developed and illustrated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Critical historical research method is applied to historical data and historical “traces” from pre-communist China’s corporate documents, memoirs, posters, advertisements, newspapers and secondhand sources.

Strategic interactions between domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China fostered products and a city (Shanghai) containing Chinese and non-Chinese elements. Informed by historical traces and data from pre-communist China (1912-1949), a 2 × 2 classification schema relating company type (i.e. foreign or domestic) to values spectrum endpoint (i.e. domestic vs foreign) was formulated. This schema reflects the value of communication, negotiation and cultural (inter)penetration that accompanies cross-culture product flows.

Cross-culture marketing strategies meant to help companies satisfy diverse marketplace interests can induce a mélange of product design elements. Because product hybridization reflects reciprocity between domestic and foreign companies that embodies multiple interests and contrasting interpretations of product meanings, researchers should examine globalization and localization synergistically.

Strategies adopted by domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can help contemporary companies design effective cross-culture marketing strategies in a global marketplace infused with competing meanings and interests.

Examining historical strategies adopted in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can inform contemporary marketers’ intuitions. Understanding product hybridization in global marketplaces can improve marketing efficiency.

The international Communist movement is experiencing great turbulence. Some Western media state with certainty that Lenin′s dream has come to an end, but Chinese practice has proved the contrary conclusion. High efficiency is characteristic of and intrinsic to Communism. The productivity of labour is the most important thing in the success of a new social system. Socialist business has just begun and will create much higher productivity than capitalism.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the implications of policies, practices and new “non‐equilibrium” management approaches in mobile grassland management.

The author takes an actor‐oriented perspective on the narrative of land‐use practices, notional sustainable stocking rates and the problematic of state policy interventions in local context. The paper is based on two years in the field on a bilateral aid‐funded grassland management project at Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia and follow‐up among selected informants.

The constitution of grasslands “degradation” is in fact contested by resource users. Most grassland scientists, Party and Government officials in China have tended to associate ethnic “minority” mobile pastoralists with destructive cultural practices that, they argue, have led to ecological decline on the steppes. This argument is integral to the “degradation narrative” that underpins the discourse on grassland science. The conventional bio‐ecology emphasis on species dominance (growth‐form), in fact says little about the extent of anthropogenic impacts on above‐ground biomass and whether these factors have been the cause of degradation. The paper suggests that greater consideration is given to specific changes in human activity, climatic and plant productivity over time and space, based on endogenous, flexible seasonal estimates.

Although presenting challenges to conventional grassland science based on endogenous experiences and herder practices, it may have specific geopolitical limits to more general scaling‐up in different contexts.

The paper discusses new modalities of non‐equilibrium grassland management, inverting normative top‐down approaches to controlling environmental degradation, livestock distribution and stocking rates.

The paper suggests rethinking the use of customary practices, vernacular knowledge and the social organisation of herders in the design of sustainable grassland management.

The paper may be valuable to practitioners, rural development planners, funders and researchers interested in the use of integrated, cross‐disciplinary, new ecological knowledge in grassland management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how logo design characteristics influence consumer response based on visual representation. Logos in different areas may have different characteristics that impact liking a logo. The logos of youth education brands were explored in this study.

The Kansei engineering (KE) method was employed in this research. In total, 115 logos of youth education brands were collected and classified into three categories: abstract, natural and text mark. Then 12 of these logos were selected as representative samples. A set of 171 Kansei pairwise image words was collected, and 14 of them were chosen for further investigation. The psychological projection experiment was conducted based on a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire with 120 participants. Three statistical methods including cluster analysis, factor analysis and correlation analysis were combined for the data analysis.

The results show that four factors affect liking a logo including a sense of contemporaneity, a sense of esthetics, a feeling of interest and a sense of style. Accordingly, the weights of these four factors are proposed. The positive correlation between logo characteristics and liking a logo was also verified. In addition, the classification results of this study confirm the wide use of natural and English text mark logos in youth education brands.

The results could guide designers and managers in selecting or modifying logo design for achieving a positive effective response. This is the first research on logo design characteristics linked with industry domains. This study also contributes to the KE approach to investigate the relative impact of logo characteristics on liking a logo.