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This study examines the relative efficiencies of anti-poverty policies implemented in 28 Chinese provinces.

This study uses meta-frontier undesirable dynamic two-stage data envelopment analysis. The authors divide the poverty reduction process into two stages: agricultural production and poverty reduction. Public expenditure is the input for the second stage, and the population below the poverty line is the undesirable output. The authors compute the efficiencies (overall efficiency, efficiency of each stage and the efficiencies of individual inputs and outputs) using meta-frontier analysis for the 28 provinces.

The results show that: (1) a significant imbalance exists between the eastern and western regions in terms of input-output efficiencies; (2) the poverty reduction stage generally fared better than the agricultural production stage did. In particular, most provinces saw increases in poverty reduction efficiencies between 2013 and 2017; (3) the place-based poverty relief policies introduced in recent years are effective at reducing the poverty rate and reaching the government-set goals and (4) while disposable income has increased steadily over the past few years, income inequality has been exacerbated.

The results show that: (1) a significant imbalance exists between the eastern and western regions in terms of input-output efficiencies; (2) the poverty reduction stage generally fared better than the agricultural production stage did. In particular, most provinces saw increases in poverty reduction efficiencies between 2013 and 2017; (3) the place-based poverty relief policies introduced in recent years are effective at reducing the poverty rate and reaching the government-set goals and (4) while disposable income has increased steadily over the past few years, income inequality has exacerbated.

A large amount of attention and public resources are devoted to fighting poverty and associated market failures in China. The extant literature focuses either on the agricultural production itself or the relationship between human capital and productivity levels. Making use of recent developments of the DEA method, the authors propose a new framework for evaluating the efficiencies of the poverty reduction process. Such a framework has the advantage of giving researchers and policymakers a more detailed diagnosis with regard to the components in the endeavor to eliminate poverty and providing useful information for policymakers to optimize public funds use. Methodologically, the framework is flexible enough to be employed for future research in similar appraisals, at different geographic and scale aggregation levels, for public projects including but not limited to poverty reduction.

The development and evolution of stakeholder collaborative innovation in megaprojects is impacted by various influencing factors. The effect of influencing factors on collaborative innovation performance (CIP) in megaprojects is not a simplistic linear relationship but an iterative and non-linear relationship that requires a dynamic perspective to analyze. Therefore, this paper adopts the system dynamic (SD) approach to investigate the dynamic and interactive relationships between the CIP and the influencing factors.

The study first develops a research framework with the system boundary of “CIP system – organizational collaboration subsystem – knowledge collaboration subsystem – strategic collaboration subsystem”. Then, the causal relationship model, the stock-flow model, and the mathematical equations were determined based on the literature review and the expert interviews. Finally, five performance improvement scenarios were designed according to the practice context of CIP in megaprojects, and simulations were performed using the Vensim PLE software to investigate the CIP from a dynamic perspective.

The findings reveal that the effect of different influencing factors on CIP grows non-linearly, with the cumulative effect becoming more pronounced as time advances. The incentive mechanism has the most significant effect, and the combined effect of multiple influencing factors has a highly significant facilitating effect on improving CIP. Strategic collaboration, organizational collaboration and knowledge collaboration are mutually conditional and reinforcing with each other, which ultimately promotes the improvement of CIP.

This study uncovers the inherent pattern and the interactive dynamic mechanism of factors for improving CIP in the context of megaprojects. It enriches the theoretical research in the area of collaborative innovation in megaprojects and provides practical management strategies for improving CIP.

Interorganizational knowledge sharing (IKS) is an important strategy for organizations to obtain exterior knowledge resources to enhance innovation and value co-creation in megaprojects. However, little research has deeply investigated multiple attributes of organizational motivations and the combinatorial effects of these motivations on facilitating IKS. Based on resource dependency theory, this study examined the net and combinatorial effects of four types of motivations (i.e. image motivations, reactive motivations, project-based co-creative economic motivations and cross-project co-creative economic motivations).

Questionnaire surveys were administered to 244 practitioners with over 10 years of experience in construction megaprojects. The collected data were analyzed using a partial least square-structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The findings of PLS-SEM support that image and project-based co-creative economic motivations positively drive IKS. The results of fsQCA reveal three types of efficacious configurations, including comprehensive benefits-integrated driven, short-term benefits-dominated driven and long-term benefits-dominated driven configurations.

This study provides insight into broadening the understanding of multidimensional organizational motivations for IKS and fostering the configurational perspective to their effects with the idea that one size does not fit all. Managers should develop effective interventions considering the combination of various motivations and use multi-layered incentive structures that reward both immediate project-specific outcomes and long-term relationship-building efforts.

Green innovation (GI) in megaprojects has become a significant research topic that attracts both megaproject management scholars' and practitioners' attention. Green transformational leadership (GTL) is acknowledged as an important antecedent to GI in the permanent context. However, limited research investigates the mechanism and condition of how GTL effectively affects GI in the temporary (i.e. megaproject) context. This study seeks to examine the mechanism and condition of GTL in improving GI by assessing the mediating role of green knowledge sharing (GKS) and the moderating effect of innovation climate (IC).

Regression analysis was performed on data obtained from 303 experts who have been involved in megaprojects.

GTL has a significant positive impact on two aspects of GI, including green product innovation (GPDI) and green process innovation (GPCI). Besides, GKS mediates the relationship between GTL and the two aspects of GI. Moreover, IC plays a significantly positive moderating role in the relationship between GTL and GKS and the relationship between GKS and the two aspects of GI.

This study adds knowledge to the theory and practice by unveiling the “black box” between GTL and GI in the temporary (i.e. megaproject) context. First, this study extends the continuing discussion on the direct effect of GTL on GI to the temporary (i.e. megaproject) context. Second, this study facilitates the understanding of the mechanism to generate better GI performance considering the mediating role of GKS and the moderating effect of IC in the temporary (i.e. megaproject) context. The results can illuminate megaproject practitioners on generating better GI performance.

Megaprojects provide an ideal context for exploring the dynamic characteristics of stakeholders within a collaborative innovation system. This research aims to examine the changes in stakeholder salience and functional roles during the evolution of such a system.

This study is empirically grounded on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) megaproject in China, analyzed with the stakeholder salience, stakeholder functional role, stakeholder dynamics and collaborative innovation system theoretical lens.

The megaproject collaborative innovation system can be divided into four stages: the birth stage, development stage, mature stage and re-innovation stage. Stakeholder salience generally remains unchanged throughout the lifecycle of the collaborative innovation system, except for engineering consulting firms (ECF). ECF transitioned from a definitive stakeholder to an expectant stakeholder upon project completion. The number of definitive stakeholders during the first three stages increases gradually. Besides, stakeholder functional roles shift in eight different directions throughout the lifecycle of the megaproject collaborative innovation system because they possess different core resources necessary for implementing innovations and are positioned differently within the collaborative innovation system.

This study contributes to the theory and practice of collaborative innovation in megaprojects. First, it offers insights into the evolution of megaproject collaborative innovation systems from the perspective of stakeholder interactions. Second, it has significant implications for managing stakeholder relationships based on their salience and functional roles at different stages of the collaborative innovation system.

Decision-making problems in emergency plan selection for epidemic prevention and control (EPAC) are generally characterized by risky and uncertainty due to multiple possible emergency states and vagueness of decision information. In the process of emergency plan selection for EPAC, it is necessary to consider several obvious features, i.e. different states of epidemics, dynamic evolvement process of epidemics and decision-makers' (DMs') psychological factors such as risk preference and loss aversion.

In this paper, a novel decision-making method based on cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is proposed to solve emergency plan selection of an epidemic problem, which is generally regarded as hybrid-information multi-attribute decision-making (HI-MADM) problems in major epidemics. Initially, considering the psychological factors of DMs, the expectations of DMs are chosen as reference points to normalize the expectation vectors and decision information with three different formats. Subsequently, the matrix of gains and losses is established according to the reference points. Furthermore, the prospect value of each alternative is obtained and the comprehensive prospect values of alternatives under different states are calculated. Accordingly, the ranking of alternatives can be obtained.

The validity and robustness of the proposed method are demonstrated by a case calculation of emergency plan selection. Meanwhile, sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with fuzzy similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) method and TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive and MADM) method illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

An emergency plan selection method is proposed for EPAC based on CPT, taking into account the psychological factors of DMs.

Highlights

1. This paper proposes a new CPT-based EDM method for EPAC under a major epidemic considering the psychological factorsof DMs, such as risk preference, loss aversion and so on.

2. The authors' work gives approaches of normalization, comparison and distance measurement for dealing with the integration of three hybrid formats of attributes.

3. This article gives some guidance, which contributes to solve the problems of risk-based hybrid multi-attribute EDM.

4. The authors illustrate the advantages of the proposed method by a sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with existing FTOPSIS method and TODIM method.

This paper proposes a new CPT-based EDM method for EPAC under a major epidemic considering the psychological factorsof DMs, such as risk preference, loss aversion and so on.

The authors' work gives approaches of normalization, comparison and distance measurement for dealing with the integration of three hybrid formats of attributes.

This article gives some guidance, which contributes to solve the problems of risk-based hybrid multi-attribute EDM.

The authors illustrate the advantages of the proposed method by a sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with existing FTOPSIS method and TODIM method.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a seamless autonomous navigation method based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot, which is able to meet the practical need of maintaining the navigation accuracy during global positioning system (GPS) outages.

The seamless method uses the motion constraint of the mobile robot to establish the filter model of the system, in which the virtual observation about the speed is used to overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages. The corresponding motion constraint model of the mobile robot is established. The proposed seamless navigation scheme includes two parts: the micro inertial navigation system (MINS)/GPS-integrated filter model and the motion constraint filter model. When the satellite signals are good, the system works on the MINS/GPS-integrated mode. If some obstacles block the GPS signals, the motion constraint measurement equation will be effective so as to improve the navigation accuracy of the mobile robot.

Three different vehicle tests of the mobile robot show that the seamless navigation method can overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages, so as to improve the navigation performance in practical applications.

A seamless navigation system based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot is proposed to overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages, thus improving the adaptability of the robot navigation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how social value orientation and domain knowledge affect cooperation levels and transcription quality in crowdsourced manuscript transcription, and contribute to the recruitment of participants in such projects in practice.

The authors conducted a quasi-experiment using Transcribe-Sheng, which is a well-known crowdsourced manuscript transcription project in China, to investigate the influences of social value orientation and domain knowledge. The experiment lasted one month and involved 60 participants. ANOVA was used to test the research hypotheses. Moreover, inverviews and thematic analyses were conducted to analyze the qualitative data in order to provide additional insights.

The analysis confirmed that in crowdsourced manuscript transcription, social value orientation has a significant effect on participants’ cooperation level and transcription quality; domain knowledge has a significant effect on participants’ transcription quality, but not on their cooperation level. The results also reveal the interactive effect of social value orientation and domain knowledge on cooperation levels and quality of transcription. The analysis of the qualitative data illustrated the influences of social value orientation and domain knowledge on crowdsourced manuscript transcription in detail.

Researchers have paid little attention to the impacts of the psychological and cognitive factors on crowdsourced manuscript transcription. This study investigated the effect of social value orientation and the combined effect of social value orientation and domain knowledge in this context. The findings shed light on crowdsourcing transcription initiatives in the cultural heritage domain and can be used to facilitate participant selection in such projects.

Environmental crises and resource shortage have been matters of concern worldwide particularly, as the beginning of the twenty-first century. Remanufacturing can be one of the best approaches to promoting the development of circular economy and realizing the efficient use of resources. However, research studies indicate that the general public still remains unaware of the merits of remanufactured products. Hence, investigating main motivations of consumers to purchase remanufactured products is certainly worth exploring. The purpose of this paper is to find out consumers’ key motivations to purchase remanufactured products. A new multi-attributes decision-making method based on prospect theory (PT) is conducted.

Firstly, according to the prior literature, 12 main factors that influence consumers to purchase a remanufactured product are selected. Then, the single valued triangular neutrosophic numbers and triangular neutrosophic weighted geometric averaging operator are applied to rank them. Secondly, a multi-attribute decision-making method with PT is used to evaluate the utilities of new and remanufactured products, respectively. Based on the utilities, consumers’ preferred choice between the new and remanufactured products can be elicited.

The proposed method has been applied to a real survey. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is not only capable of recognizing the consumers’ key motivations for purchasing a remanufactured product but also able to deal with the ranking of the new and remanufactured products.

The contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, this paper attempts to explore the main motivations that encourage consumers to purchase a remanufactured product, instead of a new one. Secondly, the proposed method is established based on PT, taking consumers’ psychological behavior into consideration, which can obtain a relatively reasonable result. Thirdly, it can enrich the remanufacturing literature, serving as a guideline for consumers when purchasing a remanufactured product. In addition, this paper can help the remanufacturers make pricing and production decisions where necessary.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive green supplier governance (GSG) concept and explore whether specific GSG approaches (green supplier assessment, green supplier assistance and green strategic partnership with suppliers (GSPS)) bring environmental and economic performance. Moreover, this study aims to reveal a synergistic effect of three GSG approaches on performance improvement.

Using data collected from 200 Chinese manufacturing firms, regression analysis was employed to reveal the relationship between specific GSG approaches and firm performance. Further, cluster analysis was used to identify groupings of firms regarding implementation levels of three GSG approaches and compare the performance of the firm groups.

Green supplier assessment (GSA) can bring environmental performance, but GSA is not associated with economic performance. Green supplier assistance is positively associated with economic performance, while green supplier assistance cannot improve environmental performance. Only GSPS leads to improvement for both environmental and economic performance. Furthermore, firms with high implementation levels of GSA and GSPS (whether with high or low implementation levels of GSAS) can achieve the best environmental and financial performance.

This study provides implications for firms to more strategically and comprehensively implement GSG approaches, which can be more effective in bringing environmental and economic performance.

The authors' study extends the GSG concept with two approaches by subdividing the collaborative approach into green supplier assistance and GSPS based on the collaboration levels. This study also sheds light on how to improve firm performance by different GSG approaches and reveals a synergistic effect of three GSG approaches on performance.