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Quality awards are widely considered symbols of successful quality management. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effects of the China Quality Award (CQA) on firms' performance. The study further explores how the benefits due to CQA are affected by contextual factors.

Using the data of CQA winners from 2001 to 2016, the event study method is applied to analyze the abnormal performance of winners. Furthermore, multiple regression models are proposed to evaluate the effects of contextual factors on the relationship between the award and profitability.

The findings show that CQA has positive impacts on profitability and fixed asset efficiency but not on labor productivity. Besides, state-owned firms and firms with high innovation intensity obtain more profitability benefits than others.

This is the first study to explain the relationship between quality awards and firm performance from a theoretical perspective, providing new insights into the quality management and performance literature. Furthermore, this study deepens the understanding of the relationship between quality awards and performance and reveals new implications. Some of the contextual factors examined, such as innovation intensity, are considered for the first time in quality award research.

This study examines the role of user psychological empowerment (PE) as a specific type of PE in the context of using health information systems (HIS) and incorporates the contribution of autonomous motivation and knowledge sharing intention (KSI) to the resolution of the key dynamics of interpersonal knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) in healthcare organizations.

For the data analysis, survey data were collected from 350 employees at three large teaching hospitals in Taiwan. In this study, the partial least squares technique was used with SmartPLS 3.3 software to validate the research model.

User PE had significant positive effects on autonomous motivation, KSI and KSB. Additionally, autonomous motivation positively affected KSB directly and indirectly via KSI.

Insights into motivation (e.g. user PE and autonomous motivation) play a key role in driving KSI and lead to effective KSB, which aids managers in tailoring their efforts to foster knowledge dissemination and enhance organizational performance.

While finding ways to encourage employees to share knowledge with one another in an organization is an important task, there exists a lack of understanding as to how this task can be accomplished in the context of healthcare organizations. This study is the first to specifically address this issue from a perspective integrating PE and self-determination theory while also incorporating the HIS context with population-specific measures (healthcare organizations) to expand the application of empowerment theory to the information system domain.

Information technology plays a critical role in the open innovation process. The purpose of this study is to explore the inner mechanism of external information technology (IT) capability that affects open innovation performance.

In this paper, responses to 232 questionnaires from different firms were collected in China. Then, the proposed hypotheses were tested using regression analysis by statistical product and service solutions (SPSS).

The results indicate that external knowledge integration plays a mediating role in the relationship between external IT capability and open innovation performance, openness breadth positively moderates the influence of external IT capability on external knowledge integration and openness depth negatively moderates the relationship between external IT capability and external knowledge integration.

The results, which are based on Chinese responses, provide useful suggestions for firms in China. To use external IT capability to improve open innovation performance, firms should not only stress the role of external knowledge integration but also consider their search strategy.

Both researchers and practitioners are interested in the relationship between information technology and open innovation. However, the way in which the inner mechanism of external IT capability affects open innovation performance has not been thoroughly researched. Based on knowledge integration theory, the authors construct a model that includes external IT capability, external knowledge integration, search strategy and open innovation performance. The results of this paper confirm the mediating and moderating roles of external knowledge integration and search strategy, respectively.

Solo travelling has been one of the rising types of travelling, especially after the pandemic. This study is focused on solo female travellers and aims to present a comprehensive literature review on solo travelling. For this aim, a detailed literature review is performed. The significance of this study lies in the recent developments in countries like Iran regarding women's rights, and it needs to be understood that women are powerful, and they can prove that by travelling solo. This study is aimed to contribute to women's empowerment because it is important to set various examples and pave the way for the next generations towards a more free, enlightened, conscious and modern future. As a segment, solo female travellers need to be characterised in terms of their demographics and motivations for solo travelling, and destinations should take precautions for their safety and security to be represented and promoted as a safe and modern location where the freedom of each individual is secured.

This study aims to provide a model to predict the service life of a thick organic coating.

A series of thin coating films are rapidly tested under the same exposure condition as the thick coating in its service condition by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction.

The validity of the model is successfully verified. The long-term protectiveness or service life of a thick organic coating can be rapidly predicted.

The prediction model does not require long-term experiments or any test that may alter the degradation mechanism of the thick coating.

In this study, we drew on the theories of social exchange and social learning and hypothesized that the online social capital (SC) and offline SC of social networking affect the online self-disclosure (OSD) of individuals through social self-efficacy (SSE).

After retrieving 514 valid questionnaires, we used structural equation modeling to analyze the data.

The results indicated that the users’ SSE affected their OSD, and that both online and offline bridging and bonding SC increased their SSE. However, online bonding SC directly affected their OSD, whereas online bridging SC did not considerably affect their OSD. Given these findings, we presented both theoretical and practical implications to elucidate SSE and OSD behavior from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.

In this study, we drew on theories of social exchange and social learning to examine the effects of online and offline bridging and bonding SC on users’ SSE and OSD on SNSs. Given the importance of SC and SSE in social relationships and the effects of OSD on SNSs, our goal was to provide SNS marketers with a thorough understanding of how to facilitate SSE and OSD from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

Organic coatings are widely used for protecting metal equipment and structures from corrosion. Accurate detection and evaluation of the protective performance and service life of coatings are of great importance. This paper aims to review the research progress on performance evaluation and lifetime prediction of organic coatings.

First, the failure forms and aging testing methods of organic coatings are briefly introduced. Then, the technical status and the progress in the detection and evaluation of coating protective performance and the prediction of service life are mainly reviewed.

There are some key challenges and difficulties in this field, which are described in the end.

The progress is summarized from a variety of technical perspectives. Performance evaluation and lifetime prediction include both single-parameter and multi-parameter methods.

Because of the complexity of relationship between surface tension and its decisive factors, such as temperature, concentration, electronic density, molar atomic volume and electro-negativity, a reasonable predicting model of surface tension of Sn-based solder alloys has not been developed yet. The paper aims to address the surface tension issue that has to be considered if the new lead free solder will be applied for electronics.

Using an artificial neural network (ANN) model with back-propagation (BP) algorithm, the surface tension for Sn-based binary solder alloys was simulated, and the comparison between the simulating results and data from experiments and literatures was analyzed as well. In addition, the relationship between surface tension and its decisive factors would be discussed based on the ANN and orthogonal design methods.

It is shown that the predicting model of surface tension of Sn-based solder alloys is constructed according to the BP–ANN theory, and the predicted value from the BP–ANN is in excellent agreement with the experimental results. The surface tension of Sn-based solders is determined by five factors, i.e. temperature, concentration, electronic density, molar atomic volume and electro-negativity. Among of the factors, molar atomic volume is major factor, and the order of degree of influence on surface tension is molar atomic volume > electro-negativity > electronic > density > concentration > temperature. Moreover, a simply reasonable equation is proposed to estimate the surface tension for Sn-based solders.

The five decisive factors of surface tension for Sn-based binary solder alloys have been analyzed theoretically, and a reasonable model of surface tension for Sn-based binary solder alloys is proposed as well. It is shown that ANN theory will be applied well to simulate the surface tension of Sn-based lead free solder.