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The purpose of this paper is to show how the external issue of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) affects enterprises’ corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This study investigates the relationship between EPU and CSR based on the Chinese capital market from 2010 to 2018. Following the most recent studies focused on economic policy uncertainty, this paper uses the news-based method proposed by Baker et al. (2016) to measure EPU and explore the effect of EPU on CSR, as well as the mediating role of state ownership in such a relationship.

Empirical results show that increasing EPU will restrain enterprises’ social responsibility behaviour and the inhibitory effect is more obvious for state-owned enterprises. Further analyses reveal that the inhibitory effect of EPU on CSR is stronger for enterprises that face severe financial constraints and is significant for various components of CSR, and trade policy uncertainty could also curb enterprises’ social responsibility behaviour.

As a stable economic environment is important for enterprises’ CSR engagement, the present study’s conclusions can help policymakers better understand the implications of policy stability for enterprises’ financial and non-financial decisions and especially their CSR decisions.

With the increasing attention paid to the CSR of enterprises, this study provides evidence that enterprises should develop appropriate CSR strategies according to the economic policy environment and enhance their capacity to withstand the risks generated by EPU.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to analyse the relationship between EPU and CSR. The results contribute to a better understanding of what issues influence enterprises’ CSR engagement, highlighting the importance of a stable economic policy environment and of enterprises’ ability to withstand risks.

In this paper, the dynamical properties and analytic solutions of the coupled Drinfel’d–Sokolov–Wilson equation with a conformal derivative are studied by the complete discrimination system for the polynomial method. Not only are the Hamiltonian and topological properties of this equation are presented, but also all exact traveling wave solutions are found.

The complete discrimination system for the polynomial method serves as the cornerstone of the analytical approach, facilitating both the analysis of dynamic properties and the derivation of exact solutions for the equation under study.

The study shows that by adjusting specific parameters, various classified solutions such as rational function solutions, solitary wave solutions and periodic function solutions can be realized in practical applications. Furthermore, numerical analysis shows that the introduction of different external perturbation terms in the coupled Drinfel’d–Sokolov–Wilson equations with conformal derivative can confirm the presence of chaotic behaviors.

The coupled Drinfel’d–Sokolov–Wilson equation is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using the same method. Firstly, the dynamical system is analyzed qualitatively using a third-order discriminant system to predict the type of solutions. Then, use a fourth-order discriminant system to solve the exact solutions and maintain parameter consistency. This method ensures that the results of qualitative and quantitative analysis are achieved under the same set of parameters, thereby improving the coherence and reliability of the research.

In recent years, environmental issues and resource depletion have posed significant challenges to firms and society. To address these environmental challenges, firms seek to build strategic alliances of green supply chain management (GSCM) with their supply chain partner. As the largest developing country in the Asia–Pacific region, China needs to take more responsibility for environmental protection, which requires more Chinese firms to participate in GSCM. Therefore, focusing on the issue of GSCM and innovation persistence in the context of an increasingly harsh ecological environment is essential.

To test the hypothesis, the authors perform an empirical analysis on a sample of 124 listed firms in China from 2014 to 2019. The results are robust to a battery of robustness analyses the authors performed to take care of endogeneity.

Empirical results indicate that GSCM can promote innovation persistence and both market environment turbulence and technology environment turbulence have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the two. Mechanism tests show that GSCM can improve innovation efficiency, ensure innovation quality and alleviate financing constraints, thus promoting the innovation persistence of firms.

This study can provide a theoretical basis for the country to promote GSCM orientation, raise firms' awareness of the value of GSCM, convey the significance of GSCM to investors, influence firms' investment decisions and give experience to other developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fatigue behavior of precipitation-strengthened Cu‒2.55Ni‒0.55Si alloy, modified by the addition of 0.25 Cr and 0.25 Zr (wt%), using mechanical and fractographical studies to reveal the effect of microstructural features on the fracture.

For strengthening, cast and hot forged alloy was subjected to solution annealing at 900°C for 60 min, followed by quenching in water and then aging at 490°C for 180 min. Precipitation-hardened alloy was exposed to fatigue tests at R=−1 and different stress levels. All fracture surfaces were examined within the frame of fractographical analysis.

Fine Ni-rich silicides responsible for the precipitation strengthening were observed within the matrix and their interactions with the dislocations at lower stress level resulted in localized shearing and fine striations. Although, by the addition of Cr and Zr, the matrix consisted of hard Ni, Zr-rich and Cr-rich silicides, these precipitates adversely affected the fatigue behavior acting as nucleation sites for cracks.

These findings contribute to the present knowledge by revealing the effect of microstructural features on the mechanical behavior of precipitation-hardened Cu‒Ni‒Si alloy modified by Cr and Zr addition.

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.

First, the authors analyze the key problems faced by the protection of digital library readers' data privacy and behavior privacy. Second, the authors introduce the characteristics of all kinds of existing approaches to privacy protection and their application limitations in the protection of readers' data privacy and behavior privacy. Lastly, the authors compare the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of existing approaches in terms of security, efficiency, accuracy and practicality and analyze the challenges faced by the protection of digital library reader privacy.

In this paper, the authors review a number of research achievements relevant to privacy protection and analyze and evaluate the application limitations of them in the reader privacy protection of a digital library, consequently, establishing the constraints that an ideal approach to library reader privacy protection should meet, so as to provide references for the follow-up research of the problem.

As a result, the authors conclude that an ideal approach to reader privacy protection should be able to comprehensively improve the security of all kinds of readers' privacy information on the untrusted server-side as a whole, under the premise of not changing the architecture, efficiency, accuracy and practicality of a digital library system.

Along with the rapid development of new network technologies, such as cloud computing, the server-side of a digital library is becoming more and more untrustworthy, thereby, posing a serious threat to the privacy of library readers. In fact, the problem of reader privacy has become one of the important obstacles to the further development and application of digital libraries.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, Confucian doctrines on one’s self-cultivation have been re-introduced to curriculum in China. The revived cherish of the Confucian legacy in the twenty-first century is a reverse from the official rejection of Confucianism in the Mao era (1950–1976). It also appears as a counterweight to the individualism proliferating among the Chinese youths born at the beginning of the new millennium (Gen Z). The re-introduction of Confucianism is thus ideologically purposeful. Yet how does the mixed exposure to Confucius’ legacy and the modern idea of self-awareness impact this cohort of young people, in particular their way of learning? This chapter focusses on Chinese Gen Z studying in Australia. Using the Bourdieuan theory of human habitus, this chapter examines how these students negotiate between the ideas of self-cultivation and self-awareness, and what implications such experiences have in an intercultural academic community.

Although studies have demonstrated that knowledge hiding is an important inhibitor of organizational innovation, current research does not clearly address how intragroup relationship conflict influences knowledge hiding. This study aims to identify the underlying mechanism between intra-group relationship conflict and knowledge hiding.

Drawing on affective events theory (AET), the authors propose a theoretical model and empirically test it by applying hierarchical regression analysis and a bootstrapping approach to data from a multi-wave survey of 224 employees in China.

Consistent with AET, the empirical results show that envy mediates perceived intragroup relationship conflict and knowledge hiding. As predicted, trait competitiveness moderates the indirect effect of perceived intragroup relationship conflict on knowledge hiding via envy.

The results support an AET perspective whereby knowledge hiding is shaped by relationship conflict, envy and trait competitiveness. This study introduces the novel proposition that relationship conflict and competitiveness influence envy, and consequently knowledge hiding.

This paper aims to present an evaluation method for energy-absorption characteristics of thin-walled composite structures with random uncertain parameters.

The mechanical properties of T700/3234 are obtained by material performance tests and energy-absorption results are obtained by quasi-static crushing tests of thin-walled composite circular tubes. The indicators of triggering specific load (TSL) and specific energy absorption (SEA) are introduced and calculated to determine the energy-absorption characteristics and validate the probability finite element analysis model. The uncertainty in the parameters contain the machining tolerance for the thickness and inner diameter of composite circular tubes and are associated with the composite material system. The Plackett–Burman method is used to choose the measurement parameters. Then, the response surface method is used to build a second-order function of random uncertain parameters versus TSL/SEA, and the Monte Carlo method is finally used to obtain the probabilities of TSL and SEA.

The finite element models can accurately simulate the initial peak load, load-displacement curve and SEA value. The random uncertain parameter method can be used to evaluate the energy-absorption characteristics of thin-walled composite circular tubes.

The presented evaluation method for energy-absorption characteristics of thin-walled composite structures is an approach that considers uncertain parameters to increase the simulation accuracy and decrease the computational burden.

This methodology considers uncertain parameters in evaluating the energy-absorption characteristics of thin-walled composite structures, and this methodology can be applied to other thin-walled composite structures.

Established on the detailed exploration of Chinese ancient management philosophies (CAMPs), the purpose of this paper is to extract enlightenments from CAMPs to see whether there exist some similarities between CAMPs and contemporary human resources management thoughts (CHRMTs) and pinpoint CAMPs' implications on human resource management practices nowadays.

Inspired by Lao Tzu's “When we can lay hold of the Dao of old to direct the things of the present day, and are able to know it as it was of old in the beginning, this is called (unwinding) the clue of Dao”, the paper explores, categorizes and integrates wisdom stemmed from CAMPs to evaluate whether there exist some commonly accepted arguments between CAMPs and CHRMTs.

CAMPs which have been passed on by generations for the past 2,500 years in China provide firm ground for human resources management thoughts and practices development; CAMPs' emphasis on people's well cultured morality and highly developed virtues has kindled a light to illuminate human resources management practices, not only in the past but also in the future. CHRMTs' principles concerning “people‐centered strategies”, employee recruitment and selection strategies, employee training and education strategies, staffing as well as employee retention strategies, can all trace their sources from CAMPs.

The research on CAMPs is not only significant to complement and extend CHRMTs but also useful to direct current human resource management practices.