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The purpose of this research is to develop a holistic approach to maximize the customer service level while minimizing the logistics cost by using an integrated multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) method for the contemporary transshipment problem. Unlike the prevalent optimization techniques, this paper proposes an integrated approach which considers both quantitative and qualitative factors in order to maximize the benefits of service deliverers and customers under uncertain environments.

This paper proposes a fuzzy‐based integer linear programming model, based on the existing literature and validated with an example case. The model integrates the developed fuzzy modification of the analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), and solves the multi‐criteria transshipment problem.

This paper provides several novel insights about how to transform a company from a cost‐based model to a service‐dominated model by using an integrated MCDM method. It suggests that the contemporary customer‐driven supply chain remains and increases its competitiveness from two aspects: optimizing the cost and providing the best service simultaneously.

This research used one illustrative industry case to exemplify the developed method. Considering the generalization of the research findings and the complexity of the transshipment service network, more cases across multiple industries are necessary to further enhance the validity of the research output.

The paper includes implications for the evaluation and selection of transshipment service suppliers, the construction of optimal transshipment network as well as managing the network.

The major advantages of this generic approach are that both quantitative and qualitative factors under fuzzy environment are considered simultaneously and also the viewpoints of service deliverers and customers are focused. Therefore, it is believed that it is useful and applicable for the transshipment service network design.

This paper aims to deal with the problem of multi‐plant purchase coordination in an assemble‐to‐order (ATO) environment, when volume discount schedules are provided by each of the suppliers.

This paper uses linear programming and a multi‐agent system to coordinate multi‐plant purchasing activities in order to minimize the total purchasing cost.

An integrated linear programming model and multi‐agent approach is perfectly suited to the purchase coordination in multi‐plant organizations in order to achieve the global profit.

The proposed model provides an effective and efficient coordination mechanism that helps multi‐plant organization and suppliers to maintain the availability of materials in the right quantity, with the right quality and at minimum possible cost.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of retail investors’ green attention in promoting corporate environmental investments (EIs) using a communication sample on “Hudongyi” from 2011 to 2022.

In this paper, Python is used to capture data and text analysis techniques to obtain green attention information. In the word-matching process, words are matched in the target document one by one based on the preset dictionary and vocabulary rules. In addition to employing fixed effects, this study also incorporates instrumental variables using two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation and applies the Heckman two-step method to verify the regression results.

First, this paper empirically examines the positive influence of retail investors’ green attention on EIs. Second, the findings show that retail investors’ green attention promotes EIs through decreasing principal-agent costs and principal-principal costs. Third, the results show that retail investor’s supervision effect is strengthened under the following three circumstances: executives with stronger green conception, corporations with less information asymmetry and areas with higher level of investor protection.

Our findings broaden the scope of prior research by exploring the impact of retail investor activism on nonfinancial outcomes, contributing to understanding the “black box” of how investor attention fosters EIs. Moreover, by leveraging the power of technology, retail investors have evolved from being the “silent majority” to being actively engaged. The internet has empowered retail investors by providing them with access to information and enabling them to exercise “voice” rights by appealing companies to engage in pro-environmental activities. Our study can provide useful suggestions for the green development of listed companies in China, as well as in other emerging countries.

Unlike other studies that focus on the deterrent effect and corporate financial outcomes of retail investors, we focus on the supervisory effect of retail investors and verify its role in driving EIs. This fills the knowledge gap in prior studies and contributes new insights to explain EIs and extends the understanding of retail investor activism.

A humanoid intelligent robot (HIR) possessing a human-like appearance can undertake human jobs, interact, communicate and even transmit emotions to human beings. Such robots have gradually been integrated into people's daily life and production scenarios. However, it is unclear whether and by what mechanism HIRs can stimulate people’s risk perception and its impact on consumption attitudes. Based on the risk decision theory, this study aims to take the social value substitution attribute of a HIR as the incentive and analyzes the influence of social value substitution and risk perception on the customers’ consumption attitudes.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the related questions about the social value substitution attribute of a HIR, its impact on risk perception and the customers’ consumption attitudes.

The results reveal that physical labor, intellectual labor, friendship, kinship and the ego constitute the hierarchical elements of social value substitution. Among them, physical labor and intellectual labor pertain to the dimension of social function value substitution, while friendship, kinship and ego pertain to the dimension of social presence value substitution; social function value substitution and social presence value substitution affect the subjects’ risk perception positively, but the latter arouses a stronger risk perception; the 2 (risk perception of social function value: security/danger) × 2 (risk perception of social presence value: security/danger) condition corresponds to diverse consumption attitudes.

The results enrich the theories of the “cha-xu pattern” and “uncanny valley” and provide reference for the healthy development of the HIR industry.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of reference effects on online purchase intention (OPI) of agricultural products in B2C context and to examine how consumers’ food safety consciousness (FSC) moderates that impact.

An empirical survey was used to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from a total of 297 online consumers in China. A structural equation modeling is utilized to assess the relationships proposed in the research model.

The findings of this study show that reference effects have a significant impact on OPI of agricultural products. Both perceived value (PV) and perceived risk (PR) play a mediating role in the relations between reference effects and OPI, but the mediating effect of the PV is found to be significantly greater than that of the PR. Consumers’ FSC significantly and positively moderates the impact of reference effects on OPI, meaning that the more attention consumers pay to food safety, the greater the impact of reference effects on OPI will become.

First, this study mainly analyzes the positive impact of reference effects on OPI. Future research could discuss the negative impact of reference effects and compare the differences between them. Second, this study only takes the PV and PR as mediators into the research model. Future research could consider adding trust, attitude, and other variables and further explore and clarify the influencing mechanism between reference effects and OPI. Third, this study examines the moderating role of consumers’ FSC but does not fully discuss the moderating role of product categories. Further research could compare the influence of reference effects among multiple product categories.

This study provides valuable insights for agricultural enterprises and online vendors that reference effects are one of the most important factors to influence OPI. It suggests to agricultural enterprises and online vendors that reference effects can be used as a new instrument to influence consumers’ online purchase decisions.

This study for the first time defines reference effects in an online setting and introduces the perspective of reference effects to establish a theoretical model to explain consumers’ OPI of agricultural products. The study reveals the influencing mechanism of reference effects on OPI and thus enriches the theory of online purchase behavior.

This paper aims to examine how the official discourse of frugality evolved in China between 1979 and 2015.

The study uses historical and textual analysis. It divides the Chinese official discourse on frugality between 1979 and 2015 into four periods: 1979-1992, 1993-2002, 2003-2012 and 2013-2015.

A Chinese official discourse on frugality persisted between 1979 and 2015, even though during the same period, China transformed from a socialist economy of central planning and insufficient supply to a market economy of excessive supply and weak consumer demand. The intensity of this official discourse frequently vacillated, adjusting to both economic and political conditions of the time as part of the larger political-economic contestation between competing ideas and policies.

There have been calls for more studies on how frugality discourses have evolved in international markets, especially in terms of how they are shaped by local historical antecedents and long-standing tensions. Through the Chinese case, this article illuminates why some traditional values persist and obtain a paradoxical co-existence with consumerist ethos in our modern society.

Women’s health is considered a big public health issue, impacting personal well-being, family reproduction, and society’s development. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, major improvements in women’s social status and health have been made. However, far less has been achieved with respect to gender equality and women still face health disparities. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of health and health care disparities among women and their determinants in China today.

This paper used the Statistical Yearbook of Health and Family Planning 2014, the 2010 Women’s Social Status Survey and 2010 census data from the National Bureau of Statistics to give an overall description of disparity in health care and health outcome facing women.

Progress in health is not equally shared by the female population, and the differences in women’s health by region and in urban and rural areas are considerable. The existing health disparities are still faced by women in terms of life expectancy, hazardous working environment, and health care services. As to gender differences among the elderly aged 60+, men have better health status compared to women. In addition, women are more financially dependent on other family members for the main source of daily living, reflecting their economic disadvantages.

This study gives a comprehensive and the latest overview of trends of women’s health progress, disparities in health care, and health outcomes both in female population and between genders by using three data sources.

Effectively engaging patients is critical for the sustainable development of online health communities (OHCs). Although physicians’ general knowledge-sharing, which is free to the public, represents essential resources of OHCs that have been shown to promote patient engagement, little is known about whether such knowledge-sharing can backfire when superfluous knowledge-sharing is perceived as overwhelming and anxiety-provoking. Thus, this study aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of general knowledge-sharing in OHCs by exploring the spillover effects of the depth and breadth of general knowledge-sharing on patient engagement.

The research model is established based on a knowledge-based view and the literature on knowledge-sharing in OHCs. Then the authors test the research model and associated hypotheses with objective data from a leading OHC.

Although counterintuitive, the findings revealed an inverted U-shape relationship between general knowledge-sharing (depth and breadth of knowledge-sharing) and patient engagement that is positively associated with physicians’ number of patients. Specifically, the positive effects of depth and breadth of general knowledge-sharing increase and then decrease as the quantity of general knowledge-sharing grows. In addition, physicians’ offline and online professional status negatively moderated these curvilinear relationships.

This study further enriches the literature on knowledge-sharing and the operations of OHCs from a novel perspective while also offering significant specific implications for OHCs practitioners.

The paper aims to discuss whether the younger generation of China's rural labor force is prepared, in terms of education level or labor quality, for the future labor markets under China's industrial upgrading.

Using nationally representative survey data, the paper gives detailed discussions on the young rural laborers' education attainments, and their off‐farm employment status including job patterns, working hours, and hourly wage rates. The relationship between education and employment status is analyzed and tested. Through these discussions, an employment challenge is revealed, and some policy implications are made.

This paper finds that China's young rural laborers are generally poorly educated and mainly unskilled. They work long hours and are low paid. While they lack the labor quality that will be required to meet the industrial upgrading, an employment challenge may face them in the near future. This paper also finds a strong link between education levels and employment status for the young labor force, which implies the possible effect of policies such as improving rural education.

Based on a solid foundation of a national rural household survey, this paper updates the understanding of the education and employment situations of the young rural labor force in contemporary China. The concern about the employment challenges raised in the paper is related to the future of China's rural labor transition and the whole economy.

Research on the impact of the engagement of online medical teams (OMTs) on patient evaluation, for example, satisfaction, remains insufficient. This study attempts to recognize the underlying mechanism of how OMTs’ engagement influences patient satisfaction by adopting social support as the mediator. This study also scrutinizes the moderating effects of the transactive memory system (TMS) on the link between OMTs’ engagement and social support.

We utilized a linear model that had fixed effects controlled at the team level for analysis. A bootstrapping approach using 5,000 samples was employed to test the mediation effect.

Our results reveal that OMTs’ engagement improves informational and emotional support, thereby promoting patient satisfaction. Specialization and credibility strengthen the impact of OMTs’ engagement on informational and emotional support. Simultaneously, coordination has an insignificant influence on the link between OMTs’ engagement and social support.

This study contributes to the literature on OMTs, social support, and TMS, providing insights into patients’ perceptions of OMTs’ engagement during online team consultation. This study also generates several implications for the practice of online health communities and OMTs.