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This paper aims to explore the key elements and dynamic formation mechanisms involved in the company identity construction during multicompany identification.

This study adopted a longitudinal single case study method, selected a representative company as the study case and analyzed the interactive practice of identity construction between the company and its external stakeholders based on the theory of organizational identity and sensemaking.

This study finds that the process of company identity construction for external stakeholders involves six elements. Companies mainly use a highly controlled, equality and interaction model to develop identity for a single stakeholder. Company identity is based on the company’s core identity claims and is formed by gradually integrating and cooperating with the identity claims of different stakeholders. Meeting the self-defining needs of stakeholders is a key driving force behind the evolution of company identity.

This study offers practical implications for companies to pursue and construct multicompany identity. For different types of external stakeholders, companies can adopt different identity sensemaking models. To build a new company identity, a company needs to do more on the basis of identity insights to break cognitive constraints and build new identity claim. Companies need to integrate new identity claims with the original identity claims. If different identity claims conflict or are difficult to reconcile, it may damage their original identity claims and companies need to evaluate the trade-offs.

This study expands the concept of company identity construction from the individual perspective to organizational identity and contributes to research in relationship marketing. This study identifies the key elements of company identity construction with multistakeholder participation and contributes to theory building in company identity research. The results of this study reveal the company identity construction mechanism for different external stakeholders and the dynamic formation process of multicompany identity.

Though most construction workers in China possess minimal skillset, they are reluctant to attend vocational skill training sponsored by the government or enterprises. This paper aims to examine their willingness to attend the training from workers’ individual perspectives.

The authors interviewed 492 construction workers on topics concerning their age, education, work tenure, technological level, daily wages, apprenticeship duration, apprentice channels and training experience; this information was then logistically analyzed to reveal if it influences construction workers’ willingness to attend training courses.

The results show that in a variety of possible influencing factors, technological level, apprenticeship duration and education are the most significant ones that affect construction workers’ willingness to attend vocational training. Technological level makes the greatest contribution to workers’ willingness to attend training, yet the effect of training experience and daily wages is minimal.

To achieve sustainability in construction labor management, it is important to shed light on what influences worker’s willingness to attend training programs and take some efficient steps to address these issues.

This paper provides a new insight into the workers’ willingness to attend vocational skill training programs in the Chinse construction industry and suggests some practical implications for professionals and policymakers. Furthermore, the findings could prove valuable to other countries or industries, especially those sharing similarities to the Chinese construction industry.

In China there are large amounts of coal located underneath buildings. In this article the severity of the problem is studied, and the characteristics of the mining technology used for the extraction of coals under buildings are described. Based on the comprehensive analyses of the abundant literature, separated bed grouting, backfill mining, Partial Mining and homonic mining technology, are the main mining technologies that exist for extraction of these coals. At the same time, the necessary measures for protecting the buildings are also considered. In particular, the authors have analysed the development of these mining technologies and concluded that the waste filling will be the focus of development, and that the main developing technologies of the filling mining method should be further perfecting the separated bed filling, strip mining and strenthening the anti-deformation of building.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new local interlibrary loan (ILL) system between universities in Beijing, China.

The paper provides a descriptive analysis of the BALIS ILL system.

The paper finds that BALIS ILL has developed rapidly in the past two years but there are still some problems to solve.

This paper will be relevant to librarians interested in resource sharing in China.

This paper aims to explore the relationship of various financial and non‐financial factors to corporate value and how these factors can be used for the purpose of firm valuation. The focus is placed on a developing high‐tech industry.

The authors collect and compare data from companies within the time window of 1997 through 2010. The techniques of stepwise regression and back‐propagation neural network (BPNN) are applied to analyze this data, where the variables of operating profit margin, ROE, ROA, net income ratio, Tobin's Q and stock price are chosen to indicate firm value.

Each firm value variable appears to have a different set of estimator variables consisting of financial and non‐financial factors. The estimator variable in the set that has a high influence relative to the others tends to be financial factor. However, certain non‐financial factors appear to be considered as an estimator variable for different firm value variables more often than financial factors such as employee productivity, wealth created per employee, revenue growth rate, management expense per employee, R&D expense to management expense ratio, and R&D expenditure to total assets ratio. Further, the incorporation of BPNN shows an improvement of the result of the regression method in terms of overall estimation error, especially for operating profit margin.

The authors' investigation highlights the importance of the use of non‐financial factors for firm valuation in developing biotech industries. The result can be helpful for investors who seek to examine information variables and indicators for the opportunity presented by the above industries. In addition, the significant estimation improvement by incorporating the BNPP method into the commonly used regression method suggests the beneficial use of BPNN in refining the traditional methods in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze mergers and acquisitions (M&A) focusing on the US pharmaceutical industry in the period 1981‐2004. This industry is chosen because it is global, it engages intensively in M&A which it uses to both complement and substitute for early stage research, and because the potential abnormal returns to blockbuster drugs are substantial. It is assumed that if abnormal returns to M&A exist in the short and long run, this is the industry to find them.

The study examines short‐term abnormal returns separating mergers from acquisitions and US‐based from foreign‐based M&A targets. It examined 405 mergers and acquisitions during 1981‐2004 to address the issues of our research.

Evidence of short and long‐term abnormal returns, as well as accounting and efficiency effects are found for acquisitions but not for mergers. However, the tests do suggest that mergers with US‐based targets are not value destroying. It is also found that there are differences as to the effects of acquisitions of foreign‐based, as opposed to US‐based targets.

Taken in total, the results provide support for the view that in the pharmaceutical industry, acquisitions of US‐based companies have a positive impact on wealth creation for company shareholders.

The traction behaviours of lubricating oil significantly affect the stability and lubrication regime of aviation high-speed ball bearings. Rolling elements will slide at a low traction force (TF). Therefore, traction behaviours need to be studied, and a fitting expression for traction curves to rapidly calculate the traction coefficient (TC) should be developed.

The traction behaviours of an aviation lubricating oil were studied in severe operating conditions with a self-designed two-disc testing rig. Based on the least squares method and the Levenberg–Marquardt theory, a rapid calculation expression was developed by fitting the obtained traction curves. The correction of this expression was experimentally verified by comparing the TCs under different operating conditions. This expression was also used to modify the commonly accepted quasi-dynamic model of rolling bearings.

An increase of the load led to an increase in the TC. In comparison, the temperature and entrainment speed showed inverse effects. The proposed expression exactly predicted the trend of the experimentally acquired traction curve. The calculation with the modified dynamic model showed that the action of the TF on a single rolling element varied and that the temperature increase of the outer raceway is higher than the inner raceway, which is caused by the TF and relative sliding speed between the elements and raceways.

The proposed fitting expression is able to simplify the TC calculation of synthetic aviation lubricating oil in practical engineering applications. This paper can provide an important reference for the traction behaviour of synthetic aviation lubricating oil under severe conditions and assist with its rapid calculation and practical application in engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to study the engineering application of diamond like carbon (DLC) coatings on the surfaces of piston pins and bucket tappets for a 2.0 L supercharged gasoline engine. The friction loss and durability of DLC-coated components were investigated.

The tribological characteristics were examined under oil-lubricated conditions in a CETR UMT reciprocating tribometer. In a motored engine test rig, friction loss torque test was performed to estimate the improvement in fuel economy. Fired engine durability bench tests of typical duration of 450 h were completed to access the durability and wear resistance of DLC coating. Before and after durability tests, coated and uncoated components were measured on the sliding surface by a profilometer technique.

Friction and wear test results show that DLC coating has low friction coefficient and reduces the wear rates by almost ten times compared to those of uncoated surfaces. Friction loss measurements indicate that DLC-coated tappets can reduce valve train friction loss by 29 per cent, and DLC-coated piston pins can reduce piston group friction by 11 per cent. Based on fired engine durability bench tests, it is evidenced that none of the coated tappets and pins show any noticeable peeling or delamination. Wear profiles analysis results indicate that DLC-coated engine components give rise to a substantial reduction in wear.

DLC coating applied onto the working surface of piston pin and bucket tappet can effectively reduce the friction loss of gasoline engine. DLC coating exhibits sufficient durability and improves friction and wear performance.