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Article
Publication date: 2 January 2018

Xin Wang, Xiaoling Xu, Zuowan Zhou and Jihua Gou

This paper aims to exploit shape memory polymer (SMP) composite as multifunctional coatings for protecting substrates from surface wear and bacterial. The efficiency of added nano…

286

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to exploit shape memory polymer (SMP) composite as multifunctional coatings for protecting substrates from surface wear and bacterial. The efficiency of added nano or micro-sized particles in enhancing the properties of SMP was investigated. This study also attempts to use a low-cost and effective spraying approach to fabricate the coatings. The coatings are expected to have good conformability with the substrate and deliver multi-functional performance, such as wrinkle free, wear resistance, thermal stability and antimicrobial property.

Design/methodology/approach

High-performance SMP composite coatings or thin films were fabricated by a home-made continuous spray-deposition system. The morphologies of the coatings were studied using the scanning electron microscope and the transmission electron microscope. The abrasion properties were evaluated by Taber Abraser test, and thermo-gravimetric analysis was carried out to investigate the thermal properties of prepared composites. The antimicrobial property was determined by the inhibition zone method using E. coli. The thermally responsive shape memory effect of the resulting composites was also characterized.

Findings

The morphology analysis indicated that the nanoclay was distributed on the surface of the coating which resulted in a significant improvement of the wear property. The wear resistance of the coatings with nanoclay was improved as much as 40 per cent compared with that of the control sample. The thermo-gravimetric analysis revealed that the weight loss rate of composites with nanoclay was dropped over 40 per cent. The SMP coating with zinc oxide (ZnO) showed excellent antimicrobial effect. The shape recovery effect of SMP/nanoclay and SMP/ZnO composites can be triggered by external heating and the composites can reach a full shape recovery within 60 s.

Research limitations/implications

This study proposed a continuous spray-deposition fabrication of SMP composite coatings, which provides a new avenue to prepare novel multi-functional coatings with low cost.

Originality/value

Most studies have emphasized on the sole property of SMP composites. Herein, a novel SMP composite coating which could deliver multi-functionality such as wrinkle free, wear resistance, thermal stability and antimicrobial property was proposed.

Details

Pigment & Resin Technology, vol. 47 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0369-9420

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Article
Publication date: 2 January 2019

Qinqin Li, Yujie Xiao, Yuzhuo Qiu, Xiaoling Xu and Caichun Chai

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of carbon permit allocation rules (grandfathering mechanism and benchmarking mechanism) on incentive contracts provided by the…

329

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of carbon permit allocation rules (grandfathering mechanism and benchmarking mechanism) on incentive contracts provided by the retailer to encourage the manufacturer to invest more in reducing carbon emissions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors consider a two-echelon supply chain in which the retailer offers three contracts (wholesale price contract, cost-sharing contract and revenue-sharing contract) to the manufacturer. Based on the two carbon permit allocation rules, i.e. grandfathering mechanism and benchmarking mechanism, six scenarios are examined. The optimal price and carbon emission reduction decisions and members’ equilibrium profits under six scenarios are analyzed and compared.

Findings

The results suggest that the revenue-sharing contract can more effectively stimulate the manufacturer to reduce carbon emissions compared to the cost-sharing contract. The cost-sharing contract can help to achieve the highest environmental performance, whereas the implementation of revenue-sharing contract can attain the highest social welfare. The benchmarking mechanism is more effective for the government to prompt the manufacturer to produce low-carbon products than the grandfathering mechanism. Although a loose carbon policy can expand the total emissions, it can improve the social welfare.

Practical implications

These results can provide operational insights for the retailer in how to use incentive contract to encourage the manufacturer to curb carbon emissions and offer managerial insights for the government to make policy decisions on carbon permit allocation rules.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature regarding to firm’s carbon emissions reduction decisions under cap-and-trade policy and highlights the importance of carbon permit allocation methods in curbing carbon emissions.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 49 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

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Article
Publication date: 29 April 2021

Hailan Guo and Xiaoling Xu

Humanitarian relief organisations such as charities count on donations to provide assistance to people in need when disasters occur. In the UK, about 11,200 charity shops collect…

998

Abstract

Purpose

Humanitarian relief organisations such as charities count on donations to provide assistance to people in need when disasters occur. In the UK, about 11,200 charity shops collect second-hand goods from donors to raise funds for their parent charity to support target beneficiaries. As their numbers increase, charity shops are finding it difficult to secure good quality stock. Furthermore, they may need to plan ahead to secure sufficient stock when the economy experiences a downturn. This paper identifies the charity shop's role and its donation flow in the multi-tier supply chain and empirically assesses the barriers that influence intention to donate with a mixed-methods approach.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to explore the charity shop's role within the multi-tier supply chain, this study begins with a literature review and then develops a conceptual model. In order to empirically evaluate the barriers that influence intention to donate, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 charity shop managers and collected 222 usable questionnaires from donors. The interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach was applied to examine the interrelationship among barriers and rank their priority.

Findings

This paper identifies ten significant barriers that influence intention to donate: lack of good quality items for donation; lack of information on how charity shops make use of donations; lack of familiarity with the donation process; lack of information of what items can be accepted by charity shops; lack of awareness of the impact that donations make; the difficulty of being available at the scheduled times for charity shops' free pick-up services; the difficulty of donating during shops' opening hours; the difficulty of finding parking to access charity shops; and living too far away from charity shops. In particular, the questionnaires' results indicate that lack of good quality items is the most significant barrier. This is also reflected in the ISM model, and thus needs more attention.

Practical implications

The results are very useful for charity shops themselves to understand current barriers to securing good quality stock and to develop potential stock-securing interventions based on these barriers' priority.

Originality/value

Although charity shops have been investigated by several researchers, their supply chain remains insufficiently explored. This paper fills this gap by identifying the charity shop's role and its donation flow in the supply chain and by empirically assessing the supply-side barriers with a mixed-methods approach.

Details

Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, vol. 11 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6747

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Article
Publication date: 8 February 2016

xiaoling Hao, Daqing Zheng, Qingfeng Zeng and Weiguo Fan

– The purpose of this paper is to explore how to use social media in e-government to strengthen interactivity between government and the general public.

2320

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to use social media in e-government to strengthen interactivity between government and the general public.

Design/methodology/approach

Categorizing the determinants to interactivity covering depth and breadth into two aspects that are the structural features and the content features, this study employs general linear model and ANOVA method to analyse 14,910 posts belonged to the top list of the 96 most popular government accounts of Sina, one of the largest social media platforms in China.

Findings

The main findings of the research are that both variables of the ratio of multimedia elements, and the ratio of external links have positive effects on the breadth of interactivity, while the ratio of multimedia features, and the ratio of originality have significant effects on the depth of interactivity.

Originality/value

The contributions are as follows. First, the authors analyse the properties and the topics of government posts to draw a rich picture of how local governments use the micro-blog as a communications channel to interact with the public. Second, the authors conceptualize the government online interactivity in terms of the breadth and depth. Third, the authors identify factors that will enhance the interactivity from two aspects: structural features and content features. Lastly, the authors offer suggestions to local governments on how to strengthen the e-government interactivity in social media.

Details

Online Information Review, vol. 40 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1468-4527

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Article
Publication date: 11 September 2009

Xiaoling Hu, Cuizhen Zhang, Jin‐Li Hu and Nong Zhu

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiencies of China's foreign and domestic life insurance providers and to explore the relationship between ownership structure and…

3444

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiencies of China's foreign and domestic life insurance providers and to explore the relationship between ownership structure and the efficiencies of insurers while taking into consideration other firm attributes.

Design/methodology/approach

The data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is used to estimate the efficiencies of the insurers based on a panel data between 1999 and 2004.

Findings

The results indicate that the average efficiency scores for all the insurers are cyclical. Both technical and scale efficiency reached their peaks in 1999 and 2000 and gradually reduced for the rest of the period under examination until 2004 when average efficiency were improved again. The Tobit regression results show that the insurers' market power, the distribution channels used and the ownership structures may be attributed to the variation in the efficiencies.

Research limitations/implications

Based on the research findings and the discussion, the study provides several recommendations for policy makers, regulators and senior executives of insurers.

Practical implications

The research results highlight the importance of deregulating the sector to allow a further expansion of each individual insurer or encourage mergers and acquisitions of insurers so more efficient resource utilization can be achieved through economies of scale. It also suggests that it is imperative for insurers to recruit motivated insurance agents and offer them on‐the‐job training as a part of the management strategies for gaining technical efficiency.

Originality/value

The paper reports the development within China's insurance industry and is one of the few studies analyzing the efficiencies of China's insurers.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 32 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Keywords

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 May 2024

Hui Ma, Shenglan Chen, Xiaoling Liu and Pengcheng Wang

To enrich the research on the economic consequences of enterprise digital development from the perspective of capacity utilization.

423

Abstract

Purpose

To enrich the research on the economic consequences of enterprise digital development from the perspective of capacity utilization.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of listed firms from 2010 to 2020, this paper exploits text analysis of annual reports to construct a proxy for enterprise digital development.

Findings

Results show that enterprise digital development not only improves their own capacity utilization but also generates a positive spillover effect on the capacity utilization of peer firms and firms in the supply chain. Next, based on the incomplete information about market demand and potential competitors when making capacity-building decisions, the mechanism tests show that improving the accuracy of market forecasts and reducing investment surges are potential channels behind the baseline results. Cross-sectional tests show the baseline result is more pronounced when industries are highly homogeneous and when firms have access to less information.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the research related to the economic consequences of digital development. With the development of the digital economy, the real effects of enterprise digital development have also triggered extensive interest and exploration. Existing studies mainly examine the impact on physical operations, such as specialization division of labor, innovation activities, business performance or total factor productivity (Huang, Yu, & Zhang, 2019; Yuan, Xiao, Geng, & Sheng, 2021; Wang, Kuang, & Shao, 2017; Li, Liu, & Shao, 2021; Zhao, Wang, & Li, 2021). These studies measure the economic benefits from the perspective of the supply (output) side but neglect the importance of the supply system to adapt to the actual market demand. In contrast, this paper focuses on capacity utilization, aimed at estimating the net economic effect of digital development by considering the supply-demand fit scenario. Thus, our findings enrich the relevant studies on the potential consequences of digital development.

Details

China Accounting and Finance Review, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1029-807X

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Article
Publication date: 10 January 2018

Xiaoling Wu, Yichen Peng, Xiaofeng Liu and Jing Zhou

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of private investor's fair preference on the governmental compensation mechanism based on the uncertainty of income for the…

297

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of private investor's fair preference on the governmental compensation mechanism based on the uncertainty of income for the public-private-partnership (PPP) project.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the governmental dilemma for the compensation of PPP project, a generalized compensation contract is designed by the combination of compensation before the event and compensation after the event. Then the private investor's claimed concession profit is taken as its fair reference point according to the idea of the BO model, and its fair utility function is established by improving the FS model. Thus the master-slave counter measure game is applied to conduct the behavior modeling for the governmental compensation contract design.

Findings

By analyzing the model given in this paper, some conclusions are obtained. First, the governmental optimal compensation contract is fair incentive for the private investor. Second, the private fair preference is not intuitively positive or negative related to the social efficiency of compensation. Only under some given conditions, the correlation will show the consistent effect. Third, the private fair behavior’s impact on the efficiency of compensation will become lower and lower as the social cost of compensation reduces. Fourth, the governmental effective compensation scheme should be carried out based on the different comparison scene of the private claimed portfolio profit and the expected revenue for the project.

Originality/value

This study analyzes the effects of private investor's fair preference on the validity of governmental generalized compensation contract of the PPP project for the first time; and the governmental generalized compensation contract designed in this study is a pioneering and exploratory attempt.

Details

China Finance Review International, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1398

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Article
Publication date: 7 August 2009

Xiaoling Li, Yufang Wang, Liping Fu and Meirong Xu

The purpose of this paper is to explore why the university library should become the incubation center of research innovation literacy (RIL) competency. It states how the library…

1931

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore why the university library should become the incubation center of research innovation literacy (RIL) competency. It states how the library develops RIL instruction and how the library impels university students to improve their independent knowledge innovation competence.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reviews some of the research papers on information literacy (IL) instruction. Based on background analysis, it enumerates and states the methods of the effective practice of the library in RIL competency instruction.

Findings

The university library possesses the information resources and advanced web technology, owns the experience in IL instruction, and has an advantage in terms of information instruction and research environment. The university library has the ability and responsibility to practice RIL instruction.

Originality/value

This paper provides a point of view that the university library can develop the RIL instruction based on IL. The university library can play not only an important role in general courses of the university, but can also sufficiently expand the function of librarians.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 27 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

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Article
Publication date: 1 June 2015

Xiaoling Li, Xingyao Ren and Xu Zheng

This paper aimed to analyze the short- and long-term effects of the breadth and depth of seller competition on the performance of platform companies, and investigated the…

726

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aimed to analyze the short- and long-term effects of the breadth and depth of seller competition on the performance of platform companies, and investigated the underlying mechanisms of customers’ two-sided marketing tactics on the structure of the competition between sellers.

Design/methodology/approach

A longitudinal research design was adopted by gathering daily market objective data on e-commerce platforms for 250 days, and the dynamic evolution effects was analyzed by using a vector autoregression model which compared the differences between the short- and long-term effectiveness of different customer relationship management (CRM) strategies.

Findings

The breadth of competition amongst sellers improves the performance of platforms, whilst the depth of competition among sellers has a positive effect on the short-term performance. However, it has a negative effect on the long-term performance of their platforms. In both the short and long terms, advertising tactics that attract new buyers contribute more to increases in the breadth of seller competition than those that attract existing buyers do. Subsidies for new sellers decrease the depth of seller competition more than those for old sellers.

Research limitations/implications

Further research could be undertaken to investigate the validity of marketing tactics other than advertising tactics, and thus expand the time windows of the available data.

Practical implications

It is imperative for platform companies to implement effective control over seller competition to balance the interests of the sellers and of themselves.

Originality/value

The dyadic paradigm of CRM research has been extended by considering the perspective of the electronic platform company, how the tactics of exploitation and exploration of two-sided customers impact upon seller competitive structures have been delved into and why new customers have a unique value to platform companies has been identified.

Details

Nankai Business Review International, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8749

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Article
Publication date: 10 March 2014

Yuxiang Chris Zhao, Xiaojuan Xu, Xiaoling Sun and Qinghua Zhu

In the Web 2.0 era, more and more digital immigrants actively participate in blogging, video sharing, online rating, and micro blogging, etc. However, some may be more skilled in…

2001

Abstract

Purpose

In the Web 2.0 era, more and more digital immigrants actively participate in blogging, video sharing, online rating, and micro blogging, etc. However, some may be more skilled in producing and generating online content while others still meet some barriers in doing so. Thus, it is interesting to investigate the online generative capability of digital immigrants in Web 2.0 context. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors selected Shanghai as their target province in this study for its large scale of internet users. An in-depth semi-structured interview was used as their research method. They selected several community clubs as the interview settings. In addition, age was adopted as a threshold to define the Chinese digital immigrants for its convenience in sampling.

Findings

Chinese digital immigrants are playing an important role in content generating, and have a great potential in the future contribution, and a number of digital immigrants regard the content generating as a pretty easy work while some others felt difficulties, even frustrated and exhausted when generating content. About the content type, digital immigrants prefer to generate that content with low granularity. About the motivation, the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic motivation with an internalized focus play a dominant role. About the generating mode, digital immigrants prefer to generate content individually or collectively.

Originality/value

This paper develops the concept of online generative capability by adapting the notion of generativity from other disciplines to the characteristics of Web 2.0. Then an integrated conceptual framework is built and evaluated. Practically, the paper puts forward some implications for the designers, managers, and information service staff from different perspectives to facilitate the digital immigrant's online generative capability.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 66 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

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