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The purpose of this paper is to establish a more reasonable evaluation system and model for the development level of rural tourism, and provides a method for quantifying the development level of regional rural tourism.

This paper provides a method for evaluating the development level of rural tourism, constructs an evaluation index system according to the connotation of rural tourism, then calculates the index weight by entropy method, and makes a comprehensive evaluation by grey relational analysis. Taking the development of rural tourism in 11 cities in Jiangxi Province as the research object, the ranking results of 11 cities were obtained by using grey relational analysis.

The overall development level of rural tourism in Jiangxi Province is positive, but the spatial distribution is uneven, showing the characteristics of “low-level aggregation and high-level dispersion”. The barrier model diagnoses that the degree of financial input is the biggest constraint to the development level of rural tourism in Jiangxi Province.

This study puts forward an evaluation model based on entropy weight and grey relational analysis, which is an important supplement to the grey relational analysis method system and has a positive role in promoting the quantitative evaluation of regional rural tourism level.

This paper intends to provide a thematic literature review of the scholarly research articles orbiting the Sino–African education cooperation and exchange, published between 2005 and 2022.

The methodology used in this paper is qualitative in nature with a thematic approach. The author used content analysis techniques to spotlight the major themes of the topic studied. The author selected the papers and theses, based on their heuristic capacity, from two major databases for the English and Chinese literature: Web of Science and CNKI. The selection process resulted in 60 high-quality peer-reviewed articles and theses. Another 30 research articles and theses were used as supplementary resources.

The literature concentrates on six points: the historical development, the nature of the exchange, the frameworks of the cooperation, vocational training and knowledge transfer, African students in China and their experiences, and education cooperation and soft power. However, research tends to be somewhat polemical rather than an academic debate between Chinese researchers and their western peers. Therefore, empirical studies beyond the geopolitical preoccupations and the “YEA” or “NAY” to the Sino–African education exchange are critically needed.

The implications of this study go beyond the east/west or developed/developing world rhetoric and focus more on sustainable educational development on a global scale. Understanding how the literature on the Sino–African education engagement is shaping, provides valuable insights into international education in the global south. It can also be implied to approach educational engagement with other destinations such as India, Türkiye and Brazil.

This thematic literature review concentrates on the educational aspect of Sino–African relations. It compares English and Chinese peer-reviewed scholarly articles and theses on China–Africa educational engagement and has heuristic implications for sustainable educational development globally.

Megaprojects provide an ideal context for exploring the dynamic characteristics of stakeholders within a collaborative innovation system. This research aims to examine the changes in stakeholder salience and functional roles during the evolution of such a system.

This study is empirically grounded on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) megaproject in China, analyzed with the stakeholder salience, stakeholder functional role, stakeholder dynamics and collaborative innovation system theoretical lens.

The megaproject collaborative innovation system can be divided into four stages: the birth stage, development stage, mature stage and re-innovation stage. Stakeholder salience generally remains unchanged throughout the lifecycle of the collaborative innovation system, except for engineering consulting firms (ECF). ECF transitioned from a definitive stakeholder to an expectant stakeholder upon project completion. The number of definitive stakeholders during the first three stages increases gradually. Besides, stakeholder functional roles shift in eight different directions throughout the lifecycle of the megaproject collaborative innovation system because they possess different core resources necessary for implementing innovations and are positioned differently within the collaborative innovation system.

This study contributes to the theory and practice of collaborative innovation in megaprojects. First, it offers insights into the evolution of megaproject collaborative innovation systems from the perspective of stakeholder interactions. Second, it has significant implications for managing stakeholder relationships based on their salience and functional roles at different stages of the collaborative innovation system.

Most prior studies treated human resource management (HRM) strength as a whole, while neglecting the dynamic interactions between distinct components (consensus, consistency and distinctiveness). The authors lack a deep understanding of how different components operate together to influence burnout. To address these gaps, this study aims to adopt signaling theory to investigate the interactions among different components and their impacts on employee burnout.

The authors collected time-lagged data from 231 full-time employees in manufacturing firms in Suzhou, China. The authors used the PROCESS Model 6 and hierarchical multiple regression to analyze the data.

This study found that HRM system consensus and consistency mitigate employee burnout, whereas HRM distinctiveness is not significantly related to burnout. Furthermore, the authors revealed that HRM system consistency (rather than distinctiveness) mediated the relationship between consensus and burnout. Moreover, the authors found the sequential mediating effects of HRM system distinctiveness and consistency on the association between consensus and burnout.

Considering that employees’ well-being problems may be debilitating and overwhelming during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is particularly ethical and timely for managers to direct attention to the role of HRM system strength in addressing employee burnout.

This study advances the HRM system literature by teasing out the interactions between the three pivotal components of HRM strength. Our study is among the first to empirically investigate the internal relationships between the meta-features of the HRM system and employee burnout. In doing so, the authors develop a more nuanced understanding of the collective nature of a strong HRM system that conveys a shared message about HRM to promote well-being.

The purpose of this investigation was to study a transparent coating based on organic silicone resins prepared by the hydrolysis and condensation of methyltriethoxysilane and tetraethoxysilane.

The coating film was characterized by IR, UV, thermal gravity analysis, scanning electron microscope and an automatic contact angle meter. Some properties of the coating film, such as adhesion, impact resistance and wear-resistance also were evaluated.

These uniform, clear and smooth coating films possessed the high transparent and light transmittance, high density, high hydrophobicity, good adhesion, hardness and anti-corrosion.

The coating may be considered as a protective film for the surfaces of the metals and plastics.

This paper empirically examines whether the order of liability and preferred stock accounts presented on the balance sheet is consistent with how the stock market values their riskiness.

This paper measures a firm’s riskiness with idiosyncratic risk and employs the first-difference design to test the relation between idiosyncratic risk and the order of current liabilities, noncurrent liabilities and preferred stock, respectively. Further, the paper tests whether operating liabilities are viewed as riskier than financial liabilities. Finally, the authors partition their sample based on the degree of financial distress and investigate whether the results differ between the two subsamples.

The paper finds that current liabilities are viewed as riskier than noncurrent liabilities and preferred stock is viewed as less risky than current and noncurrent liabilities, consistent with the ordering on the balance sheet. Further, the paper finds that operating liabilities are viewed as riskier than financial liabilities. Finally, the authors find that total liabilities and preferred stock (redeemable and convertible classes) are viewed as riskier for distressed firms than for nondistressed firms.

The authors thoroughly investigate the riskiness of several classes of claims and document that the classification of liabilities and preferred stock classes is relevant to common stockholders for assessing their associated risk.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel method to prepare pure Ti powder for 3D printing with tailorable particle size distribution.

The main procedures of the present method consist of gas state reaction to synthesize TiH₂ nanoparticles, agglomeration to obtain micronscale powder particles by spray drying, and densification of particle interior by heat treatment.

The prepared Ti powder has a specific bimodal particle size distribution in a range of small sizes, good sphericity and high flowability. Particularly, this new technique is capable of controlling powder purity and adjusting particle size.

To the best knowledge of the authors, the approach for preparing 3D printing metallic powders from nanoparticles has not been reported in the literature so far. This work provides a novel method that is particularly applicable to prepare 3D printing metallic powders which have small initial particle sizes and high reactivity in the air.

With respect to the multiple-attribute decision-making problem with subjective preference for a certain attribute whose weight-value range have been given over other attributes whose weight values are unknown, a method based on the mean value of the grey number is proposed to analyse the decision-making problem. This method is used to choose a supply-chain partner under the condition that the decision makers have a preference for a certain attribute of various alternatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, the middle value of the preferred attribute’s weight-value range is supposed to be its weight value according to the content of the mean value of the grey number. Second, to reflect the decision maker’s subjective preference information, an improved optimisation model that requests the minimum deviation between the actual and expected numerical value of each attribute is constructed to assess the attributes’ weights. Third, the correlated degree and the correlation matrix, which are determined by the weight values of all attributes, are used to rank all the alternatives.

This paper provides a method for making a decision when decision makers have a preference for a certain attribute from an array of various alternatives, and the range of the certain attribute’s weight value is given but the weight value of the other attributes is unknown. When applied to supply-chain partner selection, this method proves feasible and effective.

This method is feasible and effective when applied to supply-chain partner selection, and can be applied to other kinds of decision-making problems. This means it has significant theoretical importance and extensive practical value.

Based on the mean value of the grey number, an optimisation model is built to determine the importance degree of each attribute, then the correlated degree of each alternative is combined to rank all the alternatives. This method can suit the decision makers’ subjective preference for a certain attribute well.

In China, external supervision on construction safety mainly comes from the government and supervision engineers (SEs). However, the construction safety supervisory mechanism (CSSM) contains some dilemmas affecting the improvement of safety performance, such as the declining impact of SEs, the increasing rent-seeking behaviors of contractor and excessive government interference. This study aims to depict and analyze the CSSM in China from an evolutionary game view. The objectives are to understand the supervision strategy and evolutionary behaviors of different stakeholders, propose suggestions for improving safety performance and help the key safety supervision stakeholders, especially the government, formulate a suitable safety supervision strategy.

This research uses tripartite dynamic evolutionary game theory to study the CSSM in China and solve the stable equilibrium solution using system dynamics.

This study has revealed the game relationship of construction safety supervision mechanisms in China and solved the stable equilibrium solution. The results prove that a supervision engineer (SE) plays a crucial role in the CSSM, and “supervision engineer useless” is an unreasonable assertion. For government supervision agency (GSA), excessive inspection and free-market regulation are neither wise strategies. GSA can reduce the inspection frequency when general contractors (GCs) input high safety investments and SEs implement responsible supervision. But keeping proper government supervision to avoid GC's unlawful behaviors and SE's rent-seeking is indispensable. In addition, excessive governmental supervision will weaken SE's role, so the government should transfer some supervision powers to SE.

This study focuses on the dynamic evolution process between GSA, GC and SE. This method is different from most research that neglected the dynamic characteristic of system and game solution stability. The research methods not only contribute to construction safety supervision policy-making in China but also help to improve supervision efficiency in other countries and other fields.

This study aims to explore the overall relationship between a boundary spanner and a partner firm, i.e. boundary spanner closeness to partner firm. Drawing on consumer-service provider relationship literature and the tripartite model of affect-behavior-cognition, the authors identify three key dimensions of such closeness, namely, boundary spanners’ relational ties, customer-specific capabilities and accommodative behaviors, and examine their effects on exchange outcomes in turbulent versus stable environments.

The paper examines the effects of three dimensions of boundary spanner closeness on various exchange outcomes (i.e. retailers’ cooperation, satisfaction and willingness for investment) using two industries as exemplars, characterized by distinct levels of environmental turbulence – the retailing networks of a major cell phone company and a petroleum company in China.

The results indicate that the three dimensions individually and jointly affect exchange outcomes and the interplay of customer-specific capabilities and relational ties affect exchange outcomes differently across industry turbulence.

The existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the function of boundary spanners, which serve as a key relational interorganizational governance component. By identifying three key dimensions of boundary spanner closeness and examining their effectiveness in promoting exchange outcomes, this study advances the understanding of the role of boundary spanners in interorganizational governance.