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This paper aims to examine the optimal promotion strategy of an e-retailer, who may advertise, or launch rebates initiative to encourage consumers' disseminating electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) messages, with an aim to boost product sales.

This paper analyzes the decisions of the e-retailer in a two-period model, using utility function approach and backward induction method, and obtains the optimal solutions in four promotion strategies.

The study finds that rebate scheme greatly impacts the timing of advertising, and neither lower nor higher consumers' eWOM effort invariably benefits the retailer, rather, a medium level is the best choice for the retailer. When eWOM impact power is at a relatively high level, it can supplement advertising effect to attract more consumers' purchase. Otherwise, eWOM may counteract the role of advertising.

Different from the extant literature focusing on advertising or eWOM without rebates, the paper studies the issue of advertising and eWOM with rebates in two- period model which seldom addresses before the authors examine the optimal timing of advertising and eWOM with/without rebates in four promotion strategies i.e. the A-NE model the NE-A model the A-ER model and the ER-A model.

Drawing upon social information processing theory, this study investigates the correlation between self-serving leadership and employee expediency. It also explores the mediating effect of self-interest motivation and the moderating effect of trait mindfulness.

A total of 147 part-time MBA students were enlisted to participate in a scenario experiment (Study 1), and 291 valid employee questionnaires were collected through a multiple-time point survey (Study 2). SPSS 23.0, MPLUS 8.0 and PROCESS programs were used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

Study 1 illustrated a positive correlation between self-serving leadership and employee expediency. It also identified self-interest motivation as a mediating factor in the correlation between self-serving leadership and expediency. Study 2 replicated the results obtained in Study 1 and expanded upon them by demonstrating that trait mindfulness moderates the association between self-serving leadership and self-interest motivation. Additionally, trait mindfulness moderates the indirect effect of self-serving leadership on expediency.

This research argues that organizations should take steps to prevent self-serving leadership in order to reduce employee expediency. Furthermore, it is advisable to provide ethics training to employees who exhibit high trait mindfulness, as they show increased sensitivity to self-serving leadership and are more likely to engage in unethical behavior.

This study expands the existing research on the ethical outcomes of self-serving leadership and contributes to a deeper understanding of the negative aspects of trait mindfulness.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain the environmental factor, which has the greatest effect on the corrosion rate of Q235 carbon steel under thin electrolyte layer, and to analyze the effect of this factor on the corrosion morphology, corrosion products and polarization process of Q235 carbon steel.

An electrochemical device, which can be used under thin electrolyte layer is designed to measure the corrosion current in different environments. Response surface methodology (RSM) is introduced to analyze the effect of environmental factors on corrosion rate. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique are used to analyze the results. The Tafel slopes of anode and cathode in different humidity and solution are calculated by least square method.

The three environmental factors are ranked according to importance, namely, humidity, temperature and chloride ion deposition rate. In a high humidity environment, the relative content of α-FeOOH in the corrosion product is high and the relative content of β-FeOOH is low. The higher the humidity, the lower the degree of anodic blockage, whereas the degree of cathodic blockage is independent of humidity. The above experiments confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of the device, indicating it can be used for the screening of corrosive environmental factors.

In this paper, an electrochemical device under thin film is designed, which can simulate atmospheric corrosion well. Subsequent SEM and XRD confirmed the reliability of the data measured by this device. The introduction of a scientific RSM can overcome the limitations of orthogonal experiments and more specifically and intuitively analyze the effects of environmental factors on corrosion rates.

Drawing upon socio-technical system theory, this study intends to investigate the effects of the congruence and incongruence between artificial intelligence (AI) and explorative learning on supply chain resilience as well as the moderating role of organizational inertia.

Using survey data collected from 170 Chinese manufacturing firms, we performed polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our hypotheses.

We find that the congruence between AI and explorative learning enhances firms’ supply chain resilience, while the incongruence between these two factors impairs their supply chain resilience. In addition, compared with low–low congruence, high–high congruence between AI and explorative learning improves supply chain resilience to a greater extent. Moreover, organizational inertia attenuates the positive influence of the congruence between AI and explorative learning on supply chain resilience, while it aggravates the negative influence of the incongruence between these two factors on supply chain resilience.

Our study expands the literature on supply chain resilience by demonstrating that the congruence between a firm’s AI (i.e. technical aspect) and explorative learning (i.e. social aspect) boosts its supply chain resilience. More importantly, our study sheds new light on the role of organizational inertia in moderating the congruent effect of AI and explorative learning, thereby extending the boundary condition for socio-technical system theory in the supply chain resilience literature.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of environmental uncertainty on corporate social responsibility (CSR), and involves corporate financial investment as mediating factor into this relationship to identify whether Chinese enterprises pursue fame or profit under rising environmental uncertainty.

Data of listed companies in China from 2010 to 2019 are employed. Fixed effect and mediating effect models were used to explore the relationship between environmental uncertainty, corporate financial investment, and CSR. The heterogeneity influence and moderating effect are discussed by using the method of grouping test and adding interactive items.

The study finds that rising environmental uncertainty has a negative impact on CSR. It stimulates managements' short-sighted motivation, so that enterprises prioritize financial investment that can solve short-term goals, rather than CSR performance. This inhibitory effect is caused by holding illiquid financial assets with the motivation of “speculative profit seeking.” The negative effect is greater in the samples of state-owned enterprises, nonfamily enterprises and enterprises with low risk-taking.

It provides a decision-making direction for implementation of CSR governance and the construction of CSR system, particularly in emerging market economies.

CSR is widely known in developed countries for its formation, development and role, but its effectiveness and behavioral motivation are less mentioned in emerging markets. In the future, the research in this area needs to be further advanced.

The study makes significant contributions to the mechanisms behind the link between environmental uncertainty and CSR by taking corporate financial investment as an intermediary factor into the analysis, especially in the unique market context of China.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of temperature on the acceleration and simulation of indoor corrosion tests and the corrosion behavior of Q235 carbon steel.

The indoor corrosion test was carried out by continuous salt spray in a salt spray chamber. Weight loss analysis, X-ray diffraction, cannon 1500 D, scanning electron microscopy and electrochemical techniques are used to analyze the results.

It was found that thickness loss of Q235 carbon steel increases with higher temperature and it can reach 0.095 mm at 50°C. Compared with the Xisha exposure test, the acceleration rate can achieve 230 times. This phenomenon indicates that decreasing the experimental temperature is beneficial to the anti-corrosion of the Q235 carbon steel. It is fascinating to find that acceleration and simulation increase with temperature simultaneously, which shows that β-FeOOH promotes the corrosion rate and α-FeOOH provides high simulation. Meanwhile, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy indicates that the resistance of the rust layer improves with temperature.

Through the study, the authors found that with the increase of temperature, the acceleration and simulation of indoor corrosion test improved, corrosion products and kinetics are the same as those in outdoor exposure test, and which means that the laboratory can achieve the long-term corrosion degree of outdoor exposure in a short time, and the similarity with outdoor exposure is high. This helps to the study of marine atmospheric corrosion, and indoor accelerated corrosion tests can largely eliminate regional differences by adjusting some environmental factors, and lay a foundation for marine atmospheric corrosion.

The effects of temperature on the acceleration and simulation of indoor corrosion tests are discussed. Through laboratory experiments, the long-term service life of Q235 carbon in the Xisha marine atmosphere can be predicted effectively.

This study aims to understand how the assembly of rotating ring affects the axial forced vibration of gas face seals.

A three-mass kinematic model is established to investigate the axial movement of the rotating ring with bilateral constraints. The separation, collision and frictional sliding of the rotating ring in sleeve are discussed under rotor excitation. The effects of operating parameters and O-ring dynamic characteristics on the separation degree and film thickness disturbance are analyzed. A dimensionless axial characteristic force is defined to determine the critical conditions for the occurrence of separation. Several effective methods to eliminate the separation are proposed based on the adjustment of typical installation parameters.

Under rotor excitation, there may be two collisions between the rotating ring and the sleeve surfaces in one excitation period. This will cause self-excited vibration of the fluid film, increasing the risk of seal failure. The separation and collision can be prevented by increasing the equilibrium ratio, the installation radius of the O-ring on the outer surface of the rotating ring and the friction in the sleeve.

The results develop the modeling of multibody dynamics of gas face seals, enabling more accurate prediction of vibration characteristics.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the vibration isolation performance of a quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) metastructure by employing the band gap (BG) mechanism.

The metastructure QZS characteristic was investigated through static analysis by numerical simulation. Based on that, the BG mechanism is primarily used in this article to investigate the wave propagation characteristics of this structure. The model's dispersion relation is then examined using theoretical (perturbation method) and finite element techniques. The dynamic response of the finite-size systems and experimental analysis is used to confirm the vibration mitigation property under investigation. Finally, the model's ability to absorb energy was examined and contrasted with a traditional model.

The analytical analysis reveals the dispersion curve and the effect of the nonlinear parameter on the curve shifting. The dispersion curve in the finite element method (FEM) result depicts five complete BGs within the range of 0–1,000 Hz, and the BG width accounted for 67.4% of the frequency concerned (0–1,000 Hz). Eigenmodes of the dispersion curves were analyzed to investigate the BG formation mechanisms. The dependence of BG opening and closure on structure parameters was also studied. Finally, the energy absorption property of the QZS metastructure was evaluated by comparing it with a classical model. The QZS structure absorbs 4.08 J/Kg compared to the 3.69 J/Kg absorbed by the classical model, which reveals that the QZS demonstrates better energy absorption performance. Based on the BG mechanism, it is clear that this model is an excellent vibration isolator, and the study reveals the frequencies at which complete vibration mitigation is achieved. As a result, this model could be a promising candidate for vibration mitigation engineering structures and energy absorption.

The tough vibration issue, which is primarily experienced in mechanical equipment, will be resolved in this study. This study provides a precise understanding of the QZS metastructure's isolation of vibration, including the frequencies at which this isolation occurs.

The purpose of this paper is to separate and purify flavonoids from glycyrrhiza by macroporous adsorption resin (MAR) mixed-bed technology.

The adsorption performance of MAR and MAR mixed bed for flavonoids was studied using ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry.

The research shows that the MAR mixed bed of LZ-50+LZ-59 with a mass ratio of LZ-50:LZ-59(m:m) = 1:1 was the optimized combination with the optimal conditions of adsorption (pH = 6, T = 45°C) and desorption (liquid ratio R = 70%, T = 50°C, pH = 8) obtained, relatively.

This paper provides a novel way to separate flavonoids from glycyrrhiza. Under the optimal conditions, the adsorption rate (F) of MAR mixed-bed LZ-50+LZ-59 to the flavonoids was 62.5 per cent/g, the desorption rate (D) was 89.23 per cent and the purity was achieved at 80 per cent.

In this paper, a kind of an oil groove structure which could improve the transmission torque of an oil film was designed, i.e. the width and depth of oil groove gradually decrease with the increase in the radius.

Effects of the structural parameters of the oil groove on the hydro-viscous drive (HVD) characteristics with variable rotational speed were investigated by means of numerical calculation.

Research results show that with the decrease of the width and depth of the oil groove at the outer diameter, transmission torque increases, while the temperature is almost unchanged. Keeping the effective area unchanged, comparing the transmitted torque under the oil groove angle θ₂ = 0.5° and θ₂ = 4.5°, the former was almost 200 per cent of the latter; the torque transmitted with h₂ = 0.05 mm was almost 150 per cent of that with h₂ = 0.2 mm.

In this paper, the authors analyze the friction surface of the friction plate between the oil groove, oil distribution and oil film transfer torque from the oil groove structure parameters and found methods to improve the transmission torque. For the first time, the influence of the structural parameters of oil groove on the characteristics of HVD was studied under the condition of variable rotational speed, and a better method to improve the transmission torque was proposed.