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While the usage of digital technology can bring many operational improvements for firms, it is unclear whether it can effectively improve firm resilience to deal with supply chain disruptions caused by emergencies such as COVID-19. From a dynamic capability perspective, this study aims to investigate how digital technology usage can improve firm resilience in a rapidly changing and turbulent environment.

Based on the survey sample of 237 Chinese firms, the stepwise regression approach was used to examine the proposed research hypotheses.

The empirical evidence shows that digital technology usage has a U-shaped effect on firm resilience, and that effect is fully achieved by first affecting market acuity and then promoting resource reconfiguration. Moreover, the authors further found that the U-shaped association between digital technology usage and firm resilience is derived from the U-shaped association between digital technology usage and market acuity.

This study enriches the resilience literature by revealing the mechanism of digital technology usage’s effects rather than focusing on the role of specific digital technologies. This study also provides guidance for firms to develop effective digital technology usage strategies.

Although the circular economy is widely regarded as an essential strategy for firms, the present understanding of the drivers and outcomes of circular economy implementation is underdeveloped. In this paper, the authors draw on the natural resource-based view and information processing theory to explore how an environmental orientation and digital supply chain platforms promote circular economy implementation, and increase the impact of circular economy implementation on financial performance.

The authors surveyed 249 Chinese firms and used hierarchical regression analysis to test hypotheses.

The empirical results reveal that three primary modes of circular economy implementation—reinvent and rethink (INV), restore, reduce and avoid (RRA), and recirculate (REC)—are all driven by environmental orientation and digital supply chain platforms. More interestingly, digital supply chain platforms have an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the relationships between environmental orientation and INV and between environmental orientation and RRA. Most importantly, INV and RRA are positively related to financial performance, whereas REC does not have a significant relationship with financial performance.

The authors contribute to the literature on the circular economy by revealing new drivers and outcomes of different modes of its implementation. Additionally, the findings have implications for how firms should frame their circular economy initiatives in the context of the digital revolution.

Financing the capital-constrained farmers to facilitate the production of agri-products is one of the greatest challenges facing the farming supply chain in the developing countries. In this study, we investigate the optimal financing scheme for the farming supply chain under random yield and investment information asymmetry environment to support rural economic development.

We analyze a stylized model of farming supply chain where the capital-constrained farmer produces and sells agri-products through the agribusiness firm, and investigate the optimal financing scheme incorporating the investment information asymmetry and the challenge of yield uncertainty.

The results show that there is no one financing scheme equilibrium dominates for all situations, the financing scheme equilibrium is affected by the bank’s supervision cost to monitor the farmer’s moral hazard behavior, the variance of random yield and the farmer’s initial capital. The preference of the financing scheme for the agribusiness firm may be different from that for the farmer. The agribusiness firm might suffer from overfinancing problem under trade credit financing when the bank’s supervision cost is larger and the farmer’s own initial capital is lower; the higher variance of random yield will flare up the effect.

This study sheds light on the choice of financing scheme under random yield and investment information asymmetry environment. This problem is particularly important for developing economies. Financing the capital-constrained farmers not only increases supplies of food and industrial raw materials, but also reduces poverty. The findings provide managerial implications for practitioners for how to leverage different financing scheme to support rural economic development.

This study develops new theoretical model for farming supply chain financing incorporating the challenge of yield uncertainty and investment information asymmetry, the two prominent factors that would impact the financial risk significantly. We analyze the equilibrium under both bank financing and trade credit financing schemes, and the results suggest that the financing scheme equilibrium is affected by the bank’s supervision cost to monitor the farmer’s moral hazard behavior, the variance of random yield and the farmer’s initial capital. The agribusiness firm might suffer from overfinancing problem under trade credit financing.

This study aims to examine the effects of the perceived warmth and competence of humanoid robots on customer tolerance of service failure through the affective response and the boundary condition of relationship norms.

Two experimental studies were conducted to investigate the effects of perceived warmth and competence of humanoid robots’ physical appearances on tolerance of service failure and the mediating role of anger. The boundary influence of relationship norms is also explored.

The results reveal that the perception of warmth (vs. competence) robot leads to less (more) anger, which significantly results in tolerance of service failure. However, customer tolerance is insignificant under exchange norms, as the undelivered service violates the expectations of both warm and competent robots.

This study provides practical guidance for hospitality managers to implement humanoid robots in a way that minimizes the negative outcomes of service failure. Managers should also think about the appropriate match of different types of humanoid robots and relationship norms in which robots will be deployed.

This study contributes to the tolerance literature by taking a social cognition perspective to investigate the effect of humanoid robots’ physical appearances on customers’ reactions to service failure. The findings also reveal that its affective mechanism lies in the effect of expectancy violations of service failure on tolerance. Furthermore, this study extends the literature on relationship norms to the influence of company factors on effective humanoid robot implementation.

This study mainly aims to examine the mediating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) and the moderating effect of locus of control and job autonomy on the relationship between customer mistreatment behavior and organizational citizenship behavior.

Through a questionnaire survey of 231 employees and their direct supervisors of five hotels in Guangzhou. This paper analyzed five variables (customer mistreatment, POS, locus of control, job autonomy and organizational citizenship behavior) relationships through a variety of data analysis.

Results indicate that customer mistreatment behavior has a negative effect on employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. The relationship between customer mistreatment behavior and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior is partially mediated by employees’ POS. Staffs’ locus of control and job autonomy can modulate the relationship between customers’ mistreatment behavior and POS. Furthermore, the indirect mediating effect of POS on customer mistreatment behavior is revealed. The organizational citizenship behavior linkage is significant only to staff who perceived they have a high level of job autonomy and a high locus of control.

Hotels are advised to provide organizational support and the management of customer mistreatment behavior so as to reflect their employees’ value, seek service innovation and promote production efficiency in practice. Furthermore, it maintains and promotes operational efficiency for service organizations and means the organization pays more attention to meet the social, emotional and psychological needs of its employees.

This article reveals the mechanism relationship between customer mistreatment behavior and employee organizational citizenship behavior. First, it defines the concept of customer mistreatment in the hotel industry and enriches the related research. Second, the study, from the perspective of customer mistreatment, has opened up a new view of organizational citizenship behavior research. Third, we built a research model and it is helpful to grasp the inner mechanism between customer mistreatment and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. Fourth, this research benefits service organizations so as to maintain and improve their operation efficiency. Furthermore, it can have theoretical guidance for service-oriented organizations to develop a harmonious consumption culture and organizational culture.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a risk-sharing model to coordinate the decision-making behavior of players in a cassava-based bioethanol supply chain under random yield and demand environment, so as to mitigate the yield and demand uncertainty risk and improve the bioethanol supply chain resiliency and performance.

The decision-making behavior under three models, namely, centralized model, decentralized model and risk-sharing model, are analyzed. An empirical test of the advantages and feasibility of the proposed risk-sharing model, as well as the test of yield uncertainty risk, risk-sharing coefficients and randomly fluctuating cassava market price on the decision-making behavior and performances are provided.

Though the proposed risk-sharing model cannot achieve the supply chain performance in the centralized model, it does help to encourage the farmers and the company to increase the supply of cassava and achieve the Pareto improvement of both players compared to the decentralized model. In particular, these improvements will be enlarged as the yield uncertainty risk is higher.

The findings will help decision makers in the bioethanol supply chain to understand how to mitigate the yield uncertainty risk and improve the supply chain resiliency under yield and demand uncertainty environment. It will also be conducive to ensure the supply of feedstock and the development of the bioethanol industry.

The proposed risk-sharing model incorporates the yield uncertainty risk, the random market demand and the hierarchical decision-making behavior structure of the bioethanol supply chain in the model.

Despite touting the value of green practices, many firms struggle to respond appropriately to the diverse environmental issues. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the external and internal pressures interplay to influence top management championship, which, in turn, fosters the company’s green culture and the adoption of green practices. It thus helps to explain Chinese firms’ diversity with respect to the adoption of green practices.

A conceptual model is developed that summarizes the interplay of external and internal pressures, top management championship, green culture and the adoption of green practices. Data from 148 Chinese manufacturing firms were collected and a structural equation model was used for statistical analysis.

Government policy that provides incentives to adopt green practices and overseas customers’ green demand has significant positive influences on top management championship, while resources pressure has a significant negative effect. Government command and control policy, domestic customers’ green demand and organizational inertia do not impact top management championship. Furthermore, top management championship is positively correlated to both green culture and green practices, and green culture contributes to implementing green practices.

The findings help us understand which external and internal factors inspire or force top management to adopt green practices, and how they do so. Moreover, managers must also be aware of the bridging role of green culture. The findings will be valuable to policy makers in forming and enforcing “stick” or “carrot” environmental policies.

Leveraging a multi-theoretic approach, the authors’ research builds on insights from the institutional theory, natural resource-based view (NRBV) and upper echelons perspective, so as to increase the authors’ understanding on how firms adopt green practices to respond to environmental sustainability pressures. The institutional theory and the NRBV are leveraged in this study to recognize that firms perceive not only external institutional pressure for environmental management but also the internal pressure from resource constraints and capability to change. Upper echelons perspective is integrated into this study to explain the leadership role that top management serves in the management of the organization’s response to dynamic changes in the institutional environment and cultivate green culture within organization.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by firms in the emerging marketing on stock market cumulative abnormal returns (CARs). This research focuses on the acquiring firms in emerging markets and broadens the existing scope which highlights the M&As by firms in developed countries.

Regarding the controversial argument on the effect of cross-border M&As, the authors introduce a resource-based theory to explain the motivation of M&As by Chinese firms, conduct an event study analysis of 472 international acquisitions by Chinese firms from 2010 to 2015 and indicate cross-border M&As as a positive signal in the stock market.

The results reveal that cross-border M&As result in significantly positive CARs in a short term for the acquiring firms listed in mainland markets but not for that in the Hong Kong market. Furthermore, consistent with signaling theory and the investors’ heuristic thinking in decision-making, investors may adopt the technological innovation capability of the country where the target firms locate, and the acquiring firm’s preannouncement in shaping their positive judgment of the acquiring firm’s near future performance.

The authors distinguished the responses of the investors from the mainland and Hong Kong stock markets and investigated how the knowledge of the national innovation capability of the target firm and acquisition preannouncement influence the investors’ interpretation of the cross-border M&As as a market signal.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of social resources on promoting information sharing practice and, thereby, improving firm performance. In particular, the authors are interested in addressing the following research questions. First, can the development of social capital (expressed in three dimensions: cognitive capital, structural capital, and relational capital) promote the content and quality of supply chain information sharing? Second, what are the relationships among the three social capital dimensions in the context of information sharing? Third, what are the effects of shared information (content and quality) on firm performance?

A theoretical model and several research hypotheses, well-grounded in the western literature, are developed. Data from 272 manufacturers in China were collected to test the model and the hypotheses. Structural equation modeling was used for statistical analysis.

The statistical results reveal that each social capital dimension has different effects on information sharing and performance. Namely, relational capital and cognitive capital have significant positive influences on information sharing. Structural capital has no direct positive impact on information sharing, but it displays indirect affects through the other two social capital dimensions. Furthermore, both the content and quality of the shared information improve manufacturing efficiency and responsiveness performance. Finally, the paper also recognizes possible reciprocal causality between relational capital and cognitive capital.

First, considering the distinct role of social relations in China, future studies should examine the influence of social capital and the potential reciprocal relationship between trust and shared vision, using data from other countries. Second, data were collected solely from the Pearl River Delta, China. Studies based on samples drawn from other regions, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Bohai Sea economic area, and southwest China, would provide a degree of geographic and economic diversity and extend the generalizability of the results.

Despite the touting of the value of information sharing, many companies struggle with the practice. The findings help us understand the process by which social capital accumulates and contributes to information sharing. Namely, firms must first engage in social interactions with supply chain partners in order to develop a trusting relationship and a shared vision for information sharing. The managers must also be aware of the possible reciprocal relationship between trust and shared vision. Both the volume and content of information sharing are critical to the performance.

Manufacturers can use the concept of social capital to build relational rents for information sharing.

Responding to the call from the literature, this study extends the discussion of antecedents and consequences of supply chain information sharing, with a focus on the influences of relational resources. The paper proves that social capital provides a valid theoretical base from which to examine the role of social relations in promoting supply chain information sharing. Previous supply chain research in social capital often limited its consideration of social capital to relational capital. Understanding the effects of all three dimensions of social capital and their inter-relationships would contribute to the process by which social capital accumulates and promotes information sharing. Additionally, a study with the Chinese data should validate the theoretical model developed based on western literature, and offer valuable insights to researchers and practitioners from both economic and cultural perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the allometric permeation performance in fractal branching channel net driven by capillary pressure and analyze how the geometrical parameters of the branching channel net affect the permeability of the fluid transportation.

An allometric permeation model is proposed based on the fractal theory by considering capillary pressure as the main driven force of fluid permeation.

It is found that the permeability efficiency is a function of fractal dimension, bifurcation number, and number of branching level. Different fluid permeation efficiencies of the channel net can be obtained by changing the three parameters.

The allometric permeation model established provides a better understanding of the permeation mechanism in fractal porous media which could further help with the design of bio-mimetic artificial materials.