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ESG issues are gaining increasing attention from investors, but the environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating disagreement caused by different standards of rating agencies misleads investors' investment decisions. This can lead to an increased risk of stock price crashes, causing turbulence in the financial markets and reducing investors' confidence. The paper investigates whether ESG rating disagreement of the current period increases stock price crash risk and the mechanism to mitigate this impact.

With the sample of the listed companies of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2022 this paper examines the impact of ESG rating disagreement itself on stock price crash risk. Moreover, this paper examines the mechanisms by analyzing the moderating effect of distraction of investors; digital economy and corporate intelligence maturity.

This paper finds that ESG rating disagreement itself would amplify the stock price crash risk. When exploring the moderating effect of institutional investors' distraction, digital economic development level and corporate intelligence, the paper found that they would mitigate the impact of ESG rating disagreement on stock price crash risk. The relationship between ESG rating disagreement and stock price crash risk is more pronounced in the context of heavily-polluted, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and enterprises with star analysts.

Currently, few articles discuss ESG rating disagreement, especially the impact of current ESG rating disagreement on stock price crash risk. This paper focuses on this topic and provides strategies to mitigate the impact of current ESG rating divergence on stock price crash risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between industry association membership and firm innovation in Chinese private ventures. A secondary objective is to investigate potential moderating effects of firm learning practices and founder characteristics on the above relationship, and to draw out implications for policymakers and practitioners.

The paper utilizes data from a sample of 567 Chinese entrepreneurial firms operating in 9 designated emerging industries. Hierarchical regression models were employed to analyze the effect of industry association membership on firm innovation, and the potential moderating effects. A 2SLS procedure was adopted to control for potential endogeneity issue. Supplemental analyses were conducted to ensure the robustness of the findings.

The paper provides empirical insights about how industry association membership, along with firm learning practice and founder leadership, affect firm innovation in Chinese private ventures in emerging industries. It suggests that industry association membership positively affects firm innovation. Further, there is a three-way interaction effect of industry association membership, learning practice and founder power on innovation.

Due to the design of the data set, there are some limitations. First, the study only considered whether a firm belongs to an industry association, but not the nature of such membership (length, firm status in the association, etc.). Second, the cross-sectional design may limit the power of the study to make casual implications about the tested relationships.

The paper provides important practical implications for policymakers and entrepreneurs in China. In general, the results suggest that private ventures pursuing innovation in emerging industries can benefit from industry associations, and entrepreneurs shall actively engage in firm-level and personal-level learning. For policymakers, the study suggests that to foster innovation in an emerging industry, special attention shall be paid to building necessary institutional support to develop and to strengthen the role of industry association in the industry.

This paper fulfills an important gap in the literature in that it is one of the first, which investigates the role of the industry association in firm innovation, especially in a non-western context. This paper provides new insights into the role of industry association and firm innovation in an under-researched developing economy context.

To answer the questions: what roles windows of opportunity act in the catchup process of latecomers, what strategies latecomer enterprises should adopt to size windows of opportunity to catch-up with incumbents even going beyond?

This paper studies the catch-up history of the Chinese mobile phone industry and proposes a sectoral innovation system under scenario of technology paradigm shifts. Then a history-friendly simulation model and counterfactual analysis are conducted to learn how different windows of opportunity and catch-up strategies influence the catch-up performance of latecomers.

Results show latecomers can catch up with technology ability by utilizing technology window and path-creating strategy. However, catching up with the market is not guaranteed. Demand window can help latecomers to catch up with market as it increases their survival rates, different sized windows benefit different strategies. However, it also enlarges incumbents' scale effect. Without technology window technology catch up is not guaranteed. Two windows have combination effects. Demand window affects the “degree” of change in survival rates, while the technology window affects the “speed” of change. Demand window provides security; technology window provides the possibility of a breakthrough for technology ability.

The findings of this paper provide theoretical guidance for latecomer enterprises to choose appropriate catch-up strategies to seize different opportunity windows.

This paper emphasizes the abrupt change of industrial innovation system caused by technology paradigm shifts, which makes up for the shortcomings of previous researches on industrial innovation system which either studied the influence of static factors or based on the influence of continuous changes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of surface texture on the subsurface characteristics of contact interfaces under elastohydrodynamic lubrication condition. As a typical contact form of gears and bearings, the optimization of friction characteristics at the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) interface has attracted the attention of scholars. Laser surface texturing is a feasible optimization solution, but there have been concerns about whether the surface texture of high-pair parts will affect their fatigue life.

To examine the impact of texture preparation on the subsurface characteristics of high-pair interfaces under EHL conditions, a point contact EHL model is developed that takes into account the effect of textured surface topography. The pressure and thickness of the oil film are calculated as input parameters under different loads and entrainment velocities. The finite element method is used to simulate the impact of textures with varying diameters, densities and depths on the subsurface characteristics of the elastohydrodynamic interface. According to ISO 25178, analyze the relationship between 3D topography parameters and subsurface characteristics and study the trend of friction characteristics and subsurface characteristics based on the results of the ball on disc friction tests.

The outcomes suggest that under different rotational velocity and load conditions, the textured surfaces exhibit improved friction reduction effects; however, the creation of textures can result in significant subsurface plastic deformation and local peeling. The existence of texture makes the larger stress zone in the subsurface layer closer to the surface, leading to fatigue failure near the surface. Reasonable design parameters can help enhance the attributes of the subsurface. A smaller Sa and a Str greater than 0.5 can achieve ideal subsurface properties on the textured surface.

This paper investigates the influence of surface texture on the friction and subsurface characteristics of EHL interfaces and analyzes the impact of surface texture on interface contact performance while achieving lubrication improvement functional characteristics. The results provide theoretical support for the optimization design and functional regulation of surface texture in EHL interfaces.

The peer review history for this article is https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-10-2023-0324/

The purpose of this study is to develop luminescence sensors for the detection of nitroaromatic compounds (NACs) and metal ions to protect human health and prevent environmental pollution.

The composition and morphology of Eu-metal-organic frameworks (MOF) (1) were well characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, elemental analyses, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The emission spectrum displays that 1 has significant characteristic emission bands of Eu(III) ions. The authors further investigated the fluorescence sensing performances of 1 to NACs and metal ions.

The results show that Eu-MOF (1) exhibits significant fluorescence quenching effect toward p-nitroaniline and Fe³⁺ ions with good stability and recyclability. This means that 1 can be used as a multifunctional sensing material for the detection of p-nitroaniline and Fe³⁺ ions.

The authors have successfully synthesized a fluorescence Eu-based sensing material under hydrothermal conditions. In addition, the fluorescence property and sensing performances for detecting NACs and metal ions were studied. The results suggest that 1 has highly selective fluorescence quenching toward p-nitroaniline and Fe³⁺ ions with not only high sensitivity and selectivity but also excellent stability and recyclability. Furthermore, this study has confirmed that the multifunctional MOF material is very useful in environment pollutants’ detection and monitoring.

Firms in the early stage of their organisational lifecycle (ESFs) are subject to concerns founded on a requirement for strategic flexibility, prompting engagement in inter-organisational relationships such as outsourcing. However, studies of the management control dynamics of these relationships are rare. This paper aims to respond by empirically examining the influence of ESF managers on the ongoing management control of such relationships.

A single outsourcing case study is utilised to provide evidence in examining a multi-theoretical framework that adopts a complex adaptive system (CAS) perspective as a qualitative analytical framework, along with the existing accounting theory on control adoption.

Focused on management concerns with tensions between inter-organisational control and strategic flexibility, this paper identifies reasons for the adoption of management controls by an ESF. The inter-organisational system explored in this paper emphasises the importance of adopting a holistic epistemology in understanding changes in control adoption.

This paper extends current theoretical perspectives on control adoption to consider the inter-organisational control concerns of ESF managers.

The insights identified in this paper provide a systemic framework to identify potential organisational and environmental influences on control problems, emphasising environmental co-evolution rather than achievement of ideal equilibrium states.

The intended contribution is to extend the management control literature to consider the effect of organisational lifecycle on the adoption of new inter-organisational management controls in the wake of ongoing trade-off between competing inter-organisational requirements.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the social cognitive theory and social learning theory to examine the different mechanisms through which entrepreneurs’ moral awareness and ethical behavior affect the product innovation of new ventures.

The authors collected survey data from 150 founders and 389 founding team members of new ventures in China in 2015. The final sample contained 113 questionnaires from entrepreneurs and 246 questionnaires from their founding team members. Regression analyses were used to test direct effects, and Preacher and Hayes’ (2004) formal mediation test approach with bootstrapping method was used to evaluate the mediation effects.

The findings indicate that the ethical levels of entrepreneurs can affect the product innovation of a new venture through two paths: entrepreneurs with low levels of moral awareness tend to be more individually creative, which facilitates product innovation, and entrepreneurs with high levels of ethical behavior can make founding teams more creative, which also promotes product innovation.

The findings of this study suggest that entrepreneurs are not negatively affected by their low moral awareness as long as they exhibit high ethical behavior with founding team members. But such low moral awareness has to be genuine. The best way to promote product innovation in the long run is to create an organizational culture of ethical behavior rather than to ignore moral issues in decision-making.

This study challenges the assumption that moral awareness and ethical behavior are always consistent. It takes an initial step to resolve the contradiction in the current literature regarding the relationship between the ethical levels of entrepreneurs and product innovation in the context of founders and founding teams in new ventures.

Western economics came into being with the rise of the capitalist market economy. It had a nature of duality beginning from its birth: the justificativeness of providing theoretical pillars for the capitalist market economy system and the scientificity of revealing the internal relations and operating rules of the capitalist market economy. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

However, after the 1830s, this justificativeness gradually evolved into vulgarity. Since the 1930s, modern western mainstream economics has mainly explored the general market economy on the assumption that the capitalist system remains unchanged, and many outcomes of such research are positive and beneficial.

Political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics, at the present stage, is mainly a Chinese socialist market economics. It is guided by the Marxist political economy and rooted in the great practice of China’s reform and opening up and socialist modernization.

According to political complexion, western economic theories can be divided into political economic theory, mainstream economic theory and basic economic theory. By subjecting these theories to what we term “elimination,” “transformation” and “transplantation” surgeries, respectively, we can absorb and accommodate their beneficial elements in building a political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which in turn is conducive to the development and prosperity of such an economy.

Revolutionary advances in aircraft technology and performance are needed for fuel-efficient and sustainable next-generation air transportation. This study aims to explore the influence of integrating distributed propulsion with ultra-high aspect ratio (AR) wings (UHARW) on the realization of fully electric regional aviation.

The strut-braced wing (SBW) configuration is advantageous for UHARW due to its additional support. A conceptual design and analysis framework for UHARW aircraft with SBW and distributed propulsion configurations is developed by enhancing and integrating several methods and tools. Based on the mission profile and top-level requirements, a fully electric regional SBW aircraft with distributed propulsion is designed and analyzed.

Integrating distributed propulsion with a high AR SBW configuration in a fully electric regional aircraft results in notable energy efficiencies. The design achieves a 2.85% increase in the lift-to-drag ratio and a 2.62% reduction in drag during cruise. Sensitivity analysis indicates optimal performance with an AR up to 22, beyond which structural weight penalties diminish benefits. The aircraft’s energy efficiency improves by 9.9% during climb and 6% during cruise, highlighting the importance of propulsion integration.

This research provides a viable framework for designing fully electric regional aircraft by integrating distributed propulsion with high AR SBW configurations. The findings provide practical guidance for enhancing energy efficiency and reducing structural weight, supporting the development of more sustainable and efficient aircraft designs.

The findings support the development of sustainable aviation technologies, potentially reducing the environmental footprint of regional air travel and contributing to global efforts toward greener transportation solutions.

This study presents a comprehensive methodology for designing and analyzing UHARW aircraft with SBW and distributed propulsion, contributing to the feasibility assessment of fully electric regional aviation.

The set-union knapsack problem is one of the most significant generalizations of the Non-deterministic Polynomial (NP)-hard 0-1 knapsack problem in combinatorial optimization, which has rich application scenarios. Although some researchers performed effective algorithms on normal-sized instances, the authors found these methods deteriorated rapidly as the scale became larger. Therefore, the authors design an efficient yet effective algorithm to solve this large-scale optimization problem, making it applicable to real-world cases under the era of big data.

The authors develop three targeted strategies and adjust them into the adaptive tabu search framework. Specifically, the dynamic item scoring tries to select proper items into the knapsack dynamically to enhance the intensification, while the age-guided perturbation places more emphasis on the diversification of the algorithm. The lightweight neighborhood updating simplifies the neighborhood operators to reduce the algorithm complexity distinctly as well as maintains potential solutions. The authors conduct comparative experiments against currently best solvers to show the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Statistical experiments show that the proposed algorithm can find 18 out of 24 better solutions than other algorithms. For the remaining six instances on which the competitor also achieves the same solutions, ours performs more stably due to its narrow gap between best and mean value. Besides, the convergence time is also verified efficiency against other algorithms.

The authors present the first implementation of heuristic algorithm for solving large-scale set-union knapsack problem and achieve the best results. Also, the authors provide the benchmarks on the website for the first time.