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This study examined the influence of corporate governance (CG) in relation to venture capital (VC) investment on invested firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the Chinese context. More specifically, this paper examined the mediation of the proportion of independent directors (INDD), management shareholding (MSH) and executives' political connections (POLC) in the above-mentioned relationship.

This empirical study performed multiple mediation testing and bootstrap mediation robustness test on data from Chinese A-class shares IPO companies between 2010 and 2018.

The results of direct relationship analysis showed that VC support is detrimental to firm' CSR performance, consistent with previous research studies. The indirect effect analysis showed that VC reduced firm' CSR through reduction of INDD on board and increased MSH. Conversely, VC contributed to firm's CSR through higher POLC, which confirmed the significance of the joint mediation model.

This study offers stakeholders the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the role of VC institutions, independent directors and executives, in terms of firm's CSR, as well as provides insights on control rights allocation and policy drafting on independent directors when considering accessing VC support.

By analyzing the mediation model of the VC–CSR relationship, this paper provides evidence to enrich the debate on the role of CG in the relation between VC and firm's CSR.

As a peer‐to‐peer scalable anonymous communication system, WonGoo is a tradeoff between anonymity and efficiency. Usually, the longer the path, the stronger the anonymity, but at the same time the heavier the overhead. WonGoo lengthens the anonymity path and reduces the overhead, providing strong anonymity and high efficiency with layered encryption and random forwarding. The purpose of this paper is to analyze its performance in detail.

The paper focuses on measure the performance of WonGoo system with probability theory. First, it gives a brief description of the system and evaluate its payload. Then it presents a detailed security analysis of the system.

It is shown that WonGoo can protect against (n − 1) attack and provide variable anonymity, as well as how confident the collaborators can be that their immediate predecessor is in fact the path initiator. The paper measures the anonymity degree provided by WonGoo system based on information entropy and compare it with other anonymity systems.

The paper is helpful for the further development of WonGoo system. In addition, the results presented in this paper will be useful for users to design other anonymity system.

WonGoo is a peer‐to‐peer anonymity system that provides strong anonymity and high efficiency with layered encryption and random forwarding. The paper presents a detailed analysis of its performance with probability theory and measures its anonymity degree with information theory.

Given a baffling contradiction that the availability of safety knowledge may not necessarily lead to workers' safety behavior, this study aims to develop an exploratory two-step working model of safety knowledge in translating safety climate into safety behavior. In particular, this study highlights the importance of articulating tacit safety knowledge and improving workers' systematic problem solving (SPS) capacity in a favorable safety climate.

This study uses 110 valid responses from Pakistan-based construction workers to test five hypotheses which embody the exploratory two-step working model of safety knowledge. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze the data.

The results of this study support the two-step working mechanism of safety knowledge in translating safety climate into safety behavior. Furthermore, results suggest that safety climate as a job resource facilitates converting construction workers' tacit safety knowledge into explicit safety knowledge (i.e. safety knowledge articulation) and then enabling them to spot non-conformities in safety management practices (i.e. SPS) and consequently to work safely (i.e. safety behavior).

The study has both theoretical and practical significance. In theory, it extends organizational learning theory and job demands-resources (JD-R) theory in the construction safety research domain and elaborates on the mediating role of safety knowledge articulation and SPS for the relationship between safety climate and safety behavior. In practice, it highlights the importance of continuous articulation of tacit safety knowledge and accumulation and use of explicit safety knowledge in construction safety management practices.

Safety professionals' primary job is to execute safety control measures towards frontline personnel, and previous studies focus on the effectiveness of such controls. Rare research efforts, however, have been devoted to the effectiveness of management control measures towards safety professionals themselves. This study aimed to fill up this knowledge gap by examining whether safety professionals under differing management control configurations differ in their work attitudes, including affective commitment, job satisfaction, career commitment and intention to quit.

Drawing on a holistic view of control, five forms of management control, i.e. outcome control, process control, capability control, professional control and reinforcement, were investigated. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey targeting at construction safety professionals was conducted. The latent profile analysis approach was employed to identify how the five forms of management control are configured, i.e. identifying the distinctive patterns of control profiles. The Bolck–Croon–Hagenaars method was then used to examine whether safety professionals' work attitudes were different across the identified control profiles.

Seven distinct control profiles were extracted from the sample of 475 construction safety professionals. The overall test of outcome means showed that mean levels of affective commitment, job satisfaction and intentions to quit were significantly different across the seven profiles. The largest that was also the most desirable subgroup was the high control profile (n = 161, 33.9%). The least desirable subgroups included the low control profile (n = 75, 15.8%) and the low capability and professional control profile (n = 12, 2.5%). Pairwise comparison suggested that capability, professional and process controls were more effective than outcome control and reinforcement.

In theory, this study contributes to the burgeoning literature on how to improve the effectiveness of control measures targeted at safety professionals. The results suggested that effective management controls involve a fine combination of formal, informal, process and output controls. In practice, this study uncovers the ways in which managers leverage the efforts of safety professionals in achieving safety goals. Particularly, it informs managers that the control configurations, instead of isolated controls, should be executed to motivate safety professionals.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) has become an important issue with increasing awareness of environmental protection. A firm's environmental approach is not only relevant to its inner efforts, but its suppliers' environmental performance is also important. The aim of this study is to propose an integrated multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) approach based on intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) and grey relational analysis (GRA) for green supplier selection.

Green supplier selection is a MCDM process that contains different kinds of uncertainties. Because of the vagueness and imprecision of decision makers' evaluations and subjectivity of the criteria, IFS and GRA are exploited to handle these uncertainties.

A numerical example is presented for the proposed approach. The analyses of the results show that fuzzy set theory and grey theory can be used jointly for green supplier selection problems in uncertain environments.

There are different kinds of uncertainties in the supplier selection process. The novelty of this study is to use proper uncertainty methods in different steps instead of denoting the whole selection process by the same uncertainty theory. Supplier selection problems occupy wide space in operations research literature. Different criteria are used in different papers. In this study, detailed literature review has been carried out and some criteria among frequently confronted ones proposed for green supplier selection.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of farmland renting-in on planted grain acreage.

A survey data of five counties were analyzed with the two-stage ordinary least squares model.

Households renting-in land trended to plant more maize, and the more land was rented by a household the more maize was planted, while wheat acreage showed non-response to farmland renting-in.

Overall, the analysis suggests that policy makers should be prepared for different changing trends of grain crop acreage across the nation as farmland transfer continues. Future research should pay attention to the effect of farmland transfer on agricultural productivity and rural household income growth.

As the Chinese Government is promoting larger-scale and more mechanized farms as a way of protecting grain security, it is important to understand whether farmland renting-in will reduce planted grain acreage. This study provides empirical evidence showing the answer to that question may differ across different regions and depend on the particular grain crop in question.

There are process uncertainties and material property variations during laminated steel sheet forming, and those fluctuations may result in non-reliable forming quality issues such as fracture and delamination. Additionally, the optimization of sheet forming process is a typical multi-objective optimization problem. The target is to find a multi-objective design optimization and improve the process design reliability for laminated sheet metal forming. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Desirability function approach is adopted to conduct deterministic multi-objective optimization, and response surface is used as meta-model. Reliability analysis is conducted to evaluate the robustness of the multi-objective design optimization. The proposed method is implemented in a step-bottom square cup drawing process. First, forming process parameters and three noise factors are assumed as probability variables to conduct reliability assessment of the laminated steel sheet forming process using Monte Carlo simulation. Next, only two forming process parameters, blank holding force and frictional coefficient, are considered as probability variables to investigate the influence of the forming parameter deviation on the variance of the response using the first-order second-moment method.

The results indicate that multi-objective design optimization using desirability function method has high efficiency, and an optimized robust design can be obtained after reliability assessment.

The proposed design procedure has potential as a simple and practical approach in the laminated steel sheet forming process.

China has a new rural revitalization strategy to stimulate rural transformation through modernizing rural areas and resolving their social contradictions. While social capital is recognized as an important element to rural revitalization and entrepreneurship, research into the role of psychological capital is less developed. Therefore, this paper assesses the impact of both social and psychological capital on entrepreneurial performance of Chinese new-generation rural migrant entrepreneurs (NGRMEs) who have returned to their homes to develop businesses as part of the rural revitalization revolution.

Based on a survey, data were collected from 525 NGRMEs in Shaanxi province. This paper uses factor analysis to determine variables for a multiple linear regression model to investigate the impacts of dimensions of both social capital and psychological capital on NGRMEs’ entrepreneurial performance.

Through the factor analysis, social capital of these entrepreneurs consists of five dimensions (reputation, participation, networks, trust and support), psychological capital has three dimensions (innovation and risk-taking, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial happiness) and entrepreneurial performance contains four dimensions (financial, customer, learning and growth, and internal business process). Furthermore, the multiple linear regression model empirically verifies that both social capital and psychological capital significantly influence and positively correlate with NGRMEs' entrepreneurial performance.

This study shows the importance of how a mixture of interrelated social and psychological dimensions influence entrepreneurial performance that may contribute to the success of the Chinese rural revitalization strategy. This has serious implications when attempting to improve the lives of over 100 million rural Chinese citizens.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate applicability of the pervaporation technique for separation ethanol/water mixtures.

For the purposes of membrane material development for pervaporation zeolite filled and unfilled cellulose acetate membranes were prepared. Zeolite types were 4A, 13X. The effect of incorporation of nano‐sized zeolites prepared in a colloidal form in membranes was also investigated. Equilibrium sorption experiments were carried out. Degrees of swelling were calculated at different liquid feed mixture compositions for separating an azeotrope forming mixture, ethanol/water by pervaporation.

Zeolite 13X filled CA membrane may have the better pervaporation performance than zeolite 4A filled CA membrane. From the sorption tests it is concluded that ethanol/water azeotropy can be achieved by pervaporation.

Application of CA membranes in industrial scale pervaporation units may be feasible for separation of ethanol/water mixtures. Specially ethanol/water azeotropy will be achieved by pervaporation. Using distillation and pervaporation hybrid systems, bioethanol can be produced economically.

The paper illustrates the success of pervaporation techniques in separating ethanol/water mixtures.