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This paper aims to investigate the reason for natural gas leakage from transmission pipelines between Linyi and Shouguang in China during sealing tests, explore the failure mechanism and provide a reference for taking reasonable measures to prevent such accidents.

Failure analysis for the steel pipe has been addressed with different methods, such as microstructure analysis, inclusion analysis, corrosion product analysis, macro- and micro-morphology analyses and bacterially catalyzed experiments.

Several bulges were observed, especially at the bottom of the steel pipe sample, with the distribution and positioning not related to the weld. The inner surface of the steel pipe was severely corroded, and the oxide scale was flaking in many places. The greatest corrosion area was identified at the bottom of the steel pipe near the gas leakage point. Severe pitting and perforation corrosion in the pipeline were observed, and the main corrosion reaction products were Fe3O4, FeO and FeS. The grain orientation distribution near the crack (coarse grains <101> and fine grains <111> at the microcrack tip) indicates that fine grains may be beneficial in hindering crack propagation.

The principal mechanism for the corrosion failure is supposed to be due to the interaction of chloride ions with the sulfate-reducing microorganisms present and the stress corrosion cracking by chloride and sulfide formed by the sulfate-reducing microorganisms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of cultural beliefs on governance in a business network without a legal institutional framework. Particular emphasis is placed on the cross-country remittance mail operating network in Chaoshan, China, during the period 1860-1949. This investigation builds on Greif’s business governance theory and develops an analytical framework that considers cultural beliefs, agency relationships and multilateral punishment mechanisms. Furthermore, it uses the institutional analysis method to identify the institutional factors that sustained the remittance mail operating networks and their underlying mechanisms.

This paper adopts the qualitative research method. First, it investigates the history of the remittance mail operating network and agency relationships by searching through the contents of the relevant historical documents preserved in the official archives and information found in other records. Thereafter, it summarizes and demonstrates the cultural beliefs inferred from that research. The archival materials permit analysis of the interactions between cultural beliefs, agency relationships and multilateral punishment mechanisms by the institutional analysis method.

Due to the lack of legal institutions in China during the period under review, cultural beliefs played a central institutional role in cross-country business relations. Network governance was coupled with clan cultural beliefs in the remittance mail operating network. This relationship was the key to sustain the efficient operation of the remittance mail network.

In the West, corporate governance has been influenced by and has become an integral feature of Western culture and values. This is not necessarily so for the corporate governance in terms of Chinese culture and values. Thus, instead of mimicking the modes of developed countries, it is important for Chinese enterprises to seek a mode of corporate governance that is in accord with their local cultures. This may be an important focus for enterprise development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interconnection between the corporatisation of K-beauty and Korea’s nation branding exercise and its links with soft power. Through the investigation of the transformation of Korea’s beauty industry, the authors seek to illustrate the inter-relationship of the market systems and national identification practices.

This study employed the qualitative case study approach to examine the latest development of Korea’s medical tourism. Through analysing a variety of secondary data that associated to the latest development of cosmetic tourism, this paper presents the impact of the transformation and reconfiguration of Korea’s beauty industry on the country’s nation branding strategy and the development of Korea’s soft power in the global marketplace.

The findings highlight how Korea’s new cosmetic tourism industry contributed to the renewal of Korea’s nation brand in the global market. The findings also illustrate the interconnection of the emerging Korean popular cultural products (K-pop and K-beauty) in the regional and global marketplace.

The findings demonstrate the role of market in re-defining a nation’s brand and identity. The findings also illustrate how market-driven strategy influences the development of a nation’s soft power in the regional and/or global marketplace.

The study shows that practitioners can be active agents in nation branding. Through highlighting strategies to develop soft power within and beyond the country boundary, this study shows how market agents, governments and other stakeholders can co-create a market system that transform and reconfigure the nation brand in the global marketplace.

In additional to explore the transformation of the beauty industry in Korea, this paper also presents the history and transformation of the beauty standards in Korea and other Asian cultures. Such dialogue invites marketing and consumer researchers to further explore the role of history and culture in guiding the production and consumption of new (consumption) standards.

This is the first paper that connects the theory of soft power in nation branding and country-of-origin literature. The case analysis of the socio-historical development of K-beauty also demonstrates how non-Western cultural goods enter the international marketplace. In summary, this paper provides new conceptual framework that illustrates a new collaborative mechanism that engages government and practitioners to co-create new cultural norms and standards to the local and international markets.

The purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of Chinese industrial relations after the market reform of 1978, while basing its arguments and conclusion on analysis of the interactions of key actors in the labour arena in China. The significant phenomena in the evolution of industrial relations are the coming of transnational capital and the emergence of self‐organising protests by migrant workers.

The paper uses a case study approach.

The Labour Contract Law and the local political economy experience strong effects from TNCs and other business players. Meanwhile, globalisation has introduced the civil society movement to China, which has given rise to an increasing number of NGOs working for labour rights. Tight financial and technical connections between grassroots NGOs and international donor organisations make it possible for bottom‐up labour activities to counteract the unilateral influence of the state and market over the Chinese workforce. Since the ACFTU, the official trade union umbrella, has many institutional constraints to undertake a thorough transition towards labour in the near future, workers' representation is diversified.

One implication for further theoretical studies is that tripartism cannot fully disclose the reality of Chinese labour, and that labour representation derives from both unions and self‐organisation of workers, such as NGOs, which opens more room for the entrenchment of the grassroots labour movement to sustain the balance of power among the state, ACFTU, firms, international market forces and individual workers in the long term.