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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence Chinese consumers’ purchase of organic products, with a focus on organic tea.

A structured questionnaire was used to survey 202 shoppers in Guangdong Province, China. The data were analyzed using multivariate regression.

The study suggests two significant predictors of organic tea purchase intentions: perceiving organic tea as a healthier alternative to non-organic tea; perceiving the purchase of organic tea as a status symbol. Younger respondents and respondents with higher educational attainment reported greater organic tea purchase intentions. Non-significant predictors of organic tea purchase intentions were respondents’ knowledge of organic tea through media exposure, their gender and income.

The findings help further research on consumer preferences regarding organic foods providing key insights for researchers and marketers as they strive to make informed decisions in the emerging organic food retail environment. Specifically, Chinese consumers perceiving organic tea as a healthy option and as a status symbol are more likely to state organic tea purchase intentions. These results point to the need for extended research on key antecedents of Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of organic products.

Little was known about the motivations of Chinese consumers for purchasing organic food products, as the psychological and demographic factors that are associated with organic food purchase behavior in China were not well researched. Specifically, there is still a notable gap in the understanding of how consumers in China make organic tea purchase decisions. With organic foods occupying a progressively larger portion of Chinese diets and budgets, this research fills in some of the knowledge gap by examining how the social norms of status symbols influence Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of organic tea.

For two-sided platforms, the utility of users on one side of the platform depends in part on the number of users on the other side of the platform, a phenomenon called indirect network externalities. With the rapid development of two-sided platform and the popularity of platform membership, more and more two-sided platforms have launched joint membership through horizontal cooperation in order to take advantage of indirect network externalities to increase platform profits.

Our study explores the optimal bundling strategy for platform memberships under horizontal cooperation considering indirect network externalities. The main purpose of our study is to obtain the optimal pricing under different strategies (pure component, pure bundling, and mixed bundling) and contrast different strategies under different indirect network externalities.

Results suggest that the platform's optimal pricing for consumers and sellers depends on the indirect network externalities. Interestingly, the higher the indirect network externalities from consumers, the higher the price of the platform charges to sellers, and the platform might even subsidize sellers. Besides, when there are equal proportions of different types of consumers in the market, indirect network externalities that are too high, too low, or heavily lopsided may discourage the platforms from bundling their memberships. When the composition of consumers changes, the optimal strategy will also change. Our results can be employed in practical applications of bundling, which can help the platform increase profits.

The paper aims to investigate effectiveness of the strengthening method, the construction process monitoring, fielding-load tests before and after strengthening, and health monitoring after reinforcement were carried out. The results of concrete strain and deflection show that the flexural strength and stiffness of the strengthened beam are improved.

This paper describes prestressed steel strand as a way to strengthen a 25-year-old continuous rigid frame bridge. High strength, low relaxation steel strand with high tensile strain and good corrosion resistance were used in this reinforcement. The construction process for strengthening with prestressed steel strand and steel plate was described. Ultimate bearing capacity of the bridge after strengthening was discussed based on finite element model.

The cumulative upward deflection of the second span the third span was 39.7 mm, which is basically consistent with the theoretical value, and the measured value is smaller than the theoretical value. The deflection value of the second span during data acquisition was −20 mm–10 mm, which does not exceed the maximum deflection value of live load, and the deflection of the bridge is in a safe state during normal use. Thus, this strengthened way with prestressed steel wire rope is feasible and effective.

This paper describes prestressed steel strand as a way to strengthen a 25-year-old continuous rigid frame bridge. To investigate effectiveness of the strengthening method, the construction process monitoring, fielding-load tests before and after strengthening and health monitoring after reinforcement were carried out.

In order to develop high shape retention yarn and investigate the effects of spinning process and core yarn contents on the shape retention of yarn, in this paper, three kinds of yarns, JC/T400 18.5tex (55.6dtex) core-spun yarn, JC/T400 18.5tex (44.4dtex) core-spun yarn and JC18.5tex pure cotton yarn were spun by using the complete condensing Siro-spinning technology. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, the core-spun yarns were spun by using the complete condensing spinning and Siro-spinning technology. Two key spinning processes, yarn twist factor and core yarn pre-draft ratio, were optimized by using the orthogonal test method first. Then, via the variable control method, the position of the core yarn, the position of the bell mouth and the center distance between two bell mouths were optimized, respectively, and corresponding optimal spinning process of the three yarns was determined. Finally, the yarns were spun under the optimal process, and the performance of the spun yarns was tested and compared.

Results show that the yarn twist factor affects yarn strength and hairiness, the position of bell mouth affects the evenness and hairiness of the yarn mainly, and the position of the core yarn affects the coverage and hairiness of the yarn. For the Z-twist spinning, the core yarn enters the front roller from the left side of two strands center, which is beneficial to improve the covering effect of core yarn, and reduce the pilling phenomenon of the yarn. The contents of core yarn affect indicators of the yarn shape retention, such as yarn strength, elastic recovery and abrasion resistance.

The shape retention of yarns affects the shape retention of fabrics, and the production of yarn with high shape retention is a key step in achieving shape retention of fabrics. At present, there are little studies on the shape retention of yarns, most researchers shave focused on shape retention of fabrics. Using the complete condensing Siro-spinning method to spin the core-spun yarn can improve the quality of the yarn. Compared with traditional ring-spinning yarns, the addition of the core yarn can improve the shape retention of the yarn.

The purpose of this paper is to study the lubrication characteristics of double involute gear (DIG), compare its lubrication differences under quasi-static and tribo-dynamic conditions and study the influence of different factors on its lubrication characteristics under the tribo-dynamic condition.

According to the meshing characteristics of DIG and elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) theory, a tribo-dynamic model of DIG is established based on the “subsection method.” The Runge-Kutta method and the multigrid method are integrated to solve the model, and the dynamic analytical model of lubricating oil is established in the iterative solution.

The load and the transmission error fluctuate obviously under the tribo-dynamic condition, which is not conducive to the lubrication of DIG. The influence of rotational speeds and torque on the lubrication properties of DIG has obvious differences under tribo-dynamic and quasi-static conditions.

This research can provide a theoretical basis for improving the lubrication performance, reducing the loss of mechanical efficiency and improving the bearing capacity and service life of DIG.

Since the implementation of the regulatory inquiry system, research on its impact on information disclosure in the capital market has been increasing. This article focuses on a specific area of study using Chinese annual report inquiry letters as the basis. From a text mining perspective, we explore whether the textual information contained in these inquiry letters can help predict financial restatement behavior of the inquired companies.

Python was used to process the data, nonparametric tests were conducted for hypothesis testing and indicator selection, and six machine learning models were employed to predict financial restatements.

Some text feature indicators in the models that exhibit significant differences are useful for predicting financial restatements, particularly the proportion of formal positive words and stopwords, readability, total word count and certain textual topics. Securities regulatory authorities are increasingly focusing on the accounting and financial aspects of companies' annual reports.

This study explores the textual information in annual report inquiry letters, which can provide insights for other scholars into research methods and content. Besides, it can assist with decision making for participants in the capital market.

We use information technology to study the textual information in annual report inquiry letters and apply it to forecast financial restatements, which enriches the research in the field of regulatory inquiries.

With the rapid development of social media in the past few years, some dark aspects of usage have appeared, e.g., Weibo addiction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to address the question of how Weibo keeps users hooked.

The study utilizes the netnography method to explore the symptoms of Weibo addiction and how it is formed.

First, some Weibo users have typical symptoms of addictive behavior, such as withdrawal, loss of control and general living problems; second, narcissism plays an important role in the process of Weibo addiction and has a stronger effect on content generation than content consumption; third, some users use Weibo as a means to alleviate anxiety, but they can then become more anxious owing to addiction; and fourth, the effect of comments has two sides – on the one hand, comments are one kind of feedback to posts, satisfying posters’ social needs, while on the other hand, a storytelling system consists of one post and its comments, upon which some Weibo users become more dependent.

This research is only a preliminary, exploratory study. Therefore, care should be taken when interpreting these findings.

This study should help social media service providers and users to pay attention to the risk of social media addiction. Social media service providers should take social responsibility, design more user-oriented guidelines for marketing ethics and launch more responsible marketing activities. Users should enhance self-control and better balance social media use and offline real life.

Netnography has not been widely used as an addictive behavior research technique. This study is further bolstered because it has also noticed the difference of addiction mechanisms between addictive micro-bloggers and their followers.

Although the Chinese economy has experienced a strong and rapid growth due to the success of its economic reform, the Chinese central government faces a stern fiscal decline. The fiscal problem has undermined the ability of the central government in completing many crucial governing tasks. By examining the institutional root of the fiscal problem, this paper argues that the fiscal decline is part of the ironic corollary of the decentralization strategy of China’s economic reform which produces a “weak center, strong local” outcome. To fully address the problem, China should undertake major institutional reforms to redefine as well as institutionalize the fiscal roles of different levels of government.

The purpose of this paper is to explore key factors driving four types of brand relationships, which will explain the reasons why different relationships can form in theory and direct brand managers to build brand relationships in practice.

A sample of 702 data was collected through four branch scales. The empirical methods of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used in turn to extract the key factors driving every kind of brand relationships.

The conclusion is that the established instrument relationships are driven by three factors which are: sociogroup pressure, condition restriction and saving the existing; the established emotion relationships are driven by four factors which are company reputation, approval of geography, approval of authority and word of mouth; the acquired instrument relationships are driven by three factors which are low price, brand homogeneity and attempt on new products: and the acquired emotion relationships are driven by six factors which are brand meaning, the staffs' service, marketing promotion, product design, product value and brand element.

There were three limitations in this research. First, the limitation of the sample structure decided this research as an exploratory one. Second, this research only adopted a static perspective although a relationship is a dynamic concept. Third, a few items were not drawn up appropriately so that the fitness of a few models was not perfect.

The formation mechanisms of different brand relationships have not been entirely explored in the former literatures. Based on a new sortation theory of four brand relationships in China, this research exploratorily put forward the completed key factors driving every kind of relationships.

In an omnichannel environment, customers switch channels from product discovery to eventual purchase decision strategically. Hence, the biggest challenge for retailers nowadays is how to operate an effective omnichannel strategy. To improve inventory operational efficiency, this chapter investigates the influences of price setting and customers’ return probability on inventory forecasting. Subsequently, we explore how retailers participate in providing appropriate information delivery and product fulfillment. Specifically, a stylized newsvendor model, which incorporates customers’ showrooming behavior, is developed to address retailers’ inventory problem. Furthermore, we compare the benefits of buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store (BOPS) and showroom strategy which originates offline but is completed online. Three main findings are obtained as follows: (1)online and offline inventory order quantities augment with the ascending of pricing offline and online, respectively. Meanwhile, the inventory decisions increase when customers’ return probability declines; (2) the implementation of showroom helps retailers expand their pure online market coverage than BOPS, while it reduces the total inventory quantity if the proposition of unit online inventory cost accounting for product price exceeds physical store; and (3) showroom strategy is more profitable than BOPS option as long as unit online inventory cost is small enough. In addition, we find this boundary where showroom increases total profit expands with the attenuating of return probability.