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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a web-based system that provides an efficient means for managing suppliers’ performance which also facilitates the leveraging of suppliers’ knowledge for the benefit of the on-going projects.

Case study approach is adopted. In total, 12 semi-structured interviews are conducted with Malaysia-based public listed construction companies to study their current practice and the requirements for the development of an information and communication technology (ICT) aided system for the purpose. Subsequently, a web-based system for managing suppliers’ performance is developed using ASP.net and MSSQL database.

Most of the case study companies are found to have low levels of ICT adoption and still resort to handling the majority of the tasks involved in the selection and management of suppliers’ performance manually. An ICT-based system that can improve the recording of important information about the suppliers, provide a function for supplier selection and facilitate the capture of useful reusable knowledge of the suppliers is needed.

The paper has shown empirically that a web-based suppliers’ performance management system eases the supplier selection process and the monitoring of suppliers’ performance. In addition, it demonstrates how such systems can be designed to capture and facilitate the leveraging of suppliers’ knowledge, and how suppliers’ knowledge contribution can be recognised as part of their performance. The system adopts a novel two-way communication model which provides the suppliers the access to their own performance records to identify room for improvements.

By the re‐interpretation of the Book of Changes (I Ching), this article aims to build a framework for analyzing the structure and the evolvement of leadership.

There are 64 hexagrams in Book of Changes. This article focuses the discussion on Qian hexagram, which is the first and the most important one in all the hexagrams. By using metaphysical concepts, this article builds a dynamic leadership system. This leadership system is composed of the four virtues of Qian (with the meaning of heaven, force), which are as follows: Yuan (creation and origination), Heng (cooperation and development), Li (achievement and sharing), and Zhen (firmness and perseverance). Based on this framework, by using the metaphor of dragon, this article develops an evolvement route of leadership according to the six situations set by the Qian hexagram, which are humble stage, emerging from hiding, trying your best, going up or down, reaching excellence, and starting to fall, and discusses the proper leadership in different situations.

There are four elements or virtues in leadership. The importance of each virtue and the key points in each of them change as an organization or a venture evolves from one situation to another. Leaders should match their leadership with the specific situation they are in.

According to the knowledge of the authors, this article is the first one in the world trying to set up a leadership system based on Book of Changes, especially Qian hexagram. The implications provided by this article would be very valuable for leaders to more successfully evaluate their situations and change their leaderships according the different challenges they may face.

The purpose of this article is to put forward China’s Hanyu Pinyin word guanli as an academic basic term to the world.

GUANLI as an academic basic term, which holds multiple meanings of several English words, such as management, administration, governance, etc. As a basic term, GUANLI, derived several words, such as GUANLIOLOGY, GUANLIST/GUANLIER and GUANLIWORK/GUANLIJOB, to precisely and exactly convey the Chinese GUANLI ideas. It is the historical mission and opportunity for the authors to research and establish the Chinese School of Modern GUANLI Science (CSMGS).

It is inevitably necessary to build the combined Chinese–Western discourse system of GUANLI science (CCWDSGS). Some other research results of CSMGS are also presented in this paper.

It is needless to say that there are still lots of problems in China, including in the GUANLI field. These problems will gradually be solved in China’s reform and development that takes place continuously. New problems will come up while old problems are being solved and settled; problems producing in a loop, problems solving in a loop, this is the dialectics. The authors have full confidence in solving problems, as well as in China’s development and future.

Practice comes first and then it is followed by theory. The authors first have the “China Model”, followed by the “Chinese School” consequently. The “China Model” has already been there, and the “Chinese School” relies on the author’s proactive research and innovation. It is just the right time for the authors to study and create the CSMGS. This is the historical mission and opportunity awaited by contemporary Chinese.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the means for enhancing the image and business legitimacy of a socially discredited industry – pawnbroking in pre-1949 China – are explored. Previous studies suggest companies operating within such industries cannot solely rely on hard marketing strategies “to maximize sales and profits as they do with soaps and shoes” (Davidson, 2003, p. 7). Instead, they must find soft strategies for improving company and industry image and legitimacy.

This research relies on qualitative analysis of historical data and documents.

Soft strategies deployed by Chinese pawnbrokers – such as interpretations, moral value advocacies and institutionalized arrangements – contributed substantially to improving pawnbroking’s image and business legitimacy.

Interconnections among ethical values, image, business legitimacy and select marketing strategies are clarified. The efficacy of historically analyzing previously implemented business strategies and their embedding contexts is discussed.

Strategies Chinese pawnbrokers used to mitigate their previously negative image and boost their business legitimacy suggest strategies current socially disapproved companies can use to improve their image and business legitimacy.

A historical analysis of pre-1949 Chinese pawnbroking can suggest soft marketing strategies for overcoming consumers’ negative company and industry impressions.

We use the extended finite element method (XFEM) to model the whole process of initiation and propagation of cracks in the inner dense pyrolytic carbon (IPyC) layer of tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle induced by the microdefect in an irradiation-induced thermomechanical coupling environment and study the effect of microdefect sizes on the propagation path.

The irradiation-induced thermal–mechanical coupling analysis is first conducted for the representative volume element (RVE) of the TRISO particle by using the conventional finite element method (CFEM) so that the stress distribution is obtained. The stress results are then restored for the enriched elements, and the simulation of crack initiation and propagation is eventually carried out by using the XFEM.

1. As a crack initiates in the IPyC layer, it will terminate at the free edge of the RVE TRISO particle in the end. 2. The size of the microdefect has a significant impact on the propagation path.

The ceramic dispersion microencapsulated (CDM) fuel is a good accident-resistant fuel whose safe operation is crucial to the safety and reliability of the whole nuclear reactor. It is of great scientific significance and practical value to study the irradiation-induced thermomechanical coupling stress distribution and cracking behavior in the IPyC layer of TRISO particles for the CDM fuel. Crack initiation and propagation analysis is challengeable for this complex multi-layer structure. This can help understand the failure mechanism of TRISO particles and evaluate the operation safety of the reactor.

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship is limited. This chapter applies a recently developed nonparametric estimator of the conditional local average treatment effect to assess the sensitivity of the quantity–quality trade-off to functional form and parametric assumptions. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey and controlling for the potential endogeneity of fertility, we find mixed evidence supporting the trade-off.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether negative reports by state-controlled media affect firms’ CSR performance. Negative reports by state-controlled media indicate the signals of deteriorating relationships between firms and the government and then generate greater political pressure on firms, which may force firms to engage in more CSR activities. This study first examines the influence of negative reports by state-controlled media on CSR performance. Then, we further figure out whether the degree of dependence on the government exhibits an impact on the relationship between negative reports by state-controlled media and firms’ CSR performance.

The sample for this study is based on all Chinese A-listed firms from 2010 to 2020. The study employs CSR scores data released by HEXUN to measure firms’ CSR performance. HEXUN is one of the most professional institutions that sell CSR-related products. Following You et al. (2018) and An et al. (2022), the authors identify the nine most popular media consisting of state-controlled media. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method is adopted for regression, and various robustness tests are conducted including using alternative measures, expanding the regression model and instrumental variable method.

The empirical results show a significant positive relationship between negative reports by state-controlled media and firms’ CSR performance. The cross-sectional analyses indicate that the effect of negative reports by state-controlled media on firms’ CSR performance is stronger for firms with mandatory CSR disclosure requirements, firms with political connections and firms with more severe financial constraints. Furthermore, improved CSR performance resulting from negative reports by state-controlled media indeed helps repair firms’ relationship with the government and thus leads them to attain government benefits, such as more government subsidies and lower tax rates.

This study finds that media reports issued by state-controlled media can be treated as signals of the relationships between firms and the government, which generate political pressure to push firms to take CSR as a strategic management tool to repair their relationships with the government. It helps policymakers and investors more comprehensively understand firms’ incentives behind their improved CSR performance and develop more effective policies. This study focuses on firms’ overall CSR performance. We anticipate that future research can extend the analysis of the impact of negative reports by state-controlled media on specific aspects of CSR investment.

This study illustrates the significantly positive effect of negative reports by state-controlled media in promoting CSR performance. It fills the research gap in studying the role of state-controlled media in CSR, especially for emerging markets. Moreover, the study also contributes to the strand of literature on strategic CSR management.

This study aims to predict the unstable period-1 orbit (UPO-1) of DC–DC converters and find analytical expressions to describe it.

Nonlinear dynamical phenomena of a peak–current–mode controlled direct current–direct current (DC–DC) Boost converter are discussed briefly first. Then fast fourier transform (FFT) analysis of state variables under different dynamic states is provided, and the characteristic of the harmonic content in different states is summarized. Following these, a scientific hypothesis on the harmonic content of the UPO-1 is presented, and the Equivalent Small Parameter method is adopted then, thus analytic-form expressions of the UPO-1 can be derived.

According to results of theoretical analysis, numerical simulations and experiments, this paper illustrates that, like stable period-1 orbit, the UPO-1 is also made up of the DC component and harmonics with integer times of switching frequency.

This work provides an unreported approach for extracting the UPO-1 of DC–DC converters, which is mainly based on predicting the harmonic structure information of the orbit. According to experimental parts of the work, it shows that the stabilizer can be designed easier by using the proposed method. Additionally, from a broader perspective, the results could also have implications in a wide class of forced oscillation systems.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Through three case studies, the authors aim to examine how Confucian humanistic philosophy can be applied to leadership practices and show how it is possible to practice humanistic leadership in the Chinese context.

The authors use case studies of three exemplary humanistic leaders and the companies they lead to describe their leadership practices and influence on others and their companies.

The authors identify three common elements that connect their observations to an emerging scholarly conceptualization of humanistic leadership and develop a framework of Confucian humanistic leadership consisting of five attributes. The cases the authors studied suggest that the five attributes should be understood as being mutually reinforcing and acting in concert, rather than each acting independently of the others. The authors found that there is inherent consistency and connection between the core values of Confucianism and humanistic leadership.

The research contributes to the leadership literature, specifically the emerging literature on humanistic leadership, by introducing a framework for Confucian humanistic leadership. While much of the extant literature on humanistic leadership has been conceptual, the study shows how it is possible to practice humanistic leadership in the Chinese context by drawing on the foundation provided by Confucian humanistic philosophy. The findings also contribute to humanistic leadership research by providing important insights into specific capabilities that can help put the principles of humanistic leadership into practice, but that have not been considered to date.