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This paper aims to identify the effects of two types of teaching approaches, namely, project-based learning and place-based learning, on the development of pro-environmental behaviors among university students.

This study used a pre-test–post-test experimental design to evaluate the efficacy of project- and placed-based learning in promoting pro-environmental behaviors among university students. Participants were randomly allocated to either the project-based learning cohort (consisting of 50 participants) or the place-based learning cohort (also consisting of 50 participants). The pre-test assessments evaluated the initial pro-environmental behaviors of the participants. Then, interventions were conducted with the help of instructors. The project-based learning intervention necessitated participants to collectively take part in real-life problem-solving endeavors about environmental matters. On the other hand, the place-based learning intervention prompted participants to record and contemplate their interactions with the surrounding environment. Both interventions sought to augment participants’ understanding, beliefs and actions related to the environment. After the interventions, post-test assessments were carried out to assess any alterations in participants’ pro-environmental behaviors. Mean analysis and paired sample t-test were performed to examine the differences among the pre-test and post-test for both project- and place-based learning.

The findings of this study indicate that the participants have exhibited improved pro-environmental behaviors, including environmental activism, non-activist behaviors and private sphere green behaviors.

This research is original in its analysis of project- and place-based learning approaches for fostering pro-environmental behaviors. By using a pre-test–post-test experimental design, this study provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these active learning strategies in shaping environmental attitudes and actions.

Outsourcing has become a crucial avenue for companies to acquire external knowledge. To better understand how dual organizational supports influence the knowledge sharing behavior of outsourced employees within triangular employment relationships, grounded in social exchange theory, this study explores the effect and mechanism of differentiation in perceived organizational support (DPOS) on knowledge sharing of outsourced employees.

A two-wave survey was conducted to test the hypotheses, and data were collected from 271 outsourced employees and their leaders (from client organizations) in 52 interorganizational teams.

Results show that DPOS positively affect the knowledge sharing of outsourced employees and has a stronger predictive value than that of client organizational support. Outsourced employees’ psychological ownership to the interorganizational team mediates this relationship. Task interdependence plays a positive cross-hierarchy moderating role in the relationship between DPOS and psychological ownership to the interorganizational team.

This research provides practical advice for support strategies of client and supplier organizations.

Results provide further understanding for outsourced employees’ psychological and behavioral mode in triangular employment contexts.

Previous studies have rarely integrated the financing modes of a capital-constrained manufacturer with the choices of online sales strategies. To address this gap, the authors study how a manufacturer selects optimal financing modes under different sales strategies in three dual-channel supply chains.

This paper considers three sales strategies, namely, combining a traditional retailer channel with one of the direct selling, reselling and agency selling channels, and two common financing modes, namely, bank financing and retailer financing. The authors obtain equilibrium outcomes of the manufacturer and traditional retailer and then provide the conditions for them to select optimal financing modes under three sales strategies.

The results indicate that the manufacturer’s financing decisions rely on the initial capital and interest rates, and the manufacturer selects retailer financing only if the initial capital is relatively larger. In terms of financing mode options, the retailer financing mode is more beneficial for the manufacturer under the three sales strategies. From the perspective of sales strategies, the direct selling model is more beneficial. In addition, the higher the consumer acceptance of the online channel, the more profits the manufacturer obtains.

This paper provides suggestions on how the capital-constrained manufacturer chooses financing modes and sales strategies.

This paper integrates the financing mode and different sales strategies to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal operational decisions. These sales strategies allow us to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal financing modes in the presence of both different financing modes and sales strategies.

Drought is the primary disaster that negatively impacts agricultural and animal husbandry production. It can lead to crop reduction and even pose a threat to human survival in environmentally sensitive areas of China (ESAC). However, the phases and periodicity of drought changes in the ESAC remain largely unknown. Thus, this paper aims to identify the periodic characteristics of meteorological drought changes.

The potential evapotranspiration was calculated using the Penman–Monteith formula recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, whereas the standardized precipitation evaporation index (SPEI) of drought was simulated by coupling precipitation data. Subsequently, the Bernaola-Galvan segmentation algorithm was proposed to divide the periods of drought change and the newly developed extreme-point symmetric mode decomposition to analyze the periodic drought patterns.

The findings reveal a significant increase in SPEI in the ESAC, with the rate of decline in drought events higher in the ESAC than in China, indicating a more pronounced wetting trend in the study area. Spatially, the northeast region showed an evident drying trend, whereas the southwest region showed a wetting trend. Two abrupt changes in the drought pattern were observed during the study period, namely, in 1965 and 1983. The spatial instability of moderate or severe drought frequency and intensity on a seasonal scale was more consistent during 1966–1983 and 1984–2018, compared to 1961–1965. Drought variation was predominantly influenced by interannual oscillations, with the periods of the components of intrinsic mode functions 1 (IMF1) and 2 (IMF2) being 3.1 and 7.3 years, respectively. Their cumulative variance contribution rate reached 70.22%.

The trend decomposition and periods of droughts in the study area were analyzed, which may provide an important scientific reference for water resource management and agricultural production activities in the ESAC. However, several problems remain unaddressed. First, the SPEI considers only precipitation and evapotranspiration, making it extremely sensitive to temperature increases. It also ignores the nonstationary nature of the hydrometeorological water process; therefore, it is prone to bias in drought detection and may overestimate the intensity and duration of droughts. Therefore, further studies on the application and comparison of various drought indices should be conducted to develop a more effective meteorological drought index. Second, the local water budget is mainly affected by surface evapotranspiration and precipitation. Evapotranspiration is calculated by various methods that provide different results. Therefore, future studies need to explore both the advantages and disadvantages of various evapotranspiration calculation methods (e.g. Hargreaves, Thornthwaite and Penman–Monteith) and their application scenarios. Third, this study focused on the temporal and spatial evolution and periodic characteristics of droughts, without considering the driving mechanisms behind them and their impact on the ecosystem. In future, it will be necessary to focus on a sensitivity analysis of drought indices with regard to climate change. Finally, although this study calculated the SPEI using meteorological data provided by China’s high-density observatory network, deviations and uncertainties were inevitable in the point-to-grid spatialization process. This shortcoming may be avoided by using satellite remote sensing data with high spatiotemporal resolution in the future, which can allow pixel-scale monitoring and simulation of meteorological drought evolution.

Under the background of continuous global warming, the climate in arid and semiarid areas of China has shown a trend of warming and wetting. It means that the plant environment in this region is getting better. In the future, the project of afforestation and returning farmland to forest and grassland in this region can increase the planting proportion of water-loving tree species to obtain better ecological benefits. Meanwhile, this study found that in the relatively water-scarce regions of China, drought duration was dominated by interannual oscillations (3.1a and 7.3a). This suggests that governments and nongovernmental organizations in the region should pay attention to the short drought period in the ESAC when they carry out ecological restoration and protection projects such as the construction of forest reserves and high-quality farmland.

The findings enhance the understanding of the phasic and periodic characteristics of drought changes in the ESAC. Future studies on the stress effects of drought on crop yield may consider these effects to better reflect the agricultural response to meteorological drought and thus effectively improve the tolerance of agricultural activities to drought events.

Digital product and service innovations (DPSI) has attracted widespread attention from both management scholars and practitioners. Previous studies have documented that information technology (IT) capability and digital orientation positively influence DPSI performance. However, the question of whether and how digitalization capability can facilitate DPSI performance remains unresolved. This paper fills these gaps by investigating the mediating role of improvisation capability and the moderating role of technological turbulence.

This study used two-wave data from 240 matched digital transformation department leaders and senior managers from Chinese firms and examined the hypotheses deploying hierarchical regression and bootstrapping.

Our analyses reveal positive, significant links between digitalization capability and improvisation capability and between improvisation capability and DPSI performance. The findings further show that the effect of digitalization capability on DPSI performance is partially mediated by improvisation capability and that technological turbulence strengthens the indirect relationship between digitalization capability and DPSI performance through improvisation capability.

Integrating resource-based view, this research provides evidence that the extent to which improvisation capability mediates the relationship between digitalization capability and DPSI performance depends on technological turbulence. It provides a new direction for digitalization capability and DPSI performance.

This study investigates how downward envy affects interpersonal conflict, workplace ostracism and displaced aggression in the mentoring context. It seeks to deepen our understanding of how these dynamics influence a mentor–protégé relationship.

Employing a three-wave research design, this study uses a sample of 176 participants in mentoring relationships to test our proposed moderated mediation model.

Downward envy can increase interpersonal conflict, workplace ostracism and displaced aggression. A mentor’s social comparison orientation moderates these effects by amplifying the negative impacts of downward envy.

These findings have practical implications for both mentors and protégés.

These findings have practical implications for both mentors and protégés.

This study contributes to the literature by focusing on downward envy within the mentoring context, yielding valuable insights to navigate mentoring experiences at work.

Prior studies have consistently treated participative leadership as a given leadership style. Conversely, this study aims to prove that participative leadership can be predicted by leaders and teams collectively, depending on leaders' work characteristics (i.e. workload).

A two-source survey was designed to collect data from a sample of 89 leader-team dyads in a trading company in a southeastern Chinese city. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis were used to test the hypotheses.

The leader showed more participative leadership when leader-team future orientation was congruent rather than incongruent; in the congruent situation, there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between leader-team future orientation congruence and participative leadership; in the incongruent situation, when the team's future orientation gradually exceeded the leader's, participative leadership first increased and then decreased; and leader workload positively moderated the relationship between leader-team future orientation congruence and participative leadership.

These findings theoretically respond to the call for investigating the influence of leader-team future orientation congruence on leaders’ behaviors, and in practice enlighten managers on how to encourage supervisors to involve employees in decision-making processes.

This study investigates the causal relationship and mechanisms between the development of digital finance and household carbon emissions. Its objective is to explore how digital finance can influence the carbon footprint at the household level, aiming to contribute to the broader understanding of financial innovations' environmental impacts.

The research combines macro and micro data, employing input-output analysis to utilize data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) for the years 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019, national input-output tables, and Energy Statistical Yearbooks. This approach calculated CO2 emissions at the household level, including the growth rate of household carbon emissions and per capita emissions. It further integrates the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China (PKU-DFIIC) for 2012–2018 and corresponding urban economic data, resulting in panel data for 7,191 households across 151 cities over four years. A fixed effects model was employed to examine the impact of digital finance development on household carbon emissions.

The findings reveal that digital finance significantly lowers household carbon emissions. Further investigation shows that digital transformation, consumption structure upgrades, and improved household financial literacy enhance the restraining effect of digital finance on carbon emissions. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this mitigating effect is more pronounced in households during the nurturing phase, those using convenient payment methods, small-scale, and urban households. Sub-index tests suggest that the broadening coverage and deepening usage of digital finance primarily drive its impact on reducing household carbon emissions.

The paper recommends that China should continue to strengthen the layout of digital infrastructure, leverage the advantages of digital finance, promote digital financial education, and facilitate household-level carbon emission management to support the achievement of China's dual carbon goals.

The originality of this paper lies in its detailed examination of the carbon reduction effects of digital finance at the micro (household) level. Unlike previous studies on carbon emissions that focused on absolute emissions, this research investigates the marginal impact of digital finance on relative increases in emissions. This method provides a robust assessment of the net effects of digital finance and offers a novel perspective for examining household carbon reduction measures. The study underscores the importance of considering heterogeneity when formulating targeted policies for households with different characteristics.

Small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in e-commerce often invest in information technology (IT) to stay competitive. However, whether and how IT capability (ITC) translates into financial performance requires further research. This paper examines the role of ITC in enabling value proposition innovation (VPI) as an important mechanism that improves financial performance for Chinese e-commerce SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that ITC is critical for enabling innovation because it elevates SMEs’ understanding of changing customer needs, especially when SMEs operate on multiple e-commerce platforms (multihome).

We used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and tested the hypotheses that ITC mediated by VPI and moderated by multihoming increases the financial performance of e-commerce SMEs through a survey among 206 Chinese SMEs operating on Taobao.

We find that not only higher levels of ITC lead to better financial performance, but also that the effect is fully mediated by VPI. Moreover, the effect of ITC on innovation is enhanced when vendors operate on multiple platforms.

The study identifies VPI as an important mechanism through which SMEs can leverage their ITC to adapt, innovate and thrive in competition. Our work suggests that using technology to develop innovative ideas and identify opportunities (which are reflected in VPI) is key to success and that doing so is more likely when vendors multihome. Thus, this study contributes to the innovation literature by explicating a concrete link between ITC, multihoming, VPI and increased financial performance. Different e-commerce stakeholders, including SME owners, IT and service providers and e-commerce platforms, can benefit from the findings of this work.

This study aims to characterize the mechanical properties of sintered nano-silver under various sintering processes by nano-indentation tests.

Through microstructure observations and characterization, the influences of sintering process on the microstructure evolutions of sintered nano-silver were presented. And, the indentation load, indentation displacement curves of sintered silver under various sintering processes were measured by using nano-indentation test. Based on the nano-indentation test, a reverse analysis of the finite element calculation was used to determine the yielding stress and hardening exponent.

The porosity decreases with the increase of the sintering temperature, while the average particle size of sintered nano-silver increases with the increase of sintering temperature and sintering time. In addition, the porosity reduced from 34.88%, 30.52%, to 25.04% if the ramp rate was decreased from 25°C/min, 15°C/min, to 5°C/min, respectively. The particle size appears more frequently within 1 µm and 2 µm under the lower ramp rate. With reverse analysis, the strain hardening exponent gradually heightened with the increase of temperature, while the yielding stress value decreased significantly with the increase of temperature. When the sintering time increased, the strain hardening exponent increased slightly.

The mechanical properties of sintered nano-silver under different sintering processes are clearly understood.

This paper could provide a novel perspective on understanding the sintering process effects on the mechanical properties of sintered nano-silver.