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A firm’s ethical behavior is commonly perceived beneficial to the firm and its investors in the literature. However, activities of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are often delivered with multiple purposes, and their expenses are aggregated with other expenditures in financial statements. These two features motivate the authors to hypothesize and find that investors’ ability to predict future earnings of ethical firms may not be improved through observing the CSR activities. The study aims to suggest that CSR spending should be expressed separately from other expenses in financial reports to help investors predict the future performance of CSR firms.

The authors use future (forward) earnings response coefficients (FERC) to testing whether current stock returns reflect correct information about future earnings. The basic specification of FERC framework, initially developed by Collins et al. (1994), is a regression of current-year stock returns on past, concurrent and future reported earnings with future stock returns as a control variable. A significantly positive FERC provides evidence that investors have rich and correct information about future earnings.

The authors find less future earnings information contained in current stock returns for firms with higher intensity of CSR activities. The association is also negative between current stock returns and future earnings reported by firms with a higher degree of CSR spending aggregated with selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A). In additional analyses, the intensity of CSR activities is positively associated the uncertainty of benefits, measured by the standard deviation of future earnings over the next five years. This future earnings variability does not exist, even though CSR spending is aggregated with SG&A, consistent with the basic principle that accounting expenses create no future economic impacts.

The authors contribute to the current debate over consequences of CSR activities and accounting for CSR spending from a different angle. A common belief is that voluntary disclosure on CSR activities would aid in reducing costs of equity capital and financial reporting errors. These studies provide corporate managers with good reasons and motivations to expect beneficial consequences of voluntary disclosure. The results show that general investors are less capable of predicting future earnings when there is a higher degree of CSR spending aggregated with SG&A. It also highlights potential problems in the disclosure of general-purpose financial reporting to accounting standard setters.

The spatiotemporal compression effect of China–Europe Railway Express (CR-Express) can reduce the flow costs of resources between China’s node cities. Additionally, it can break through the limitations of low-added-value marine products, significantly impacting the logistics industry efficiency. However, there are few literature verifying and analyzing its heterogeneity. This study explores the impact of CR-Express on the efficiency of logistics industry in node cities and analyzes the heterogeneity.

First, this study uses panel data to measure the efficiency of node city logistics industry. Secondly, this study discusses the impact of the opening of CR-Express on the efficiency of logistics industry in node cities based on the multi-period differential model. Finally, according to the node city difference, the sample city experimental group is grouped for heterogeneity analysis.

The results show that CR-Express can promote the urban logistics industry efficiency, with an average effect of 4.55%. According to the urban characteristics classification, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the efficiency improvement effect of logistics industry in inland cities is more obvious. The improvement effect of node cities and central cities in central and western China is stronger, especially in the sample of megacities and type I big cities. Compared with non-value chain industrial products, the CR-Express has significant promotion effects on the logistics efficiency of the cities where main goods are value chain products.

Under the background of double cycle development, this paper can provide a scientific basis for the investment benefit evaluation of CR-Express construction and the follow-up route planning.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interfacial conductivity and corrosion resistance of the Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ composite coating that is deposited on a carbon steel substrate as bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

The Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ coating was prepared by electroless plating. Scanning electron microscopy, white light interference, energy dispersive spectrometry and X-ray diffraction were used, respectively, to study the surface morphology, chemical composition and phase composition of coated samples. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, potentiodynamic and potentiostatic polarization were used to test the electrochemical performance and corrosion behavior. The interfacial contact resistance (ICR) was measured via the standard method.

The surface of the Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ coating is complete and dense and without obvious defects. The electrochemical test results show that the Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ coating provides better corrosion resistance than the Ni–P coating and substrate. Compared with the Ni–P coating, the ICR of the Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ coating is lower by about 82.7%. This is because the coating has more conductive contact points. The more exciting thing is that the ICR of the Ni–P/Ti₄O₇ coating only increases to 12.38 mΩ·cm² after 5 h of polarization.

This paper provides a method for achieving surface modification of metal bipolar plates. Introducing Ti₄O₇ particles in the Ni–P layer reduces the contact resistance before and after polarization while ensuring good corrosion resistance.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a moderated mediation model involving core self-evaluations (CSE), perceived organizational support (POS) and work-related well-being in terms of job burnout and job satisfaction. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, the authors examine the mediating effect of job burnout on the relationship between CSE and job satisfaction, while also investigating the moderating role of POS on the above effect.

Survey data were collected from a sample of 396 full-time employees from four restaurant and food service companies in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.

The results show that job burnout partially mediates the relationship between CSE and job satisfaction. Moreover, the results indicate that POS moderates the negative relationship between CSE and job burnout, as well as the mediated relationship between CSE and job satisfaction via job burnout. Specifically, both the CSE-job burnout relationship and the CSE-job burnout-job satisfaction relationship become stronger for employees with high POS than for those with low POS.

The results highlight the importance of raising employees’ POS by creating a supportive work environment in organizations, because it can serve as an important job resource that complements the impact of employees’ CSE on their work-related well-being.

This study contributes to the literature by suggesting that work-related well-being should be viewed as the results of interplay between personal characteristics and perceptions of the work environment, highlighting the importance of the person-environment interaction in explaining employees’ work-related well-being.

The main operations of the powder-coating process are staggered along a closed-loop conveyor. Given the volatile market demands, using a fixed level of staffing may result in significant productivity losses. The present study aims to capture stochastic behavior and optimize operator assignment problems in a practical powder-coating process. By using the proposed methodology, when demand changes, the optimal operator assignment configuration can be provided, ensuring high labor productivity.

The powder-coating process is an important industrial application and is often a labor-intensive system. The present study adopts a practical case to optimize its staffing level. Because of its operational complexity, the problem is solved by a proposed simulation-optimization approach. The results are promising, and the proposed methodology is shown to be an effective approach.

The proposed methodology was tested for various demand levels. The optimized operator assignment configuration always improves on the performance of other staffing levels. Given the same daily throughput, the optimized operator assignment configuration can improve performance by as much as 19%. In scenarios where there is increased demand, the resulting reduction in overtime work improves performance by between 20.33% and 56.72%. In scenarios where there is reduced demand, the optimized staffing level produces improvements between 3.13% and 50%. Compared with the fixed staffing policy of the case company, the flexible staffing policy of the proposed methodology can maintain high labor productivity across demand variations. The results are consistent with the Shojinka philosophy of the Toyota Production System.

This study proposes a solution to the operator assignment decision in a labor-intensive manufacturing system – a powder-coating processing system. Powder coating provides a solid powder coating without any solvent. Because of its excellent application performance and environmental protection, it is widely used in the field of metal coating, especially appliances for offices and homes. Most of the existing literature has solved the problem by making unrealistic assumptions. The present study proposes a simulation-optimization method to solve a practical problem in powder-coating processing. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is illustrated by a practical application. According to the experimental results, five operators can be saved for the same daily throughput. An average of 35 and 19 min of overtimes can be saved when demand increases by 10% and 20% with one less operator; between 2 and 16 operators can be saved when demand falls by 10%–60%.

The purpose of this study is to validate the different turbulence models using in the numerical simulation of centrifugal pump diffuser. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become the main method to study the pump inner flow patterns. It is important to understand the differences and features of the different turbulence models used in turbomachinery.

The velocity flow fields in a compact return diffuser under different flow conditions are studied and compared between CFD and particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements. Three turbulence models are used to solve the steady flow field using high-quality fine structured grids, including shear stress transport (SST) k-w model, detached-eddy simulation (DES) model and SST k-w model with low-Re corrections.

SST k-w model with low-Re correction gives better results compared to DES and SST k-w model, and gives a good predication about the vortex core position under strong part-loading conditions.

A special test rig is designed to carry out the 2D PIV measurements under high rotating speed of 2850 r/min, and the PIV results are used to validate the CFD results.

Drawing on the resource-based theory and dynamic capability view, this paper aims to examine the mechanisms by which business analytics (BA) capabilities (i.e. the effective use of data aggregation, analytics and data interpretation tools) in healthcare units indirectly influence decision-making effectiveness through the mediating role of knowledge absorptive capacity.

Using a survey method, this study collected data from the hospitals in Taiwan. Of the 155 responses received, three were incomplete, giving a 35.84 per cent response rate with 152 valid data points. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

This study conceptualizes, operationalizes and measures the BA capability as a multi-dimensional construct that is formed by capturing the functionalities of BA systems in health care, leading to the conclusion that healthcare units are likely to obtain valuable knowledge through using the data analysis and interpretation tools effectively. The effective use of data analysis and interpretation tools in healthcare units indirectly influence decision-making effectiveness, an impact that is mediated by absorptive capacity.

This study adds values to the literature by conceptualizing BA capabilities in healthcare and demonstrating how knowledge absorption matters when implementing BA to the decision-making process. The mediating role of absorptive capacity not only provides a mechanism by which BA can contribute to decision-making practices but also offers a new solution to the puzzle of the IT productivity paradox in healthcare settings.

This paper aims to establish an organizational learning system model based on both western and Chinese management thoughts.

The approach is a conceptual model which is based on research within the field.

The model consists of nine interrelated organizational learning sub‐systems including “discovering”, “innovating”, “selecting”, “executing”, “transferring”, “reflecting”, “acquiring knowledge from environment”, “contributing knowledge to environment”, and “building organizational memory” ones. The evidences in some famous Chinese traditional cultural classics (including Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, Book of Change, Tao‐Te‐Ching, The Art of War and Chuan‐Xi‐Lu) that support the rationale of the model are described and analyzed.

Several propositions are developed and it is hoped that the model is applicable in both eastern and western business environments.

Porous media can provide excellent performance in thermal energy transport applications. This study aims to optimise the square porous slabs (placed in the middle of the channel) parameters to enhance the cooling performance of the jet-impingement microchannel heat sink.

Three levels of each design parameters, i.e. porous slab side, porous slab height, type of material, permeability and quadratic drag factor, are studied; and an L₂₇ orthogonal array is adopted to generate the design points in the specified design space. Optimum designs of the porous media slabs are achieved to minimise the maximum-wall temperature, thermal resistance and pressure drop and maximise the average heat transfer coefficient and figure of merit (FOM).

Results exhibited that the porous media material and permeability are the most, whereas drag factor is the least significant factors with respect to the overall performance of the heat sink. The optimum value of FOM for the proposed hybrid heat sink model belongs to the set of design variables, i.e. 0.4 mm slab side, 0.6 mm slab height, 5 × 10⁻¹¹ m² permeability, 0.21 drag factor and copper as substrate material.

This study proposes a novel design and a hybrid approach to investigate and optimise the hydrothermal performance of jet impingements on porous slabs inserted in the microchannels.

The paper aims to clarify the relationship between earnings management and the sale of long‐lived assets and investments for firms listed in Taiwan. In addition, it suggests several interesting issues for further studies by proposing that positive earnings are one of the necessary conditions for the companies to issue bonds or new shares.

The paper uses archival data and regression analysis to document empirical evidence that assets sales are one of the methods to manipulate reported earnings among 12,484 firm‐years over the period of 1984‐2006.

The paper finds that approximately 54‐57 percent of firms in Taiwan with small pre‐managed earnings losses manipulate reported earnings to show small positive earnings. This is in contrast to 30‐40 percent of firms in the USA as reported by Burgstahler and Dichev.

The paper makes a good use of the unique institutional features of Taiwan. It has not produced other unique results that differ significantly from the findings of prior studies.

The paper shows that reported earnings are viewed as a primary measure of firm performance and mechanisms behind earnings management have important implications in deriving informative summary measures of firm performance.

The paper fulfils an identified need to study how companies listed in Taiwan to beat thresholds by selling long‐lived assets and investments and provides a comparison in earnings management with US companies. Moreover, it provides several suggestions for future studies.