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In prior literature, online endorsement system allowing the users to “like” or “dislike” shared information is found very useful in information filtering and trust elicitation in most social networks. This paper shows that such systems could fail in the context of investment communities due to several psychological biases.

This study develops a series of regression analyses to model the “like”/“dislike” voting process and whether or not such endorsement distinguishes between valuable information and noise. Trading simulations are also used to validate the practical implications of the findings.

The main findings of this research are twofold: (1) in the context of investment communities, online endorsement system fails to signify value-relevant information and (2) bullish information and “wisdom over the past event” information receive more “likes” and fewer “dislikes” on average, but they underperform in stock market price discovery.

This study demonstrates that biased endorsement may lead to the failure of the online endorsement system as information gatekeeper in investment communities. Two underlying mechanisms are proposed and tested. This study opens up new research opportunities to investigate the causes of biased endorsement in online environment and motivates the development of alternative information filtering systems.

The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of sodium borohydride in reducing indigo at room temperature, the divalent copper ion complex was combined with electrochemical technology for the reduction of indigo by sodium borohydride.

According to the K/S value of the dyed cloth sample, find a more suitable ligand for the copper ion in the catholyte. Response surface analysis tests were performed to evaluate the effects of sodium borohydride concentration, sodium hydroxide concentration and copper sulfate pentahydrate concentration on the reduction potential of the dye solution and the K/S value of the dyed fabric samples.

Sodium gluconate was found to be a more suitable ligand for copper ions in catholyte. The effects of NaOH concentration as well as the interaction of NaBH₄ and NaOH on the reduction potential of the catholyte and the K/S value of the dyed fabric samples were extremely significant. The optimal concentrations of NaBH₄, NaOH and CuSO₄•5H₂O were 0.5, 2.5 and 0.65 g/L. In the case of the optimized condition, the absolute value of the reduction potential was 968, and the K/S value was 11.92, which is comparable with that of the conventional reduction process with sodium dithionite.

The divalent copper ion complex combined with electrochemical technology was applied in the process of reducing indigo with NaBH₄ at room temperature.

Leadership.

The case is suitable for MBA, Executive level courses.

Yongye Group is a biotechnological enterprise in Inner Mongolia, China. In China, people lack trust in economic transactions due to the transitional state of the economy, especially regarding food safety. To respond to this situation, Wu Zishen, the chairman of the Board of Directors of Yongye Group, was determined to build trust among employees, distributors, farmers, and consumers towards the company. To this end, he started using a creative incentive system with employees and stakeholders: the pay-before-performance incentive system. According to this system, the reward is delivered in advance, contrary to be paid after the fulfillment of the task. This practice is meant to transform employees' work attitude from a passive “being told to work” to a more proactive “I want to work” mentality. When such an incentive system is practiced with customers and external distributors, it sends a message that the company is “treating customers as company employees”, which means that they are trusted as if they were part of the company itself. Wu Zishen also introduced a coherent series of leadership practices that generate a truly proactive culture in the organization.

From this case, students will learn how to create a proactive culture in business organizations and the effect of pay-before-performance on employees' work motivation.

Teaching notes and an exercise for class-based discussion are available.

This study investigates the impact of network positions on inter-team conflicts and project success in megaprojects.

Network position is measured with centrality and structural holes. Substantive conflict and affective conflict reflect inter-team conflicts. A questionnaire survey was implemented in Chinese megaprojects, and 309 valid questionnaires were collected. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping methods.

The results show that centrality negatively impacts project success, while the presence of a team in a structural hole has no significant impact on project success. Centrality is negatively related to substantive conflict and is positively related to affective conflict. The team in a structural hole has a positive effect on substantive conflict and a negative effect on affective conflict. Substantive conflict and affective conflict have positive and negative effects on project success, respectively. The effect of network position on project success is mediated by inter-team conflict.

This research provides a reference for megaproject managers to better conduct network governance, manage inter-team conflict, and successfully manage projects. The study did not investigate the effects of changes in teams' network positions on project success. Future research should explore this facet of megaprojects.

This research adds to existing research on network position, and reveals that project network governance is important for megaproject success. This provides a new direction for megaproject management. Furthermore, the results validate constructive and non-constructive roles and the mediating role of inter-team conflict. This complements the literature on conflict management, providing a reference for megaproject managers when managing inter-team conflict.

This study aims to explore the relationship between network position, various types of inter-organizational conflicts and project performance in the context of megaprojects.

Centrality and structural holes were used to represent network position. A theoretical model was developed, and a structured questionnaire survey was conducted with construction professionals involved in megaprojects. A total of 291 valid responses were obtained, which were analyzed via structural equation modeling.

The results showed that centrality negatively impacts project performance, while structural holes do not significantly impact project performance. Centrality negatively affects task conflicts, but positively affects process conflicts and relationship conflicts. Structural holes positively impact task conflicts, but negatively impact both process conflicts and relationship conflicts. Task conflict and relationship conflict exert constructive and destructive effects on project performance, respectively, while process conflict does not significantly impact project performance. Task conflict and relationship conflict play mediating roles. Task conflict weakens while relationship conflict strengthens the relationship between centrality and project performance. Task conflict strengthens while relationship conflict weakens the relationship between structure hole and project performance.

This study provides a reference for the implementation of network governance, inter-organizational conflict management and project performance management in megaprojects. However, the impact of dynamic changes of inter-organizational conflicts and network position on project performance has not been discussed in the context of megaprojects. Future research may explore the impact of dynamic changes of conflicts and network position on project implementation.

This study increases the current understanding of the impact of network position on project performance. Moreover, a new direction for network governance in the context of megaprojects is provided. This study also verified both the constructive and destructive effects of conflicts and the mediating role they play, thus supplementing the literature on inter-organizational conflict management in the construction field.

Frequent renegotiations within public-private partnership (PPP) have been recognised and affect project efficiency. Literature has focussed on diverse issues associated with renegotiation within PPP, especially in Latin America and Europe. However, a systematic summary what they have already provided appears lacking. Thus, the paper aims to conduct a critical review of publications concerning PPP renegotiation and explore the status quo, future interests and gaps in research.

This study carried out a four-phase literature review research framework to identify the quality PPP-renegotiation articles published from 2003 to 2020. Assessing the full articles for eligibility by providing a structured summary including: background; objectives; data sources; study appraisal; results; limitations; conclusions and implications of key findings. After that, filtering papers associated with PPP renegotiation in terms of the structured summary, and a total of 60 research papers were selected in the database of web of science and Scopus for review.

Methods adopted by researchers, research topics and theoretical foundations of PPP renegotiation research in different disciplines were identified through content analysis. Amongst the popular research topics identified were renegotiation factors, the outcomes with renegotiations, the framework to deal with renegotiations and contract design dealing with renegotiation based on rigid or flexible contracts.

This study contributes to the current body of PPP knowledge by revealing the research trend in the past 20 years. It also points out the directions that the renegotiations of PPP research may go towards in the future. Moreover, this study is very valuable in understanding how governments and concessionaires effectively handle renegotiations.

This study aims to produce a superhydrophobic fabric surface with a layered rough structure and which are resistant to droplet adhesion. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) systems doped with stearic acid modified titanium dioxide (SA-TiO₂) nanoparticles was sprayed onto the surface of cotton fabric.

This experiment therefore uses a simple method to prepare superhydrophobic textiles by spraying SA-TiO₂ particles mixed with PDMS onto the surface of cotton fabrics. The effects of the ratio of stearic acid to TiO₂, spraying times and tension on the apparent morphological structure and hydrophobic properties of the cotton fabric were investigated.

The results showed that the stearic acid-modified TiO₂ nanoparticles were hydrophobic and more uniformly dispersed in the PDMS solution. When the modification ratio of stearic acid to TiO₂ was 3:5, the water contact angle of cotton fabric was 155.48° and sliding angle was 6.67° under the applied tension for three times of spraying, showing superhydrophobicity. The fabric shows super hydrophobic and anti-adhesive properties to a wide range of liquids such as cola, dyeing liquids, tea, milk and simulated blood. The surface tension of the liquid shows a negative correlation with its adhesion to the fabric.

The SA-TiO₂ and PDMS were applied to the fabric surface by spraying, which not only gave the fabric superhydrophobic properties, but also created anti-adhesion to a wide range of droplets.

The superhydrophobic cotton fabrics prepared by this method showed good anti-adhesive behavior to common stains and simulated blood and can be used in the development of medical protective textiles.

Modification of TiO₂ with stearic acid to prepare SA-TiO₂ with excellent hydrophobic properties, which was mixed with PDMS to make suspensions. Fluorine-free superhydrophobic fabrics were prepared by spraying method. It also exhibited excellent anti-adhesive properties against blood, providing a reference for the preparation of self-cleaning and anti-adhesive surgical gowns.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration in Big Data research based on the co-occurrences of subject categories using Stirling’s diversity index and specialization index.

Interdisciplinarity was measured utilizing the descriptive statistics of disciplines, network indicators showing relationships between disciplines and within individual disciplines, interdisciplinary communities, Stirling’s diversity index and specialization index, and a strategic diagram revealing the development status and trends of discipline communities.

Comprehensively considering all results, the degree of interdisciplinarity of Big Data research is increasing over time, particularly, after 2013. There is a high level of interdisciplinarity in Big Data research involving a large number of disciplines, but it is unbalanced in distribution. The interdisciplinary collaborations are not intensive on the whole; most disciplines are aggregated into a few distinct communities with computer science, business and economics, mathematics, and biotechnology and applied microbiology as the core. Four major discipline communities in Big Data research represent different directions with different development statuses and trends. Community 1, with computer science as the core, is the most mature and central to the whole interdisciplinary network. Accounting for all network indicators, computer science, engineering, business and economics, social sciences, and mathematics are the most important disciplines in Big Data research.

This study deepens our understanding of the degree and trend of interdisciplinary collaboration in Big Data research through a longitudinal study and quantitative measures based on two indexes. It has practical implications to study and reveal the interdisciplinary phenomenon and characteristics of related developments of a specific research area, or to conduct comparative studies between different research areas.

This study aims to evaluate the thermal performance of phase change materials (PCMs) microcapsules (MCs) attached using SiO₂ microspheres and investigate the thermal regulation effect on the coated denim fabric.

The PCM microcapsule was prepared by in situ polymerization using a mixture of solid paraffin and butyl stearate as core material (CM) and methyl methacrylate as a monomer. The SiO₂ microparticles were attached to the outer layer of the membrane to enhance the thermal performance of MCs. The morphology, chemical structure, latent heat storage and thermal resistance of MCs were characterized. PCM MCs were coated on the denim fabric and thermo-gravimetric analysis was conducted; thermal insulation and thermal infrared imaging performance of the coated fabrics were also investigated.

The diameters of SiO₂ particles and PCMs MCs were 300-500 nm and 1 μm, respectively. SiO₂ was wrapped on single-wall PCMs MCs with the mass ratio of 1:5. With the addition of SiO₂, the phase transition temperature range of MCs increased from 34°C to 39°C, and the endothermic and exothermic latent heat decreased by 5.35 J/g and 10.07 J/g, respectively. The degradation rate of MCs was significantly slowed down at high temperature. The denim fabric coated with MCs revealed thermal regulation property. After absorbing heat, the MCs slowed down the rate of heat loss and extended the heat release time.

The phase transition temperature of the composite CM was wide, and the latent heat storage was reduced. The addition of SiO₂ particles can significantly slow down the rate of heat loss, but it further reduces the latent heat storage performance.

The method developed provided a simple and practical solution to improve the thermal regulation performance of fabrics.

The method of adjusting the phase transition temperature range of the composite CM is novel and many applications could be found in preparation of PCMs and thermal management.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the research status and outputs of information behavior in China in order to reveal its in-depth research pattern and trends.

The author collected literature during the past 29 years from China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database. Bibliometric analysis, including publication growth analysis, core authors and collaborative degree analysis, core journals analysis, and institutions distribution, was performed. The temporal visualization map of burst term was drawn, and the co-occurrence matrix of these keywords was analyzed by the hierarchical cluster analysis, strategic diagram, and social network analysis.

The earliest article on information behavior in China was published in 1987. And the number of articles has risen continually since then, which follows the logical growth law of literature. The collaborative degree of authors is on the rise in general. The distribution of these articles obeys the Bradford’s Law of Scattering. School of Information Management of Wuhan University remarkably ranks the top in most publications. In all, ten important research directions were identified, which are in the imbalanced development. And a newly appearing topic with great potential for further development, namely information seeking and information security, is identified.

This study provides important insights into the research status and trends on information behavior in China, which might provide a potential guide for the future research.