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The purpose of this study is to help governments make carbon-tax policy and help enterprises make decisions under that policy.

Based on the carbon-tax policy, with the consideration of consumers’ low-carbon preferences, this paper compares the pricing, emission reduction and advertising decisions in three different games (one centralized game and two decentralized Stackelberg games).

This paper concludes that, through centralized game, namely, cooperation game, manufacturers, retailers and consumers can reach their optimal situation. In the numerical simulation, this paper analyzes the impact of carbon-tax rate to the decisions of manufacturer and retailer, as well as their profit.

Using the Nash Bargaining Model, the introduction of the bargaining power and the degree of risk aversion of the parties, this study provides some solution for the distribution of the additional profit when they cooperate, in which way they can reach their Pareto optimality.

This study aims to explore how information technology (IT) companies that provide professional information systems/IT solutions to business clients can enhance employees’ service innovation performance.

Self-reported data were collected from 251 employees over two periods, along with their supervisor-reported data. The model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Employees’ engagement fully mediates the impact of innovative self-efficacy and social identification on service innovation performance. Employees’ customer orientation and feeling trusted both strengthen the transformation of service innovation engagement into service innovation performance. However, IT employees’ embeddedness, unexpectedly, significantly weakens the link between engagement and performance in business-to-business (B2B) service innovation contexts.

The sample was collected in Taiwan, where the IT industry is dominant and employees’ values and team interactions are influenced by Chinese culture. Data drawn from a single industry, involving a particular culture, limit claims of external validity.

Managers can encourage participative decision-making, or hold official platforms where peers and clients can exchange ideas, leading to higher levels of feeling trusted and customer orientation, which both strengthen the link between service innovation engagement and performance. Moreover, highly embedded members can easily discuss novel ideas with team members and obtain improvement-oriented feedback, which ensures highly embedded members can keep focusing on service innovation.

This study provides a more nuanced picture of predictive factors for individual innovation behavior in B2B service innovation contexts in which employees provide business clients with professional, innovative IT solutions through team-based projects.

This study empirically explores how firms configure the strength and the temporal and spatial features of corporate volunteering (CV) events to promote corporate reputation (CR).

Using event system theory as a framework and applying fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to 385 firms and 2,783 public respondents, this study explores the configurational effects of five elements of CV events—employee engagement, customer engagement, meagre incentive, duration and scope of influence—on two types of CR: capability reputation (CAR) and character reputation (CHR).

The results indicate that (1) the impact of volunteering on CR is not only configurational in nature, but also characterised by equifinality (i.e. the presence of multiple paths to success); (2) with meagre incentive and in the absence of scope-of-influence support, long-term employee and customer engagement in CV is sufficient to achieve high CAR; (3) adequate and diverse incentives, high employee engagement and a sufficiently broad scope of influence work well with either high customer engagement or long duration to achieve high CAR and CHR, respectively; (4) there are identical configurations that can achieve high CAR and CHR.

This study contributes to the CV and CR literature by extending the application of event system theory to proactive events.

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore how firms configure centrifugal and centripetal forces in promoting breakthrough innovation (BI), thus improving their strategic performance (SP) in the artificial intelligence (AI) context.

This study applies the centrifugal and centripetal forces model to a survey sample of 285 Chinese AI firms. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and propensity score matching (PSM) are integrated to explore the configurational effects of three centrifugal forces—the autonomy of technical experts, knowledge search and alliance network—and two centripetal forces—strictness of organisational institutions (SOI) and human–human–AI collaboration (HHAC)—on BI, examining whether the configurations that enhance BI can further improve SP.

The results indicate that the strictness of innovation institutions (SII) and strictness of ethical institutions (SEI) are equally important for determining SOI. Three configurations can improve BI when SOI and HHAC are the core conditions; only one of three configurations can further improve SP significantly.

By introducing SOI composed of equally important levels of SII and SEI and HHAC, this research is one of the few empirical studies to explore the mechanisms behind the impact of centrifugal and centripetal forces on BI and SP, which may help researchers and managers address innovation challenges in the AI context.

The purpose of this paper is to briefly summarize and review the theories and methods of complex structures’ dynamic reliability. Complex structures are usually assembled from multiple components and subjected to time-varying loads of aerodynamic, structural, thermal and other physical fields; its reliability analysis is of great significance to ensure the safe operation of large-scale equipment such as aviation and machinery.

In this paper for the single-objective dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures, the calculation can be categorized into Monte Carlo (MC), outcrossing rate, envelope functions and extreme value methods. The series-parallel and expansion methods, multi-extremum surrogate models and decomposed-coordinated surrogate models are summarized for the multiobjective dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures.

The numerical complex compound function and turbine blisk are used as examples to illustrate the performance of single-objective and multiobjective dynamic reliability analysis methods. Then the future development direction of dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures is prospected.

The paper provides a useful reference for further theoretical research and engineering application.

This study aims to provide a time- and price-sensitive market strategy for merchants to handle the markdown price strategy. The market demand for perishable products is usually price – and quality (freshness) – sensitive. The proper handling of markdown-price strategies can help merchants enhance competitiveness and maximize operational performance.

A markdown strategy consisting of price and markdown time was developed to explore the properties of market strategies based on the dynamic quality evaluation. The strategy considers multiple price discounts and multiple markdown times. The optimal price decisions in each stage and the optimal markdown times were derived during the selling season.

The results showed the following. A retailer always raises the initial price if it wants to adopt multiple price-markdown strategies. A high initial price may lead to a high inventory at the early stage and bring the next price reduction in advance. Large price discounts can be used to reduce the inventory later. The higher the previous price, the shorter the interval between the next price reduction. The markdown strategies showed that the regular discount as a new business model is not the best pricing model for perishable products. A time- and price-sensitive strategy, however, can increase operational performance and provide new insights for perishable products.

The results showed the following. A retailer always raises the initial price if it wants to adopt multiple price-markdown strategies. A high initial price may lead to a high inventory at the early stage and bring the next price reduction in advance. Large price discounts can be used to reduce the inventory later. The higher the previous price, the shorter the interval between the next price reduction. The markdown strategies showed that the regular discount as a new business model is not the best pricing model for perishable products. A time- and price-sensitive strategy, however, can increase operational performance and provide new insights for perishable products.

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the relationship between a new venture top management team's (NVTMT’s) shared leadership and strategic performance in opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial bricolage by drawing on the upper echelons theory.

Data were collected from 344 new manufacturing ventures located in Eastern China. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) through the AMOS 23.0 software package. The confluence of the contextual factors of the new venture is examined by a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results indicate that NVTMT shared leadership has an indirect and positive effect on strategic performance through opportunity recognition, especially in a highly uncertain environment, while the mediating effect of entrepreneurial bricolage is not significant. Furthermore, although the SEM results show that the impact of NVTMT shared leadership on entrepreneurial bricolage is negative, the fsQCA shows that NVTMT shared leadership can significantly and positively affect entrepreneurial bricolage in an environment with high uncertainty, ultimately enhancing strategic performance.

This study contributes to the shared leadership literature by proposing a model on how shared leadership shapes the strategic performance of new ventures via opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial bricolage. The findings not only enrich relevant research on the upper echelons theory, but also help in understanding the patterns of contextual conditions that facilitate the value-adding properties of NVTMT shared leadership.

This paper aims to propose a novel design concept for a biomimetic dolphin-like underwater glider, which can offer the advantages of both robotic dolphins and underwater gliders to achieve high-maneuverability, high-speed and long-distance motions.

To testify the gliding capability of dolphin-like robot without traditional internal movable masses, the authors first developed a skilled and simple dolphin-like prototype with only gliding capability. The hydrodynamic coefficients, including lift, drag and pitching moment, are obtained through computational fluid dynamics method, and the hydrodynamic analysis in the steady gliding motion is also executed.

Experimental results have shown that the dolphin-like glider could successfully glide depending on the pitching torques only from buoyancy-driven system and controllable fins without traditional internal moveable masses.

A hybrid underwater glider scheme that combines robotic dolphin and glider is firstly proposed, shedding light on the creation of innovation gliders with maneuverability and durability.