This study investigates how the explicitly anti-prosocial and anti-pro-environmental speech by political elites affects firms’ environmental and social (E&S) performance. Using the case of the Donald J. Trump (DJT) campaign for president in the United States when he gave out controversial and inflammatory remarks, including those regarding E&S issues, we find that local firms’ E&S performance decreased significantly in the year following DJT’s presidential campaign rally compared with firms in other geographic areas where there was no DJT’s presidential campaign event. (...) A further test indicates that the change in firms’ E&S performance can be driven by DJT remarks’ influence on local social norms shift. Furthermore, we show that the post-rally decrease of local firms’ E&S performance is more pronounced for local firms that operate primarily locally or local firms that are more sensitive to political uncertainty. Taken together, these findings indicate that political events such as political elites giving remarks can affect firms’ E&S performance. (shrink)

The paper presents a Chinese philosophical point of view of AI, and presents a novel system of the AI machine. There are two basic relations or contradictions which drive computer developments forward. One is between software and hardware and the other is between data structure and system organization. It is suggested that a description of a future AI system should primarily start from these contradictions.

It is important for energy enterprises to research on the investment potential of the energy markets in countries along the “Belt and Road,” which can help them optimize the regional investment structure, reduce investment risks, and conform to the development trend of “going global.” Therefore, we construct an investment potential assessment system of 29 indexes including five dimensions: politics, economy, society, energy, and cooperation and assess energy investment potential of 48 sample countries along the “Belt and Road” using principal component (...) analysis to provide reference meanings for energy enterprises. The results show that the assessment results of investment potential are affected by a combination of multiple indexes. In addition, compared with Central Asia and South Asia, which have weak economic foundations and greater political and legal risks, the investment potential of Central and Eastern Europe and some emerging economies in Southeast Asia is higher. (shrink)

Understanding the behavior of consumers and especially the purchase-related behavior has been a focus of research for the past decades. Thus, researchers and practitioners are curious to know how purchase patterns are different under different conditions such as product category, price, feeling, and so on. The primary focus of this study was to examine how the price of the products influences the purchase behavior of consumers across hedonic and utilitarian categories under regulatory focus theory. The secondary insight was to examine (...) how mood can moderate this impact. We conducted three experimental studies to examine these research questions regarding the preference of consumers of hedonic products when the price is low and at different mood conditions in this purchase process. The results confirmed our hypothesis that product category has a significant impact on purchase choice of products and mood can mediate this impact. In the last section, we discussed the theoretical contribution, strategic insights for product designers and marketers, and possible future research directions. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo survey the prevalence of burnout in a national sample of endocrinologists in China and to examine its correlates, with a special focus on gender differences.MethodsAn anonymous online survey was conducted among endocrinologists in 31 provincial government-owned “People’s Hospitals” of each province in mainland China. Demographic and work-related factors were collected from participants. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey was used to assess burnout, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment.ResultsA total of 711 endocrinologists completed the survey. Burnout was (...) reported by 32.8% of the participants. There were no significant gender differences in the overall prevalence of burnout or EE, DP, and PA. A multi-level linear regression revealed: In male participants, PA was significantly associated with age, DP was inversely associated with age, EE was significantly associated with shorter sleep duration, and longer work hours. In females, PA was significantly associated with age, EE and DP were both significantly associated with shorter sleep duration. EE and DP were also associated with work hours.ConclusionNearly one-third of endocrinologists in China experienced burnout. Although there were no significant gender differences in the prevalence of overall burnout or EE, DP, and PA scores, male and female participants differed in factors associated with EE, DP, and PA. Interventions need to be tailored to target different aspects in male and female endocrinologists and target different subgroups. (shrink)

The existing numerous adaptive variants of differential evolution have been improved the search ability of classic DE to certain extent. Nevertheless, those variants of DE do not obtain the promising performance in solving black box problems with unknown features, which is mainly because the adaptive rules of those variants are designed according to their designers’ cognition on the problem features. To enhance the optimization ability of DE in optimizing black box problems with unknown features, a differential evolution with autonomous selection (...) of mutation strategies and control parameters is proposed in this paper, inspired by autonomous decision-making mechanism of reinforcement learning. In ASDE, a historical experience archive with population features is utilized to preserve accumulated historical experience of the combination of mutation strategies and control parameters. Furthermore, the accumulated historical experience can be autonomously mapped into rules repository, and the individuals can choose the combination of mutation strategies and control parameters according to those rules. Additionally, an updating and utilization mechanism of the historical experience is designed to assure that the historical experience can be effectively accumulated and utilized efficiently. Compared with some state-of-the-art intelligence algorithms on 15 functions of CEC2015, 28 functions of CEC2017, and parameter extraction problems of the photovoltaic model, ASDE has the advantages of solution accuracy, convergence speed, and robustness in solving black box problems with unknown features. (shrink)

Lipstick is one of the most commonly used cosmetics, which is closely associated with female attractiveness and influences people’s perception and behavior. This study aimed to investigate the impact of light sources, lipstick colors, as well as gender on the subjective assessment of lipstick color products from the prospective of color preference, purchase intention and sexual attractiveness. The correlation between color preference evaluations when applying lipstick on lips and on forearms was also explored. Sixty participants completed their visual assessment of (...) 15 lipsticks worn by 3 models under 5 light sources, with uniformly sampled correlated color temperature (CCT) values ranging from 2,500 K to 6,500 K. The results indicated that the light source significantly influenced color preference and purchase intention, while lipstick color significantly impacted on sexual attractiveness. The interactions between gender and other factors were also observed and are discussed. Compared to men, women were found to be more sensitive to different light sources and hold different attitudes toward different lipstick colors under different CCTs. Interestingly, no significant correlation was found between lipstick color preference ratings on the lips and forearm, which conflicted with the commonly recognized way of lipstick color selection. These findings should contribute to a deeper understanding of the consumer attitude toward lipstick colors and provide a useful reference for lighting design in situations where cosmetics are specified, manufactured, retailed and generally used, both professionally and in the home. (shrink)

Cross-shareholding is a new type of strategic means for capital operation and is an important component of corporate governance. With the increasing complexity of business motivation, the structure of a cross-shareholding network is becoming more intricate, and it exposes various important local patterns with different economic functions. The goal of this paper is to uncover investment mechanisms and economic functions implied in cross-shareholding networks by analyzing the local characteristic patterns of company interactions. In this paper, we construct the CSNs of (...) listed companies and extract the directed triadic motifs to reveal the evolutionary characteristics of local investment patterns at the company and industry levels. On the company level, we find that companies tend to form V-shaped structures with other companies, but bidirectional shareholding patterns and circular relationships in the triads are scarce. On the industry level, we identify the characteristic linking patterns of some industries with a role analysis of the industries. Furthermore, we detect the evolutionary characteristics of industry interrelationships in three implied patterns. Such a motif evolution analysis may provide valuable information for investors and supervisory departments that make decisions about investment portfolios and policy. Meanwhile, this study is also helpful for exploring the implied information in other empirical networks. (shrink)

Based on ideology-infused psychological contract theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this study investigated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. A curvilinear mediation model was proposed to explain the impact of ethical leadership on creativity, using employee intrinsic motivation as the mediator. Applying a two wave sampling design that consist 258 employees and their leaders, we found that employee creativity improved as ethical leadership increased from low to moderate levels. However, the employee creativity improvement was attenuated when ethical (...) leadership increased from moderate to high levels. Furthermore, the study also revealed that employee intrinsic motivation partially mediated this curvilinear relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Music education is one of human kind most universal forms of expression and communication, and it can be found in the daily lives of people of all ages and cultures all over the world. As university life is a time when students are exposed to a great deal of stress, it can have a negative impact on their mental health. Therefore, it is critical to intervene at this stage in their life so that they are prepared to deal with the (...) pressures they will face in the future. The aim of this study was to see how music education affects university students’ mental health, with emotional intelligence functioning as a moderator. The participants in this research were graduate students pursuing degrees in music education. Non probability convenience sampling technique was used to collect and evaluate the data from 265 students studying in different public and private Chinese universities. The data was gathered at a time, and therefore, the study is cross-sectional. The data was collected from January 2022 till the end of March 2022. Many universities have been closed because to COVID-19, therefore data was also gathered online through emails. The data was analyzed quantitatively using the partial least squares –structural equation modeling technique. The findings backed up the hypotheses. The results revealed that there is a significant effect of music education on student’s mental health. Also, emotional intelligence as a moderator significantly and positively moderates the relationship between music education and students’ mental health. Music has numerous physiological aspects, and listening to it on a daily basis may be beneficial to your general health and well-being. Furthermore, musicians and music students with a high level of emotional intelligence have a better chance of not just performing well in school, college and university or in the music industry, but also of maintaining mental health and improving it. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) in the workplace has been widely researched, studies have focused on its antecedents rather than its outcomes. To fill this gap in the literature, we integrated moral licensing theory and the literature on leader gratitude expression to explore the ethical consequences of UPB. Using a sample of multi-source time-lagged surveys of 206 leader–employee dyads, we found that the pro-organizational nature of UPB fostered employees’ psychological entitlement and thereby increased their likelihood of engaging in subsequent (...) unethical behavior. Leaders’ expressions of gratitude for employee UPB strengthened the relationship between UPB and psychological entitlement, ultimately reinforcing employees’ unethical behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

To improve the movie box office prediction accuracy, this paper proposes an adaptive attention with consumer sentinel for movie box office prediction. First, the influencing factors of the movie box office are analyzed. Tackling the problem of ignoring consumer groups in existing prediction models, we add consumer features and then quantitatively analyze and normalize the box office influence factors. Second, we establish an LSTM box office prediction model and inject the attention mechanism to construct an adaptive attention with consumer sentinel (...) for movie box office prediction. Finally, 10,398 pieces of movie box office dataset are used in the Kaggle competition to compare the prediction results with the LSTM-AACS model, LSTM-Attention model, and LSTM model. The results show that the relative error of LSTM-AACS prediction is 6.58%, which is lower than other models used in the experiment. (shrink)

We examine the impact of a government-initiated CSR project on corporate misconduct using the unique setting of China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) program. The difference-in-differences estimates show that firms participating in the TPA program engage in fewer misconduct activities than do their counterparts. This finding is robust to the parallel trends test, the placebo test, alternative regression specifications, alternative research designs, the reverse causality analysis, and the bivariate probit model with partial observability. Further analysis shows that TPA participation enhances the (...) ability of external financial professionals to monitor performance by stimulating the dissemination of TPA-related incremental information, thereby contributing to the decline in corporate misconduct. The cross-sectional heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of TPA participation on corporate misconduct is more pronounced in firms with higher information asymmetry, with weaker political connections, and with weaker internal governance. Furthermore, we find evidence that TPA participation improves corporate financial performance but does not deteriorate information transparency. (shrink)

Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Land regulation of the principles of landscape ecology is necessary to develop more sustainable approaches to land use planning. The research evaluated the present land patterns and determined best practices for its regulation of Dongwang Township in Quyang County, located in the Taihang Mountain area of Hebei Province, China. The research used the landscape ecology theory to construct an index system for landscape pattern analysis based (...) on the GIS and Fragstats 3.3 software. In this study, we examined the specific reasons that landscape ecology is superior to traditional methods in land consolidation planning and design, which is conducive to the comprehensive development of land ecological benefits. Landscape ecological planning can effectively reduce landscape fragmentation and improve intensive management. The result found that the descending order of the Shannon index was current landscape, landscape ecological planning, and traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning could protect the natural diversity than traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning enables the creation of long corridors, with higher densities and connectivity and lower average corridor widths than traditional planning. Besides, it can improve ecological service function values in the study area to varying degrees, thus discouraging residents from limiting themselves to grain production. This research has great potential to improve the visibility of ecosystem services in local land use planning and, thus, to improve the ecological functioning of future landscapes. (shrink)

This study focuses on examining the thematic landscape of the history of scholarly publication in business ethics. We analyze the titles, abstracts, full texts, and citation information of all research papers published in the field’s leading journal, the Journal of Business Ethics, from its inaugural issue in February 1982 until December 2016—a dataset that comprises 6308 articles and 42 million words. Our key method is a computational algorithm known as probabilistic topic modeling, which we use to examine objectively the field’s (...) latent thematic landscape based on the vast volume of scholarly texts. This “big-data” approach allows us not only to provide time-specific snapshots of various research topics, but also to track the dynamic evolution of each topic over time. We further examine the pattern of individual papers’ topic diversity and the influence of individual papers’ topic diversity on their impact over time. We conclude this study with our recommendation for future studies in business ethics research. (shrink)

There has been no consensus on the neural dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words, which remains one of the major concerns in affective neurolinguistics. The current study adopted dot-probe tasks to investigate the valence effect on attentional bias toward Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words. Behavioral data showed that emotional word type and valence interacted in attentional bias scores with an attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words rather than positive emotion-label words and that this bias was derived from the disengagement difficulty (...) in positive emotion-laden words. In addition, an attentional bias toward negative emotion-label words relative to positive emotion-label words was observed. The event-related potential data demonstrated an interaction between emotional word type, valence, and hemisphere. A significant hemisphere effect was observed during the processing of positive emotion-laden word pairs rather than positive emotion-label, negative emotion-label, and negative emotion-laden word pairs, with positive emotion-laden word pairs eliciting an enhanced P1 in the right hemisphere as compared to the left hemisphere. Our results found a dynamic attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words; individuals allocated more attention to positive emotion-laden words in the early processing stage and had difficulty disengaging attention from them in the late processing stage. (shrink)

Job shop scheduling problem is one of the most difficult optimization problems in manufacturing industry, and flexible job shop scheduling problem is an extension of the classical JSP, which further challenges the algorithm performance. In FJSP, a machine should be selected for each process from a given set, which introduces another decision element within the job path, making FJSP be more difficult than traditional JSP. In this paper, a variant of grasshopper optimization algorithm named dynamic opposite learning assisted GOA is (...) proposed to solve FJSP. The recently proposed dynamic opposite learning strategy adopts the asymmetric search space to improve the exploitation ability of the algorithm and increase the possibility of finding the global optimum. Various popular benchmarks from CEC 2014 and FJSP are used to evaluate the performance of DOLGOA. Numerical results with comparisons of other classic algorithms show that DOLGOA gets obvious improvement for solving global optimization problems and is well-performed when solving FJSP. (shrink)

At present, most of the research in the field of medical-assisted diagnosis is carried out based on image or electronic medical records. Although there is some research foundation, they lack the comprehensive consideration of comprehensive image and text modes. Based on this situation, this article proposes a fusion classification auxiliary diagnosis model based on GoogleNet model and Bi-LSTM model, uses GoogleNet to process brain computed tomographic images of ischemic stroke patients and extract CT image features, uses Bi-LSTM model to extract (...) the electronic medical record text, integrates the two features using the full connection layer network and Softmax classifier, and obtains a method that can assist the diagnosis from two modes. Experiments show that the proposed scheme on average improves 3.05% in accuracy compared to individual image or text modes, and the best performing GoogleNet + Bi-LSTM model achieves 96.61% accuracy; although slightly less in recall, it performs better on F1 values, and has provided feasible new ideas and new methods for research in the field of multi-model medical-assisted diagnosis. (shrink)

Efficient knowledge sharing is an important support for the continuous innovation and sustainable development of scientific research teams. However, in realistic management situations, the knowledge sharing of scientific research teams always appears to be unsustainable, and the reasons for this are the subject of considerable debate. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the interactive mechanism of knowledge hiding behaviors in scientific research teams between individual and collective knowledge hiding behaviors and its impact on knowledge sharing by adopting (...) grounded theory to comprehensively understand this situation. The results show that knowledge hiding behavior in the scientific research team is a two-phase interactive process and is capable of affecting sustainable knowledge sharing by reducing the supply of knowledge, creating a poor knowledge sharing atmosphere, and forming an interpersonal distrust relationship. This research may provide a strong basis for a deeper understanding of the interaction mechanism of knowledge hiding behavior and its impact on knowledge sharing. (shrink)

Based on upper echelon theory, we employ machine learning to explore how CEO characteristics influence corporate violations using a large-scale dataset of listed firms in China for the period 2010–2020. Comparing ten machine learning methods, we find that eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) outperforms the other models in predicting corporate violations. An interpretable model combining XGBoost and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) indicates that CEO characteristics play a central role in predicting corporate violations. Tenure has the strongest predictive power and is negatively (...) associated with corporate violations, followed by marketing experience, education, duality (i.e., simultaneously holding the position of chairperson), and research and development experience. In contrast, shareholdings, age, and pay are positively related to corporate violations. We also analyze violation severity and violation type, confirming the role of tenure in predicting more severe and intentional violations. Overall, our findings contribute to preventing corporate violations, improving corporate governance, and maintaining order in the financial market. (shrink)

Massive Open Online Course is a new online education model that provides new opportunities and challenges for the development and reform of teaching in colleges and universities. This paper first builds a MOOC-based model of influencing factors of blended learning adaptability. Through investigation and research, it is found that the six influencing factors all have different ways and different degrees of influence on learning adaptability. Among them, learning motivation has a direct and significant impact on learning adaptability, and learning self-efficacy (...) not only has a direct and significant impact on learning adaptability but also has an indirect impact on learning adaptability through learning motivation. Teacher teaching has indirect effects on learning adaptability through learning self-efficacy, learning motivation, and learning support. Learning support not only has a direct and significant impact on learning adaptability but also has an indirect impact on learning adaptability through learning motivation. MOOC platform has a direct and significant impact on learning adaptability. The quality of course content has a direct and significant impact on learning adaptability through the MOOC platform and learning motivation. The creative results of this research are mainly embodied in the combination of theory and practice, exploring and forming related results based on MOOC-based college students’ learning adaptability. According to the MOOC-based learning-adaptive intervention model, teaching practice is carried out to verify the effect of the intervention model from two aspects of student procedural performance and result performance. Finally, in view of the problems existing in traditional computer teaching in colleges and universities, combined with the design ideas and basic characteristics of MOOC, the teaching mode reform of computer courses is analyzed and discussed, and a MOOC-based computer engineering education teaching mode is proposed. (shrink)

Time is a necessary element in understanding AI art. Firstly, time reveals the historical process by which art-theoretical predicates move from the unmarked to the marked, which can thus be utilized as a defense for arguing the legitimacy of AI art as art. Furthermore, AI art should be seen as a “new” art that is temporally ahead of the descriptive forms of art theory. Secondly, time provides a unique interpretation of AI artworks’ characteristics and aesthetic experience. The absence of experience, (...) the de-depth of AI artworks, and the “short experience/short memory” aesthetic mode of the masses are closely linked to the scarcity of time in an age of acceleration. Finally, time reflects the loss of “aura” and the new end of art that AI art may bring about. Time provides a defense and explanation of AI art, as well as a perspective for reflecting on the development of art in contemporary times. (shrink)

Ethics is one of the oldest scholarly topics, whether in Eastern Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, or Western Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Theory, among others. Traditional ethics focuses on providing guidelines for behavior at a personal level. However, business ethics focuses more on corporations, with related studies addressing why corporations should practice social responsibility and embed ethics in business practices. Applying ethics to firms requires a variety of considerations in many areas. This is especially the case in Confucianism, which emphasizes self‐cultivation, (...) self‐reflection, and self‐discipline. This study investigates two modern representative cases of Confucian firms and observes how they integrate Confucianism into their business practices. It finds that despite the prevalence of a complex environment, Confucianism can still be adopted by them if they use certain methods. Besides, we also identify the common outcomes across these companies. These findings provide a reference for companies that want to incorporate Confucianism in their operations. (shrink)

The effect of authentic leadership and leader competency on employee job performance has received growing attention in the past decades; however, few studies have simultaneously integrated these two leadership perspectives. We have thus developed a mediated moderation model to test the interactive effect of authentic leadership and competency on followers’ job performance through work engagement. Based on a sample of 248 subordinate–supervisor pairs, hierarchical regression analyses reveal that authentic leadership positively relates to followers’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior ; (...) leader competency moderates the relationship between authentic leadership and OCB; and followers’ work engagement mediates the main effect of authentic leadership and the interactive effect of authentic leadership and competency on followers’ task performance and OCB. All the three results are consistent with our hypotheses. (shrink)

The ethical controversies of firms in the sharing economy (SE) have recently drawn attention and caused debates. Ridesharing firms violate laws in many countries, but how they become legitimised remains underexplored. We apply the co-evolutionary perspective to examine how ethical controversies, legitimation and institutionalisation co-evolve in the ridesharing segment in the dynamic and changing institutional environment of China. We conducted a case study on Didi using firm-institution dual-level analysis based on stakeholder salience theory (SST) and the Orders of Worth framework. (...) Our findings uncover ethical controversies among stakeholders with different levels of salience. We also reveal a dynamic interplay between the legitimacy work of Didi and the institutional-level market regulations on ridesharing firms. We develop a process model demonstrating the co-evolution among the changes in ethical controversies, new market category emergence and legitimation of ridesharing firms. These findings shed light on the application of the co-evolutionary perspective in analysing ethical controversies among multiple stakeholders’ evolving interests in the SE context. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal and physical violence against physicians, and burnout have reached epidemic levels. They may negatively impact both physicians and the healthcare system. The experience of medical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal, and physical violence, and burnout and the correlates in physicians working in public hospitals in China needed to be investigated.MethodsA nationwide cross-sectional survey study was conducted between 18 and 31 March 2019. An anonymous online questionnaire was administered. The questionnaire included the 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services (...) Survey. We also collected data on demographic and job-related factors, as well as physicians’ experiences of medical disputes, medical disturbances, verbal and physical violence from patients and the patients’ family members.FindingsIn total, 22,213 physicians from 144 tertiary public hospitals in all of China’s 31 provinces completed the survey. The overall burnout rate among the surveyed physicians was 31.28%. Moreover, 33.48% of physicians experienced disputes, 20.86% experienced disturbances, 48.52% experienced verbal violence, and 5.84% experienced physical violence in the past 12 months. Factors found to be significantly associated with burnout included younger age, being divorced or widowed, having a lower educational background, working in internal medicine departments, longer working hours per day, working in general hospitals, being in East China, as well as having experienced disputes, disturbances, and physical and verbal violence.InterpretationClose to a third of the Chinese doctors working in the tertiary hospitals reportedly experienced burnout, and the problem is related to the unsafe working environment caused by the worsening doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)