The transformation and development of enterprises applying digital technology is the kernel guarantee to promote the high-quality development of China’s digital economy, and the resulting impact and influence on the micro labor market is an issue that needs to be urgently resolved for the development of the country’s major strategies. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2020, this paper takes a micro perspective to explore the impact of digital technology application on the employment structure of enterprises and the mechanism underlying the impact. It is found that the application of digital technology has an “inverted U-shaped” relationship with the total number of employees and the number of unskilled employees, but there is a significant positive relationship with the number of skilled employees, indicating that the application of digital technology can help optimize the employment structure of enterprises and thus has an empowering effect. Further analysis reveals that the application of digital technology affects the employment structure of enterprises mainly by enhancing innovation capability, affecting the level of skill premium, and improving productivity. The spillover effect of digital technology on enterprises varies significantly, depending on their production scale, social burden and likelihood of being substituted. The relevant conclusions bring more empirical support for clarifying the mechanism of how digital technology influences the employment structure of enterprises, and provide certain policy insights for promoting the integration of digital technology with the real economy.

This paper selects Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021 as the research sample, and uses the inclusion of A-shares in the Mingsheng Emerging Markets Index (MSCI) in 2018 as a quasi-natural experiment of capital market internationalization, and employs a double-difference model to examine the impact of capital market internationalization on corporate financialization and its mechanism. Capital market internationalization is found to significantly reduce corporate financialization. The mechanism test finds that capital market internationalization has a positive governance effect on corporate financialization by enhancing the information content of stock prices and the efficiency of information transmission, increasing the transparency of corporate information and alleviating corporate financing constraints. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the governance effect of capital market internationalization on firms’ allocation of financial assets is more pronounced among non-state-owned firms and firms exposed to stronger industry competition. Further research finds that capital market internationalization can contribute to the improvement of firms’ total factor productivity by inhibiting firms’ financialization. The research in this paper provides new theoretical support for how capital market internationalization can stop economic entities being distracted from their intended purpose.

Based on the transformation of the management system in merged county government, this paper uses the DID model to examine the impact of the county-to-district reform on government debt and its underlying mechanism. Our study shows that the county-to-district reform increases the scale, cost and risk of municipal investment bonds. Channel tests reveal that the reform boosts the fixed asset investment in the new districts and city-level infrastructure-related municipal investment bond. Additionally, the reform stimulates the land transactions and land revenue in these new districts, confirming the investment demand effect and land income effect. We also find that the impact of the county-to-district reform on municipal investment bonds increases over time. Further analysis shows that this impact is more significant in western regions and in cities facing lower fiscal pressure, greater economic growth challenges and no official turnover. Finally, a series of robust tests further support the main conclusions of the study. Overall, this paper verifies how management system changes driven by county-to-district reform influence investment in new districts and land transfers, subsequently affecting local government debt. It verifies the mechanism behind the reform and broadens the scope of existing research.

How will the market discipline of creditors with different sources of bank liabilities change after the implementation of a deposit insurance system? Will depositors and non-depository creditors work together to enhance market discipline, or will they work in the opposite direction? Based on this question, this paper utilizes the panel data of 186 commercial banks from 2009 to 2020 to construct a double-difference model for the implementation of the deposit insurance system in China in 2015. It is found that after the implementation of the deposit insurance system, depositors strengthened the market discipline, while non-deposit creditors relaxed the market discipline driven by interests, which is contrary to depositors. The risk-differentiated rate pricing model of the deposit insurance system promotes bank disclosure and thus influences market discipline; the main motivation for creditors’ market discipline is to guard against risk and adjust returns by means of price discipline. In the structure of bank liabilities, the market discipline of long-term deposits, bond liabilities, and subordinated liabilities holders are more significantly affected by the deposit insurance system. There is no significant market constraint interaction between depositors and non-deposit creditors. In addition, external capital regulatory discipline reduce the enhancing effect of the deposit insurance system on depositors’ market discipline and compensate for the weakening of the deposit insurance system on non-deposit creditors’ market discipline. The effect of deposit insurance on market discipline follows the same trend as the effect on risk, suggesting that the risk-mitigating effect of market discipline is enhanced under the deposit insurance system.

Accelerating the construction of a new development paradigm and striving for high-quality development are important tasks for China at present and in the future. Based on the new development concept, this paper constructs a high-quality development evaluation system, examines the spatial network of high-quality development using the modified gravity model and social network analysis, analyses its internal correlation mechanism, and reveals the influence of spatial correlation network on high-quality development. The study shows that: (1) The network density of spatial correlation of China’s high-quality development fluctuates and increases during the sample period, and the effect of spatial correlation is increasing. Eastern provinces, namely Shanghai, Beijing, and Jiangsu, hold a prominent position and exert a significant impact in the spatial correlation network of high-quality development. On the other hand, western and central provinces, including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Anhui, have a marginal role in the network with low degrees of centrality. (2) Concerning the spatial correlation mechanism, the spatial correlation of the four dimensions of “innovation,” “green,” “openness,” and “sharing” serves as the primary driving force for high-quality development’s spatial correlation. The driving role of “innovation” and “coordination” has substantially increased after embarking on the new developmental stage, adding significance to the spatial correlation of the five dimensions. (3) The network structure of spatial correlation has a significant role on promoting high-quality development and reducing regional disparities. On the one hand, boosting the correlation between provinces for high-quality development and elevating the standing of individual provinces within the network can aid in such development. On the other hand, regional disparities in quality development can be reduced by improving the spatial correlation of quality development and making full use of the “bridge” function of provinces within the association network. By promoting the new “double-cycle” development pattern, the linkage network will be able to better play its positive role in high-quality development.

As an important platform for colleges and universities to absorb social resources, university education foundation undertakes the important responsibility of attracting social donations and expanding social cooperation. How to expand the financing channels, gather the resources of society and alumni, and improve the long-term mechanism of fundraising and fund management are the key issues to enhance the sustainable development ability of university education foundations. In this paper, big data mining technology and artificial intelligence method are used to explore various relevant information of existing and potential donor companies from the open-source data of the Internet. We propose the framework of alumni resource mining and the prediction model of donation intention of listed companies based on distant supervision. This model is different from the traditional qualitative research method and the traditional text mining method suitable for small sample data. It can effectively support the donation information mining in the big data environment, and accurately identify the key potential donation enterprises that are more likely to make donations in the future, so as to provide insights for university foundations to take the advantages of alumni resources more effectively. In the case study of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, we use the proposed framework to explore alumni resources and predict the willingness of alumni enterprises to donate. Combined with the actual donation cases, the effectiveness and application value of the proposed method are verified.

Based on the TOE framework, this research takes 32 firms that have set up firm-based national key laboratories as cases and uses the method of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to discuss technological, organizational, and environmental factors’ joint effect on firm-based investment in basic research. This research identifies two pathways that promote high investment in firm-based basic research: the high-growth firms in high-tech industries and the flexible adaptation of firms in high-market competition. And this research also identifies two pathways that lead to low investment in firm-based basic research: the stagnant growth of firms in high market competition and the lack of government funding in low-tech industries. This result further confirms the asymmetry of causality among the driving factors of investment in firm-based basic research. It is also found that a single condition does not constitute a necessary condition for high (or low) investment in firm-based basic research. This research confirms that diversified configurations can equally promote or prohibit investment in firm-based basic research. This study contributes to the literature on technological advancement and firm innovation.

Focusing on the phenomenon of R&D manipulation in the identification of high-tech enterprises, this paper studies the impact of capital market liberalization on R&D manipulation by using the data of China’s A-share listed and high-tech companies throughout 2010 to 2022 in the background of the quasi-natural experiment of the “Shanghai-Hong Kong” and “Shenzhen-Hong Kong” stock connect and tries to reveal its specific mechanism by the information effect. This study finds that capital market liberalization significantly inhibits R&D manipulation. Our mechanism test shows that capital market liberalization mainly affects R&D manipulation by improving the corporate information environment, which reflects the information effect of capital market liberalization. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the inhibitory effect of capital market liberalization on R&D manipulation is more significant for firms exposed to high industrial competition, inferior in internal control, and non-state-owned, explaining the situational factors that the information effect of capital market liberalization depends on. Finally, economic consequence analysis shows that the inhibitory effect of capital market liberalization on R&D manipulation has a positive impact on promoting R&D output. This study not only expands the perspective on the governance factors of R&D manipulation, especially its significance in inhibiting R&D manipulation, but also enriches the literature on the microeconomic consequences of capital market liberalization.

Innovation flexibility is essential to the sustainable development of enterprises in an uncertain environment, so a highly valued question is how to improve enterprises’ innovation flexibility. According to the modular theory, this paper constructs a theoretical model to explain the mechanism of how modular design influences enterprises’ innovation flexibility. The research systematically analyzes the relationship among modular design, knowledge co-creation, environmental scanning and innovation flexibility. Then the study deeply explores the mechanism of how modular design influences enterprises’ innovation flexibility. The empirical research results based on the data of 323 questionnaires are as follows. Firstly, modular design has significant positive impact on enterprises’ innovation flexibility. Secondly, joint knowledge co-creation plays fully mediating effect between modular design and innovation flexibility, and embedded knowledge co-creation plays partially mediating effect between modular design and innovation flexibility. Thirdly, environmental scanning positively moderates the impact of modular design on innovation flexibility, joint knowledge co-creation and embedded knowledge co-creation. Lastly, environmental scanning positively moderates the mediating role of joint knowledge co-creation between modular design and innovation flexibility, and it also positively moderates the mediating role of embedded knowledge co-creation between modular design and innovation flexibility. That is, the higher the environmental scanning, the more positive impact of modular design on innovation flexibility through joint knowledge co-creation and embedded knowledge co-creation. The study clarifies the path and boundary for the impact of modular design on enterprises’ innovation flexibility, and it deepens and expands the research on modularization and innovation flexibility. The research also provides ideas for improving the flexibility of enterprise innovation.

Green credit policy is an important means of achieving carbon neutrality and high-quality economic development through the allocation of financial resources. This paper divides green technology innovation into substantive innovation and strategic innovation, and uses the difference in differences method to test the impact of green credit policies on substantive green innovation before and after the implementation of the 2012 Green Credit Guidelines as well as and the mechanism underlying the impact. The research results are as follows. (1) Green credit policies promote substantial innovation in enterprises and improve the quality of green patents, but inhibit the increase in the number of green patents. (2) Green credit policies significantly promote substantive green innovation by increasing research and development investment and alleviating financing constraints; Meanwhile, increasing R&D investment can alleviate to some extent the inhibitory effect of green credit policies on strategic green innovation. In addition, there exists a chain intermediary mechanism of “green credit → financing constraints → R&D investment → substantive green innovation”. (3) The analysis of enterprise heterogeneity shows that state-owned enterprises are more inclined towards strategic innovation; From the perspective of enterprise emissions, enterprises at different levels of pollution have the same impact on substantive green innovation; Labor-intensive and capital intensive enterprises respond significantly to green credit policies across different industries and their response promotes substantial green innovation.

In the digital age, after-hours electronic communication expectations (AECE) are increasingly prevalent. While existing research has explored the impact of leaders’ AECE on employees’ job performance, limited attention has been paid to coworkers’ AECE. Guided by the transactional theory of stress, we argue that coworkers’ AECE as a workplace stressor can result in either challenge or hindrance appraisal that subsequently influences employees’ job performance in a positive or negative manner. Further, we propose that reward interdependence serves as a key moderator in the above-mentioned pathways. Specifically, when reward interdependence is higher, employees are more likely to develop challenge appraisal in the face of coworkers’ AECE, which promotes their job performance. In comparison, when reward interdependence is lower, employees tend to develop hindrance appraisal in the face of coworkers’ AECE, which inhibits their job performance. To test these hypotheses, we collect two-wave survey data from 328 employees and their 65 direct leaders in a construction company. The results of multilevel path analysis fully support our hypotheses. Overall, by introducing the transactional theory of stress to explore the “double-edged” effects of coworkers’ AECE on employees’ job performance, our research offers novel theoretical contributions to the after-hours electronic communication literature. In addition, our findings can also provide crucial insights for organizations to handle AECE more effectively in practice.

Based on the theory of purposeful work behavior, the study explores the double-edged sword mechanism of feeling trusted on bootlegging from an environment-individual interaction perspective, verifies the dual chain mediation role of autonomous motivation, ego depletion and creative process engagement, and analyzes the boundary role of openness to experience. The results show that the double-edged sword effect of feeling trusted on bootlegging will be affected by openness to experience. When employees have high openness to experience, feeling trusted will stimulate autonomous motivation to enhance creative process engagement, thus promoting bootlegging; When employees have low openness to experience, feeling trusted will lead to ego depletion, reduce employees’ creative process engagement, and thus inhibit the occurrence of bootlegging.

The narrow cognitive mode of supervisor bottom-line mentality in the workplace has increasingly garnered attention due to its destructive nature. The effectiveness of supervisors’ bottom-line mentality at the team level in predicting employees’ individual-level work performance warrants investigation. This study utilizes the affective events theory to develop a cross-level moderated mediation model. Employing a paired sample comprising 64 supervisors and 300 employees, this study investigates the relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and employees’ work performance, emphasizing the mediating influence of employee anger and the moderating impact of team mindfulness. The findings indicate that supervisor bottom-line mentality has negative effects on employees’ work performance. Employee anger plays a mediating role in the relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and employees’ work performance. Team mindfulness negatively moderates the impact of supervisors’ bottom-line mentality on employee anger. Furthermore, the indirect relationship above is negatively moderated by team mindfulness such that such a relationship is weakened when team mindfulness is high.

Chain Chief System in the Industrial Chain is an industrial policy with distinctive Chinese institutional characteristics implemented by local governments in response to environmental uncertainties under a “dual circulation” development pattern, which is of great significance to high-quality economic development. Based on the samples of A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2023, this paper explores the microeconomic consequences of implementing the Chain Chief System in the Industrial Chain from the perspective of cost of corporate debt. The empirical results indicate that this policy can effectively reduce corporate debt cost. These effects are more pronounced in scenarios where the government places a higher level of importance, as well as in midstream industries, non-leading enterprises, private enterprises, and those with higher levels of financing constraints. Further analysis reveals that the Chain Chief System in the Industrial Chain reduces corporate debt cost by mitigating corporate debt risk, enabling companies to secure more long-term debt financing and enjoy longer debt maturities. The conclusion verifies the positive effects of the Chain Chief System in the Industrial Chain.This paper enriches the literature on industrial policy and the cost of corporate debt, and has great practical significance. On the one hand, this paper provides new evidence support for the subsequent in-depth implementation of the industrial policy which ensures better alignment between an efficient market and a well-functioning government, and responds to the requirement of “enhancing the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains” put forward at the 20th CPC National Congress. On the other hand, the research results of this paper show that the implementation of the Chain Chief System in the Industrial Chain can reduce corporate debt cost, which also has important reference value for improving the financing ability of enterprises, maintaining the normal operation and long-term development of enterprises, and achieving high-quality development.

ESG is an important tool for empowering sustainable corporate development, and different characteristics of subgroups within the board of directors can have a significant impact on corporate strategic decisions, which in turn affects corporate ESG performance. However, existing studies have not yet revealed the mechanism by which the characteristics of subgroups within the board of directors affect corporate ESG performance. Based on the group fracture zone theory, this paper focuses on the impact of board fracture zones on corporate ESG performance and its mechanism of action by utilizing the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2023. The study finds that board fracture zones significantly improve corporate ESG performance. Board fracture zones affect corporate ESG performance by curbing management’s short-sighted behavior and improving ESG investment motivation and easing financing constraints to improve ESG investment capacity. It is further found that the complexity of a firm’s internal environment and market focus inhibit the contribution of board fracture zones to the firm’s ESG performance. In addition, the contribution of board fracture zones to firms’ ESG performance mainly stems from fracture zones formed by deep characteristics, and is more pronounced among firms with higher equity checks and balances, firms from eastern regions, and non-state-owned firms. This study enriches and expands the research on the antecedents of corporate ESG performance from the perspective of internal corporate governance. It provides important insights for regulatory authorities to formulate differentiated policies and for companies to optimize board governance structures to enhance ESG performance in practice.

Labor capital is an indispensable resource factor in the process of enterprise production and operation. Optimizing the allocation of labor resources is of great significance for micro-enterprises to maintain competitiveness and for macroeconomic high-quality development. This study, based on the sample of A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, empirically examines the influence of executives’ hometown affiliation on the efficiency of labor investment in enterprises and its mechanisms. The research indicates that local executives can significantly improve the efficiency of labor investment in enterprises. Mechanism analysis shows that reducing external environmental uncertainty and alleviating agency conflicts are the main pathways through which local executives enhance the efficiency of labor investment in enterprises. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the promotion effect of local executives on the efficiency of labor investment in enterprises is influenced by the characteristics of micro-enterprises, medium-sized markets, and macro-environment. Economic consequence analysis suggests that optimizing the allocation of labor resources by local executives helps reduce enterprises’ excessive employment and significantly inhibits the stickiness of labor costs. This study expands the literature on factors influencing enterprise labor investment efficiency from the micro perspective of executive local background, providing new evidence support for enterprises in recruiting high-level talents and optimizing labor resource allocation.

For a supply chain composed of two heterogeneous suppliers and a third-party manufacturing platform, this paper analyzes the optimal quality information disclosure strategy of heterogeneous suppliers by constructing a dynamic game model considering that the suppliers have private quality information. Due to exploring the factors that affect the suppliers’ quality information disclosure decision, this paper discusses the influence of the supplier’s product quality and the probability of high-quality suppliers on the platform. On this basis, this paper designs an incentive contract to motivate suppliers to make quality disclosure. Then this paper discusses the changes in supply chain members’ balanced decisions before and after incentives. The results indicates that both high-quality suppliers and ordinary suppliers have the motivation to disclose or not to disclose quality information. Under certain conditions, both types of suppliers can obtain higher profits by disclosing quality information, but the supply chain does not necessarily obtain higher profits. While both types of suppliers do not disclose quality information, the platform can use transfer payment contracts to encourage high-quality suppliers to disclose quality information.

This paper considers a two-level supply chain system composed of a manufacturer and a retailer, in which the manufacturer can sell products to the retailer by using the traditional wholesale (WS) contract or fulfill online orders of the retailer by using the drop-shipping (DS) contract, and the retailer can sell products to customers through the online channel or the “buy online and pick up in store” (BOPS) channel. In this context, the relationship between contract choices of the manufacturer and channel integration of the retailer is studied. Firstly, a two-dimensional dynamic game system with the bounded rational manufacturer and retailer as game subjects is established by using the Stackelberg game model with manufacturers as the main player and retailers as the follower to maximize their respective profits. Secondly, the evolutionary game theory is used to analyze the dynamic evolutionary process of strategy selection by two parties in the game, and obtain the evolutionary stable strategies under different scenarios. Finally, the numerical experiment is implemented to verify the validity of the proposed model. The results show that the profits of the manufacturer and retailer decrease with the increase of customers’ waiting cost; the profit of the manufacturer decreases with the increase of the profit sharing rate, and the profit of the retailer decreases with the increase of BOPS convenience coefficient. Further, when the customers’ waiting cost and BOPS convenience coefficient are both too high, the manufacturer tends to adopt the WS contract strategy; On the contrary, the manufacturer tends to adopt the DS contract. When the customers’ waiting cost is low or the profit sharing rate is high, the retailer prefers to adopt the online retail strategy; when the customers’ waiting cost is too high or the profit sharing rate is low, the retailer prefers to adopt the omnichannel retail strategy (Online + BOPS).

Based on China’s provincial panel data from 2009 to 2019, this paper empirically examines the influence effect of informatization on the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of the logistics industry and its transmission path. The results show that during the research period, GTFP of the logistics industry achieves an average annual growth of 5.5%, and informatization plays a significant promoting role in it. The influence of informatization on GTFP of the logistics industry presents significant temporal and spatial heterogeneous effects. From the perspective of the transmission path, informatization accelerates logistics technological innovation through diffusion and integration effects, promotes technological progress in the logistics industry, and serves as the main driving force for the growth of GTFP of the logistics industry. Informatization promotes the improvement of pure technical efficiency through integration effects, but the scale effect is not yet obvious. Moreover, informatization has a certain inhibitory effect on the improvement of scale efficiency. The promotion effect of informatization on pure technical efficiency is greater than the inhibitory effect on scale efficiency. The final result leads to a significant promoting effect of informatization on the improvement of the technical efficiency of the logistics industry, thereby promoting the growth of GTFP of the logistics industry. The degree of application of information technology has a significant threshold effect in the process of informatization influencing the growth of GTFP of the logistics industry. When the depth and breadth of the application of information technology reach a certain threshold value, the promoting effect of informatization on GTFP of the logistics industry significantly enhances.

Adequate emergency supplies are critical for dealing with unexpected events. For various related types of emergency supplies, the disruption of one type of supply can exacerbate the overall shortage risk. To enhance the resilience of the emergency services supply chain, a modular emergency supplies storage method is designed to address the mismatched demand for the quantity and categories of emergency supplies. Taking into account decision-making biases caused by the incomplete rationality of government decision-maker, an emergency supplies storage model considering decision-maker overconfidence is designed based on quantity-flexible contracts. Two scenarios, with and without decision-maker overconfidence, are analyzed to dissect the coordination mechanisms of the emergency service supply chain under modular emergency supplies storage. Through case simulations, the impacts of modular storage, overconfidence levels, and key contract parameters, such as conventional procurement prices and elasticity coefficients, on optimal decision-making are analyzed. The results show that modular procurement can appropriately reduce inventory redundancy risks, deepen the precision management of emergency supplies inventory, reduce government financial investments and inventory costs, and improve the resilience of the emergency service supply chain and overall profits. When the decision-maker is overconfident, it is easy to induce an emergency shortage risk. By adopting lower conventional procurement prices, the government can stimulate increased procurement and compensate for decision biases, but it can seriously harm supplier interests and long-term coordination of the emergency service supply chain. Leveraging the role of quantity-flexible contracts can effectively adjust the conventional procurement prices of categories prone to supply disruptions in a targeted and dynamic manner to achieve coordination within the emergency service supply chain.

Supplier involvement in new product development (SINPD) is an important way to realize collaborative innovation through effective R&D resources integration between the manufacturer and the supplier. The literature review is presented and multiple-case study method is applied to uncover the detailed processes of knowledge integration and thus identify the knowledge integration approaches in each supplier involvement configuration. This study utilizes the research framework (input-accessibility-mobilization) of social capital theory to fully specify the paths of realizing the knowledge integration in each supplier involvement configuration respectively. The results show that (1) “expectation recognition→synchronous innovation” represents the knowledge integration approach in black-box supplier involvement; (2) joint learning between the manufacturer and the supplier represents the knowledge integration approaches in grey-box supplier involvement, where knowledge sharing, joint sense-making, and joint decision-making take place interactively and recurrently; (3) manufacturer-supplier social capital promotes knowledge integration through the bridging role of knowledge accessibility.

Enabling technologically leading enterprises to acquire and maintain ecological dominance in the emerging technology innovation ecosystem is an important measure for nurturing “chain leaders” and enhancing the autonomy of the innovation chain industry chain. However, this goal often faces challenges such as dynamic environmental changes, resource misallocation within the enterprise, and strategic misalignment. The paper, based on the “Condition-Action-Outcome” analytical approach, takes CATL as a case study, and divides the process of acquiring and maintaining dominance in the emerging technological innovation ecosystem into two stages: “riding on the wind” and “achieving long-term success.” It explores how CATL, guided by strategic thinking, orchestrates resources to acquire and sustain its dominance, and constructs a process model for technologically leading enterprises to gain and maintain dominance in emerging technological innovation ecosystems. The findings are as follows. First, the coupling of the external industrial environment and technological environment opens a window of opportunity for enterprises to develop strategic foresight and strategic symbiosis thinking based on different stages of ecosystem dominance development. Second, implementing different resource orchestration methods based on the resource differences at various development stages is key to improving resource orchestration efficiency, locking in and amplifying existing advantages, and thereby acquiring and maintaining ecosystem dominance. The research conclusions provide valuable insights for technologically leading enterprises in acquiring and maintaining dominance in emerging technology innovation ecosystems in a complex and ever-changing environment, thereby providing beneficial guidance for nurturing and growth of technologically leading enterprises.