Search Results (784)

This paper explores how digital crowdsourcing platforms communicate sustainability-oriented innovation and mobilise stakeholder engagement. Through a directed content analysis of three platforms (OpenIDEO, San Francisco, CA, USA; Enel Innovation Hub, Rome, Italy; and InnoCentive, Waltham, MA, USA). The study examines communication strategies, participation models, and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Results show that communication is not neutral but functions as a governance mechanism shaping who participates, how innovation is framed, and what outcomes emerge. OpenIDEO fosters inclusive co-creation and SDG alignment, Enel Innovation Hub highlights technical readiness and energy transition, and InnoCentive relies on rewards and competition. Word-frequency analysis confirms these emphases, while interpretation through Motivation Crowding Theory, Social Exchange Theory, and Transaction Cost Theory explains how motivational framing, legitimacy signals, and participation structures affect engagement. The study contributes to research on open innovation and platform studies by demonstrating the constitutive role of communication in enabling or constraining sustainable collective action. Practical implications are outlined for platform designers, marketers, and policymakers seeking to align digital infrastructures with systemic sustainability goals. Full article

Based on Agenda-Setting Theory, Media Agenda Synergy (MAS) can enhance the communication effectiveness of public issues (e.g., climate change, social justice, and public health) through the information resonance and agenda complementarity among cross-media platforms, thus reconstructing the public perception. In this paper, we focus on the dynamic impact of cross-media agenda synergy on public agenda intensity and innovatively propose a “HMM-Granger” hybrid modeling framework for Media Agenda Synergy: Firstly, we quantify the causal weights of agenda shifting based on the deconstruction of the nonlinear time-series dependence of multisource media data by using LSTM neural networks. Secondly, the state transfer probability matrix of the Hidden Markov Model reveals the dual paths of “explicit collaboration” (e.g., issue resonance) and “implicit competition” (e.g., agenda masking) in media agenda coordination. The results of this study show that the Agenda Synergy between mainstream media and social media during major events can generate an Agenda Multiplier Effect, resulting in a significant increase in the intensity of the public agenda. This study provides a computable theoretical paradigm for Inter-Media Agenda Network modeling and data-driven decision support for optimizing opinion guidance strategies. Full article

Bio-based lubricants are rapidly gaining prominence as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived counterparts, driven by their inherent biodegradability, low ecotoxicity, and strong alignment with global environmental and regulatory imperatives. Despite their promising tribological properties, their widespread adoption continues to confront significant challenges, particularly related to oxidative and thermal instability, cold-flow behavior, and cost competitiveness in demanding high-performance applications. This comprehensive review critically synthesizes the latest advancements in bio-based lubricant technology, spanning feedstock innovations, sophisticated chemical modification strategies, and the development of advanced additive systems. Notably, recent formulations demonstrate remarkable performance enhancements, achieving friction reductions of up to 40% and contributing to substantial CO₂ emission reductions, ranging from 30 to 60%, as evidenced by comparative life-cycle assessments and energy efficiency studies. Distinguishing this review from existing literature, this study offers a unique, holistic perspective by integrally analyzing global market trends, industrial adoption dynamics, and evolving regulatory frameworks, such as the European Union Eco-Label and the U.S. EPA Vessel General Permit, alongside technological advancements. This study critically assesses emerging methodologies for tribological evaluation and benchmark performance across diverse, critical sectors including automotive, industrial, and marine applications. By connecting in-depth technical innovations with crucial socio-economic and environmental considerations, this paper not only identifies key research gaps but also outlines a pragmatic roadmap for accelerating the mainstream adoption of bio-based lubricants, positioning them as an indispensable cornerstone of sustainable tribology. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effects of an eight-week wearable resistance (WR) training program on jump performance and jump kinematics in experienced senior female volleyball players. It was hypothesised that using WR would increase training load, thereby enhancing vertical jump performance and influencing kinematic movement patterns. Methods: Sixteen competitive female volleyball players (mean age: 23.5 ± 3.24 years; mean weight: 66.8 ± 6.9 kg; mean height: 174.7 ± 5.8 cm) participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control group (n = 8) or an intervention group (n = 8) that trained with calf-mounted WR. The intervention group performed supervised resistance training sessions twice per week for eight weeks, totalling 16 sessions. Jump performance was assessed using an Infrared Optical Contact Grid (MuscleLab, Ergotest Innovation AS, Norway), and jump kinematics were measured with the Xsens Link motion capture system (Movella, The Netherlands). Results: The WR group demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in vertical jump height (p = 0.031), with no significant changes in kinematic variables. The control group, however, showed a significant increase in T8–pelvis flexion during the countermovement jump (CMJ) following the intervention period. Conclusions: Eight weeks of WR training can improve CMJ performance in-season among experienced female volleyball players without affecting movement kinematics. Future research should investigate optimal loading strategies and long-term adaptations. These findings suggest that integrating small wearable loads into regular volleyball practice can help athletes maintain and improve explosive performance without disrupting normal training routines. Full article

Small and medium-sized enterprises face significant challenges in effectively implementing design thinking due to limited resources, leadership skepticism, and a paucity of suitable frameworks. This study addresses these challenges by developing and validating a web-based Design Thinking and Innovation Strategy Toolbox tailored to SME needs. The Toolbox is designed to align with the ISO 56001:2024 Innovation Management Systems standard and was developed through systematic literature reviews and expert interviews, shaping practical modules based on previously identified barriers and success factors. A multi-round Delphi study with 14 experienced consultants refined the Toolbox, focusing on usability, ISO compliance, and practical relevance. The results indicate strong consensus among experts regarding its clarity, adaptability, and alignment with SME constraints, while also highlighting areas for improvement such as visual design and continuous feedback mechanisms. Preliminary validation suggests that the Toolbox can support SMEs in improving sustainable innovation, strategic alignment, and capability development. By addressing contextual constraints, this research contributes to the field of design-led innovation in SMEs by offering a practical, ISO-compliant tool that connects theory and practice in resource-limited environments. Full article

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) has emerged as a promising bio-electrochemical technology for sustainable CO₂ conversion into valuable organic compounds since it uses living electroactive microbes to directly convert CO₂ into value-added products. This review synthesizes advancements in MES from 2010 to 2025, focusing on the electrode materials, microbial communities, reactor engineering, performance trends, techno-economic evaluations, and future challenges, especially on the results reported between 2020 and 2025, thus highlighting that MES technology is now a technology to be reckoned with in the spectrum of biofuel technology production. While the current productivity and scalability of microbial electrochemical systems (MESs) remain limited compared to conventional CO₂ conversion technologies, MES offers distinct advantages, including process simplicity, as it operates under ambient conditions without the need for high pressures or temperatures; modularity, allowing reactors to be stacked or scaled incrementally to match varying throughput requirements; and seamless integration with circular economy strategies, enabling the direct valorization of waste streams, wastewater, or renewable electricity into valuable multi-carbon products. These features position MES as a promising platform for sustainable and adaptable CO₂ utilization, particularly in decentralized or resource-constrained settings. Recent innovations in electrode materials, such as conductive polymers and metal–organic frameworks, have enhanced electron transfer efficiency and microbial attachment, leading to improved MES performance. The development of diverse microbial consortia has expanded the range of products achievable through MES, with studies highlighting the importance of microbial interactions and metabolic pathways in product formation. Advancements in reactor design, including continuous-flow systems and membrane-less configurations, have addressed scalability issues, enhancing mass transfer and system stability. Performance metrics, such as the current densities and product yields, have improved due to exceptionally high product selectivity and surface-area-normalized production compared to abiotic systems, demonstrating the potential of MES for industrial applications. Techno-economic analyses indicate that while MES offers promising economic prospects, challenges related to cost-effective electrode materials and system integration remain. Future research should focus on optimizing microbial communities, developing advanced electrode materials, and designing scalable reactors to overcome the existing limitations. Addressing these challenges will be crucial for the commercialization of MES as a viable technology for sustainable chemical production. Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) offers a novel route to biofuels by directly converting CO₂ and renewable electricity into energy carriers, bypassing the costly biomass feedstocks required in conventional pathways. With advances in electrode materials, reactor engineering, and microbial performance, MES could achieve cost-competitive, carbon-neutral fuels, positioning it as a critical complement to future biofuel technologies. Full article

The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is a central challenge in combinatorial optimization, with critical applications in logistics and transportation. Traditional methods struggle with large-scale instances, due to the computational demands, while learned construction models often suffer from degraded solution quality and constraint violations. This work proposes SPORL, a Scalable Partitioning and Optimization via Reinforcement Learning framework for large-scale CVRPs. SPORL decomposes the problem using a learned partitioning strategy, followed by parallel subproblem solving, and employs a greedy decoding scheme at inference to ensure scalability for instances with up to 1000 customers. A key innovation is a context-based attention mechanism that incorporates sub-route embeddings, enabling more informed and constraint-aware partitioning decisions. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets with up to 1000 customers demonstrated that SPORL consistently outperformed state-of-the-art learning-based baselines (e.g., AM, POMO) and achieved competitive performance relative to strong heuristics such as LKH3, while reducing inference time from hours to seconds. Ablation studies confirmed the critical role of the proposed context embedding and decoding strategy in achieving high solution quality. Full article

In the rapidly evolving global business landscape, servitization and digitalization have emerged as key strategies for enhancing firm competitiveness and performance. This study examines their impact, along with the moderating role of government support, in the Indonesian shipping industry. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), servitization and digitalization are conceptualized as internal drivers of performance, while Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) positions government support as an external factor that reduces environmental uncertainty and strengthens these relationships. Using data from 345 shipping companies, analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the results show that both servitization and digitalization positively affect competitiveness and performance. Furthermore, government support significantly enhances these effects by providing resources such as infrastructure and financial incentives, facilitating the adoption of digital strategies and service-based models. Beyond firm outcomes, these transformations align with broader sustainability objectives by improving resource efficiency, reducing waste and delays, and potentially lowering the environmental footprint of logistics activities. This study advances theoretical understanding by demonstrating the central role of external resources—particularly government support—in enabling successful digital and service transformations. For policymakers, the findings emphasize the need for targeted incentives and infrastructure to accelerate industry-specific innovation and sustainability goals. For practitioners, they highlight the importance of aligning strategic initiatives with government policies to maximize the benefits of servitization and digitalization. Full article

This study scrutinizes the effects of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on sustainable performance (SP) in Chinese manufacturing firms through the mediating role of novelty-centered and efficiency-centered business model innovations (BMIs). It also explores the moderating effect of AI regulation on the GenAI–BMIs and GenAI–SP relationships. Data were collected from 1192 middle-level managers across 500 Chinese manufacturing firms using a two-wave survey design. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test direct, mediating, and moderating relationships. The findings show that GenAI adoption has a significant positive effect on novelty-centered BMI, efficiency-centered BMI and sustainability performance. The GenAI–SP relationship is mediated by both BMIs, indicating that GenAI contributes to sustainability both directly and through innovative business practices. Moreover, AI regulation significantly strengthens the effects of GenAI on both BMI and SP, emphasizing the importance of regulatory alignment in maximizing technological benefits. This research shows that firms should emphasis AI tools and strategies to innovate their business model for better sustainable outcomes. Firms need to follow regulations and rules embedded into digitalization to ensure a sustainable competitive position in the market. Full article

With accelerating digital transformation, firms must renew how they create, deliver, and capture value to remain competitive and to advance sustainable competitiveness. This study examines how ambidextrous market orientation drives digital business model innovation (DBMI) through the mediating role of digital resource bricolage and the moderating effect of environmental turbulence. Using survey data and structural equation modeling (SEM), we find that both proactive and responsive market orientations positively affect DBMI. Digital resource bricolage partially mediates both relationships, with a stronger mediation effect for responsive orientation. Environmental turbulence strengthens the association between ambidextrous market orientation and digital resource bricolage. Complementing variable-centric tests, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) identifies three configurational pathways sufficient for high DBMI, revealing alternative routes to business-model renewal under different contextual conditions. The findings extend ambidextrous market orientation research to digital contexts, enrich the resource-recombination perspective on DBMI, and provide actionable guidance for firms seeking to orchestrate data, platforms, and legacy assets to reconfigure activity systems. By clarifying when and how market sensing and shaping translate into effective digital recombination, this study informs strategies for sustainable competitiveness in turbulent environments. Full article

This study evaluates China’s civil aviation total factor productivity (TFP) in 2000–2021, treating carbon emissions as undesirable output via the Global Malmquist–Luenberger (GML) index, with a modified carbon emission estimation coefficient to boost calculation accuracy. Static and dynamic time series regression models analyze short/long-term effects of influencing factors. Results show civil aviation TFP grows ~0.3% annually, stable with cyclical fluctuations, and exhibits dynamic adjustment and mean reversion. Market demand/competition significantly positively affect TFP in both models; technological innovation and capital investment have substantial lagged effects (not significant in the static model). The contributions include three aspects. First, methodological innovation through a revised carbon emission coefficient. Second, theoretical expansion by combining static and dynamic models. Third, macro policy guidance for balancing economic-environmental performance under China’s dual carbon strategy. Full article

Robotic surgery has become a cornerstone of modern urologic practice, with the da Vinci system maintaining dominance for over two decades. In recent years, however, a new generation of robotic platforms has emerged, introducing greater competition and innovation into the field. These systems aim to address unmet needs through features such as modular architectures, enhanced ergonomics, haptic feedback, and cost-containment strategies. Several platforms—including Hugo™ RAS, Versius™, Avatera™, REVO-I, Hinotori™, Senhance™, KangDuo, MicroHand S, Dexter™, and Toumai^®—have entered clinical use with early results demonstrating perioperative and short-term oncologic outcomes broadly comparable to those of established systems, particularly in procedures such as radical prostatectomy, partial nephrectomy, and radical cystectomy. At the same time, they introduce unique advantages in workflow flexibility, portability, and economic feasibility. Nevertheless, important challenges remain, including the need for rigorous comparative trials, standardized training curricula, and long-term cost-effectiveness analyses. The integration of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and telesurgery holds the potential to further expand the role of robotics in urology, offering opportunities to enhance precision, improve accessibility, and redefine perioperative care models. This review summarizes the evolving landscape of robotic platforms in urology, highlights their clinical applications and limitations, and outlines future directions for research, training, and global implementation. Full article

This study develops a multi-agent evolutionary game model that incorporates both retailers and heterogeneous logistics providers, extending beyond prior dyadic models that typically isolate either channel choice or logistics competition. By comparing scenarios with and without the BOPS channel, the framework captures the dynamic interactions between retailers and logistics providers. The results show that introducing In-Store Pickup significantly increases market demand and retailer revenue by reducing consumer waiting time, but it also produces a revenue crowding effect for slow logistics providers. For fast providers, the impact depends on their ability to adjust service quality: lowering service levels helps retain market share, while efficiency improvement enhances profitability. Furthermore, consumer product valuation plays a critical role in driving retailers toward dual-provider or hybrid strategies. The methodological innovation lies in integrating heterogeneous logistics service differentiation with channel strategy selection into a unified evolutionary game framework. The study contributes by proposing a dynamic “efficiency threshold–channel selection” mechanism, offering both theoretical advancement in omnichannel retailing research and managerial insights for retailers and logistics providers seeking to optimize logistics capabilities and channel collaboration. Full article

In the context of the digital economy reshaping the global competitive landscape, digital industry clusters have become the key driving force to overcome the diminishing returns of traditional inputs and realize sustainable economic development in the digital era. However, the internal mechanisms and spatial effects through which digital industrial clusters drive high-quality development and thereby foster sustainable regional economic growth remain unclear. Based on China’s provincial panel data from 2012 to 2023, this study constructs time-fixed spatial Durbin model and mediation effect model to systematically examine the impact mechanism of digital industry clusters on high-quality economic development, and to analyze their direct effects, spatial spillover effects and mediation transmission effects. The following effects have been found: (1) digital industry clusters can directly promote the high-quality development of the region’s economy (0.070), and can also significantly promote the high-quality development of the region’s economy through the mediating effect of innovative talent agglomeration (0.021); (2) the spatial spillover effect of digital industry clusters consists of the negative siphoning effect of innovative talent and positive technology diffusion and driving effect, which makes the total effect of digital industry clusters on neighboring regions uncertain; (3) Technology-intensive areas, as well as the eastern and northeastern regions, have effectively transformed the advantages of digital industry clusters into momentum for high-quality economic development, whereas central and western regions have not yet fully unleashed the driving effect of digital industry on the high-quality development of the economy, due to the constraints of the industrial structure, innovation factors and infrastructure. Based on the empirical results, the article suggests accelerating the construction of digital industry innovation hubs, establishing cross-regional technology sharing platforms, constructing a negative externality compensation mechanism for talent loss areas, and implementing differentiated regional development strategies. The study addresses a gap in existing research by analyzing the spatial mediation effects of digital industrial agglomeration on high-quality economic development. It extends theoretical insights into industrial clustering within the digital economy and offers actionable policy pathways for developing countries to promote sustainable economic growth through digital industrial clusters. Full article

This study is based on data from 15,436 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies during the period 2009–2022 and examines the impact of ESG on firm value and the mediating role of corporate innovation capability. Firm value is proxied by Tobin’s Q, ESG is measured using Huazheng ESG scores, and innovation capability is represented by a weighted patent index. Using fixed-effects models and robustness text, we find that ESG has a significant positive impact on firm value, and this effect is transmitted through firms’ innovation capability. Further analysis reveals that the positive impact of ESG on firm value is more pronounced in non-SOE, firms in the maturity stage, and firms operating in highly competitive markets. Robustness tests confirm that the results are consistent and reliable. The findings suggest that ESG should be regarded as a strategic resource rather than a burden, as it creates firm value by enhancing innovation capability. The conclusions of this study not only extend the literature on the ESG–firm value nexus in the context of emerging markets but also provide practical implications for managers and policymakers seeking to integrate ESG into corporate strategy. Full article