Succession in family business and environmental investment: the moderating role of external environment

After more than 40 years of opening the door to the outside world, Chinese family firms have developed rapidly, but also caused the problem of serious environmental pollution. The solution to the problem stems inevitably from the innovation in environmental protection technology. This means the environmental investment of family firms determines whether the enterprise can maintain sustainable development. However, Chinese family firms have been going through a critical period of intergenerational succession. This study aims to use the data of Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed family firms from 2013 to 2020 to study the relationship between intergenerational succession of family enterprises and environmental protection investment. We also examine the moderating role of the two different types of external environment – the government and the market. The regression results of the Tobit model of the full sample and subsample show that succession has a significant positive impact on family business environmental investment, and this impact is more significant in companies whose successors have overseas experience. Environmental regulation will strengthen the positive impact of succession on corporate environmental investment, while market competition will weaken it. Based on the findings, we also discuss policy recommendations. These findings are of great significance to the green and sustainable development of family firms

The Q-Sort Method: Assessing Reliability And Construct Validity Of Questionnaire Items At A Pre-Testing Stage

This paper describes the Q-sort, which is a method of assessing reliability and construct validity of questionnaire items at a pre-testing stage. The method uses Cohen\u27s Kappa and Moore and Benbasat\u27s Hit Ratio in assessing the questionnaire

D0-D4 brane tachyon condensation to a BPS state and its excitation spectrum in noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory

We investigate the D0-D4-brane system for different B-field backgrounds including the small instanton singularity in noncommutative SYM theory. We discuss the excitation spectrum of the unstable state as well as for the BPS D0-D4 bound state. We compute the tachyon potential which reproduces the complete mass defect. The relevant degrees of freedom are the massless (4,4) strings. Both results are in contrast with existing string field theory calculations. The excitation spectrum of the small instanton is found to be equal to the excitation spectrum of the fluxon solution on R^2_theta x R which we trace back to T-duality. For the effective theory of the (0,0) string excitations we obtain a BFSS matrix model. The number of states in the instanton background changes significantly when the B-field becomes self-dual. This leads us to the proposal of the existence of a phase transition or cross over at self-dual B-field.Comment: a4 11pt Latex2e 40 pages; v2: typos fixed, refined comments on renormalisation, refs added, v3: ref added, version publishe

The Chiral Potts Models Revisited

In honor of Onsager's ninetieth birthday, we like to review some exact results obtained so far in the chiral Potts models and to translate these results into language more transparent to physicists, so that experts in Monte Carlo calculations, high and low temperature expansions, and various other methods, can use them. We shall pay special attention to the interfacial tension $\epsilon_r$ between the $k$ state and the $k-r$ state. By examining the ground states, it is seen that the integrable line ends at a superwetting point, on which the relation $\epsilon_r=r\epsilon_1$ is satisfied, so that it is energetically neutral to have one interface or more. We present also some partial results on the meaning of the integrable line for low temperatures where it lives in the non-wet regime. We make Baxter's exact results more explicit for the symmetric case. By performing a Bethe Ansatz calculation with open boundary conditions we confirm a dilogarithm identity for the low-temperature expansion which may be new. We propose a new model for numerical studies. This model has only two variables and exhibits commensurate and incommensurate phase transitions and wetting transitions near zero temperature. It appears to be not integrable, except at one point, and at each temperature there is a point, where it is almost identical with the integrable chiral Potts model.Comment: J. Stat. Phys., LaTeX using psbox.tex and AMS fonts, 69 pages, 30 figure

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Knowledge sharing and strategic fit in integrated product development proejcts: An empirical study

While product strategy has been approached from a variety of perspectives, the role of strategic fit as a critical linkage of knowledge sharing practices and new product development outcomes have not been adequately explored. This paper discusses how strategic fit is instrumental for cross-functional teams to integrate product development outcomes. This paper identifies critical knowledge sharing components that enhances the extent of strategic fit that in turn improves the success of product development efforts. Strategic fit or alignment requires knowledge sharing practices of the product development team. Teams with a shared knowledge base are more capable of thinking strategically, adapting their actions to their project environment and accordingly engaging in innovative problem-solving while ultimately achieving project goals of time, cost and value. This paper presents and tests a research model using a sample of 285 product development projects of firms from USA, Canada and Spain. The results suggest that strategic fit is associated with greater knowledge sharing and enhance product development outcomes in both small and large firms as well as diverse regions (i.e., USA, Canada and Spain).Knowledge sharing practices Strategic fit Product development projects Project outcomes