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Copper-graphite (Cu/C) is a type of seal material that has been widely used in liquid rocket engines and with normal metal pairs, has a high wear rate under liquid oxygen lubrication. In this study, bearing steel disks were subjected to a high-temperature oxidization and phosphating progress to create an oxidized tricresyl phosphating film (OTCP) film, using tricresyl phosphate (TCP) as the phosphating solvent. It is hoped that the surface wear rate and friction coefficient can be reduced by this method.

This study aim to form an anti-wear film on the surface of bearing steel, which can significantly improve the lubrication performance of Cu/C and bearing steel. The surfaces of bearing steel disks were dried to remove surface water and then put on a heating plate with a magnetic stirrer and a blue glazed oxide film obtained by heating the disks in the air at 200°C for 1 h. To create the OTCP film, bearing steel disks with a blue glazed oxide film were cleaned ultrasonically three times in ethanol and then placed in baths of TCP. After heating for 2 h at 120°C, excess TCP liquid was removed from the disks using ethanol, leaving an OTCP film on the disk surface.

It was found that steel coated with an OTCP film demonstrated better tribological performance (lower coefficient of fiction and wear rate) when pairing with Cu/C than either oxidized or untreated bearing steel. Additional chemical reactions occur when the oxide disk is immersed in TCP and the FePO₄ film is formed after heating. Additionally, the OTCP film coated steel displayed good corrosion resistance, as confirmed by electrochemical corrosion tests. This finding demonstrates the potential for this process in the aerospace industry.

The preparation of OTCP films via high-temperature oxidization and phosphating of bearing steel was demonstrated, with the tribological properties of the OTCP film being investigated alongside those of the original surface and an oxidized film surface. The fabrication of OTCP films is easily scaled up and exhibits significant advantages as a new technology for applications in mechanical contact seal lubrication.

Kelp is widely productive and inexpensive. The purpose of this study is to explore kelp liquid (KL) as an environment-friendly water-based lubricant, which is expected to replace some industrial lubricants and protect the environment while satisfying lubricating performance.

In this experiment, the soaked kelp was broken up by a wall-breaking machine to get the KL by a centrifuge. Elements and crystal structure of KL samples were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra. The friction test is carried out by the relative movement of the polyethylene ball and the aluminum disk on the friction tester.

Friction experiments showed that 0.1 Wt.% KL has a good lubrication effect, and the average coefficient of friction is 0.063 under the condition of applying a 10 N load and moving at a speed of 2.0 cm/s. KL has good thermal conductivity with excellent cooling effect and high intermolecular force which makes high viscosity for excellent lubricating behavior, at the meantime molecules in solution remain stable which shows an excellent dispersibility.

At present, the research on kelp mainly focuses on its medicinal value and abundant nutritional value, and the research on its lubrication effect is less. Based on this situation, this paper explored the characteristics of KL as an environmentally friendly lubricant, which is expected to be used as a green cutting fluid.

Aluminum alloy is considered an ideal material in aerospace, automobile and other fields because of its lightweight, high specific strength and easy processing. However, low hardness and strength of the surface of aluminum alloys are the main factors that limit their applications. The purpose of this study is to obtain a composite coating with high hardness and lubricating properties by applying GO–PVA over MAO coating.

A pulsed bipolar power supply was used as power supply to prepare the micro-arc oxidation (MAO) coating on 6061 aluminum sample. Then a graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol (GO–PVA) composite coating was prepared on MAO coating for subsequent experiments. Samples were characterized by Fourier infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The friction test is carried out by the relative movement of the copper ball and the aluminum disk on the friction tester.

Results showed that the friction coefficient of MAO samples was reduced by 80% after treated with GO–PVA composite film.

This research has made a certain contribution to the surface hardness and tribological issues involved in the lightweight design of aluminum alloys.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-12-2023-0427/

The study aims to provide an inventory of the existing English and Chinese research on service quality in China’s hospitality and tourism industry. The study aims to identify the reasons for the lack of research on service quality in China’s hospitality and tourism industry and the ignorance of the Chinese language literature in the field.

A synthesis review is conducted of 31 articles published in 11 leading Chinese and English academic journals from 1998 to 2013.

Popular research themes are service quality management and evaluation in the hotel sector. The majority of the reviewed articles are empirical studies that adopt quantitative methods, and none of the English articles use qualitative methods. Recent studies tend to use sophisticated statistical techniques such as confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Changes in disciplines, publication trends and statistical techniques are observed. The theoretical and practical contributions of the Chinese and English publications are compared, and recommendations are made for future research.

This study is one of the first to review and compare the existing publications in the leading Chinese- and English-language journals. It provides a platform for scholars, especially non-Chinese literate researchers, to understand the research on service quality in the China hospitality and tourism industry.

This paper aims to study how the negative spiral of incivility from customers to employees happens by measuring the mediating effect of employees’ burnout. Moreover, it investigates how to mitigate the detrimental influences of customer incivility by assessing the moderating effect of employees’ emotional intelligence.

A cross-sectional questionnaire survey using MTurk was conducted, targeting full-service restaurant employees. Descriptive statistic, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were applied.

The results presented that there is a direct relationship between customer incivility and employee incivility toward customers and coworkers. Additionally, employees’ burnout significantly mediates the relationship between customer incivility and employee incivility. Moreover, it presented the significant moderating effect of employees’ emotional intelligence on the relationship between customer incivility and employee incivility.

Experiences of customer incivility during a service encounter directly trigger employee incivility. Moreover, customer incivility indirectly leads to employee incivility by increasing employees’ burnout. In addition, employees’ emotional intelligence mitigates a negative spiral of incivility from customers to employees. However, this study has limitations that provide suggestions for future research.

This research shows how customer incivility causes employee incivility in the workplace. It also shows a significant moderating role of employees’ emotional intelligence to mitigate the influence of customer incivility on employee incivility.

The impact of executive characteristics on firm internationalization has already been extensively explored. However, relatively few studies have examined the critical role of chief executive officer (CEO) personality attributes, and especially CEO openness, in firm internationalization. This research aims to deepen the understanding of firm internationalization, by exploring whether and when CEO openness influences firm internationalization.

A sample of private high-tech listed firms in China is used, with data from 2004 to 2020.

Based on upper echelons theory, this study theorizes and finds that CEO openness will positively influence firm internationalization. Further, based on the behavioral theory of the firm, this study finds that the performance aspiration gap weakens the positive effect of CEO openness on firm internationalization, but also finds that the potential slack strengthens this effect.

First, the study reinterprets firm internationalization strategies from the perspective of CEO openness, a personality attribute; CEO openness is an important but so far rarely discussed topic in the field of international business. Second, for the first time, problemistic search and slack search into a research framework are introduced to explore the relationship between CEO characteristics and firm internationalization. This approach can further define the boundary conditions under which CEOs can project their values, preferences and personalities into the process of formulating and implementing a firm's internationalization strategy.

Given the regional heterogeneity of economic development, electricity consumption in various regions exhibits a discrepant growth pattern. The purpose of this study is to construct a grey system forecasting model with intelligent parameters for predicting provincial electricity consumption in China.

First, parameter optimization and structural expansion are simultaneously integrated into a unified grey system prediction framework, enhancing its adaptive capabilities. Second, by setting the minimum simulation percentage error as the optimization goal, the authors apply the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to search for the optimal grey generation order and background value coefficient. Third, to assess the performance across diverse power consumption systems, the authors use two electricity consumption cases and select eight other benchmark models to analyze the simulation and prediction errors. Further, the authors conduct simulations and trend predictions using data from all 31 provinces in China, analyzing and predicting the development trends in electricity consumption for each province from 2021 to 2026.

The study identifies significant heterogeneity in the development trends of electricity consumption systems among diverse provinces in China. The grey prediction model, optimized with multiple intelligent parameters, demonstrates superior adaptability and dynamic adjustment capabilities compared to traditional fixed-parameter models. Outperforming benchmark models across various evaluation indicators such as root mean square error (RMSE), average percentage error and Theil’s index, the new model establishes its robustness in predicting electricity system behavior.

Acknowledging the limitations of traditional grey prediction models in capturing diverse growth patterns under fixed-generation orders, single structures and unadjustable background values, this study proposes a fractional grey intelligent prediction model with multiple parameter optimization. By incorporating multiple parameter optimizations and structure expansion, it substantiates the model’s superiority in forecasting provincial electricity consumption.

Based on the socio-emotional wealth and agency theories, this study empirically investigates the impact of family ownership and management on green innovation (GI) in family businesses, as well as the moderating effects of institutional environmental support factors, namely, the technological achievement marketisation index and the market-rule-of law index.

This study empirically tests the hypotheses based on a sample of listed Chinese family companies with A-shares in 14 heavily polluting industries from 2009 to 2019.

There is a U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI. Additionally, different institutional environmental support factors affect these relationships in different ways. As the technological achievement marketisation index increases, the U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI becomes steeper, while the inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI becomes smoother. The market rule-of-law index weakens the U-shaped relationship between family ownership and GI.

First, the authors enrich the research on the driving factors of GI from the perspective of the most essential heterogeneity of family businesses. This study shows nonlinear and opposite effects of family ownership and management on GI in family firms. Second, this study contributes to the literature on family firm innovation. GI, not considered by researchers, is regarded as an important deficiency in research on innovation in family businesses. Therefore, this study fills that gap. Third, the study expands research on moderating effects in the literature on GI from the perspective of institutional environmental support factors.

This chapter aims to (1) examine the effect of full-time employees’ STARA awareness on innovative work behavioural intentions in US casual dining restaurants; (2) investigate the mediating roles of employees’ challenge–hindrance appraisals of STARA awareness on the relationship between their STARA awareness and innovative work behavioural intentions; (3) compare the group differences between management employees and non-management employees; and (4) provide recommendations for the casual dining restaurants.

This chapter employed an online survey to collect data from 609 full-time employees in US casual dining restaurants, including 306 management employees and 303 non-management employees. Partial least squares–structural equation modelling was applied for data analysis. The results reveal that the high levels of employees’ STARA awareness raise innovative work behavioural intentions through the mediations of challenge appraisal of STARA awareness.

The proposed conceptual framework and empirical findings in this chapter enrich the literature of cognitive appraisal theory, transactional model and stress, two-dimensional stressor framework, and person-environment fit theory. Employees’ challenge appraisal of STARA awareness makes the job insecurity stressor to drive innovative work behavioural intentions. As STARA adoption deepens in casual dining restaurants, managers need to be aware of full-time employees’ stress and psychological responses towards STARA adoption. Restaurants are suggested to provide employees with adequate resources and support to help employees’ professional competency growth. The capable employees will appraise the job insecurity stressor induced by STARA adoption as an opportunity and be motivated to perform innovatively in the workplace. The casual dining restaurants may enjoy a competitive advantage in the market through value-added innovative activities.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development strategies of two Chinese global players in the high‐tech sectors.

The paper adopts a case‐study approach on Huawei Technology Co. Ltd (Huawei) and Jing‐Hua Optical and Electronics Co. Ltd (JOC).

While Huawei's first strategic decision was that of becoming a leader on the domestic market, the key choice for JOC was that of acquiring a European firm. However common features emerge: persistent investment in R&D, strategic collaboration with universities and presence of government supporting policies, even though the case studies suggest the existence of thresholds for firms to access the benefits of government policy.

The results pave the way for more general discussions on the emergence of champions of excellence in China. They reinforce the idea that Chinese industrial development is built on non‐conventional catching‐up processes at the country, local and firm level. They confirm that in order to fully catch the success of national Chinese champions the role of government policies should be better investigated.

Results highlight the importance of R&D investment and technology transfer also for SMEs in high‐tech sectors. As for policy makers, the practice of official institutional recognition – a well experimented form of rewarding used in China – might be an effective way to stimulate virtuous imitative processes.

The comparison of these two global players is itself original. Moreover there is a valuable attempt to understand from a national champion's perspective the importance of supra‐firms factors such as collaboration with other institutions and government policies.