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The purpose of this study is to analyse the recently highly debated topics of the Tax avoidance–Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance nexus and to further investigate the impacts of engaging in socially responsible activities on financial performance and bank debt financing constraints, at a disaggregate level (firm level).

The sample for this study includes all publicly listed companies headquartered in BRICS countries from 2014 to 2020. The study employs detailed financial accounting information and the Environmental, Social and Governance scores released by Thomas Reuters EIKON database, which is regarded as the most authoritative indicator of CSR performance. Both pooled and panel data regression models are employed, and robustness tests that use a wide range of model specifications, measures and estimators are performed.

The study finds robust evidence that corporate tax avoidance is negatively associated with CSR performance. The authors also find that firms with better CSR performance have healthier financial performance and lower costs of bank debt. Overall, the research findings are supportive of the corporate culture theory, which suggests that firms behave ethically consistent in both CSR practices and tax payment.

CSR performance and the engagement of tax avoidance activities have been documented in the literature to be vital elements investors care about. This study focuses specifically on the association between them and further elaborates their impacts in the financial markets. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the nexus in a sample that includes the most powerful emerging markets in the world. The results of this study are generalisable in terms of the implications of CSR management to many other emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to present new findings to organizations that acknowledge difficulties in implementing and succeeding with project partnering.

The investigation is based on a case study where empirical evidence has been collected via semi-structured interviews of 54 professionals within the construction industry.

Based on the research the authors were able to identify three main dimensions vital for project partnering success: 1. who related to participant selection; 2. what related to task clarification; and 3. way related to partnering means. These dimensions give rise to what the authors have termed a 3W (Who, What, Way) model on how to succeed with project partnering in practice. The third dimension, way related to partnering means, was found to consist of the four subdimensions: 3a. partnering attitude; 3b. a collaborative culture; 3c. a holistic perspective; and 3d. an accurate handover.

The authors found 318 papers focusing on partnering, in these only 19 focused on how to succeed with project partnering. The authors have complemented the limited research on how to succeed with project partnering with 54 interviews of professionals. The majority of the existing research has focused on challenges. This paper contributes to the research gap by presenting a 3W model on how to succeed with project partnering.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

This study aims to reduce the redundant weight of the anti-roll torsion bar brought by the traditional empirical design and improving its strength and stiffness.

Based on the finite element approach coupled with the improved beluga whale optimization (IBWO) algorithm, a collaborative optimization method is suggested to optimize the design of the anti-roll torsion bar structure and weight. The dimensions and material properties of the torsion bar were defined as random variables, and the torsion bar's mass and strength were investigated using finite elements. Then, chaotic mapping and differential evolution (DE) operators are introduced to improve the beluga whale optimization (BWO) algorithm and run case studies.

The findings demonstrate that the IBWO has superior solution set distribution uniformity, convergence speed, solution correctness and stability than the BWO. The IBWO algorithm is used to optimize the anti-roll torsion bar design. The error between the optimization and finite element simulation results was less than 1%. The weight of the optimized anti-roll torsion bar was lessened by 4%, the maximum stress was reduced by 35% and the stiffness was increased by 1.9%.

The study provides a methodological reference for the simulation optimization process of the lateral anti-roll torsion bar.

Despite its practical importance, the emotion of awe has received scant research attention in the organizational literature. To facilitate future scholarship on this important topic, the authors explore and compare the elicitors of awe at work in three countries representing two culture clusters, including the USA and Canada (the Anglo cluster) and China (the Confucian Asia cluster).

The authors gathered responses from 163 working adults from the USA and Canada and 126 working adults from China using open-response survey, and analyzed each response following the guidance of grounded theory.

Across cultures, there are 10 common elicitors of awe, including virtue of organization, ability and achievement of organization, beauty of workplace, virtue of colleagues, ability and achievement of colleagues, dedication of colleagues, charisma of colleagues, status and power of colleagues, personal growth and achievement and perceived meaningfulness. Looking within cultures, the authors found two awe elicitors that are specific to China: status and power of organization, and work content.

Organizations and supervisors wishing to induce the emotion of awe would be well-advised to pay attention to the design of their workplace, as well as their attitudes and behaviors toward employees, customers and the general public.

This study contributes to the emotion literature, organizational literature and cross-cultural literature by demonstrating elicitors of awe in the workplace across the Anglo cluster and the Confucian Asia cluster.

The purpose of this paper is to explore multilingual access in digital libraries and to present a case study of creating bilingual metadata records for the Tse-Tsung Chow Collection of Chinese Scrolls and Fan Paintings. The project, undertaken at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries, provides access to digital copies of calligraphic and painted Chinese scrolls and fans from the collection donated by Prof Tse-Tsung Chow (Cezong Zhou).

This paper examines the current approaches to multilingual indexing and retrieval in digital collections and presents a model of creating bilingual parallel records that combines translation with controlled vocabulary mapping.

Creating multilingual metadata records for cultural heritage materials is in an early phase of development. Bilingual metadata created through human translation and controlled vocabulary mapping represents one of the approaches to multilingual access in digital libraries. Multilingual indexing of collections of international origin addresses the linguistic needs of the target audience, connects the digitized objects to their respective cultures and contributes to richer descriptive records. The approach that relies on human translation and research can be undertaken in small-scale digitization projects of rare cultural heritage materials. Language and subject expertise are required to create bilingual metadata records.

This paper presents the results of a case study. The approach to multilingual access that involves research, and it relies on human translation that can only be undertaken in small-scale projects.

This case study of creating parallel records with a combination of translation and vocabulary mapping can be useful for designing similar bilingual digital collections.

This paper also discusses the obligations of holding institutions in undertaking digital conversion of the cultural heritage materials that originated in other countries, especially in regard to providing metadata records that reflect the language of the originating community.

The research and practice in multilingual indexing of cultural heritage materials are very limited. There are no standardized models of how to approach building multilingual digital collections. This case study presents a model of providing bilingual access and enhancing the intellectual control of cultural heritage collections.

Due to the close connection between urban cluster and carbon emissions (CEs) but a lack of study on it of the construction industry, this paper aims to explore the relationship between the polycentric spatial structure (PSS) of the urban clusters and CEs of the construction industry (CECI).

This research uses panel data of 10 Chinese urban clusters from 2006–2021, calculates their PSSs in the aspects of economy and employment and adopts a panel regression model to explore the effect of the spatiotemporal characteristics of the PSSs on the CECI.

First, the CECI in 10 Chinese urban clusters showed a rising trend in general, and the CECI in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) was much higher than those in the rest of urban clusters. Second, both Shandong Peninsula (SP) and Guangdong-Fujian-Zhejiang (GFZ) exhibited high degrees of polycentric characteristics, while Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) showed weaker degrees. Third, the results demonstrated that the polycentric development of urban clusters did not help reduce the CECI but rather promote the CE. The polycentric index, considering the linear distance from the main center to sub center, had a more significant impact on the CECI.

Previous studies have investigated the impact of urban spatial structure (USS) on CEs; however, few of them have studied in the field of construction industry. Moreover, most research of CEs have concentrated at the national and provincial levels, with fewer studies on urban clusters. This paper contributes to this knowledge by investigating how the PSS of urban cluster influence the CECI.

Recent attention to the developments focusing on the educational services has been noteworthy, with the educational environment specifically the smart campus emerging both as a domain and as an opportunity. As a domain worthy of exploration, a number of research efforts are being conceptualized around smart campus initiatives. The existing bouquet of research publications on smart campus provides a testimony of the enthusiasm and also exposes the heterogeneous attempts the domain has witnessed to date. The available evidence is still inadequate to provide clarity on the thrust areas of research around smart campus.

Given the understanding, this study intends to decode the domain to get an early impression of the focus of the research concentration around smart campus. Thereby the study resorts to an automated text-mining approach using Python on contents shortlisted systematically, and published between the period 2010 and May 2022, from select databases.

Based on the analysis it was possible to identify eight themes (i.e. smart campus characteristics, smart campus stakeholders, smart campus frameworks, smart campus technologies, smart campus infrastructure, smart campus evaluation, smart learning environment and smart campus applications) characterizing research efforts within the smart campus literature.

The themes around the smart campus showcase the thrust areas receiving attention. These characterize extant research endeavours in the smart campus domain and can offer useful pointers to researchers going forward. This awareness can also be beneficial to institutional leadership and technology providers intending to implement smart campus initiatives, contributing to the development of the educational environment.

Graphic-based tag clouds aim to visually represent tag content and tag structure, and then to better represent tagged information for later search. However, few studies have clarified the features among varied visualization approaches involved in graphic-based tag clouds and compared them for the purpose of information search.

After reviewing four kinds of graphic-based tag clouds, an experimental demonstration was conducted in our study to verify how user performs in information search for a general seeking task by using them. Precision ratio, recall ratio, clicks on search and time for search were four variables tested in the experiment. Also, two supplementary tests were respectively carried out to manifest how graphic-based tag clouds contributed to the identification of target tags and tag clusters.

The experimental results showed that compared to tag content visual tag structure was more important to find related tags from tag clouds for information search. In addition, tag clouds that visually represented the semantic relationships within tags could make user more confident about their search result and carry out a shorter learning process during searching, which signified a tag-based information search path when visual elements were applied.

This research is one of the first to illustrate systematically the graphic-based tag clouds and their impacts on information search. The research findings could suggest on how to build up more effective and interactive tag clouds and make proposition for the design of search user interface by using graphic-based tag clouds.

Smart campuses can be seen as the future of higher education efforts, especially for their contributions to sustainability and to encourage innovation. This paper aims to present the benefits of smart practices in a Higher Education Institutions and highlights its connections to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The methodology is divided into three steps: first, an international search and assessment of smart practices at universities; second, the identification of smart practices in a university campus in southern Brazil; and third, the presentation of the benefits of smart practices and their relationship with the SDGs.

The results showed that globally, the area most covered by smart practices in universities is the environment and, specifically, focused on waste reduction. in the context of this case study, the benefits of implementing smart practices mainly reach SDGs 4 and SDG 9, especially due to aspects of teaching technologies for the new classroom models and the optimization of campus infrastructure management.

The study encourages other universities to implement smart practices in their campuses, to becoming smart campuses while they also collaborate in achieving the SDGs while raising the discussion on the importance of committed actions taken on a university campus with the UN SDGs, to leverage synergies on campus operations at universities.

This paper presents a set of smart practices that universities are applying both globally and locally (in southern Brazil). In addition, it contributes to sustainability research by showing how smart practices have the potential to promote SDGs in universities, especially through campus operations.