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Among developing countries, the Republic of China in Taiwan (hereinafter Taiwan) has been experiencing economic growth accompanied by improving income distribution. Between 1964 and 1980, the average annual growth rate of the real gross national product was 9.92 per cent (Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), 1982, p. 23). In the same period, the income ratio between the top 20 per cent and the bottom 20 per cent of families dropped from 5.33 to 4.17 and the Gini coefficient decreased from 0.36 to 0.30 (CEPD, 1982, p. 54; Directorate‐General of Budget Accounting and Statistics, 1980, (DGBAS), p. 44). To put it somewhat dif‐ferently, in 1964 the lowest fifth of households received 7.71 per cent of total personal income, and the highest fifth 41.07 per cent. But in 1980, the income share of the lowest fifth increased to 8.82 per cent while that of the highest fifth decreased to 36.80 per cent. The condition of greater equality in income distribution appears more obvious in the capital city of Taipei. In 1981, for instance, its Gini coefficient was estimated to be only 0.28 (Taipei Bureau of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 1981, (TBBAS), P. 24).

The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert the Chinese indigenous management researchers to the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and over-confidence.

To show that Peter P. Li’s assertion is doubtful, the authors identify the flaws in his analysis.

The authors find that there are three serious flaws in Peter P. Li’s analysis. First, there are four defects in the typology of cognitive frames he built in order to compare Yin-Yang with the others. Second, his understanding of dialectics in general and Hegelian dialectics in particular is flawed. And finally, without resorting to Yin-Yang, many scholars can develop theories that are equivalent to those derived from Yin-Yang.

Due to the page limit, this paper only focuses on arguing that Yin-Yang is not superior to other cognitive frames or logical systems without going one step further to explain in which situations Yin-Yang are valuable and might be more suitable than others for helping us understand some research issues.

This paper implies that we should not blindly believe that the Chinese way of thinking and acting is superior to other people’s. Chinese people should be open-minded in the globalized era, not only promoting their own culture but also appreciating and learning from other cultures.

The reduction of cultural exceptionalism and ethnocentrism can make cross-cultural communication and interaction smoother.

This paper is a rigorous critique on the “Yin-Yang being superior” assertion of Peter P. Li.

This paper aims to study the boundary disturbance rejection control design for a flexible Timoshenko robot arm to diminish external disturbances and achieve desired angle tracking, with system vibration and elastic deformation considered.

This study introduces disturbance observer and disturbance rejection mechanism into the boundary control design for flexible Timoshenko robot arm systems. The uniform bounded stability of controlled systems is proved via Lyapunov analysis without any simplification of the infinite-dimensional system dynamics.

The proposed boundary disturbance rejection control scheme can effectively suppress vibrations and shear deformations, achieve the required angular positioning and reject external disturbances. Numerical simulations developed by the finite difference method are adapted to demonstrate the validity of the designed controller.

The originality of this study is to design boundary disturbance rejection control to suppress vibrations and shear deformations for the flexible Timoshenko robot arm, thereby improving the performance and control accuracy of the system.

The high-pressure nature of the construction industry, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered abusive supervision (i.e. workplace bullying and incivility behaviour) that has diminished workers' well-being. However, despite the growing prevalence in practice and increasing concern in academia, abusive supervision remains largely unexplored by construction management scholars. This study aims to fill the gap in the current literature by analysing the effects of abusive supervision on construction workers' well-being, the mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of trust in the manager.

A questionnaire survey was completed by 258 Chinese construction workers. The data underwent mediation and moderation analyses using PROCESS macro 3.5 for SPSS.

The results revealed that managers' abusive supervision reduced construction workers' well-being at work and in life. Guanxi closeness between manager and workers mediated the relationship between managers' abusive supervision and construction workers' well-being. Additionally, trust in managers moderated the mediating effect of guanxi closeness. This study further revealed that the emotional connection between construction managers and workers, such as expressive guanxi closeness and affective-based trust, is important in handling the impact of abusive supervision on the workers.

The findings of this study provide support for recent calls to address negative manager behaviours such as abusive supervision in construction management. They aid the development of a more comprehensive internal mechanism that considers the influence of guanxi closeness on the outcomes of abusive supervision by managers at construction sites. Additionally, interventions that develop trust in managers may be particularly effective in alleviating the tension of abusive supervision. More attention should be paid to managers' emotional connections in daily construction project management.

Rather than concentrate on positive leadership, this study shifts the focus to negative leadership in construction project management by identifying abusive supervision as a negative primary antecedent of workers' well-being. While prior research has highlighted how negative manager behaviours affect workers' well-being from the conservation of resources theory (COR) perspective, this study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to adopt a social exchange theory perspective by introducing guanxi closeness as a mediator. It contributes to a greater understanding of how trust in the manager alleviates the negative effect of the person's abusive supervision on construction workers.

Political connections are widely acknowledged as an effective political strategy for achieving firm value. However, surprisingly little is known about the association between political connections and individual-level outcomes (e.g. subjective well-being) and the underlying mechanism for this link.

Drawing on the schematic model of social capital and entrepreneurship and utilizing a sample of rural Chinese entrepreneurs, the authors developed and tested a multilevel model delineating the impact of political connections on entrepreneur well-being (job and life satisfaction) via the mediating roles of bribing behavior and institutional trust at individual and provincial levels.

Multilevel analyses revealed that at the individual level, political connections were positively associated with job and life satisfaction; bribing behavior and institutional trust served as partial mediators of these associations. These effects were deviated when examining them at the provincial level.

The theoretical implications concerning the political connections and subjective well-being effects as well as comparative entrepreneurship were discussed.

Further, the authors provide guidance for both entrepreneurs and policymakers.

The study linked political connections to entrepreneurs' subjective well-being which is increasingly seen as an important ingredient of personal success via distinguishing the individual-level effects from the provincial-level effects. Thus, the study further contributes to the contextualized understanding of the entrepreneurship literature.

The purpose of this study is to perform a detailed review on the numerical modeling of multiphase and multicomponent flows in microfluidic system using phase-field method. The phase-field method is of emerging importance in numerical computation of transport phenomena involving multiple phases and/or components. This method is not only used to model interfacial phenomena typical to multiphase flows encountered in engineering and nature but also turns out to be a promising tool in modeling the dynamics of complex fluid-fluid interfaces encountered in physiological systems such as dynamics of vesicles and red blood cells). Intrinsically, a priori unknown topological evolution of interfaces offers to be the most concerning challenge toward accurate modeling of moving boundary problems. However, the numerical difficulties can be tackled simultaneously with numerical convenience and thermodynamic rigor in the paradigm of the phase field method.

The phase-field method replaces the macroscopically sharp interfaces separating the fluids by a diffuse transition layer where the interfacial forces are smoothly distributed. As against the moving mesh methods (Lagrangian) for the explicit tracking of interfaces, the phase-field method implicitly captures the same through the evolution of a phase-field function (Eulerian). In contrast to the deployment of an artificially smoothing function for the interface as used in the volume of a fluid or level set method, however, the phase-field method uses mixing free energy for describing the interface. This needs the consideration of an additional equation for an order parameter. The dynamic evolution of the system (equation for order parameter) can be described by Allen–Cahn or Cahn–Hilliard formulation, which couples with the Navier–Stokes equation with the aid of a forcing function that depends on the chemical potential and the gradient of the order parameter.

In this review, first, the authors discuss the broad motivation and the fundamental theoretical foundation associated with phase-field modeling from the perspective of computational microfluidics. They subsequently pinpoint the outstanding numerical challenges, including estimations of the model-free parameters. They outline some numerical examples, including electrohydrodynamic flows, to demonstrate the efficacy of the method. Finally, they pinpoint various emerging issues and futuristic perspectives connecting the phase-field method and computational microfluidics.

This paper gives unique perspectives to future directions of research on this topic.

Identify some of the most relevant factors that trigger a private school's workforce to foster a sustainable competitive advantage by reinforcing the intrinsic job satisfaction and the levels of teacher self-efficacy, engagement and job performance.

Surveys were applied to private school teachers to assess their perception concerning the studied variables, data were tested at a confirmatory level using the partial least squares path modelling (PLS-PM).

Teachers with a high sense of self-efficacy and possessing elevated intrinsic satisfaction tend to be highly productive and results-oriented. Intrinsic job satisfaction is a key factor that influences more than extrinsic job satisfaction in the previously mentioned relationship.

Although the obtained results are constrained and apply to the Mexican context, we suggest that virtual limitation can be overcome by extending the study due to the proposed construct that can be applied in other regions or organizations.

Principals will need to develop mainly the intrinsic job satisfaction in the teaching staff, to improve the job and organizational performance. This should be accompanied, secondly, by factors that encourage extrinsic satisfaction such as fair pay or recognition.

Open up an alternative explanation, based on the evidence of this study, to the theory of social exchange, since the factor that most influences teacher’s citizenship behaviours is not extrinsic but intrinsic satisfaction. That is, it is not what the employee receives from the institution, but what the employee does or gives to the institution the source of satisfaction that will encourage greater job performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the research approach to optimize shape accuracy, dimensional accuracy and density of customized orthodontic production fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM).

A series of process experiments were applied to fabricating customized brackets directly by SLM, using 316L stainless steel. Shape accuracy can be optimized through the study on fabricating characteristics of non‐support overhanging structure. A scanning strategy combining contour scanning with orthogonal scanning, which differ in scanning speed and spot compensations, was proposed to improve dimensional accuracy. Scanning laser surface re‐melting was added to enhance the SLM density.

Optimized SLM parameters lead to high shape precision of customized brackets, and the average size error of bracket slot is less than 10 μm. The customized brackets density is more than 99 per cent, and the surface quality and mechanical properties meet the requirements.

The paper presents the state of the art in SLM of customized production (especially medical appliances) by optimizing part properties. It is the first time that SLM is employed in the manufacturing of customized orthodontic products. It shows the original research on overhanging structure and compound scanning strategy, approach to optimize SLM part accuracy. An improved laser surface re‐melting is employed in the density optimization.