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Abstract
Why does the imposition of trade sanctions sometimes lead to the signing of new preferential trade agreements (PTAs) between target countries and their trade partners? I argue that the occurrence of trade-based sanctions-busting behavior increases the likelihood of signing new PTAs despite the pressure from senders of sanctions. The notion that "trade plants the flag" explains how firms that bust sanctions lobby their home governments for signing PTAs to secure their first-mover advantage in a sanctioned market. By using rare event models and weighting methods, this empirical analysis of data from 1950 to 2006 reveals that firms' rent-seeking behavior is the driving force of seeking PTAs especially during multilateral trade sanctions. Thus, this finding can illuminate sanctions agenda as firm-level transactions may serve as a determinant of state-led institutionalized cooperation after the execution of sanctions.

Export is an important way to promote the innovation and growth of energy enterprises by learning new knowledge and technology. To explore the impact mechanism of energy enterprises' export behaviour on technological innovation, this article uses the micro data of 8,548 energy enterprises in the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database from 2004 to 2007 for propensity score matching analysis, from the two dimensions of technological innovation willingness and technological innovation capability. The empirical results show that (a) the export behaviour of energy enterprises has a significant promotion effect on the technological innovation willingness and capability of energy enterprises; export behaviour has a continuous promotion effect on the technological innovation willingness of energy enterprises, and this promotion effect has gradually increased. There is a time lag in the promotion effect of export behaviour on the technological innovation capability of energy enterprises, and this promotion effect is gradually increasing. (b) Compared with non-state-owned energy enterprises, export behaviours have a more immediate effect on the technological innovation willingness of state-owned energy enterprises; compared with small and medium-sized energy enterprises, export behaviours have a more positive impact on the technological innovation willingness and capabilities of large energy enterprises.

The inaugural challenge of the 2016 Creative Construction Conference has posed two related questions on how many possible criticality constellations with different behaviors for delays and acceleration exist and how said constellations can occur for nonlinearly and monotonously progressing activities that have continuous relations. This paper systematically solves these questions by performing a thorough literature review, assembling theoretical foundations for link constellations, performing a computer simulation of all possible permutations, and providing a mathematical proof by contradiction. It is found that (for the initially assumed self-contained activities in a network schedule that exhibit only a linearly growing production), three newly hypothesized criticality constellations cannot exist. Nonlinear activity constellations with diverging or converging relative productivities are examined next. Lags in networks become buffers in linear schedules. It is found that a nonlinear curvature of the progress may induce middle-to-middle relations besides those between start and finish. If multiple curvatures are allowed, then partial segments can form relations, which increase the number of criticality constellations. This paper is extended from the 2017 Procedia Engineering conference version.

This article summarises the literature on regional innovation system (RIS) The study uses thirty-one Chinese provinces and cities as the unit of analysis. Subsequently, an empirical study is conducted using stochastic frontier analysis on unbalanced panel data covering 31 provinces. The empirical result shows that innovation performance of RISs differs greatly in the various provinces and cities analyzed. The average score of the national regional innovation performance is 0.4514, indicating that non-efficiency is very common in Chinese provinces and cities. There are various factors that should be considered to promote innovation performance of the RIS. These are openness of RISs, maturity of the technology market, collaboration of RISs and intellectual property protection. Interestingly the unique circumstances of the Chinese market show that enterprise technology input and government investments have a negative impact on the regional innovation performance.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide managers with a critical insight into the relationship between the benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementation and the impacts on firm performance of supply chain management (SCM).Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes a structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the relationship between ERP benefits and SCM performance. Hypotheses derived from the key benefits of adopting ERP system and related SCM practices presented by previous authors. An empirical survey is conducted to collect data from Taiwanese IT companies listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchanges on several aspects of firm competences and supply chain performance that adopted ERP systems and/or SCM systems.FindingsThe results confirm the operational, tactical, and strategic benefits of ERP for the firm performance of SCM in the internal and external business processes, customer service, and cost management, except for the strategic benefits of ERP are not significant predictors of SCM performance in the external business process. Furthermore, responses show that ERP implementations in these Taiwanese companies have a significant impact on other companies, both small and medium‐size enterprise (SME), within the global supply chain.Originality/valueThis study extends research efforts concerning the relationship between ERP benefits and SCM performance, which the unequivocally positive results are not surprising, yet differ from most of other studies. This fundamental framework is expected not only to aid managers to make better decisions on how they cultivate specific SCM competences but also to conclude that future research can extend the focus to the impact on SCM competences of the aid of external tools such as supplier/customer relationship management, and internet‐based collaborative commerce systems.

Knowledge innovation is the driving force and guarantee of regional development. Inspired by population ecology, this article uses symbiosis theory to explore the symbiotic relationship of subjects in the regional knowledge innovation ecosystem. The nonlinear Lotka–Volterra model is constructed with the main subjects to measure the knowledge innovation ability of knowledge innovation subjects. The symbiotic relationships among the knowledge innovation subjects in each region are identified. Taking Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou as examples, a sensitivity analysis of the initial value and coopetition relationship is conducted. The results show that the initial value change has no significant effect on the development of knowledge innovation subjects. The interaction relationships among subjects directly affect the symbiotic evolution trend. The study extends the application scope of the symbiosis theory and develops a theoretical framework for the development of subjects in regional knowledge innovation ecosystem. It offers regions a reference to use Lotka–Volterra model adjusting the knowledge innovation structure in various regions.