bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Start-up funding negotiations with venture capitalists: understanding the behaviors and strategies of experienced entrepreneurs
Authors: Glade Christian , Kesting Peter , Smolinski Remigiusz , Kanbach Dominik K. 
Published: January 2025

PurposeThis study explores the negotiation behaviors and strategies employed by experienced entrepreneurs to secure venture capital (VC) funding.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative approach, we conducted interviews with 32 accomplished founders with track records in securing VC funding. Our conceptual underpinning rests upon an existing negotiation competency model. This study employed a systematic and iterative data analysis method, following an inductive approach grounded in Gioia et al.’s (2013) methodology to conceptualize the unprocessed interview data.FindingsWe identified three dimensions characterizing entrepreneurial negotiation behavior in VC negotiations: negotiation competencies, power tactics, and negotiation style. Furthermore, we identified specific behaviors in these dimensions and explored how entrepreneurs apply these skills in the VC context.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes a nuanced understanding of entrepreneurs’ negotiation behaviors, opening avenues for further research on effective strategies in entrepreneurial finance.Practical implicationsEntrepreneurs can leverage the identified negotiation strategies to enhance their skills and navigate VC negotiations more effectively, potentially leading to better funding outcomes. Furthermore, training programs can be crafted to encourage the cultivation of these behaviors.Originality/valueThis study is the first to systematically examine the negotiation behaviors and strategies employed by experienced entrepreneurs in VC negotiations, revealing entrepreneurs’ specific behaviors and elucidating how these behaviors are employed within negotiations to provide practical insights.
Fostering entrepreneurial orientation as a source of sustainable competitive advantage: role of external environment
Authors: Kapur Inakshi , Tyagi Pallavi 
Published: January 2025

Purpose
The ability to create and sustain competitive advantages depends on cultivating employee’s capabilities. Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) can foster an organisation-wide culture of exploring new opportunities and creating new learnings. Sustainable competitive advantages should be based on long-term behavioural changes rather than ad hoc adjustments made for short-term gains, enabling employees to become a source of unique and inimitable advantages. This study aims to explore how each external environment impacts the dimensions of EO. The study also introduces environmental jolts as a dimension of the external environment.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors considered a sample of 39 organisations in IT companies from India to study the external environment’s effect on their EO. Using covariance-based structural equation modelling, the authors measured the impact of external environment variables on EO. A total of 250 responses were found suitable for analysis.

Findings
Certain crucial factors were identified through an extensive analysis of the relationships between individual factors of the external environment and EO. Technological opportunities showed a strong positive association with all factors of EO, whereas dynamism of the environment had a positive relationship with innovativeness and proactiveness. Environmental jolts showed a negative impact on innovativeness and risk-taking propensity.

Research limitations/implications
EO has been developed and researched extensively in the Western context as a unidimensional construct. In the present study, the relationship between the external environment factors and each dimension of EO has been analysed individually, thus following a multidimensional approach. Moreover, environment jolts as a factor of the external environment have been introduced, and their effect on the dimension of EO has been studied. Finally, the implications of encouraging entrepreneurial behaviours to develop sustainable competitive advantages have been discussed.

Originality/value
The research explores the multidimensionality of the EO construct and also introduces environmental jolts as a dimension of the external environment.
Universities as sustainability agents! Does green campus ensure green intellectual capital? A quantitative approach to the triggering role of green knowledge sharing and green innovation
Authors: Ali Ayesha 
Published: January 2025

PurposeThis article aims to explore the concept of green campus (GC) being implemented in Pakistan’s universities in order to attain green intellectual capital (GIC).Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were collected from the 20 public sector universities in the Punjab province, Pakistan. Data analysis was conducted by using SPSS and MPLUS software.FindingsResults confirm that green practices help universities to attain GIC. Further, the results also confirm the mediating role of green knowledge sharing (GKS) and green innovation (GI).Research limitations/implicationsThe data were gathered from public sector universities in Pakistan. Hence, the findings of the present study may not be generalized to the private universities, other sectors or countries.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights regarding the implementation of GC paradigm from technological perspective. This can enhance the information exchange among sustainability practitioners in order to introduce innovative solutions for addressing sustainability challenges.Social implicationsThis study has developed a transdisciplinary policy framework that provides guidelines for higher education institutions in Pakistan to attain GI and IC.Originality/valueThe originality lies in framing GC as a generator of GIC while also establishing a strong link between IC, economy and the environment by demonstrating how environmental sustainability initiatives influence economic gains through enhanced reputation, cost reduction and stakeholder engagement. This study has developed a theoretical framework based on resource-based theory, which supports the notion that GCs will lead to GIC by developing GKS and GI.
From risk minimisation to trust building: an empirical study on blockchain technology in digital payment system
Authors: Pandey Vasant , Kushwaha Gyaneshwar Singh 
Published: January 2025

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the mediator role of blockchain technology (BT) in developing the trust among the users of digital payment (DP).

Design/methodology/approach
The research is of conclusive in nature. Purposive convenience sampling method was used to collect the data through a structured questionnaire. Statistical software Smart PLS 4 and SPSS 26 is used for the analysis of 540 valid responses.

Findings
This study concludes that resulting model is capable to predict the mediating role of BT in framing the trust. It also identified that all the factors (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social norms and facilitating conditions) examined were found to have significant influence on the adoption of DP system.

Research limitations/implications
This study uses variables that influences human behaviour in DP adoption. In future the work can be extended to check the moderating effect of BT on trust towards DP system.

Originality/value
This study demonstrates a key driver of towards DP. In addition, it highlights the pivotal role of BT in developing trust in both current and future adoption of DPs.
An examination of Malaysian companies’ SDG reporting: does the corporate governance-level mechanisms matter?
Authors: Qaderi Sumaia Ayesh 
Published: January 2025

Purpose
Sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been attracting ever considerable attention from practice and academia, but the relationship between board characteristics and SDGs reporting remains unclear, especially in emerging countries. This paper empirically aims to the impact of board characteristics on SDGs reporting.

Design/methodology/approach
Based on stakeholder-agency theory, this study used data from 572 firm-year observations between 2017 and 2023 from top Malaysian-listed companies.

Findings
The result of feasible generalized least squares regression indicates that larger, more independent boards are associated with increased SDG disclosure. This suggests that well-structured boards can positively influence decision-making by reducing information asymmetries and agency conflicts. On the other hand, the results reveal that board activity insignificantly impacts the disclosure of SDGs. The findings are robust to robustness analyses and endogeneity checks.

Practical implications
This research offers significant implications for companies, practitioners and stakeholders, seeking to enhance their commitment to SDG implementation. In addition, the findings provide valuable insights for policymakers to encourage companies to diversify their composition boards and to promote strong, complementary governance mechanisms that align management behavior with sustainable business objectives.

Social implications
The findings can enhance SDG reporting quality by improving materiality assessment disclosures. This increased transparency and accountability will empower corporate stakeholders to better evaluate the reporting entity’s underlying processes. Enhanced corporate SDG reporting aligns with Malaysia’s commitment to implementing the UN SDGs and transitioning to a sustainable future.

Originality/value
The findings offer fresh insights into a previously unexplored topic and highlight the important role of the corporate board in addressing and improving the corporate SDGs reporting of listed firms in Malaysia.
How is it going to end? Negative workplace gossip about coworkers, compensatory ethics and gossipers helping behavior toward coworkers
Authors: Zhao Hongdan , Ma Yunshuo 
Published: January 2025

PurposeDrawing upon compensatory ethics theory, this study explored the underlying mechanisms through which gossipers engaged in helping behavior as a form of compensation after initiating negative workplace gossip.Design/methodology/approachThrough a two-wave field study of 394 Chinese employees, this study tests theoretical hypotheses using path analysis and bootstrapping methods.FindingsThe findings suggested that negative workplace gossip positively influenced the gossipers’ helping behavior through moral self-image and guilt. Moreover, moral reflectiveness not only positively moderated the impacts of negative workplace gossip on moral self-image and guilt but also positively moderated the mediating effects of moral self-image and guilt in the relationship between negative workplace gossip and helping behavior.Originality/valueThese results enrich the theoretical research on negative workplace gossip, offer new perspectives for studying this phenomenon and provide a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for management practices.
Ricoeur’s triple mimesis as a hermeneutic of the ethnographer’s work in CCO
Authors: Jojczyk Joanne , Lambotte Francois , Christophe Christel 
Published: January 2025

PurposeThis article explores the interpretive process of ethnographic research within the framework of Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO) approaches. Specifically, it examines the role of Ricoeur’s triple mimesis as a hermeneutic tool in making sense of the extensive data gathered during a three-year ethnographic study of a cultural event, “Le Grand Huit,” part of the Mons 2015 European Capital of Culture initiative.Design/methodology/approachThe research employs a filmed ethnographic methodology to capture the participatory processes of the “Le Grand Huit” project. The study is guided by CCO principles, focusing on communication events as the central unit of analysis. The interpretive framework of Ricoeur’s triple mimesis is utilized to navigate and textualize the complex data collected, including fieldnotes, interviews and video footage.FindingsThe study demonstrates how the process of textualizing ethnographic data through Ricoeur’s triple mimesis – prefiguration, configuration and refiguration – unpacks the interpretative process of CCO ethnographers. The narrative construction not only aids in data interpretation but also establishes the authority of the ethnographic account by making the researcher’s biases and preunderstandings explicit.Originality/valueThis article contributes to CCO scholarship by providing a methodological tool that integrates hermeneutic phenomenology into ethnographic research. It addresses the often-criticized vagueness of ethnographic methods and emphasizes the importance of reflexivity in legitimizing scientific knowledge. The application of Ricoeur’s triple mimesis offers a novel approach to understanding the constitutive role of communication in organizing processes.
Research on ultrasonic detection method for weld defects based on complex synergetic convolutional calculation
Authors: Zhang Rui , Dong Zehua , Zhang Yanjun , Fu Liuhu , Bai Qiaofeng 
Published: January 2025

Purpose
This paper aims to propose a new ultrasonic detection method for stainless steel weld defects based on complex synergetic convolutional calculation to solve two problems in the ultrasonic detection of austenitic stainless steel weld defects. These include ignoring the nonlinear information of the imaginary part in the complex domain of the signal and the correlation information between the amplitude of the real part and phase of the imaginary part and subjective dependence of diagnosis model parameters.

Design/methodology/approach
An ultrasonic detection method for weld defects based on complex synergetic convolution calculation is proposed in this paper to address the above issues. By mapping low-density, 1D detection samples to a complex domain space with high representation richness, a multi-scale and multilevel complex synergetic convolution calculation model (CSCC) is designed to match and transform samples to mine amplitude changes, phase shifts, weak phase angle changes and amplitude-phase correlation features deeply from the detection signal. This study proposed an Elite Sine-Cosine Sobol Sampling Dung Beetle Optimization Algorithm, and the detection model CSCC achieves global adaptive matching of key hyperparameters in 19 dimensions. Finally, a regulative complex synergetic convolutional calculation model is constructed to achieve high-performance detection of weld defects.

Findings
Through experiments on a self-developed Taiyuan intelligent detection and information processing weld defect dataset, the results show that the method achieves a detection accuracy of 92% for five types of weld defects: cracks, porosity, slag inclusion and unfused and unwelded components, which represent an average improvement of 11% relative to comparable models. This method is also validated with the PhysioNet electrocardiogram public dataset, which achieves better detection performance relative to the other models.

Originality/value
This method provides a theoretical basis and technical reference for developing and applying intelligent, efficient and accurate ultrasonic defects detection technology.
Effects of decade‐long grazing exclusion and wind erosion reduction on community temporal stability in a semi‐arid grassland
Authors: Song Jian , Zheng Mengmei , Jiang Lin , Wang Haidao , Zhang Qingshan , Ru Jingyi , Zhang Jiajia , Feng Jiayin , Qiu Xueli , Wan Shiqiang 
Published: January 2025

Abstract

Ecological restoration can help rehabilitate degraded grasslands and mitigate desertification and wind erosion. Grazing exclusion (GE), a prominent restoration practice, in conjunction with wind erosion reduction (WR) can have profound impacts on the long‐term stability of grassland plant communities. However, this area remains underexplored, which poses challenges for developing policies that support sustainable grassland management.

This study, part of a decade‐long (2010–2019) field experiment, investigated the effects of GE and WR on the temporal stability of plant communities in a semi‐arid grassland on the Mongolian Plateau, China. The study also explored the underlying regulatory mechanisms driving these stability dynamics.

Over the 10‐year period, GE increased total community cover by restoring the cover of tall‐stature species, which resulted in sub‐canopy light limitation and a reduction in the richness of short‐stature species and the overall community. Despite species loss due to GE, species asynchrony remained unaffected. In contrast, GE improved the population stability of tall‐stature species, contributing to a marginal increase in community temporal stability (CTS). Wind erosion reduction stimulated total community cover by enhancing the cover of both tall‐ and short‐stature species. However, WR decreased the richness of short‐stature species and the overall community. Exacerbated water stress, resulting from increased cover of short‐stature species under WR, suppressed CTS. In addition, the elevated soil nitrogen (N) concentration associated with WR further diminished CTS by reducing the temporal stability of short‐stature species.

Synthesis and applications. Our findings highlight that while GE supports the recovery of dominant tall‐stature species and promotes their population stability, grassland communities recovering after WR face challenges such as water deficit and excessive N enrichment, leading to long‐term stability loss. Furthermore, the loss of short‐stature species under both GE and WR may disrupt grassland trophic relationships and destabilize food webs. Future sustainable management strategies should incorporate periodic or rotational grazing to alleviate sub‐canopy light limitation, enhance soil N uptake, and reduce water demands, which could help maintain the temporal stability of temperate grassland communities.
WHEN WE WERE ALMOST MODERN? Theory, methods and politics in The Centre for Environmental Studies, 1966–1975
Authors: Molina Julian , Burrows Roger 
Published: January 2025

AbstractThis article re‐examines the history of the UK Centre for Environmental Studies (CES) between 1966 and 1975. Using archival materials and interviews, the article details the role of the CES in attempts to ‘modernize’ urban and regional research and working relationships between the academy and government. The CES is probably best known, by readers of this journal, as the initial editorial base for the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and for its role in incubating radical urbanism. However, as we show, these activities sat alongside important early developments in both computational social science and radical experiments in the use of the social sciences in policymaking, in ways that have, hitherto, not been well understood. The article is not intended as an exercise in nostalgia but, rather, one that gestures towards what Mark Fisher termed a ‘hauntological’ form of analysis; to quote Fisher, ‘[w]hen the present has given up on the future’ there is value in listening ‘for the relics of the future in the unactivated potentials of the past’.
Prolonged Ovarian Stimulation Does Not Worsen Neonatal Outcomes After Fresh Embryo Transfers
Authors: Wu Jing , Ju Ying , Dong Jie , Zhang Hengde , Xiao Xifeng , Wang Xiaohong 
Published: January 2025

ABSTRACTObjectiveTo investigate the relationship between prolonged ovarian stimulation and neonatal outcomes after autologous fresh embryo transfer (fET).DesignA retrospective cohort study.SettingUniversity‐affiliated centres.Population3529 patients underwent autologous in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles between August 1, 2016 and December 31, 2022, with a live singleton birth after fET.MethodsUnivariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between prolonged ovarian stimulation and neonatal outcomes. Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to evaluate independent effects.Main Outcome MeasuresNeonatal outcomes.ResultsMultivariate regression showed no significant association between simulation duration and birthweight (adjusted β: 4.19, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −13.86 to 22.23; p = 0.6494) or gestational age (GA) (adjusted β: −0.01, 95% [CI]: −0.09 to 0.06; p = 0.7403) Categorical analysis of neonatal outcomes, including low birthweight (LBW) (adjusted Odds Ratio [OR]: 0.94, 95% [CI]: 0.70 to 1.25; p = 0.6501), macrosomia (adjusted OR: 0.95, 95% [CI]: 0.78 to 1.16; p = 0.6294), small for gestational age (SGA) (adjusted OR: 0.95, 95% [CI]: 0.75 to 1.19; p = 0.6465), large for gestational age (LGA) (adjusted OR: 1.02, 95% [CI]: 0.85 to 1.21; p = 0.8542) and preterm (adjusted OR: 0.93, 95% [CI]: 0.77 to 1.11; p = 0.4191), revealed no associations with stimulation duration. PSM analysis confirmed these findings.ConclusionsProlonged ovarian stimulation does not appear to increase adverse neonatal outcomes in singleton newborns after autologous fET.
Molecular Mechanisms of circKIF4A in Breast Cancer Progression
Authors: Liu Haoyong , Zeng Lingdiao , Chen Huaxiang , Xu Lixue , Wang Chuntong , Cui Dandan , Li Jing , Chen Caozhen 
Published: January 2025

ABSTRACTAimBreast cancer (BC) is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy worldwide, necessitating continued research into its molecular mechanisms. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are increasingly recognized for their role in various cancers, including BC. This study explores the role of circRNA kinesin family member 4A (circKIF4A) in BC progression and its underlying molecular mechanisms.MethodsBC cell lines were cultured, and circKIF4A expression was knocked down. Cell viability, proliferation, migration, and invasion were assessed using the Cell Counting Kit‐8, colony formation assay, and Transwell assays. The expression of circKIF4A, miR‐874‐3p, and glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase domain‐containing 5 (GDPD5) was quantified using qRT‐PCR and Western blot analysis. Subcellular fractionation was performed to localize circKIF4A within the cell. The interactions between circKIF4A and miR‐874‐3p, as well as between miR‐874‐3p and GDPD5, were evaluated using RNA pull‐down and dual‐luciferase assays. Rescue experiments were conducted with miR‐874‐3p inhibition or GDPD5 overexpression to confirm the mechanistic pathway.ResultscircKIF4A was found to be upregulated in BC cells. Its knockdown significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. circKIF4A acts as a sponge for miR‐874‐3p, reducing its expression. miR‐874‐3p targets and suppresses GDPD5, a key regulator in BC cell growth. Silencing miR‐874‐3p or overexpressing GDPD5 reversed the tumor‐suppressive effects of circKIF4A knockdown.ConclusioncircKIF4A promotes BC cell proliferation and invasiveness by regulating the miR‐874‐3p/GDPD5 axis. These findings highlight a potential therapeutic target in BC and contribute to the understanding of circRNA involvement in cancer progression.