Blockchain has the potential to reconfigure the contemporary economic, legal, political and cultural landscape, causing a flood of research on this topic. However, limited efforts have been made to conduct retrospective research to appraise the blockchain studies in the recent period, easily leading to a neglect of new technological trends. Consequently, the present research designs a quantitative- and qualitative-analysis procedure to review the latest research status. Adopting a four-step workflow, six research hotspots (i.e., the specific application areas of blockchain technology, the integration of blockchain and other technologies, the driving factors of blockchain, the values of blockchain technology, the types of blockchain and the core technologies of blockchain) and five research frontiers (i.e., entrepreneurship, contract, industrial internet, data management and distributed ledger technology) were detected using quantitative analysis. Furthermore, three other topics (i.e., the Internet of things, access control and trust) and two research gaps (i.e., the true effect of blockchain technology on firms’ operational efficiency and the regulation of the “dark sides” of blockchain technology) were also identified, using qualitative analysis. Finally, the evolutionary paths were qualitatively analyzed, and then three phases of blockchain research were summarized. The conclusions are able to provide a more comprehensive enlightenment regarding blockchain’s research hotspots, research frontiers, evolutionary paths and research gaps in the recent period, from 2015 to 2021, and to provide a reference for future research.

The assessment of river health holds paramount significance in diagnosing the conditions of river water environments, and its research serves as a crucial foundation for the functional management and restoration of rivers. We discuss the concept and assessment criteria of health in areas characterized by significant human activity. Utilizing the “over the riverbank” and “under the riverbank” quantification criteria as the framework, a comprehensive river health assessment index system is developed, encompassing seven aspects (riparian zone condition, pollution discharge condition, human–water interaction, physical structure, water environment, water ecology, and socio-economic service function) and 35 indicators. This study introduces the River Health Index (RHI), specifically tailored for regions with significant human activity, facilitating the quantitative assessment of river health status and precise calculation of the River Health Index in these areas. The research employs the RHI to assess the health condition of the Cangzhou section of the Qingliang River in China. The results indicate that the Qingliang River is in a suboptimal state of health, with the key limiting factors being the aspects of “water environment” and “water ecology”. The research demonstrates that the proposed river health assessment system for areas with significant human activity effectively reflects the objective reality of the Qingliang River, exhibiting a high level of reliability and applicability.

The public-private partnership (PPP) model has become one of the marketization models for water environment treatment projects. Evaluating the performance of these projects is vital for their long-term success. Performance evaluations can inform the government when allocating expenditures for the operation and maintenance of services and can guide the private sector’s operation and maintenance management of projects. By attending to the specific characteristics of urban water environment treatment PPP projects (UWETP-PPP), this study developed a performance evaluation system and corresponding performance evaluation model comprised of eight first-level indicators and fifty second-level indicators. This model was used to evaluate a water environment treatment and ecological restoration project located in Xuchang, China. The results generated by the performance evaluation model indicated that this project was satisfactory and used the PPP model with a very high level of success, which accurately reflected real-world assessments of the project and verified the effectiveness of the model. This research provides guidance for the government in designing a performance evaluation mechanism that implements the specific characteristics of PPP projects. It also provides practical value for the operation management and performance improvement of PPP projects in China.

Against the backdrop of accelerating servitization transformation in the global manufacturing sector, how digital platform capability effectively drives improvements in innovation performance has become a critical issue. Existing research mainly focuses on the instrumental attributes of digital technologies, while relatively few studies examine their strategic role in servitization transformation, particularly the systematic explanation of the “capability–behavior–context–performance” transmission mechanism. To address this gap, this study integrates dynamic capability theory and the opportunity window theory to construct a moderated mediation model that uncovers the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions through which digital platform capability influences servitization innovation performance. Based on survey data from 237 manufacturing firms in Guangdong Province, the empirical results indicate that: (1) digital platform capability and value co-creation both exert significant positive effects on servitization innovation performance; (2) value co-creation mediates the relationship between digital platform capability and servitization innovation performance; and (3) although organizational distance was theoretically expected to function as an important contextual variable, this study does not find evidence supporting its inverted U-shaped moderating effect, suggesting that its role in digital contexts may be more complex. This study not only extends the application of dynamic capability theory and opportunity window theory in servitization innovation settings but also provides managerial insights for manufacturing firms to optimize digital platform strategies and build more resilient and sustainable innovation systems.