In the face of challenges ushered in by globalization and technological advancements, financial flexibility has emerged as a pivotal strategy for attaining sustainable development in China's manufacturing sector. Financial flexibility allows firms to manage internal cash flows, alleviate external financing constraints, and augment their capability to absorb risks. Using the framework of Financial Flexibility Theory and Institutional Theory, this study examines data from A-share listed manufacturing firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2011 to 2021. The research aims to investigate the nexus between financial flexibility and sustainable performance, while also probing the moderating roles of environmental uncertainty and governmental grants. The key findings of the study unveil an inverted U-shaped relationship between financial flexibility and sustainable performance. Moreover, environmental uncertainty exerts a significant negative influence on sustainable performance. When both environmental uncertainty and governmental grants are substantial, the inverted U-shaped correlation between financial flexibility and sustainable performance intensifies. The innovation of this study lies in revealing the optimal zone of financial flexibility for enterprises under the influence of environmental uncertainty and government grants. Amidst an increasingly intricate macro-environment, this research furnishes pragmatic insights for optimizing sustainable performance in manufacturing enterprises and offers a series of empirically grounded suggestions for enterprise managers, government departments, and investors, guiding them to enhance sustainable performance through judicious calibration of financial flexibility levels.

In the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) era, platform enterprises face the critical challenge of balancing flexibility and controllability to sustain competitive advantage. Existing studies have examined these two dimensions separately but offer limited insight into their synergistic mechanisms within complex adaptive ecosystems. Drawing on the structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions of social capital theory, with a particular emphasis on institutional-level collaborative social capital among platform enterprises and their supply-chain partners, this study employs dynamic fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify the configurational pathways through which Chinese platform enterprises achieve high sustainable development performance. Using panel data from Chinese A-share listed platform enterprises (2014–2024), we identify three equifinal configurational pathways sufficient for high sustainable development performance: (1) a cognitive-relational alliance-driven path, (2) a structural-relational hybrid synergy path, (3) a structural-cognitive flexible innovation path. Innovation value consensus emerges as a core condition across all pathways. These configurations are sufficient for platforms to exhibit flexible market responsiveness and strategic controllability under varying environmental conditions. The study advances social capital theory by demonstrating the multidimensional, synergistic, and context-sensitive nature of flexibility-controllability coupling in platform governance. It also provides managers with actionable insights for tailoring social capital investments to specific regional and strategic contexts.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate how coopetition between platform enterprises and their complementors influences sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). It seeks to clarify the mechanisms through which coopetition influences SCA by examining the mediating role of organizational agility (operational adjustment agility (OAA) and market capitalizing agility (MCA)) and the moderating role of technological uncertainty (TU). Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on paradox theory and dynamic capabilities theory, the study develops and tests a moderated mediation model. The hypotheses are empirically examined using survey data collected from 442 platform enterprises in China. Findings: The results reveal that: (1) Coopetition has an inverted U-shaped relationship with platform SCA, indicating that either too little or too much coopetition can diminish competitive advantage; (2) Both OAA and MCA partially mediate the coopetition–SCA relationship; (3) Technological uncertainty negatively moderates the effects of both types of organizational agility on SCA, weakening their positive impact. Robustness test also supports the above results. Originality/value: This research offers a novel theoretical lens integrating paradox theory and dynamic capabilities theory to explain the nonlinear relationship between coopetition and SCA. It provides empirical insights into the mediating mechanisms of organizational agility and highlights the contextual role of technological uncertainty. The findings offer practical guidance for platform enterprises seeking to strategically manage coopetition in the digital era to enhance long-term competitive advantage.

Currently, intelligent agent applications generally face the bottleneck of “strong single-agent intelligence but weak group collaboration,” making it difficult to form systemic ecological advantages through network effects. Addressing this practical dilemma, this paper adopts the platform ecosystem perspective, defines three dimensions of intelligent agent network ecological advantage—resource complementarity, governance coordination, and dynamic adaptability—and systematically reveals its nonlinear formation mechanism based on the coupling of self-organization, emergence, and governance. Taking 2024 Chinese listed platform enterprises as the sample and employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study identifies three multi-factor equivalent configurational paths that drive high ecological advantage: the resource-open collaborative type achieves synergistic amplification and leap through deep fusion of resource openness; the algorithm-incentive-regulation type drives asymmetric leadership through technological depth and governance response; and the resource-governance-adaptive type constructs resilience barriers in highly uncertain environments through comprehensive and balanced configurations. This paper constructs an active symbiosis theory of intelligent agent ecosystems, advancing ecosystem theory from the traditional “passive complementarity” paradigm to a new “active symbiosis” paradigm, revealing multiple concurrent causality and asymmetric causality, clarifying the dual role of regulatory sensitivity as both a “bridge” and an “amplifier,” and providing a novel theoretical framework and analytical paradigm for platform ecosystem governance in the GenAI and multi-agent era.

Residential tourism, characterized by extended stays at travel destinations, has gained increasing popularity among seniors. Guided by time perspective theory and self-determination theory, this study examines how a balanced time perspective influences senior travelers’ residential tourism intentions. Survey data were collected from 453 older adults in China. The results reveal that a balanced time perspective is positively associated with higher residential tourism intentions, with perceived social support and meaning in life serving as mediators. Moreover, this effect is significantly stronger for employed seniors than for retired seniors. For employed seniors, the mediating role of meaning in life is particularly pronounced, while for retired seniors, perceived social support plays a more prominent mediating role. These findings offer practical insights for promoting residential tourism through a deeper understanding of seniors’ travel behaviors.