In this study, social exchange theory and social learning theory are integrated to explain how and when ethical leaders promote innovative work behaviors among employees. Specifically, this research developed a moderated mediation model to examine the mediating effect of psychological safety and work engagement and the moderating effect of openness to experience. The survey data were collected from 397 full-time employees of various service industry companies operating in China in two stages with a two-week gap. SPSS and AMOS were used to assess the study hypotheses. First, SPSS 22.0 was used to test the reliability of variables and conduct descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis, and AMOS 22.0 was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis. Second, Version 22 of SPSS and the PROCESS macro were used to analyze mediation, moderation, and conditional process effects. The results indicated that ethical leadership was positively related to employees’ innovative work behavior. Ethical leadership significantly positively affects employees’ innovative work behaviors by mediating psychological safety and work engagement. Moreover, the results showed that openness to experience plays a moderating effect in the positive relationship between work engagement and employees’ innovative work behavior. Finally, openness to experience moderates the indirect relationship (via work engagement) between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. This research contributes to the existing literature on ethical leadership and provides a reference for companies to stimulate employees’ innovative work behavior.

With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards and their increasing demand for fresh food, the cold chain logistics industry has developed rapidly. One of the biggest challenges to today’s cold chain logistics is to offer fresh food while minimizing CO₂ emissions. The fresh degree and CO₂ emissions are involved in the vehicle routing optimization problem in the cold chain logistics. In order to meet the quality requirement for fresh agricultural products and low carbon logistics, a novel routing optimization model considering the costs of quality deterioration and carbon emissions (Low Carbon and Freshness Degrees Vehicle Routing Problem (LCFD-VRP)) for cold chain distribution was established in this study. This model takes into account the fixed cost, fuel cost and time window penalty cost. An improved ant colony algorithm (IACA) is used to optimize the whole vehicle distribution routing with its strong global search ability. Tabu Search (TS) algorithm is used to search the single vehicle distribution routing with its good local search ability. An IACA combined with TS (IACATS) was proposed to solve the above LCFD-VRP model. The practicability of the model and the effectiveness of the above improved algorithm are verified using a real case study. The results of Zhoushan Dayang Refrigerated Logistics Co., Ltd. showed that, compared with the traditional algorithm, IACATS could reduce the dispatching of two refrigerated vehicles, thus lowering the total cost by 4.94%, shortening the actual transportation distance by 5.50% and cutting the total CO₂ emissions by 8.9%. Therefore, the LCFD-VRP model can effectively help to achieve the low carbon emissions, multi-variety and low-cost distribution of fresh agricultural products. The proposed model and IACATS algorithm would be used to optimize VRP in cold chain enterprises. The results of this study also provide management suggestions for cold chain enterprises to effectively balance economic cost and environmental cost.

With the establishment of the Belt and Road national strategy, Quanzhou Port is a significant development opportunity. Quanzhou Port is the origin of the 21st century Maritime Silk Road and part of the Belt and Road, but as a pioneer project of the Maritime Silk Road and the main port in the Belt and Road strategy, its development has encountered some challenges and problems. Hence, this paper aims to evaluate the competitiveness of Quanzhou Port based on the criteria selected by experts and corresponding improvement suggestions are put forward for its weaknesses. Using fuzzy-AHP and ELECTRE III, port competitiveness is evaluated according to the total weights obtained based on the different criteria used. The key criteria consist of six factors (port size, port location, hinterland economy, port costs, operations management and growth potential) that are divided into 18 sub-criteria. Five competing ports were selected with respect to geographical proximity. The order of ranking according to ELECTRE III are as follows: Kaohsiung Port, Xiamen Port, Fuzhou Port, Taichug Port and Quanzhou Port. The findings show that the port of Quanzhou appears last in the ordering sequence, resulting in a need for integrative approaches to promote its competitiveness. Compared with competitive ports, Quanzhou Port has relatively weak overall infrastructure and relatively high port costs, which leads to a lack of obvious flow of port materials and a decrease in professional unloading services. Particularly in hinterland port economies, the industrial structure is extensive and backward. Hence, the question of how to achieve a green transformation of the manufacturing industry will be important for Quanzhou Port. This paper points out directions for the future development of Quanzhou Port and applies comprehensive evaluation methods, namely fuzzy-AHP and ELECTRE III.

As brand equity (BE) is a valuable, but intangible, asset of any firm, understanding BE represents a primary task for many organizations. Factors that influence the development of BE are of inordinate academic and practical significance and a source of continuous investigation. While the current literature on social media communication (SMC) and BE provides a wealth of information, our study pioneers the most recent processes of mediation and moderation of electronic word-of-mouth and product involvement (PI) in BE research. Accordingly, the results of this work will likely become one of the key sources of information in sustainable marketing planning and in the development of strategies. To accomplish this goal, we assessed the structural relationships among SMC, electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), PI, and BE. A questionnaire survey was administered concerning consumer brands in China. In this survey, due to the need for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the questionnaire was distributed and collected via the internet. A total of 369 data sets were analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of our investigation reveal that: (a) social media firm- and user-generated content have a positive impact on e-WOM, (b) social media firm- and user-generated content have a positive impact on BE, (c) e-WOM has a positive impact on BE and serves as an intermediary role between SMC and BE, and (d) PI exerts specific moderating effects between SMC and BE.