Dissertations

Based on the background of the adoption of medical equipment management outsourcing in part of the Chinese public hospitals, this dissertation investigates the impact of medical equipment management outsourcing on performance in hospitals.

This dissertation applies a combination of theoretical and empirical research. Based on the theoretical support of the relationship between medical device management outsourcing and performance, the dissertation makes hypotheses about the possible results. In addition, the paper utilizes the research method of DID and questionnaire. The results of the study prove the hypothesis of the relationship between medical device management outsourcing and performance.

The results show that medical device management outsourcing has a positive effect on performance. In addition, medical device categorization would moderate medical device management outsourcing and performance.

With the increasing number and scale of domestic enterprises and the acceleration of economic transformation and upgrading, this has led to the demand for specialized management functions for enterprises in the rapidly developing market economy environment. Therefore, business owners entrust managers to carry out daily production management and development strategic planning for the enterprise. Under this model, the management rights and ownership of enterprises are separated, forming a relationship of agency and delegation between modern enterprises. Due to the continuous pursuit of maximizing profits as the business objective, this is the demand of business owners; And business managers need to adopt favorable development methods based on the current development status of the enterprise. Therefore, it leads to the problem of inconsistent goals in the pursuit of agency interests in enterprise management, which in turn leads to certain contradictions between both parties in the pursuit of maximizing their own interests. In order to address the inconsistency of interests in agency delegation relationships, it is necessary to implement effective incentive measures for managing human capital. The equity incentive system is one of the important means for modern enterprises to implement effective human capital management. It can bind the personal interests of management with the interests of the enterprise, motivate managers to create greater value for the company, and achieve the goal of win-win with managers. Therefore, the relationship between equity incentive mechanisms and corporate financial performance has always been a focus of academic and practical research, especially with the increasing pressure of business competition between enterprises caused by domestic economic transformation and upgrading. More and more enterprises are implementing equity incentive systems to better stimulate the motivation of managers and achieve the goal of good business development.
This article is based on the theory of enterprise financial performance evaluation, incentive theory, and principal-agent theory, and adopts research methods such as literature research and case analysis. Firstly, H Company is selected as the case object to analyze the relevant policies and methods of equity incentives adopted by H Company in its business development, as well as comprehensive comparison and analysis of enterprise financial performance evaluation data during the same period, Objectively and scientifically evaluate the effectiveness of equity incentives. Analyze the changes in different financial indicators of H Company under the implementation of two equity incentive measures, and analyze the differences in the impact between the implementation of two equity incentives. Study the relationship between the implementation of equity incentives and the financial performance of the enterprise. On this basis, in order to verify the results of the case analysis, this article conducted empirical research on 1049 manufacturing industry listings from 2013 to 2021 as a sample, and tested the research hypotheses in sequence. The final empirical results indicate that, firstly, implementing equity incentive plans in manufacturing listed companies can significantly promote the improvement of company performance, and this effect varies greatly for enterprises with different property rights and industries. Non state-owned enterprises have more market-oriented characteristics and a higher frequency of talent flow. Therefore, compared to state-owned enterprises, implementing equity incentive plans has a more significant positive effect on the improvement of company performance in non-state-owned enterprises; High tech manufacturing enterprises have a stronger thirst for talent and a greater need for high-quality talents to ensure a continuous supply of innovative products and technologies. Therefore, implementing equity incentives has a more significant promoting effect on company performance than traditional manufacturing. Secondly, the incentive methods, incentive numbers, and exercise prices in the equity incentive elements can also significantly and positively affect the performance of listed manufacturing companies. An increase in incentive intensity shows that it will actually reduce company performance, while the correlation between validity period and company performance is not significant.
As a long-term incentive mechanism, equity incentives are increasingly widely used in modern enterprises. Listed companies, due to their requirements for technology and talent aggregation, prefer to use equity incentives to attract and gather more and better core employees for the company, stimulate employees' scientific research and innovation capabilities, and promote faster and better development of the enterprise. At present, China's equity incentive system has entered a mature period, and an increasing number of enterprises have chosen equity incentive mechanisms. At the same time, we have found that some of these enterprises that implement equity incentives have achieved good results, such as improving enterprise performance, optimizing human capital, and significantly improving scientific research capabilities. However, some enterprises have encountered many problems after implementing equity incentive plans for a period of time, leading to the termination of plans midway. This article aims to conduct a case study on the equity incentive plan of a high-tech listed company and provide relevant constructive and operational suggestions. And conduct empirical research based on the conclusions drawn from the research, test the case study results, and provide reference for similar enterprises to implement equity incentives.

With the vigorous development of the new generation of information technology and the Internet of the global economy, digital economy has become the strategic direction of new competitive advantages of major countries in the world. The application of digital technology has changed the way traditional industries operate and promoted the development of emerging industries, such as e-commerce, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. As companies become more digital, they are able to better understand market and consumer needs, and improve business performance by reshaping their business models and organizational structure, optimizing their operational structure, and improving efficiency and productivity.
Manufacturing industry plays an important role in the economic development, and plays a vital role in the development of the country and enterprises. Since the industrial revolution, the manufacturing industry has replaced agriculture as the main industry of the industrial country, promoted the development of the society and economy, and determined the destiny of the country. Digitization is not only an independent factor of the manufacturing industry, but also promotes the integration of traditional elements across time and space, giving birth to a new manufacturing industry and leading the manufacturing industry in the digital age. More and more enterprises have started or have completed the digital transformation and tried new ways of development.
With the advancement of digitalization process, the impact of digitalization degree on high-quality economic development has been highly concerned by scholars at home and abroad. However, despite the large amount of resources invested in the digital transformation and regarded as the core of strategy, the specific impact path of digitalization degree on enterprise performance has not been thoroughly studied. In the digital era, the market environment on which enterprises depend for survival has become more complex, and enterprises need to have the ability to quickly respond to market changes to survive and develop better. Therefore, the dynamic capability theory provides a practical theoretical perspective to analyze the relationship between enterprise digital transformation and enterprise performance. In manufacturing, dynamic capacity is often considered as a vital factor. Manufacturing needs to constantly innovate and improve products, processes and production methods to adapt to market changes and meet consumer needs. Companies with strong dynamic capabilities are more likely to gain an advantage in highly competitive markets and maintain a growth and sustained competitive advantage. By investing in research and development, introducing new technologies, improving production efficiency and quality control, manufacturing companies can change their product mix, expand production capacity, reduce costs and improve their competitiveness. The use of digital technology can accelerate the enterprise's perception of the external environment, increase the access channels of resources and information, and promote the enterprise to quickly integrate resources according to the changes of the external environment, so as to improve enterprise performance.
In the above context, this study aims to deeply study the mechanism of the influence of digitalization degree on the performance of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Research shows that one of the main means for enterprises to adapt to a changing environment is to improve their dynamic capabilities. Therefore, this study is based on the theory of dynamic ability, using the empirical research method, studied three specific dynamic ability (perception acquisition ability, integrated reconstruction ability and absorption utilization ability), and discusses the innovation orientation in the digital degree of the enterprise dynamic ability, and the environmental turbulence in the enterprise dynamic ability on the enterprise performance path. In terms of specific research content: First, this study collected and sorted out the literature and data concerning the digital transformation of manufacturing industry, enterprise performance, dynamic ability, innovation orientation and the degree of environmental turbulence, which provided a solid theoretical basis for the follow-up research. Secondly, dynamic ability was selected as the mediating variable, innovation orientation and degree of environmental turbulence as the regulatory variables to construct the research model and propose research hypotheses. In this study, manufacturing enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were taken as samples, and statistical analysis data were obtained through questionnaire survey. In order to ensure the reliability of the data, mature scales were cited. Finally, using the method of empirical statistical analysis, the data collected by SPSS23.0 and Mplus 8 used the scale to test the constructed model and the proposed hypothesis, and explored the influence path of digitalization degree on the performance of manufacturing enterprises. The empirical analysis results show that: (1) the degree of enterprise digitalization is positively correlated with enterprise performance; (2) dynamic ability plays an intermediary role between the degree of enterprise digitalization and the enterprise performance; (3) innovation orientation has a positive regulating effect on the relationship between enterprise degree and dynamic ability; and (4) the degree of environmental turbulence has a positive regulating effect on the relationship between enterprise performance and dynamic ability.

Under the influence of frequent global economic fluctuations, how service industry enterprises maintain its resilience or even take advantage of the environmental crisis to obtain higher growth has become an important research issue. The development of digital economy provides new digital technology support for service industry enterprises, which reduces the operational cost and improves the efficiency. Among them, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been widely adopted in service industry enterprises in recent years. However, few studies have discussed what role the application of AI technology can play in service enterprises' response to external environmental shocks. In order to fulfill the research gap, this study focus on the effect of AI technology adoption on organizational resilience of service enterprises, and use both empirical study and case study to explore the mechanism of how AI technology adoption affect service enterprises’ organizational resilience.
This study firstly puts forward the hypothesis that the adoption of AI technology positively affects the organizational resilience of service enterprises based on the literature review and deduction, and carries out empirical analyses on the data of listed enterprises in the service industry between 2010 and 2020. The empirical study of the sample finds that (1) AI technology adoption significantly and positively affects the organizational resilience of service enterprises; (2) AI technology application significantly improves the resilience of service enterprises in terms of high and low liquidity organizational slacks; (3) AI technology application positively affects the organizational resilience of service enterprises through high liquidity organizational slacks ; (4) diversification strategy and firm size of service enterprises negatively moderated the relationship between AI technology adoption and high liquidity organizational slacks. The empirical study found that AI technology application significantly improves the organizational resilience of service enterprises through direct or indirect paths, and its impact is affected by the firm heterogeneities.
In order to further explore the mechanism of the impact of AI technology adoption on the organizational resilience of service enterprises, this study selected five samples of typical service enterprises to carry out case study. The case study finds that the response of sample enterprises' to the epidemic shock differs in three stages: the pre-shock stage, in early 2020, Chinese service industry enterprises faced the first new Covid-19 epidemic shock; the mid-shock stage, during the three-year period from 2020 to 2022, the epidemic spread more steadily, the area of influence was enlarged, and the consumption habits gradually change, regional mobility is inconvenient, and tourism and catering enterprises face strategic adjustments; the post-shock phase, from late 2022 to 2023, regional mobility is restored, and there is opportunity for the service sector to rebound. AI technology adoption improves firms' environmental awareness and information evaluation in the pre-shock stage; enhances algorithmic innovation and intelligent decision-making in the mid-shock stage; and helps service enterprises to seek path breakthroughs and realize new entrepreneurial opportunities in the post-shock stage.
This study generates the following contributions to existing research: First, the mechanism of the impact of AI technology adoption on organizational resilience is verified, revealing the important antecedents of organizational resilience; Secondly, the impact of AI technology adoption on different types of organizational slacks and its marginal effects are tested., further contributes to the study of the effects of AI technology adoption; Thirdly, the process model of how AI technology adoption help service enterprises form organizational resilience is established. This study also provide useful practical advices for services enterprises and other stakeholders considering the effect of AI technology adoption.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are highly flexible and creative and play a significant role in the national economy and in employment, innovation, and entrepreneurship. However, due to their relatively small size, low technical level, lack of funds and talent, and backward management, they generally face development predicaments, such as the pressure to survive and weak anti-risk abilities. Therefore, in addition to leveraging their initiative to develop their competitive strength, making full use of external public service resources has become one approach MSMEs can take to find a way out of such predicaments. Various service-oriented manufacturing platform enterprises have recently emerged in China, under the policy guidance of central and local governments. These apply next-generation information technologies, such as the industrial internet, to empower new manufacturing and promote new services. The development of new business types and new service-oriented manufacturing models is essential to enhance the quality and efficiency of the manufacturing industry and facilitate its transformation and upgrading. This paper focuses on Bering3D Technology, a Chinese 3D printing technology service platform company, as the case study. Bering3D Technology represents a typical service manufacturing platform enterprise. An analysis of the specific service path of the enterprise reveals three main empowerment mechanisms: technology, information, and product empowerment. The influence of these three mechanisms on MSME innovation performance is examined and a questionnaire survey is conducted. This study extends the relevant literature on platform empowerment and MSME innovation.

As part of organizational slack, HR slack plays a role in managing external risks and opportunities when the global business environment is in turmoil. In recent years, Chinese high-tech companies have faced external shocks such as reverse globalization, decoupling of economic and trade relations, supply chain disruptions and epidemics, which have posed new challenges to their strategy formulation, business operations and talent acquisition. Chinese high-tech companies need to know whether they need to prepare adequate human resources as a buffer to deal with these challenges and opportunities. In the context of high-tech companies, this paper proposes for the first time that HR slack needs to be analyzed in both quantitative and qualitative dimensions based on RBV and KBV. In order to facilitate observation and measurement, this paper proposes to define absolute HR slack and relative HR slack in terms of 'relative change', which reflects the change in HR slack in the firm itself and the change in the industry. Further, the paper claims that HR slack in different groups may affect the firm performance to different extents, which leads to optimal HR configuration. This study presents for the first time the definition and metrics of HR slack in different groups and validates for the first time the extent of its impact on firm performance. Moreover, this paper is the first to use mediation effects to test how HR slack affects firm performance through financial constraints. This study confirms the positive relationship between HR slack and firm performance by using a panel data with ten-year from Year 2011 to 2021 of Chinese listed companies, including more than 2,000 listed companies and more than 17,000 observations. This greatly enriches the empirical study of HR slack.

Analyze the causes of financial risks in the Garden industry through empirical research and propose solutions.

The research on the consistency of corporate social responsibility performance and its impact on reputation in platform based enterprises is a comprehensive topic. This paper needs to identify important factors from numerous elements and patterns. Drawing on past experience and combining with the actual situation of the current period, C analyzes the factors that explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility performance consistency and reputation through literature research, questionnaire surveys, and case analysis, And use empirical methods to test their interrelationships, ultimately forming relevant research conclusions.

With the advent of big data era, data plays a pivotal role in sustaining firms’ competitive advantages. Although a few studies have shown that data analytics capability contributes to firms’ innovative performance, these studies either focus on general innovative performance or specific types of innovation, such as incremental innovation, radical innovation, and supply chain innovation. In this thesis, I enrich this stream of literature by conducting two studies to further examine the relationship between data analytics capability and innovation speed as well as innovation quality. This thesis consists of two studies. Study 1 is a survey study, in which I investigate the relationship between data analytics capability and innovation speed as well as the boundary conditions for this relationship. Study 2 is also a survey study, in which I explore the relationship between data analytics capability and innovation quality as well as the boundary conditions underlying this relationship. Based on my analyses of a sample of 459 Internet firms, I find that data analytics capability is positively associated with both the speed and quality of innovation. Overall, the two studies in my thesis depict an overarching theoretical framework that links data analytics capability to innovation speed and innovation quality as well as the boundary conditions. This framework offers a clear picture for researchers and practitioners to understands how to leverage data analytics to drive innovation speed and innovation quality in the digital era.

Since "digital China" been a national strategy in 2021, China has continuously made clear deployment on accelerating the construction of digital ecology, and almost all industries and enterprises have declared that they want to carry out digital transformation and upgrading, so digital technology is penetrating into almost all industries and fields. In this context, from the perspective of work team that is the smallest unit of enterprise production organization, this study tries to explore how the space of digital technology transformation affects the adaptive response of the team and what is the mechanism? What factors will affect this mechanism? How does it ultimately affect team vitality and performance?  
At the first this study reviewed the current research on the impact of digital technology on organizations, the research trends in the field of organizational change, and the research on team behavior from the perspective of psychology, and gradually built a theoretical framework based on the adaptive response model and technology acceptance model, and then proposed relevant research hypotheses. Then this dissertation tests the research hypothesis through empirical analysis.
On the basis of multiple interviews and long-term work observation, 700 working teams undergoing digital technology introduction were followed up, and after three questionnaires lasting seven months, 2,039 valid questionnaires were obtained from 374 teams. The study found that when fully digital technology preparedness, the space of digital transformation promoted adaptive response and improved team effectiveness - including team performance and team vitality.
The framework of this dissertation differs from previous studies in the following aspects: (1) the dynamic index of "the change in digital technology level" rather than "digital level" has a positive impact on team efficiency; (2) Described the mediating effect of "adaptive response" on the improvement of team efficiency under the influence of the change in digital level; (3) The regulation effect of preparation for technology on the whole mechanism is emphasized; (4) It focuses on the production of the smallest organizational unit in which members are not talkative but good at technical work and interact more frequently. It observes the impact of the introduction of digital technology from the lowest level of the organization, and considers the double-level behaviors of individuals and teams.
The findings of this study provide a basis for a deep understanding of the changes in the mentality and behavior of production personnel and their performance in the process of enterprise digital transformation, and provide guidance for enterprises to strengthen the production foundation, build high-quality industrial workers, and better complete the digital transformation.

Key words: digital technology, digital level change rate, adaptive response, team performance, team vitality

This research is based on the paradigm of case analysis and theoretical interpretation, and some related literature is mainly carried out from the following perspectives: on the one hand, in the practice of Confucian cultural management, focusing on the role of management practice of a certain idea in the connotation of Confucian culture, the role-playing of Confucian culture in the organizational construction of enterprises such as"Family culture" and"Happiness", or the exploration of the impact of Confucian culture on corporate governance issues such as corporate social responsibility, direct discussion of the role of Confucian culture practice in the employee's work enthusiasm of the internal mechanism of rare;
On the other hand, the staff work enthusiasm, pay attention to the influence of the company's dominant system, training, social support, organizational resources, organizational environment, family support or psychological contract on employees' work motivation. How does it affect the psychological contract between the employee and the enterprise from the perspective of Confucian culture, and feedback to the employee's work enthusiasm.Different from previous studies, this research focuses on the research paradigm of"Confucian cultural practice-employee work enthusiasm", and takes aokang international as the research object to describe the Confucian cultural practice in detail, this paper analyzes the inner mechanism of aokang international Confucian culture's influence on employees' work enthusiasm, and probes into the after-effect of this influence on enterprise performance. Moreover, this study also makes a multi-level empirical analysis on the paradigm of"Confucian culture practice-employee work enthusiasm" with the help of the data of micro-listed companies, also pay attention to the heterogeneity of the law, the inherent logic. Therefore, this study provides information-rich evidence from case studies and mathematical evidence.

Commodities refer to physical commodities that can enter the circulation field, but are not in the retail sector, have commodity properties, and are used for large-scale buying and selling in industrial and agricultural production and consumption. In the financial investment market, commodities refer to commodities that are homogeneous, tradable, and widely used as industrial basic raw materials, such as crude oil, non-ferrous metals, steel, agricultural products, iron ore, coal, etc. Commodities are an important component of China's national economy, and many varieties involve the national economy and people's livelihood. Their production capacity and demand are among the top in the world.

In 2021, the trading volume of China's futures market reached a historic high, with significant growth for three consecutive years. In 2021, the trading volume of China's futures market reached 7.514 billion transactions (unilateral) and 58.1.2 trillion yuan, with year-on-year growth of 22.13% and 32.84%, respectively. According to the annual trading volume data compiled by the Futures Industry Association (FIA), the Zhengzhou Stock Exchange, Shanghai Futures Exchange, Dalian Commodity Exchange, and CICC ranked 7th, 8th, 9th, and 27th in global futures and options trading volume rankings, respectively. In the 2021 global trading volume ranking of metal varieties, Chinese varieties occupy 9 out of the top 10 and 13 out of the top 20, including threaded steel, hot-rolled coil, iron ore, ferrosilicon, manganese silicon, etc.

Traditional hedging strategies focus on a single product, typically involving companies hedging the prices of end products or important production raw materials. At present, traditional hedging strategies can no longer meet the needs of physical enterprise production management, and it is necessary to establish hedging strategies that match the rapidly changing domestic and international markets. Thanks to the continuous enrichment of products in China's futures market, it is possible for enterprises to replicate the upstream and downstream industrial chain products involved in terminal product production through the combination of target products in the futures market.

The research in this article has made contributions from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

At the theoretical level, this article innovatively incorporates futures price factors into the mechanism of the classical Cournot yield game equilibrium model. In the process, this article draws inspiration from the ideas of Bayesian methods, making the future price of goods determined by both spot and futures prices, changing the original price generation method, and thus innovating the model. Subsequently, this article derived the optimal production arrangement of the Cournot production game equilibrium model considering futures market prices on an innovative model. By analyzing the optimal production formula, this article found that enterprises considering futures market profits can better arrange their own production and obtain competitive advantages.

At the practical level, this article has done two aspects of work. Firstly, this article uses classic statistical regression methods to conduct a statistical test on whether hot coil products can be hedged based on futures trading profits. It is worth mentioning that this article is not only based on the idea of statistical regression, but also considers actual production processes, and conducts statistical tests on the residuals of pure statistical regression and profits based on actual production processes. The results indicate that both pure statistical regression and profit formulas based on actual production processes conform to the assumption of mean regression, indicating that hedging hot coil varieties based on futures market profits is completely feasible. Subsequently, this article proposes various hedging strategies to verify the superiority of hedging schemes based on futures trading profits. This article constructs two sets of hedging strategies, and compares the performance of single variety hedging strategies and hedging strategies based on hot coil futures market profits in each group. Through backtesting with historical data, this article found that hedging strategies based on hot coil futures trading profits have a higher opening frequency, higher investment returns, and lower volatility, all of which are superior to traditional single variety hedging strategies. Moreover, the single variety hedging strategy will also be affected by macroeconomic factors such as inflation, resulting in a decrease in the effectiveness of price percentiles.

This article also summarizes the risk points of the hedging scheme for industrial chain futures trading profits, and proposes a risk management plan for the risk points, in order to facilitate enterprises to effectively manage risks when using this hedging scheme. This article summarizes three types of risks: strategic risk, operational risk, and fundamental risk, and provides countermeasures for these three types of risks, such as daily exposure management, monitoring of strategic risk indicators, and fundamental research. It also provides key points for enterprise industry chain hedging.

Keywords: Hot coil industry chain; Futures hedging; Cournot equilibrium; risk management
 

The VUCA era has resulted in significant uncertainty in the global economy, while deglobalization in international politics and economics, and the interweaving of old and new contradictions, have presented substantial challenges to businesses. On the other hand, aging is a crucial issue that China and the world at large are currently facing. It is essential to study the relationship between employee age structure and enterprise performance, particularly for Chinese companies that emphasize the importance of social status and respect for authority under Confucian culture. 
Different researchers have provided empirical analyses of the effects of age diversity on organizational performance and innovation, but the conclusions are not consistent. According to the research in this paper, age diversity has a negative impact on enterprise performance, which means the richer the diversity of age, the hindering knowledge transfer between young and older workers, ultimately weakening the company's overall performance. However, this negative effect can be mitigated in the face of an increasingly complex and competitive market environment that promotes more knowledge transfer between elder and younger employees.
The paper analyzes the relationship between employee age diversity in enterprises and their business performance and innovation. It reveals the critical mediating role played by knowledge transfer between older and younger employees within organizations in the impact of age diversity on organizational performance and innovation processes. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on the impact of age diversity of employee to the company performance and innovation. This paper enriches the study of the effects of employee age diversity and provides a critical reference for organizations to better help employees cope with the challenges brought by the age structure in a new situation filled with uncertainty.
 

The Internet, serving as a representative of emerging media, has spawned numerous new professions in the realm of social production, reshaping the landscape of traditional media. This transformation has profoundly influenced the career trajectories of young individuals, leading to a surge in creators on various internet content platforms. In China, the number of content creators on these platforms has surpassed ten million, but income distribution remains unequal. While top creators reap substantial profits, a significant number of mid-tier and micro-tier creators struggle with profitability, encountering career development bottlenecks. Content creators seek more valuable career options, developmental advice, and effective tools to enhance their creative endeavors. On one hand, due to saturated fields and the impact of the pandemic, and on the other hand, with the limited monetization potential and low success rates of Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs), the non-replicability of top influencers, and incidents like contract terminations, MCN companies fail to showcase advanced business models. Perhaps, digitalizing MCNs is a crucial step in boosting the profitability of such companies. Navigating a clear career path for content creators within China's current internet content ecosystem is imperative. Ensuring the success of every content creator dedicated to innovation not only benefits this vast community but also has positive implications for social stability. To address these issues, this study is designed to explore three series, focusing on the novelty of works, the personal style of creators, and the incubation strategies of MCNs, respectively, providing a theoretical foundation for the continuous growth and success of creators.
Substudy One delved into the analysis of creators on Bilibili's Knowledge Zone, specifically those with a fan base exceeding 10,000. We scrutinized all 247,972 works published by 7,310 creators from January 2021 to January 2022. The analysis encompassed various data points, including gender, fan count, views, likes, comments, and the content and quantity of tags. Novelty in works was measured by the relative frequency of tag combinations, revealing a positive U-shaped correlation between work novelty and variables such as views, likes, and comments.
In Substudy Two, we applied a multimodal modeling approach to delve into the research and regression analysis of influencer profiles, investigating how creator styles impact their creative performance. Our study focused on beauty creators on Bilibili with a fan base exceeding 10,000, using videos, audio, and text content from all their works between January 2021 and January 2022 as research samples. We analyzed a 15% sample of creators (129 creators with a total of 1,118 videos). Through multimodal modeling of works and factor analysis of creator styles, we identified six types of blogger styles in the sample: Casual, Energetic, Professional, Sweet, Affable, and Attractive. The regression results revealed that the "Attractive" style has a positive impact on fan count, suggesting that attractiveness may be a key factor in attracting fans for beauty bloggers. The "Sweet" style positively influences the number of video barrage comments, indicating that creators with a sweet style are more effective at engaging audience interaction. This study employs data to quantitatively describe creator personal styles and explore the relationship between creator styles and creative efficacy.
Substudy Three, incorporating internal influencer management data from MCN agencies and conducting case analyses, seeks to uncover how MCN agencies' influencer incubation management strategies aid creators in overcoming creative bottlenecks and fostering growth. The study focused on four influencers incubated by MCN agencies, involving interviews with influencers’ agents, directors, and others. The research included organizing management records and influencer data during the incubation process, resulting in a three-stage model of the influencer's "breaking through" journey: the Development-Stagnation Period, Transition Period, and Second Growth Period. In the Development-Stagnation Period, influencers, starting from their own identity or skills, accumulate a significant fan base with MCN agencies' assistance, overcoming initial bottlenecks. Progressing into the Transition Period, MCN agencies help influencers establish new personas, broaden their horizons, and surpass bottlenecks. The third stage is the Second Growth Period, during which the influencer's new persona gains market acceptance, fan growth accelerates, and user profiles experience breakthroughs. Across these stages, MCN agencies gradually establish comprehensive incubation records and comprehensive quality assessment forms to guide subsequent influencer signings and incubation. This study delineates how MCN agencies' incubation management strategies assist influencers in breaking through bottlenecks and growing, offering guidance on aligning MCN agency strategies with influencer development.
Drawing from these discoveries, this study's theoretical significance is prominently evident in three key aspects. Firstly, it unveils the influence of the novelty on the creative performance of various types of videos, rectifying the existing oversight in research on content creation platforms that neglects the novelty aspect. Secondly, the study comprehensively delineates the "style" of content creators and validates its impact on creative performance, addressing the superficial and one-sided characterization of creator features in existing research. Thirdly, the study sheds light on the collaborative process of content creators and MCNs achieving transformation and second growth, bridging the gap in existing research that often focuses more on the short-term impacts of work and creator features on creative performance while overlooking the long-term inadequacies of MCN agency incubation management strategies and creator growth.
The practical significance of this study for influencer content creation is paramount as it furnishes digital tools for influencers. Simultaneously, the practical outcomes of this research are advantageous for MCN agencies to manage and incubate influencers more scientifically. The study employs big data analysis methods to construct the TVA model for creator profiling, develops an influencer incubation model, and visualizes the incubation process. In conclusion, we also discuss the limitations of this study and potential avenues for future research.

Technological innovation in enterprises is not only the core of competition among firms but also a key driving force for economic growth. The process of corporate technological innovation often requires substantial financial support. However, due to information asymmetry and capital constraints, tech startups face numerous obstacles in technological innovation, making it difficult to sustain innovation. Venture capital plays a critical role in stimulating continuous corporate innovation, providing a solid financial backbone for corporate innovative activities, and playing a pivotal role in promoting core technological breakthroughs. As a significant embodiment of corporate innovative technology, patents can alleviate the information asymmetry between startups and investors by forming a positive patent signal from different perspectives. Therefore, exploring the impact of different types of patent signals on the financing accessibility of tech startups is of significant practical importance. It not only has profound implications for promoting the integration of technology and finance bust also aids the development of small and medium-sized technology enterprises.

This paper compiles a database of financing events for tech startups in the field of advanced manufacturing and healthcare, integrating a full sample of patent data information for these startups. The study finally collects 28,610 financing events and 1,897,517 patent records from January 1992 to March 2024. It constructs patent signals based on quantity, quality, commercial, legal, and technological similarity from the perspectives of the company's independence and its associations. Then, we establish regression models to explore the impact of these variables on tech startups’ financing accessibility. The moderating effect of venture capital’s reputation and attention on the effect of patent signals is further examined. Furthermore, this paper explores the differences in the impact of patent signals on financing accessibility among companies at different technological attributes and financing stages. Lastly, the paper uses survival analysis model to address potential endogeneity issues by testing the impact of patent signals on the likelihood of obtaining financing in subsequent rounds.

The findings of this study are as follows: (1) From an independent perspective, the quantity, quality, commercial, and legal signals generally help startups to obtain larger financing volumes, with patent quantity and quality signal having a greater impact on financing volume. By comparison, the commercial and legal signals of patents have a relatively smaller impact on the cumulative number of investment rounds than on financing volume. (2) From an associative perspective, the technological similarity signal also has a significant positive impact on the likelihood of startups obtaining financing. Besides, this effect is greater than that of independent company-level patent signals. (3) The moderating mechanism analysis shows that the reputation of venture capitals significantly weakens the positive impact of patent signals on financing accessibility, whereas limited attention from investors significantly enhances the effect of technological similarity signals on financing accessibility. (4) Heterogeneity tests indicate that different technological attributes and financing stages of companies affect the impact of patent signals on financing accessibility, but the differences in the magnitude of impact are not substantial. (5) The survival analysis in the robustness tests show that the impact of various patent signals on financing accessibility remains robust after considering endogeneity issues.

The contributions of this paper are threefold: Firstly, at the theoretical level, it enriches the study of the relationship between patent signals and financing accessibility from multiple perspectives such as quantity, quality, commercial, legal, and technological similarity, refining the application of signaling theory in the field of venture capital. Secondly, from methodological side, the paper applies cutting-edge deep learning algorithms and textual analysis to construct a corporate-patent-technology topic graph. Based on the patent text data, this paper innovatively constructs a technological similarity index among startups and extend the measurement of technological association and similarity indicators into Chinese startup financing market. Finally, on the practical side, this paper offers references for strategic decision-making in R&D investment and patent deployment for tech startups. It provides insights for government policy in patent information management and disclosure. Additionally, it enhances venture capital involvement in tech startups, suggesting ways to accelerate the integration of technology and finance.

Keywords: Patent Signals, Technological Similarity, Financing Accessibility, Venture Capital’s Reputation, Venture Capital’s Attention 
 

“Hard technology” is of great national strategic importance and is a sharp tool to invigorate a country with its innovations and advantages. That is how China Science and Technology Innovation Board (STIB) came into being in Shanghai Stock Exchange. When evaluating whether a company on STIB is equipped with “hard technology”, its science and technology innovation attributes should be the essential and core features to look at.
Therefore, it is in need in the market to find an effective way to evaluate an issuer's science and technology innovation (STI) attributes, as well as their impact on the margin of a successful listing and post-listing performance. How to weight the importance of different STI evaluation indicators? How to create a comprehensive index to effectively evaluate a Issuer's STI attributes, as well as whether the contribution degree of each attribute is balanced? Whether or not these STI attributes make a significant difference in the margin of a successful IPO for enterprises of different types and with different property rights natures. All these questions wait for answers.
Consulting the relevant literature, few scholars have studied the success rate of technology-based enterprises and their post-listing performance. In this paper, a principal component analysis method is innovatively used to create a science and technology attribute evaluation index, and a regression model is constructed for empirical research. The conclusions of the study show that the STI attributes significantly improve the issuers listing success rate of issuers and are positively correlated with their long-term performance after listing, while short-term performance is under pressure. There are significant differences in the contribution of individual science and technology innovation attributes to the comprehensive evaluation index, and the size is the R&D investment intensity, the R&D investment level, the personnel structure, and the level of patents. It has no significant impact on the listing success rate of enterprises of different types and different property rights natures. The research results of this paper make certain contributions to empowering China’s Strategy of Scientific and Technological Powerhouse, as well as the STIB Registration-Based IPO Mechanism reform, and are of great significance to market participants such as government decision-makers, investment institutions, and issuers.
Key Words：Registration-Based IPO Mechanism, Science and Technology Innovation Board, Science and Technology Innovation Attributes, IPO Success Rate, Performance
 

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of entrepreneurial projects led by scientists and technologists, and the issue of the probability of success of such ventures has come under scrutiny. Many views suggest that entrepreneurs with technical backgrounds can lead to good firm performance, but this is significantly at odds with the reality of high-tech industries. This study finds an entry point and a theoretical gap area to study the relationship between entrepreneurs' technological background and firm performance in entrepreneurial firms in terms of this contradiction between the theory and the phenomenon.
This study builds an analytical framework, research hypotheses and econometric model between entrepreneurs' technological background and firm performance with the help of theoretical foundations such as high-order laddering theory and attention theory. Primary data on the technical background characteristics of entrepreneurs are hand-collected and organized from public channels such as corporate websites, search engines, and industrial and commercial information websites, and data related to the operation of enterprises are collected and organized from CSMAR databases, annual reports of enterprises, third-party databases such as Oriental Fortune, Flush IFind, etc., and a combination of primary and secondary data is used as the main data source. Considering that the impact of major public health events on the production and operation of enterprises in 2020 leads to data distortion, this study adopts five years of operation data before 2019, and establishes the operation data of New Third Board listed specialized and new enterprises from 2015 to 2019 at the reporting time as the sample database. Using statistical analysis software and fixed-effects regression analysis model for empirical testing, the correlation between entrepreneurs' technical background and enterprise performance is demonstrated. On the basis of empirical research, this study also selects cases of entrepreneurial enterprises with typical significance, and thoroughly analyzes and comparatively researches the influence paths and role mechanisms of founders' technical background on enterprise performance from several dimensions such as founders' professional and technical experience, entrepreneurial experience, enterprise business behavior and enterprise performance.
The study led to three main conclusions:
(1) There are significant differences in the mechanisms by which entrepreneurs' technological background characteristics affect the performance of firms at different life cycle stages: entrepreneurs' technological background significantly affects firms' innovation performance and has a negative impact in developmental and growth stage firms; entrepreneurs' technological background significantly affects firms' market performance and has a negative impact in developmental and growth stage firms.
(2) Technology background entrepreneurs influence firm performance in the early stages of development through two mechanisms. First, the entrepreneur's professional and technical experience affects his or her personality traits and behavioral traits. The scientist mentality, shortcomings in market and customer understanding, and lack of experience in business management of entrepreneurs with technical backgrounds lead to a tendency to make wrong decisions in the areas of technological development, commercialization, and internal management, which, in turn, affects the firm's performance. Second, entrepreneurs tend to have significant control in start-up and growth firms, which has a strong impact on business strategy and, in turn, on firm performance. Under the mutual complementarity and interaction of the two mechanisms, the business management weaknesses of entrepreneurs with technical backgrounds can easily be magnified, which in turn can have a greater negative impact on business operations. 
(3) Science and technology enterprises should focus on the balance between technological innovation and commercialization, and should enhance their ability to sustain innovation by optimizing their corporate governance structure and management team configuration. Commercial success is an important criterion to measure the value of technological innovation, and commercialization and marketization are the primary orientation and driving force for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and technological innovation. Startups need to focus on the balance between technological innovation and commercialization from the very beginning, and put this balance into practice through the corporate governance structure and management team structure. On the one hand, technology background entrepreneurs need to continuously strengthen their awareness of commercialization and build up their business management capacity, and on the other hand, they also need to take the initiative to make organizational changes and achieve balanced development of technological innovation and commercialization through diversification of the management team with the help of financing or the introduction of business management talents, which is of positive significance in enhancing corporate performance.
 

Since the reform and opening up, with the continuous development of China's economy and society, the demand for enterprises to undertake and fulfill social responsibilities has become increasingly high, and social donations are an important way for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities. Through social donations, enterprises can use funds, materials and other resources to support social welfare, education, medical and other fields, help solve social problems, and promote harmonious social development. In addition, social donations can help improve a company's image and brand value, enhance consumer trust and support for the company, promote sustainable development, enhance competitiveness and innovation capabilities, cultivate corporate culture and employee awareness, and enhance employees' sense of belonging and responsibility. In the 1990s, the concept of corporate social responsibility was introduced to China, and social donation behavior with enterprises as the main body has experienced rapid development in China. From the perspective of the impact of enterprise size on social donation behavior, small and medium-sized enterprises have poor risk resistance and limited resources, so they participate less in social donation behavior. At present, there is a slight lack of research in the academic community on social donations by small and medium-sized enterprises. There is little attention paid to the influencing factors and financial performance of social donations by small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, this article takes the determining factors and performance effects of donation behavior by small and medium-sized enterprises as the research object to explore and study related issues.
In terms of theoretical research, firstly, this article defines relevant concepts from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises and social donation behavior, with a focus on elaborating on the "Standard Regulations for the Classification of Small and Medium sized Enterprises" jointly formulated by four ministries, and briefly analyzing the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises and their impact on social donations. Secondly, this article analyzes the relevant theories of social donations by small and medium-sized enterprises, with a focus on elaborating on the theories of external stakeholders and legitimacy. Once again, this article has summarized and organized relevant literature at home and abroad, focusing on the study of corporate donation behavior, influencing factors of corporate donation behavior, performance effects of corporate donation behavior, and donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises. Finally, this question elaborates on the relevant research hypotheses from the perspectives of the impact of customer donation level and industry donation level on social donations of small and medium-sized enterprises, and proposes research hypotheses on the relationship between social donations of small and medium-sized enterprises and their financial performance.
Based on the above analysis, this article conducted case studies and empirical research. Firstly, this article selects five listed companies as interviewees and conducts an analysis and research on the social donations made by small and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises based on the comparison of interview results. Secondly, this article selected small and medium-sized board listed companies as the research object, obtained relevant data from the Guotai An database, and conducted research using panel regression models, moderating effect models, etc. From the results of case analysis and empirical research, the main conclusions are as follows: (1) Customer donation level has a promoting effect on the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (2) The concentration of customers has a positive moderating effect on the impact of customer donations on the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (3) The operating profit margin of enterprises plays a positive moderating role in the process of customer donations affecting the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (4) The level of industry donations has a promoting effect on the donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (5) The degree of industry competition will have a positive moderating effect on the impact of social donation levels on the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry; (6) The degree of positive deviation of performance from peers plays a positive moderating role in the impact of industry social donation levels on the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (7) The negative deviation of performance from peers plays a negative moderating role in the impact of industry social donation levels on the social donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises; (8) The donation behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises has a promoting effect on their financial performance. Based on the above research conclusions, this article mainly proposes relevant policy recommendations from the perspectives of the government and enterprises.