Incentive Mechanism Research Articles

ESG disclosures, green innovation, and greenwashing: All for sustainable development?

AbstractAs stakeholder concerns about corporate sustainability intensify, greenwashing—where companies deceptively report their environmental performance for short‐term economic gain—poses a significant threat to long‐term sustainability, making it crucial to explore effective ways to curb this practice. Using data from 1,270 Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this study constructs two‐way fixed effects and moderating effects models to explore the crucial role of green innovation in curbing greenwashing. Green innovation not only reduces the incentives for greenwashing, but also makes a genuine contribution to environmental protection, thus promoting a “win‐win” scenario for both sustainability and corporate development. Moreover, the positive impact of green innovation on curbing greenwashing can be significantly amplified by easing financial constraints and enhancing firms’ risk‐taking capabilities to foster a stable financial environment, as well as by strengthening the governance structure through increased gender diversity and environmental background among managers. Heterogeneity tests show that this pathway is particularly effective in companies with heavy pollution and higher economic performance. The research findings help to formulate more effective management strategies and incentive mechanisms to reduce greenwashing and achieve sustainable development.

The impact of organizational incentives on the loyalty of studying abroad teachers in Hainan, China: The mediating role of organizational commitment

Competition in higher education is essentially a competition for talent, particularly manifested in the competition among high-level university teachers. Therefore, enhancing teachers' loyalty to their profession and universities, controlling talent turnover, and establishing a responsible and well-structured teaching staff are fundamental to the sustainable development of universities. This study, based on the motivation-hygiene theory, utilized convenience sampling to conduct a questionnaire survey on internationally studying teachers from 21 universities in Hainan Province, China. A total of 667 valid questionnaires were collected, and a structural equation model was employed to investigate the influence of organizational incentives in Hainan's universities on the loyalty of international teaching staff; as well as the mediating effect of organizational commitment of international teachers between organizational incentives and loyalty. The research results show that both organizational incentives and organizational commitment can positively predict teachers' loyalty, and organizational incentives can positively predict organizational commitment. Organizational commitment plays a partial mediating role between organizational incentives and teachers' loyalty. Based on this, this study suggests that university administrators should establish a reasonable incentive mechanism and cultivate the organizational commitment of overseas-study teachers, in order to comprehensively enhance the loyalty of overseas-study teachers and ensure the stability of the teaching staff.

Research on Incentive Mechanism for Graduate Students Research and Innovation in the Context of Educational Powerhouse

In the context of a strategic vision of education as a driver of national strength, the optimisation of incentive mechanisms for postgraduate research innovation has emerged as a key area of focus within the current education policy landscape. The issues and underlying causes are examined in detail from a range of perspectives, including Policy and regulations, academic environment, Incentive mechanism, Mentor support. Ultimately, recommendations are presented regarding the improvement of the incentive mechanism, the reinforcement of tutor guidance, the optimisation of the evaluation system. These suggestions aim to provide theoretical and practical guidance for the optimisation of postgraduate research and innovation incentives, thereby enhancing the capabilities of postgraduate scientific research and innovation.

A Review of Research on Employee Incentive Mechanisms and Firm Performance from the Perspective of Behavioral Economics

This paper reviews the relationship between employee incentives and corporate performance from the perspective of behavioral economics. As the limitations of traditional material incentive theory gradually emerge, behavioral economics provides new theoretical support for the optimization of incentive mechanisms. This paper first explores the core concepts of behavioral economics, including loss aversion, intrinsic motivation, framing effects and social norms, and compares them with traditional incentive theories. By analyzing the additions and modifications of behavioral economics to incentives, it reveals how it affects incentive design, which in turn improves employee motivation and corporate performance. In addition, this paper demonstrates the successful application of behavioral economics principles in corporate incentives by combining practical cases and discusses the marginal effects and potential problems of incentives. Finally, this paper summarizes the effectiveness of the application of behavioral economics in the design of incentives and proposes directions for future research, such as personalized incentives, long-term incentive effects, cross-cultural research and technology-driven incentive design. The study shows that by scientifically designing incentive mechanisms, companies can more effectively motivate employees, improve overall performance, and achieve long-term sustainable development.

The Effects of Government Subsidies and Tax Incentives on Technological Innovation: Based on the Enterprise Life Cycle Perspective

Government subsidies and tax relief are important means of national strategic regulation and control, which effectively promote the technological innovation and development of enterprises. With the effective implementation of the national innovation-driven development strategy in recent years, it is of great significance to fully stimulate the technological innovation activities of enterprises. To encourage technological innovation of enterprises, government departments have formulated a series of preferential policies and increased the support for enterprises, among which government subsidies and preferential tax policies have played an important role. Based on the perspective of the life cycle, this paper analyzes the impact of government subsidies and preferential tax policies on different stages of the enterprise life cycle based on theoretical analysis and practical investigation. This paper probes into the influence mechanism of government subsidies and tax incentives on promoting technological innovation of enterprises, and puts forward some suggestions to improve it, to provide ideas for the future development of enterprises.

Research on the Elements of Public Administration Participation in China

Public administrative participation in China is an organic system centered on the legal relationship between the administrative subject and the administrative counterpart. This organic system consists of multiple elements, mainly including the subject, object, method, and effectiveness of public administrative participation. Factors affecting the effective integration of various elements of public administrative participation in China include imperfect legal systems, insufficient operability, and the absence of incentive mechanisms. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an equal public administrative participation model from the legal and institutional levels, enhance the public’s willingness to participate in public administration and enrich the ways of public administrative participation.

Mechanism design of EVs fast charging rights for enhanced vehicle-to-grid regulation

With the advancement of policy initiatives and technological developments, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interactions have emerged as a critical focus within power system research. Despite numerous current studies on V2G, the exploration of incentive mechanisms to encourage user participation in these systems remains comparatively underdeveloped. This study proposes an innovative demand response (DR) incentive mechanism for electric vehicles (EVs) grounded in the regulation of fast charging powers via strategically assigning and allocating virtual points defined as fast charging right (FCR). The primary objective of this mechanism is to meet the power regulation requirements of DR while simultaneously balancing the grid’s response costs and accommodating the charging demands of EV users. Through simulation and comparative analysis with the existing pilot DR incentive mechanisms, the results demonstrate that the proposed mechanism outperforms the current model in three critical aspects: power regulation efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and user experience. In addition, this paper investigates the performance of the incentive mechanisms in both online and offline scheduling environments. The findings reveal that the FCR mechanism maintains robust power regulation performance even under online scheduling conditions.

User Behavior Analysis and Optimization Countermeasures in Shopping APP Interface Design

In this study, the interface design and marketing strategy of shopping APP were deeply discussed, and a series of optimization countermeasures were put forward. The principles of interface design and user behavior are analyzed, and the design problems such as information overload, complicated navigation, low usage frequency and high user loss are pointed out. The countermeasures of interface design optimization, user behavior guidance and marketing strategy adjustment are put forward, including simplifying interface, optimizing navigation, personalized recommendation, incentive mechanism, brand building and marketing promotion. These measures are aimed at improving user experience, enhancing user stickiness and enhancing market competitiveness. Through this research, it provides theoretical basis and practical guidance for shopping APP interface design optimization and market strategy adjustment.

Research on Practice Teaching Mode of Electrical Engineering based on Innovative Talent Cultivation

With the rapid development of science and technology, the electrical engineering field has an increasingly urgent need for high-quality talents with innovative spirit. In order to comply with this trend, it is particularly important to build a practical teaching mode of electrical engineering with innovative talent cultivation as the core. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the strategies of improving the innovation ability and practical ability of electrical engineering students by clarifying the teaching objectives, strengthening the combination of theory and practice, innovating the teaching mode, constructing advanced experimental and practical training platforms, deepening the cooperation between schools and enterprises, perfecting the ability assessment and feedback mechanism, constructing a diversified cultivation system, and establishing an effective incentive mechanism.

Tax incentives and environmental performance: The pay-as-you-throw policy in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

This study investigates the impact of implementing the pay-as-you-throw policy as a fiscal incentive mechanism for municipal waste management across municipalities in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Utilizing panel data from 2010 to 2022 and employing a synthetic control with staggered treatment adoption, we evaluate the policy's effects on environmental and local public finance performances. Our findings reveal that treated municipalities witness an average 10% increase in separate waste collection alongside a parallel reduction in municipal waste production since the policy outset, equating to approximately 60 kg per capita annually. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the policy enables local governments to reduce current energy and environmental expenditures by roughly €130 per capita annually in our optimal model. Notably, results hold robust across three recently developed estimators using difference-in-differences with staggered treatment adoption over time. The policy proves overall effectiveness in promoting circularity within municipal waste management systems, leading to better environmental performances, and decreased environmental management expenses. These implications underscore the potential value for local governments to adopt similar strategies where not yet envisaged.

Top Management Team Heterogeneity, Top Management Incentives, and ESG Performance: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

The challenge of balancing economic and social benefits has emerged as a critical issue for corporate sustainable development. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are key considerations for enterprises aiming to enhance both social and economic benefits simultaneously. Based on the upper echelons theory, differences in cognitive foundations and values brought about by top management team heterogeneity can influence corporate decisions. Taking A-share listed companies in China from 2011 to 2022 as samples, we construct a two-way fixed-effects model by firm and year to explore the impact of top management team heterogeneity on corporate ESG performance, and we introduce top management incentives as a moderating variable to further analyze the underlying mechanisms. Our results demonstrate that the gender heterogeneity, functional background heterogeneity, and overseas background heterogeneity of top management teams have significant positive impacts on corporate ESG performance, and monetary compensation incentives and control incentives to top management teams play a positive moderating role, while equity incentives exhibits a negative moderating effect. These findings remain robust across alternative measures of corporate ESG ratings and monetary and control incentives, and through the SYS-GMM model test and instrumental variable approach to address endogeneity. This research contributes to the literature on corporate ESG by validating and extending the understanding of how top management team characteristics affect organizational outcomes, and it provides practical guidance for enhancing corporate ESG practices. The implications of this study suggest that to enhance corporate ESG performance, enterprises should prioritize the promotion of top management team heterogeneity and tailor their incentive mechanisms accordingly.

Adaptive incentive mechanism with predictors for on-time attended home delivery problem

The widespread use of the Internet and smart devices has led to a fast growth in online shopping, offering new chances for online retailers to boost profits. However, this expansion has also brought various challenges, such as the heavy workload faced by delivery riders. To meet customers’ delivery time preferences and increase earnings, riders often work long hours, especially during busy periods. This study explores how historical delivery data can be used to balance workload in on-time attended home delivery. Drawing on the actual delivery operations and data of an online shopping platform, we propose a framework that combines delivery demand and customer behavior predictors with an adaptive incentive system to balance rider workload. Specifically focusing on same-day attended home delivery, we introduce a method to forecast future delivery demand, an algorithm to estimate customer choice behavior using a simple model, and an adaptive incentive system to influence customer decisions and achieve workload balance. We show that as order volume increases, the proposed incentive system achieves the pre-determined workload target. Using real data, we conduct numerical experiments which not only underscore the superior predictive performance of our models but also affirm the efficacy of the proposed incentive structure.

Securing the internet’s backbone: A blockchain-based and incentive-driven architecture for DNS cache poisoning defense

Domain Name System (DNS) is the backbone of the Internet infrastructure, converting human-friendly domain names into machine-processable IP addresses. However, DNS remains vulnerable to various security threats, such as cache poisoning attacks, where malicious attackers inject false information into DNS resolvers’ caches. Although efforts have been made to enhance DNS against such vulnerabilities, existing countermeasures often fall short in one or more areas: they may offer limited resistance to the collusion attack, introduce significant overhead, or require complex implementation that hinders widespread adoption. To address these challenges, this paper introduces TI-DNS+, a trusted and incentivized blockchain-based DNS resolution architecture for cache poisoning defense. TI-DNS+ introduces a Verification Cache exploiting blockchain ledger’s immutable nature to detect and correct forged DNS responses. The architecture also incorporates a multi-resolver Query Vote mechanism, enhancing the ledger’s credibility by validating each record modification through a stake-weighted algorithm. This algorithm selects resolvers as validators based on their stake proportion. To promote well-behaved participation, TI-DNS+ also implements a novel stake-based incentive mechanism that optimizes the generation and distribution of stake rewards. This ensures that incentives align with participants’ contributions, achieving incentive compatibility, fairness, and efficiency. Moreover, TI-DNS+ possesses high practicability as it requires only resolver-side modifications to current DNS. Finally, through comprehensive prototyping and experimental evaluations, the results demonstrate that our solution effectively mitigates DNS cache poisoning. Compared to competitors, our solution improves attack resistance by 1-3 orders of magnitude, while also reducing resolution latency by 5% to 68%.

Distributed Learning in Intelligent Transportation Systems: A Survey

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and self-driving technology is expected to enhance intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) by improving road safety and mobility, increasing traffic flow, and reducing vehicle emissions in the near future. In an ITS, each autonomous vehicle acts as a node with its own local machine learning models, which can be updated using locally collected data. However, for autonomous vehicles to learn effective models, they must be able to learn from data sources provided by other vehicles and infrastructure, utilizing innovative learning methods to adapt to various autonomous driving scenarios. Distributed learning plays a crucial role in implementing these learning tasks in an ITS. This review provides a systematic overview of distributed learning in the field of ITSs. Within an ITS, vehicles can engage in distributed learning by interacting with peers through opportunistic encounters and clustering. This study examines the challenges associated with distributed learning, focusing on issues related to privacy and security in data intelligence sharing, communication quality and speed, and trust. Through a thorough analysis of these challenges, this study presents potential research avenues to address these issues, including the utilization of incentive mechanisms that rely on reputation, the adoption of rapid convergence techniques, and the integration of opportunistic federated learning with blockchain technology.

Impact of entrepreneurship on technological innovation in the digital age: a knowledge management perspective

PurposeThis study aims to use the knowledge management perspective to examine the mechanism through which entrepreneurship drives firms’ technological innovation in the digital age. The objective is to develop a multi-stage integrated theoretical model to explain how entrepreneurship exerts its influence on firms’ technological innovation with a particular focus on the knowledge management perspective. The findings can be used for the cultivation of entrepreneurship and for the promotion of continuous technological innovation activities.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a case-based qualitative approach to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The authors first analyze the case of SANY and then explore the mechanism of how entrepreneurship can promote a firm’s technological innovation from the perspective of knowledge management based on the technology-organization-environment framework. An integrated theoretical model is then developed in this study.FindingsBased on a case study, the authors propose that there are three main processes of knowledge management in firms’ technological innovation: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge creation. In the process of knowledge acquisition, the joint effects of innovation spirit, learning spirit, cooperation spirit and global vision drive the construction and its healthy development of firms’ innovation ecosystem. In the process of knowledge integration, the joint effects of innovation spirit, cooperation spirit and learning spirit help complete the integration of knowledge and further the accumulation of firms’ core knowledge resources. In the process of knowledge creation, the joint effects of mission spirit, learning spirit and innovation spirit encourage the top management team to establish long-term goals and innovation philosophy. This philosophy can promote the establishment of a people-oriented incentive mechanism that helps achieve the transformation from the accumulation of core knowledge resources to the research and innovation of core technologies. After these three stages, firms are passively engaged in the “reverse transfer of knowledge” step, which contributes to other firms’ knowledge management cycle. With active knowledge acquisition, integration, creation and passive reverse knowledge transfer, firms can achieve continuous technological innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has important theoretical implications in entrepreneurship research. This study helps advance the understanding of entrepreneurship and literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the digital age, which can broaden the application of knowledge management theories. It can also help better understand how to develop healthy firm-led innovation ecosystems to achieve continuous optimization of knowledge and technological innovation in the digital age.Originality/valueThis study proposes an integrated theoretical model to address the issues of entrepreneurship and firms’ technological innovation in the digital age, and it is also one of few studies that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation from a knowledge management perspective.

A Construction of Virtual Reality Technology Teaching Model to Improve Table Tennis Skills for University Students

Background and Aims: To explore and build virtual reality physical education courses, and create a new teaching model of "VR+ teaching" to improve the quality of talent training and teaching effect. This study will build a teaching model of virtual reality technology to improve college students' table tennis skills, trying to enable learners to complete real-time interaction of multiple senses with the help of sensing devices in virtual sports situations, and then combine the goal incentive and feedback mechanism to improve students' self-efficacy and learning interest, which can not only promote the diversified development of sports skill learning but also promote the development of sports skill learning. It also provides a reference for the application of virtual reality technology in physical education. The purpose of this study is to construct of virtual reality technology teaching model to improve table tennis skills for university students. Methodology: The survey included faculty and students at the three universities. Current number of teachers and students: Yunnan University has 1855 students and 66 teachers; Yunnan Normal University has 1980 students and 95 teachers. Yunnan Minzu University has 1531 students and 65 teachers. In this study, the experts were interviewed by telephone interview, face-to-face interview, and summary interview, using the method of interview outline. Questionnaires were distributed to students and teachers on-site and by webmail. The Delphi Method expert questionnaire was issued to 19 experts. Results: Most of the teachers are willing to use virtual reality technology to teach table tennis. They think virtual reality technology will improve their teaching effectiveness. Construct a virtual reality teaching model for improving college students' table tennis skills, and construct a virtual reality teaching model for improving college students' table tennis skills from five dimensions: teaching idea, teaching goal, teaching content, teaching process, and teaching evaluation. Most people agree on all issues (IQR range 0.00-1). Conclusion: Virtual reality technology is applied to table tennis teaching in colleges and universities so that students can quickly enter the role, and effectively improve the dull feeling caused by being bored and unable to hit the ball in the learning process of table tennis. While learning table tennis knowledge and skills, learners actively explore and complete the construction of new knowledge. It provides a new teaching concept for the reform of table tennis teaching and the multiple development of physical education curricula in colleges and universities and also promotes the deep integration of education informatization and physical education teaching in the new era.

Bayesian Game-Driven Incentive Mechanism for Blockchain-Enabled Secure Federated Learning in 6G Wireless Networks

Bayesian Game-Driven Incentive Mechanism for Blockchain-Enabled Secure Federated Learning in 6G Wireless Networks

An Efficient Incentive Mechanism for Federated Learning in Vehicular Networks

An Efficient Incentive Mechanism for Federated Learning in Vehicular Networks

Toward Explainable Multiparty Learning: A Contrastive Knowledge Sharing Framework.

Multiparty learning provides solutions for training joint models with decentralized data under legal and practical constraints. However, traditional multiparty learning approaches are confronted with obstacles, such as system heterogeneity, statistical heterogeneity, and incentive design. Determining how to deal with these challenges and further improve the efficiency and performance of multiparty learning has become an urgent problem to be solved. In this article, we propose a novel contrastive multiparty learning framework for knowledge refinement and sharing with an accountable incentive mechanism. Since the existing parameter averaging method is contradictory to the learning paradigm of neural networks, we simulate the process of human cognition and communication and analogize multiparty learning as a many-to-one knowledge-sharing problem. The approach is capable of integrating the acquired explicit knowledge of each client in a transparent manner without privacy disclosure, and it reduces the dependence on data distribution and communication environments. The proposed scheme achieves significant improvement in model performance in a variety of scenarios, as we demonstrated through experiments on several real-world datasets.

The Stochastic Evolution Game of Knowledge-Sharing Incentive in Virtual Communities under Intelligent Recommendation Systems

To effectively solve the issue of unsmooth knowledge sharing in virtual communities under intelligent recommendation systems, we analyzed the impact of key factors on the strategy selection and evolution path in different scenarios.Based on the principles of bounded rationality and benefit maximization, we consider the principles of evolutionary game theory and the influence of random interference. A random evolutionary game model is constructed to analyze strategy selection in the process of knowledge sharing incentives between virtual community platforms and users. We obtained the evolutionary equilibrium strategies under different parameter restrictions and analyzed the evolutionary stability of the dynamic game process of knowledge sharing incentives.The research shows that interference from random factors affects both the speed and the trend of strategy evolution in virtual community platforms and users. In order to improve the enthusiasm of users to share, virtual community need to increase the proportion of users with positive feedback, improve the recommendation incentive mechanism, and reduce the user loss coefficient. Based on the above research conclusions, some countermeasures and suggestions for improving the performance of virtual community knowledge sharing under intelligent recommendation systems are proposed, which provides theoretical guidance for knowledge sharing among virtual community members.