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Purpose Green technology adoption (GTA) in small and micro enterprises (SMEs) is a complex multi-attribute group decision-making issue. Conflicts of opinions can hamper the achievement of group coherence. The purpose of this paper is to solve the conflict decision-making problem in SMEs. Design/methodology/approach This paper reconstructs the GTA evaluation index system for SMEs and proposes an intragroup coordination relationship model to mitigate group decision-making conflicts based on the cloud model and social networks (GCS). The numerical characteristics of these GTA indicators are determined using fuzzy theory and cloud model. Findings It was found that establishing a trust relationship network and a conflict coordination relationship could improve the consistency of group decision-making. The degree of coordination has subtle differences with the trust relationship. Particularly, the coordination relationship has obvious influences on the decision-making results among small groups in SMEs. Originality/value The conflict coordination model can significantly improve the consistency of group decision-making in SMEs. At the same time, it discusses the differences between the level of conflict coordination and the trust propagation in the process of group decision-making.

The sustainable cooperation of innovation in industrial parks is of great significance to the sustainable development of enterprises and parks. Factors explaining enterprise innovation cooperation activities in industrial parks have attracted great attention in scholarly research. In this article, a preference-based snowdrift game model on complex networks is proposed, where different combinations of enterprise reciprocity and risk preferences are introduced into the game model. The impact of these preferences on the sustainability of cooperation in mature and less-mature parks, characterized by different network styles, is examined through simulations. The investigation reveals that reciprocity and risk preferences have an effect on the sustainable emergence of enterprise cooperation under the constraints of a loss-to-profit ratio of cooperation, network average degree, and network style. Reciprocity preferences of enterprises are shown to have a greater impact on the sustainable emergence of cooperation than risk preference in two types of parks. Additionally, this advantage is more significant in less-mature parks. The results show the positive relationships between combinations of risk aversion and reciprocity preferences and the emergence of cooperation from a long-term perspective. This study concludes with a discussion of management suggestions and policy implications. The findings shed light on the understanding of the sustainable emergence of innovation cooperation in industrial parks.

Long-term improvement of ecological environment quality (EEQ) is a hotspot and urgent topic in the context of high-quality and sustainable development. It is urgent to look for methods that could support EEQ improvement in a high-quality and sustainable way. Owing to its natural supporting and guaranteeing functions for enhancing quality, quality infrastructure (QI) is a fundamental and critical element in promoting EEQ, but a neglected one. In this paper, we analyzed the coupling structure between QI and EEQ and applied an improved coupling model to recognize contributed and weakened indicators that affected the coupling relationship. We also examined this coupling relationship in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) from 2012 to 2017, which proved the current situation where QI construction cannot satisfy the practical needs of EEQ improvement. Results showed that the important supporting role of QI in EEQ improvement should be valued for long-term sustainable development. Meanwhile, equilibrium and consistency of indicators in the QI and EEQ systems determined the coupling state. EEQ improvement countermeasures were also provided according to the coupling relationship analysis results. This study provided a scientific basis and guidance for EEQ improvement and sustainable development.

This paper considers the lack of corporate social responsibility in the organic food supply chain in a new context, that is, the fraudulent subsidies claiming behavior of the manufacturers and the lack of organic food supervision of the fast-growing e-commerce retailers in China. We construct a three-party evolutionary game model among government regulatory departments, manufacturers and e-commerce retailers to analyze the evolution process of the behaviors of manufacturers and e-commerce retailers under government's changing regulation. The results show that: (1) The government can promote the production of organic food by the moderate supervision of manufacturers; Low intensity supervision cannot restrain fraudulent subsidies claiming behavior, while high intensity supervision will restrain the orderly development of organic food industry. (2) The greater the government subsidies on technology and R & D of manufacturers, the more conducive the manufacturerss will be to overcome technical problems and realize the scale of the organic food industry, so that it will eventually evolve towards the direction of active production of organic food. (3) The government's low-intensity fine on e-commerce retailers when they fail to fulfill their responsibilities is not enough to prompt them to choose the strategy of responsibility fulfillment, and the greater the fine is, the more conducive it is for them to evolve towards fulfilling their social responsibilities. (4) Appropriate government funding for e-commerce retailers will encourage them to fulfill their responsibility, but excessive funding will make e-commerce retailers over rely on government funding. Our research provides a better understanding of the irresponsible behavior of organic food supply chain enterprises, our management insights can help improve the government's regulation performance of such behavior, and can also provide a reference for other countries facing similar challenges.

The transportation sector is the main energy consumer and carbon emitter in China. To accurately evaluate the dynamic changes in the energy–carbon performance of the sector and to propose alternatives for sustainable development, this paper proposes an approach incorporating the meta-frontier method, global benchmark technology, and non-radial directional distance function. Using this approach, the paper proposes a new definition, named the global meta-frontier non-radial Malmquist energy–carbon performance index (GMNMECPI). GMNMECPI can be decomposed into technical efficiency change (EC), best-practice gap change (BPC), and technology gap change (TGC). This new method was then used to estimate the dynamic changes of energy–carbon performance in China’s transportation sector from 2006 to 2015. The paper also identifies the effect of current policies. The empirical results show that the energy–carbon performance of China’s transportation sector decreased annually by 1.636% during the study period. This reduction was mainly caused by a significant technology lag in the central area while primarily influenced by deterioration in efficiency in both the east and west. There is a distinct heterogeneity in technology across China’s three areas. Based on the findings, the paper closes with policy implications.

Uncertain linguistic variables and scoring evaluations are two important evaluation mechanisms in the decision making field. Sustainability requirements for ship investment lead to the complexity of influence factors and the decision making process. The uncertain linguistic assessment features a large amount of ambiguity and subjectivity, while the scoring evaluation features high precision and distinct gradations. This paper constructs a criteria system in the green supply chain and proposes a dual group decision fusing mechanism for integrating the linguistic variable and scoring evaluation into a unified evaluation term. A hierarchical cloud of linguistic variable terms is constructed based on scoring via a reverse cloud generator, and then, the ship investment linguistic terms are transformed into prospect values. In addition, the consistency and investment selection performance are measured after aggregating the individual decision matrices for group decision making. The empirical research results on the selection of dry bulk carriers for investment show that dual group decision fusing mechanisms could effectively improve the consistency, decision making efficiency, and accuracy of dry bulk ship investment choices and reduce the cost of feedback adjustment for group decisions. In comparison with the trapezoidal fuzzy and fuzzy TOPSIS methods of group decision making, the proposed method performs better when there are a large number of alternatives.

Purpose – As the world's largest developing country, China is relying on innovation to transform the pattern of economic growth; more and more attention has been paid to the construction of China's regional innovation system (RIS). This paper aims to establish a provincial evaluation index system for RIS construction level and that of construction condition and evaluate the innovation system construction level and construction condition of China's provinces by using grey fixed weight clustering. Design/methodology/approach – This paper makes a comprehensive assessment of RIS by using grey fixed weight clustering. Findings – The results show that the construction level of RIS is clearly associated with construction condition of RIS. In accordance with the results of the assessment, China's 31 provinces are classified into four typical types. Some relevant key measures to promote the RIS are suggested. Originality/value – This paper establishes a new frame to evaluate RIS.

PurposeThis paper attempts to study the impact of changing incentive strategies on enterprises' energy saving effort level and to construct an effective principal‐agent mechanism to achieve Pareto improvement of energy‐saving control.Design/methodology/approachStarting from the benefit relations between government and enterprises as well as their game strategies in energy conservation management, the impact of changing incentive strategies on enterprises' energy saving effort level and the asymmetric information situation of the players are studied taking into consideration the angle of strategies evolving in local government. Also, an effective principal‐agent mechanism to achieve Pareto improvement of energy‐saving control is constructed.FindingsThe results are convincing: interests of both the principal and agent had consistency under the principal‐agent mechanism, and the principal‐agent model was a mechanism with rich efficiency that could substantially arouse the enthusiasm of enterprises in energy saving. The comprehensive supervision of local governments over enterprises could effectually eliminate ill effects on energy‐saving management caused by information asymmetry under certain circumstances.Practical implicationsIt is good for locating the balance of interest of game players by building a government energy saving mechanism based on principal‐agent theory. Through solving a game stable strategy, it is beneficial to seize a key point of regulation and control policies.Originality/valueThe paper succeeds in analyzing decision behaviours of government and enterprises through the basic idea of cooperative game theory so as to make actions of enterprises at all levels agree to government determined solving of energy issues.

The unreasonable energy consumption not only makes Chinese modern energy industrial system difficult to be built, but also has a bad influence on Chinese economy in health and sustainable development. In this paper, the main performance and reasons about the structure of Chinese energy consumption are analyzed and some price regulation mechanisms which are all for optimizing energy consumption structure are pointed. The main mechanisms include the coal systematic pricing mechanism, the market formation mechanism of energy price, the price adjustment mechanism considering both efficiency and fairness and the compensation mechanism of new energy price.

With the rapid economic growth, Chinese energy consumption sharply increased in recent years. To get sufficient energy, China has made a lot of efforts to develop non-fossil energy. This paper investigated the relationship among non-fossil energy consumption, economic growth, and coal price by cointegration and impulse respond function. The numerical results show that higher coal price will spur the development of non-fossil energy and has a positive effect on economic growth.

The important aspects of China energy-saving management at the current stage is to arouse the enthusiasm of local government, as promoted by the requirement of fully implementation of the central government's energy-saving policy and vigorously energy conservation from various stakeholders. This paper discussed an evolutionary game process between local government and the central. The basic principles of evolutionary game is discussed, and the benefit relations of the central and local governments is studied. Then three stages in the “central—local” evolutionary game is proposed from the angle of local government's game strategy evolution including antagonism stage, compromise stage and cooperation stage. Our research showed that Pareto optimality could be achieved through the cooperation in “central—local” game.

In the large supply chain network of complex products, the suppliers may delay delivery because of some emergencies. This paper uses GAN network to describes the large supply chain network of complex products, and discusses that downstream enterprises how to make decisions in case of a node occurring delivery delay, which uses mixed strategy game model to deduce the probability distribution of the downstream enterprises decisions. At last, GERT network is employed to solve and analyze the average time and variance of the entire supply chain network from raw materials to final products in case that there is a delivery delay occurring in a node. This paper provides a new decision-making method for the main manufacturer to make further emergency management decision.

In the process of accelerating industrialization, different regions of China are giving great efforts to develop new industries in order to enhance the competitiveness of regional industries and overall economic strength; scientific and technological human resources are bound up with the development of emerging industries, and they are even at the core of the development of new industries. This chapter provides the case of Anhui Province, and it analyzes the province’s present status and management problems of scientific and technical personnel in the development of new industries, and it also puts forth relevant countermeasures and suggestions.

This paper mainly assesses the “11th Five-Year Plan's” early progress towards achieving the goal of energy saving, major measures of energy-saving and implementation of the special plan, the implementation of key projects. It also analyzes the situation of the “11th Five-Year Plan” energy-saving work in the later part, namely, the re-Chemical tendency is serious in the economic development; and the contradictions between development and energy-saving increasing obviously in less-developed areas.

This paper defined the choice benchmarks and index system of Jiangsu Province leading emerging industries according to their characteristics. On the basis of it, this paper collected corresponding data, used factor analysis model and SPSS software to deal with data. It answered the question of Jiangsu Province leading emerging industries choice from the theory.

This paper mainly carried out assessment about the “11th Five-Year Plan” early progress regarding structural energy-saving. It analyzed the main problem of the “11th Five-Year Plan” structural energy-saving work, and applied GM(1,1) and other models to carry on the forecast to structural Energy-saving potential in the later period of “11th Five-Year Plan”. Based upon the analytical results it pointed out that only multi-method should be utilized and structural energy-saving be attached importance to, can scheduled “11th Five-Year Plan” energy-saving goal be achieved.