Yuanyuan Guo

Although supply chain sustainability has attracted growing attention, little research examines how customers can effectively constrain unethical behavior in suppliers. Hence, this study investigates how social connections between customers and suppliers might influence CSR decoupling on the part of suppliers. CSR decoupling refers to the phenomenon where companies create a misleadingly positive impression of overall environmental and social performance. Based on data from Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2020, the results show that social connections significantly reduce CSR decoupling in suppliers. However, this effect weakens when customers have stronger bargaining power or when suppliers are located in more marketized regions. Conversely, social connections become more effective when customers are geographically more distant from suppliers, when suppliers are larger in size, when customers demonstrate stronger CSR engagement or operate in more environmentally sensitive industries. These findings highlight the role of social connections as an informal yet effective governance mechanism that enhances sustainable supply chain management.

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Matrix stiffness potently regulates cellular behaviour in various biological contexts. In breast tumours, the presence of dense clusters of collagen fibrils indicates increased matrix stiffness and correlates with poor survival. It is unclear how mechanical inputs are transduced into transcriptional outputs to drive tumour progression. Here we report that TWIST1 is an essential mechanomediator that promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition in response to increasing matrix stiffness. High matrix stiffness promotes nuclear translocation of TWIST1 by releasing TWIST1 from its cytoplasmic binding partner G3BP2. Loss of G3BP2 leads to constitutive TWIST1 nuclear localization and synergizes with increasing matrix stiffness to induce EMT and promote tumour invasion and metastasis. In human breast tumours, collagen fibre alignment, a marker of increasing matrix stiffness, and reduced expression of G3BP2 together predict poor survival. Our findings reveal a TWIST1-G3BP2 mechanotransduction pathway that responds to biomechanical signals from the tumour microenvironment to drive EMT, invasion and metastasis.

The competition between government-provided apps and business-provided apps for active users in China is becoming increasingly fierce. Apps with higher user activity will win this competition. To maintain active users, finding the user activity influencing factors is crucial. In this study, we selected a government-provided app—“Beijing One Card”- and a business-provided app—“Bus Code” -in the field of public transportation as the comparative research objects. Based on multiple regression analysis, we explored the factors influencing user activity. We found user preference plays a critical role in distinguishing the influencing factors of user activity between two kinds of apps. Distinct from the existing research, the service quality does not affect the user activity of public transportation apps. This paper argues that, whether it is a government-provided app or a business-provided app, to enhance the user activity of the app, in the short term, it is necessary to improve the app function according to the user’s needs, try to provide services which user like, cater to user’s preference, strengthen user experience; In the long run, it is essential to pay attention to mining the user’s data accumulated while operating the app to understand user behavior. So as to affect the user’s preference, enhance user’s trust, and improve user participation through public policy.