Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic understanding of the mechanisms through which high-performance work systems (HPWSs) facilitate the incremental and radical innovative capabilities of organizations. Using a knowledge-based view of the firm, the paper introduces the mediating role of intellectual capital (composed of human, organizational and social capital) while examining this issue. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected using a questionnaire survey approach from 164 firms in the People's Republic of China. The paper used analyses based on structural equation modeling to measure the main constructs and test the hypothesized relationships among the variables. Findings -The results indicate that HPWSs contribute to both the incremental and radical innovative capabilities of organizations. In addition, intellectual capital mediates the relationships between HPWSs and different types of innovative capabilities. Specifically, organizational and social capital mediate the relationship between HPWSs and incremental innovative capability, whereas social capital mediates the relationship between HPWSs and radical innovative capability. Originality/value -The study supports and expands on the strategic human resource management (SHRM) literature and knowledge-based view of the firm in terms of whether, why and how HPWSs can develop a competitive advantage on the basis of innovation.

Phosphorene, a monolayer of bulk black phosphorus, is promising for light harvest owing to its high charge mobility and tunable direct band gap covering a broad spectral range of light. Here, via atomic-scale first-principles simulations, we report a ultrahigh activity of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of phosphorene originated from defective activation. Quantitative evaluation of the Gibbs free energy of the ad/desorption of hydrogen (H*) to/from phosphorene (∆GH*) reveals that atomic vacancies and edges play a dominant role in activating the reaction. We find that the defective states, empty and well-localized around the defect core, are compensated by H* species. This induces a proper hydrogen interaction complying with the thermoneutral condition of the free energy (∆GH*≈0) comparable to platinum. Our findings of the highly activating defective states suggest the design of non-metal HER catalysts with structural engineering of earth-abundant phosphorus structures.

Simultaneously enhancing strength and ductility of metals and alloys has been a tremendous challenge. Here, we investigate a CoCuFeNiPd high-entropy alloy (HEA), using a combination of Monte Carlo method, molecular dynamic simulation, and density-functional theory calculation. Our results show that this HEA is energetically favorable to undergo short-range ordering (SRO), and the SRO leads to a pseudo-composite microstructure, which surprisingly enhances both the ultimate strength and ductility. The SRO-induced composite microstructure consists of three categories of clusters: face-center-cubic-preferred (FCCP) clusters, indifferent clusters, and body-center-cubic-preferred (BCCP) clusters, with the indifferent clusters playing the role of the matrix, the FCCP clusters serving as hard fillers to enhance the strength, while the BCCP clusters acting as soft fillers to increase the ductility. Our work highlights the importance of SRO in influencing the mechanical properties of HEAs and presents a fascinating route for designing HEAs to achieve superior mechanical properties.