The rapid digitalisation of business processes and the widespread adoption of remote work since the COVID‑19 pandemic have forced private enterprises to re‑examine the role of human resource management (HRM). Drawing on the resource‑based view, this study investigates how digital HR strategies—covering recruitment & selection, training & development, performance management and digital employee services—affect employee engagement and firm performance in a context where a significant portion of the workforce operates remotely. Using survey data from 150 employees and managers in 50 privately owned firms in Chongqing, China, supplemented by semi‑structured interviews with HR leaders, we develop a digital HR adoption index and test its impact on remote work effectiveness and organisational performance. The results show that higher levels of digital HR adoption positively influence employee engagement, reduce perceptions of relative deprivation and cyberloafing, and enhance remote work effectiveness. Regression analysis further indicates that remote work effectiveness mediates the relationship between digital HR adoption and organisational performance. Qualitative insights highlight the importance of leadership support, training and the integration of platforms such as WeChat Work, DingTalk and Tencent Meeting for managing remote teams. Our findings offer evidence‑based recommendations for private enterprises in emerging economies to align digital HR strategies with remote working arrangements, support employee well‑being and sustain performance.

Tourism city brand image construction is a strategic measure to enhance the city’s core competitiveness, and has received great attention from various tourism cities. As a new force in promoting urban development, local youth must accurately grasp their perception of the city’s brand image, to realize the simultaneous development of youth development and urban development, and the integrated development of youth, industry, and city. This paper focuses on the city brand building of tourist cities among local youth, adopts the brand association measurement tool “brand concept map”, takes Chongqing, a tourist city in China, as the field, and the local youth as the research object, and establishes the analysis perspective of the correlation strength of results based on traditional methods. Based on exploring the characteristics of brand image perception, this paper further explores the formation mechanism behind the characteristics from the perspective of the diversity of local youth’s perception channels of city brand image.