China’s economic structure has made subtle changes with the development of digital economy. Along with the marginal diminishing effect of Chinese monetary policies and the increase of the overall leverage ratio, the Chinese economic growth mode of relying on real estate, trade and infrastructure construction in the past will not be sustainable in the next decade. This paper makes a theoretical analysis on the reduction of the search cost in digital economy. Also, this paper used empirical methods to study the relationship between China’s economic growth and digital infrastructure construction. In conclusion, the digital economy has reduced the search cost for people, and big data will become a product factor participating in labor distribution. In addition, this paper proposes for the first time that digital economy can effectively restrain inflation. The Chinese government needs to attach importance to the issue that current internet enterprise oligarchs will probably monopolize the usage of big data in the development of digital economy in the future and become the obstacle to effective economic growth. In addition, close attention should be paid to the vulnerabilities of financial and taxation systems for digital economic entities to avoid continuous disguised tax subsidies to internet oligarchs, thus preventing industrial monopoly.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic research has primarily focused on the challenges posed by flexible working arrangements. However, there has been a lack of exploration into managers’ intentions to either promote or reject remote work. This paper utilizes a TAM analysis to examine managers’ attitudes and motivations towards implementing telework in a sample of European companies. Our findings reveal that this intention is largely influenced by their perception of its usefulness. Additionally, telework is more likely to be accepted when managerial teams believe that those who hold significance to them also support the implementation of flexible work practices in their companies. Our research contributes to the existing literature by considering the impact of job performance, quality of output, and digital skills on telework adoption. The results confirm that skills related to communication and team building are crucial competencies for successfully implementing telework. The ability of leaders to effectively build, motivate, recognize, and hold accountable teams in virtual environments can make all the difference.

Artificial intelligence chatbots can be used to conduct research effectively and efficiently in the fifth industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence chatbots are software applications that utilize artificial intelligence technologies to assist researchers in various aspects of the research process. These chatbots are specifically designed to understand researchers’ inquiries, provide relevant information, and perform tasks related to data collection, analysis, literature review, collaboration, and more. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of artificial intelligence chatbots for conducting research in the fifth industrial revolution. This qualitative study adopts content analysis as its research methodology, which is grounded in literature review incorporating insights from the researchers’ experiences with utilizing artificial intelligence. The findings reveal that researchers can use artificial intelligence chatbots to produce quality research. Researchers are exposed to various types of artificial intelligence chatbots that can be used to conduct research. Examples are information chatbots, question and answer chatbots, survey chatbots, conversational agents, peer review chatbots, personalised learning chatbots and language translation chatbots. Artificial intelligence chatbots can be used to perform functions such as literature review, data collection, writing assistance and peer review assistance. However, artificial intelligence chatbots can be biased, lack data privacy and security, limited in creativity and critical thinking. Researchers must be transparent and take in consideration issues of informed content and data privacy and security when using artificial intelligence chatbots. The study recommends a framework on artificial intelligence chatbots researchers can use to conduct research in the fifth industrial revolution.