This study examines how the convergence of design thinking, innovation, and sustainability enhances competitive sustainability in the global ceramic industry. Grounded in the Resource-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities, and Triple Bottom Line frameworks, the study conceptualizes design thinking as a strategic capability that transforms innovation and sustainability resources into sustained competitive advantage. Using quantitative data from 90 ceramic brands across seven countries, the analysis employs descriptive statistics, regression, fixed-effects, and mediation tests. Based on the quantitative panel data on 90 ceramic art brands and 7 countries over the time span 2019–2021, the quantitative analysis will use the descriptive statistics, ordinary least squares, fixed-effects, mediation, and structural equation modeling. Results show that design thinking has a strong and stable positive effect on competitive sustainability (b = 1.29, p < 0.05), alongside market share and brand awareness, explaining about 51% of the variance. However, design thinking does not mediate the relationship between innovation and competitive sustainability, indicating that design thinking and innovation function as parallel strategic capabilities. The findings integrate RBV and Dynamic Capabilities with TBL logic, demonstrating how creativity-based intangible capabilities support both economic and sustainability goals in traditional manufacturing sectors.

Utopias and dystopias have always represented the hopes and fears of humanity throughout history. These concepts not only reflect humanity’s aspirations for an ideal future but also embody concerns about the trajectory of civilization’s evolution. With the advent of the digital age and the X.0 society, this traditional binary has been challenged, giving rise to a new concept known as “Mixtopia,” where the boundaries between utopia and nightmare, truth and illusion, coexist. This paper, utilizing the X.0 Wave Theory framework and the 7PS (Seven Pillars of Sustainability) model, examines the cultural, social, technological, environmental, political, educational, and economic transformations that have reshaped these concepts. By analyzing these concepts across various cultures, from Plato’s utopias and Islamic ideal cities to Orwellian dystopias and twenty-first-century surveillance systems, the paper illustrates how the transformation of societies shows that these concepts can no longer be viewed in a binary way. In a world influenced by big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and algorithmic decisionmaking, the boundaries between truth and illusion, freedom and control, progress and decay increasingly blur. Are we moving toward the realization of dreams, or are we trapped in a technological illusion? This research, through a multidimensional analysis based on the 7PS model, presents a vision of the future of human societies where “Mixtopia” replaces the 
traditional views of utopia and dystopia, highlighting the complex and reciprocal interactions between technology, society, and theenvironment. 

The paper presents a quantitative study analyzing how Classical Chinese Gardens (CCGs) have the capacity to regulate the microclimate and the potential effects on the productivity of staff through the Humble Administrator Garden at Suzhou. The study uses a combination of field measurements and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to determine the effect of important landscape features, such as vegetation, water bodies, architecture, pathways, and corridors, on vital microclimate attributes, such as the air temperature, surface temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity. The study results show that vegetation has a strong cooling effect (β =0.875), humidity control effect (β = 0.250) and all water bodies have a strong cooling effect (β = 0.875) but a weak warming effect (β = 0.125) and Buildings and hard surfaces have a strong cooling effect (β = 0.875) and a weak effect (β = −0.008) of reducing the wind speeds and surface temperatures in corridors, respectively. Among them, trees would offer the best cooling (score 5), grasslands would do the best at controlling the humidity and wind speed (score 5), and water bodies would also contribute to the humidity regulation (score 4) significantly. Combining these results with an existing scheme of thermal sensation and work efficiency, the paper demonstrates the capacity of the microclimate changes to be applied to cognitive functioning and productivity. The study reveals practical recommendations in implementing the traditional Chinese garden design framework to the modern urban space and workspace setting, and presents approaches to enhancing the environmental sustainability, the thermal comfort and finally, the well-being of the staff and their productivity.