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• Understanding the challenges of transition in the education of fiji. • Performance of first-year students and their entry-level challenges in a university. • The results mostly disseminate transitional educational challenges using the most critical drivers. • Transitional experience and an ability to make transitions. • Overcoming transitional challenges, language barriers, and cultural lacunas. Transition challenges (or Trans-C) are perceived as a combination of academic, institutional, socio-cultural and psychological factors which influence a student's ability to transition successfully in their first year at higher education institutions. This paper presents an exploratory study of first-year College of Business students enroled at the Fiji National University (FNU). Using a mixed method approach, the study is aimed at understanding the accounts of first-year students in transition, and that of FNU being a local academic institution mandated to support students facing difficulties. Quantitative data from an online questionnaire collected independent variables related to students' ability to transition successfully. Results showed that despite the establishment of transition hubs and other academic support services, about 30% of the total 183 respondents indicated transition difficulties in their first year. Qualitative data were collected using ' Talanoa ' method to account for students' transition experience. Talanoa or story telling is a culturally appropriate method of data collection in indigenous Pacific Island countries such as Fiji. This approach allows a rich and more open information exchange provided the researcher is embedded in local pedagogy. Several themes emerged from the analysis of the 'talanoa' transcripts such as academic support, family income, online learning, University environment, and peer influence. Although these themes were consistent with international experience, it would be asymmetrical to address student transition challenges without capturing their needs and expectations. In the final analysis, this paper supports the implementation of a student-centric model if higher education institutions (HEI) were to be successful in integrating first-year students into academic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational sustainability is a multi-facet paradigm widely used to address perennial business challenges such as climate change, industrial waste, the economies of scale and social well-being, etc. In the last three decades, extensive research has been performed on ecological or economic sustainability, ignoring the third pillar of sustainability. Given the importance of humans and society-a center-stage of inclusive development-this paper aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis to examine the growth of organizational social sustainability (OSS) from 2000 to 2021 during MDG & SDG periods. A total of 1566 publications are analyzed using Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS) database. Citation networks, bibliographic coupling, and thematic mapping have explored influential work, intellectual structure, and research gaps. The study findings demonstrated that most publications are during the SDG period, with Sustainability as the most productive journal and the USA as the most contributing country. The top 10 active institutions are from Australia, France, and Spain. The top contributing authors are from France, but the USA is at the top in citations. Contributions are lacking from large portions of Africa. Keyword analysis showed that "social sustainability," "sustainable development," "environmental sustainability," "sustainable supply change management," "circular economy," and "social life cycle assessment" are the main topics. Keyword analysis and thematic mapping show that despite increased publications in the field of organizational social sustainability, OSS research is still far from focusing on the stakeholders' benefits, satisfaction, and subjective well-being. Moreover, quantitative assessment of OSS based on sustainability standards such as Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) and Value Reporting Foundation (VRF) standards was found scant in the given field. The present research concluded with scope and opportunity for future research in the area of OSS. • Bibliometric analysis to examine organizational social sustainability during MDG & SDG periods. • Scopus & WoS data used in R Studio & Vosviewer. • Citation networks, bibliographic coupling, and thematic mapping have explored influential work, intellectual structure. • Global Reporting Initiatives and Value Reporting Foundation standards was found scant in the given field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to medicines has become a major concern for countries worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, as pharmaceutical production and trade have been disrupted in the course of the crisis. Antibiotics are one group of medicines where worries about access have been raised. Access to the right antibiotic at the right time is important not only for curing infections of individual patients, but also for curbing antibiotic resistance globally. Reliable pharmaceutical supply is key to ensuring access to medicines. The global supply of generic medicines has over the last decades been transformed by the rise of India's pharmaceutical industry. In this paper, I trace the changing role of this industry for the global export of antibiotics, by mapping and describing changes in Indian antibiotic exports and discussing these in light of historical processes and events. The paper offers a novel approach to analyse global antibiotic trajectories by using international trade data from publicly available resources combined with a secondary literature review. I show that India's pharmaceutical industry today holds a key role as one of the world's biggest exporters of antibiotic medicines, but with an increasing dependency on China as a supplier of antibiotic ingredients. This produces both opportunities and concerns for access to antibiotics globally. • Offers a novel approach to trace antibiotic and pharmaceutical geographies. • Uses international trade data to map India's role for global antibiotics supply. • Describes that India has become one of the world's biggest exporters of antibiotics. • Shows that India is highly dependent on China for import of antibiotic ingredients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most disruptive technological innovations, blockchain technology has received extensive attention from academia and industry. Although many scholars have reviewed the existing blockchain research, most of the previous review articles focused on the application of technology or blockchain in specific industries or scenarios, and lacked a comprehensive review of the application of blockchain technology in the business field. Based on a systematic literature review approach and cluster analysis, this study quantitatively analyzed 2830 papers obtained from the Web of Science to fill this gap. By constructing a three-layer research framework, this research enumerates the infrastructure and protocols of blockchain technology in detail, and on this basis develops a three-subjects value creation model. The model highlights that business value can be created from transactions, crypto-economic models, and analytical and automated processes in the interaction of organizations, individuals, and technologies. Different blockchain-based applications solve different kinds of economic problems, including information storage/sharing, consensus generation and governance. This study expands the blockchain literature and deepens our understanding of how blockchain technology affects organizations and individuals in the business world. The newly proposed research framework can inspire practitioners and managers to discover opportunities for business model innovation. This work provides a solid research foundation and practical guidance for academics and practitioners who are interested in blockchain-based business. • This paper systematicly reviews blockchain application in business area. • This paper proposes a framework to deepen our understanding of how blockchain technology affects organizations and individuals. • Blockchain applications are classified into three economic layers with each corresponding to one economic problems. • This paper provides practical guidance for scholars and practitioners who are interested in blockchain-based business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die Präsenz im Netz ist heute einer der wesentlichen Faktoren für geschäftlichen Erfolg – auch für medizinische Labore. Mit einer Marketing-Strategie für das Online Marketing können neue Kunden gewonnen und bestehende Kunden an das Unternehmen gebunden werden. Die Maßnahmen reichen von der Suchmaschinen-optimierten Corporate Website mit hochwertigen Inhalten bis hin zum eigenen YouTube-Kanal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chain management is an important aspect of running any business. In this article, we look at advances in chain management. At the beginning we present basic definitions and key issues related to the types of channels, followed by a discussion of the degrees of complexity of the chain. We then discuss chain flows - a step forward in chain management, supply chain efficiency indicators and so on. Finally, a brief summary of research to date and a discussion of future challenges for supply chain management are presented. The outbreak of COVID-19 introduced an unprecedented and extraordinary situation of supply chains whose survival requires a large-scale resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass vaccination is the most cost-effective intervention in response to public health events. Thus, equitable access to vaccine products is essential to ensure global human health. Based on the global vaccine product trade data from 2000 to 2018 and employing social network analysis, this paper explores the unbalanced pattern of global vaccine product trade and assesses the sensitivity interdependence between countries. Overall, the analysis shows that global vaccine product trade links have long been highly concentrated within developed countries in Europe and America. Nevertheless, with the rise of global and regional hub countries, the global vaccine product trade network has begun to evolve from a unipolar structure with the U.S. as the sole core to a multipolar structure with the U.S. and Western European countries as the core. Meanwhile, emerging countries, represented by China and India, are increasingly participating in the global vaccine product trade network and are beginning to play an important role. The formation of this multipolar pattern has provided countries in the Global South with more options for cooperation in the vaccine product trade and reduces the sensitivity interdependence of network periphery countries on core countries, which consequently reduces the global supply risk of vaccine products. • Global vaccine product trade is concentrated within a few developed countries. • Global vaccine product trade network shows a multipolar trend. • Emerging countries begin to play an important role in the trade network. • The sensitivity interdependence of Southern countries is decreasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lately, there is more and more talk about the notion of entrepreneurship, which is the occupational and social impact of entrepreneurial activities and what are the benefits and risks of a person who decides to start a business on their own. Therefore, in this article we set out to present the importance and role of entrepreneurship for young people in Romania. Entrepreneurial activity has a major impact on the economy, because they are the ones who make the world move forward and things move in the right direction. According to our studies, one in two urban Romanians would like to become an entrepreneur, even if they encounter several obstacles when they decide to open a business, regardless of their field of activity. In 2019, 134,220 companies were established, and in 2020, due to the pandemic, their number decreased to 109,939. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Using panel data covering 112 countries and 45 years, we study developing countries' incentive to enforce IPR. • We show that IPR enforcement is U-shaped in a country's market size and inverse-U-shaped in the aggregated market size of its trade partners. • The effect is entirely driven by the trade partners that strongly enforce IPR. • We next study the impact of strengthening IPR protection on innovation in developing countries. • We find that a stronger protection of IPR negatively impacts patents and export discoveries in developing countries The paper proposes an empirical analysis of the determinants of the adoption of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and their impact on innovation in manufacturing. The analysis is conducted with panel data covering 112 countries. First we show that IPR protection is U-shaped with respect to a country's market size and inverse-U-shaped with respect to the aggregated market size of its trade partners. Second, reinforcing IPR protection reduces on-the-frontier and inside-the-frontier innovation in developing countries, without necessarily increasing innovation at the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of a key source of wealth (the stock market) on road traffic collisions. Using data on over 2 million road accidents we do not find a linear relationship between stock prices and road crashes (fatal or otherwise) in Great Britain. However, we do find a V-shaped effect – collisions respond to the absolute change in stock market returns. The results are robust to a series of falsification exercises that potentially support a causal interpretation. We also examine another source of wealth that has not previously been examined – house prices. Similarly, we do not find that changes in monthly house prices have an impact on accidents, but a symmetric V-shaped is also shown for slight and serious accidents. • We examine the impact of stock price changes on road collisions in Great Britain. • We use administrative data on road collisions by type: fatal, serious and slight. • There is not a linear relationship between stock prices changes and collisions. • Collisions instead respond to the absolute change in stock market returns. • Using another source of wealth, house prices, we find a similar V-shaped effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes the recent degrowth business framework as a starting point and looks deeper into one particular part of it, the change in values. It has been claimed that the agential level (i.e., that of individuals) and associated with it change in values is what underpins the remaining elements of the degrowth business framework, i.e., that change in values gives rise to degrowth compatible practices, principles, and operations. This is because, according to critical realism, individual humans are where agency resides. Considering that an immense hope is placed into the agents, the change in values needs to receive substantially more attention. As it stands, currently this category is underexplored and remains obscure on its own and in relation to degrowth business specifically. This paper attempts to address this obscurity and shed light on change in values of agents, while adopting the same philosophy of critical realism which underlaboured the construction of the degrowth business framework itself and supplementing it with the insights from the philosophy of existentialism which allows us to structure human existence and change in values specifically around three defined aspects of our being in the world. • Change in values in relation to degrowth business needs to receive more attention. • Change in values is disambiguated via utilising critical realism and existentialism. • Further disambiguation requires adventurous interdisciplinarity. • Important areas for further disambiguation are human agency and human nature. • One possible way to view human nature is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media is increasingly being utilized to facilitate the buying and selling of illegal drugs, particularly by young people. However, the range of social media and messaging platforms means people must make 'choices' around which platforms they will use to conduct drug transactions. Polymedia theory suggests that people use different media to manage their social relationships, 'choosing' appropriate channels or platforms based on platform features and the social context of the relationship. This paper uses polymedia theory to explore how buyers and sellers navigate platform 'choice' for drug trading, and how this bears similarities to the ways in which they move between different platforms in their daily lives. We conducted anonymous online interviews with thirty-three people who buy and/or sell drugs via social media and encrypted messaging apps in New Zealand to explore the factors shaping their selection of platforms for drug transactions. Our findings highlight the importance of the relationship between the buyer and seller in shaping how interviewees weighted the relative importance of platform security and convenience. Though more commercial drug sellers exercised considerable influence in directing buyers of drugs towards a given platform, this pattern was less characteristic of how platform 'choice' was navigated in contexts of drug supply between friends. In social supply contexts, platform 'choices' were often not explicitly made, but rather exchanges were channelled through platforms already in use within the social group. We highlight the tensions that arise between seller preferences for a more secure platform and buyer preferences for greater convenience in contexts of friendship. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding social media drug market engagement as shaped by broader patterns of social media engagement, and the distinctions between different social contexts and personal relationships, consistent with polymedia theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient and affordable healthcare service delivery to everyone is a prerogative of the national governments. Such delivery is quite exacting, and gaps remain. In this regard, startups are trying to disrupt the market with innovative solutions and reach the underserved market. Though anecdotal evidence remains, a rigorous literature review is missing. This paper attempts to understand the status of health-tech startups in healthcare service delivery. We scanned a total of 110 journals - Financial Times top 50, top ten information systems journals listed by the Australian Business Dean Council, and the top 50 Scopus indexed journals in health informatics and health information management. We followed a systematic process for this scoping review - reading of titles, abstracts, and then full papers for final analysis based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 76 articles met the inclusion criteria. Only five studies portrayed the status of health-tech startups in healthcare service delivery. To capture the overall startup ecosystem, we continued with a scoping review of all the 76 articles. The identified five themes are Technology adoption, Electronic health services, Business planning and framework, Psychographics, and Regulations. There is evidence of technology adoption in service delivery and its nature in the businesses undertaken by startups. Very few studies represented the patterns of the existing business model. The acceptance of the services is dependent on service effectiveness and affordability. The challenges are licensing, policies, data privacy and security, and inadequate technology access among healthcare seekers. Albeit the feasibility potential, research concerning the impact of health tech startups in healthcare service delivery is emerging but incipient. The review indicates that research on startups is inadequate, especially related to entrepreneurship, business frameworks, and regulations. Future research should explore the same. • Study examined health-tech startups' landscape in healthcare service delivery. • Findings revealed health-tech venture's challenges and a notion to address them. • Theoretically underpin entrepreneurial aspects for health-tech startups. • Further research is needed to perceive startup's business model in service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study designs two training programs focusing on soft skills, which are adapted to the Jamaican context. • The study evaluates these programs using a randomized controlled trial design involving 945 entrepreneurs in Jamaica. • The study finds significant short-run effects on business outcomes of an intensive soft-skills training, but no effects after 12 months. • The study finds no effects for women or for a training combining soft skills and hard skills. • The study shows that the soft-skills training has persistent effects on self-reported and incentivized measures of soft skills. There has been growing interest in approaches to business training that incorporate insights from psychology to develop soft skills associated with successful entrepreneurship. The empirical evidence on the causal effects of these approaches on entrepreneurs' business outcomes is encouraging, but still not substantial enough to be conclusive. This study contributes to this literature by designing and evaluating two training programs, which are adapted to the Jamaican context. The first program provides soft-skills training on personal initiative, including the development of a proactive mindset and perseverance after setbacks. The second program combines soft-skills training on personal initiative with traditional training on hard skills aimed at changing business practices. Both programs are evaluated using a randomized controlled trial involving 945 entrepreneurs in Jamaica. Entrepreneurs are randomly assigned in equal proportion to one of the two training programs or to a control group. The research develops three survey instruments to collect information from entrepreneurs: a baseline survey, a short-term follow-up survey conducted 3 months after the intervention, and a second follow-up survey conducted 12 months after the intervention. Findings indicate statistically significant effects of the intensive soft-skills training, but not of the training combining soft and hard skills, on business outcomes in the short-term survey. The analysis of the data suggests that the main channel through which the intensive soft-skills training improves short-term business outcomes is an increased adoption of business practices. The positive short-term effects of the soft-skills training are concentrated among men and are not significant for female entrepreneurs. Neither the effects on business practices nor those on business outcomes are statistically significant in the second follow-up survey. However, the soft-skills training has persistent effects on targeted soft skills, which are measured with both self-reported and incentivized measures. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The pricing of illicit drugs is typically approached within the risks and prices framework. Recent sociological and economic studies of prices in online drug markets have stressed the centrality of reputation for price formation. In this paper, we propose an account of price formation that is based on the risks and prices framework, but also incorporates internal social organization to explain price variation. We assess the model empirically, and extend the current empirical literature by including payment methods and informal ranking as influences on drug pricing.Methods: We apply our model to estimate the prices of cannabis, cocaine, and heroin in two online drug markets, cryptomarkets (n = 92.246). Using multilevel linear regression, we assess the influence of product qualities, reputation, payment methods, and informal ranking on price formation.Results: We observe extensive quantity discounts varying across substances and countries, and find premia and discounts associated with product qualities. We find evidence of payment method price adjustment, but contrary to expectation we observe conflicting evidence concerning reputation and status. We assess the robustness of our findings concerning reputation by comparing our model to previous approaches and alternative specifications.Conclusion: We contribute to an emerging economic sociological approach to the study illicit markets by developing an account of price formation that incorporates cybercrime scholarship and the risks and prices framework. We find that prices in online drug markets reflect both external institutional constraint and internal social processes that reduce uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As technology further expands, the relationship between customers and organizations becomes even more idiomatic, as witnessed by personalized recommendations on websites and applications such as Amazon, Google, and Netflix. Through a service-dominant logic lens, this paper examines the effects of perceived personalization when using augmented reality (AR) and web-based stores on customers' intentions to co-create value. We utilize an experimental design whereby participants would either use the IKEA Place AR application or visit the IKEA website. This is then followed by a survey to a) compare AR and website-based shopping attitudes, b) explore the role of personalization on intentions to co-create as well as the moderating influence of perceived value and c) investigate the mediating influence of customer perceived trust and risk on the relationship between perceived personalization and intention to co-create. Employing SEM, our findings show that perceived personalization significantly predicts value co-creation intention for website-based shopping, but not for AR-powered shopping. Additionally, the results show that trust and risk mediate the relationship between perceived personalization and intention to co-create value within the AR group with perceived value moderating the relationship between perceived personalization and risk, but not between personalization and trust. Our study is one of the first to explore the impact of personalization on intentions to co-create value and to compare perceptions of personalization between shopping through web-based stores and AR technology. Moreover, the results of this study highlight the importance of perceived risk, perceived trust, and perceived value, on customer intention to co-create. The practical implications for these findings assist managers in developing omnichannel marketing strategies while the theoretical implications contribute to the AR, technology, and co-creation literature by offering insights into the unique role of perceived personalization on AR technology and web-based store shopping via website-based retailing. • Perceived personalization leads to heightened perceptions of risk and trust in both AR, and online environments. • Perceived trust and risk fully mediate perceived personalization and intention to co-create within AR shopping. • Perceived trust partially mediates perceived personalization and intention to co-create within online shopping. • Perceived value moderates the relationship between perceived personalization and risk but not trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the forecasts made by IEA, BP, and Total in early 2021, the demand for hydrocarbons will continue for decades, and their share in the global energy balance will remain significant. Russia, as a key player in the energy market, is interested in maintaining and increasing hydrocarbon production, so further exploitation of the Arctic energy resources is an urgent issue. A large number of onshore oil and gas projects have been successfully implemented in the Arctic since the 1930s, while recently, special attention has been paid to the offshore energy resources and implementation of natural gas liquefaction projects. However, the implementation of oil and gas projects in the Arctic is characterized by a negative impact on the environment, which leads to a violation of the ecological balance in the Arctic, and affects the stability of its ecosystem, which is one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. The main goal of the present study is to understand how the implementation of oil and gas projects in the Arctic affects the ecosystem, to assess the significance of this process, and to find out what the state and business could do to minimize it. In the article, the authors analyze energy trends, provide brief information about important oil and gas projects being implemented in the Arctic region of Russia, and investigate the challenges of the oil and gas projects' development and its negative impacts on the Arctic environment. The main contributions of this paper are the identification of all possible environmental risks and processes accompanying oil and gas production, and its qualitative analysis and recommendations for the state and business to reduce the negative impact of oil and gas projects on the Arctic ecosystem. The research methodology includes desk studies, risk management tools (such as risk analysis, registers, and maps), brainstorming, the expert method, systematization, comparative analysis, generalization, and grouping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in the U.S. links trade-induced job displacement to deaths of despair. Should we expect the same mortality response in developing countries? This paper analyzes the effect of a trade-induced negative shock to manufacturing employment on leading causes of mortality in Mexico between 1998 and 2013. I exploit cross-municipality variation in trade exposure based on differences in industry specialization before China's accession to the WTO in 2001 to identify labor-demand shocks that are concentrated in manufacturing. I find trade-induced job loss increased mortality from diabetes, raised obesity rates, reduced physical activity, and lowered access to health insurance. These deaths were offset by declines in mortality from ischemic heart disease and chronic pulmonary disease. These findings highlight that negative employment shocks have heterogeneous impacts on mortality in developing countries, where falling incomes lead to less access to health care and nutritious food, but also reduce alcohol and tobacco use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So far, little is known about the Business Model Canvas development in the energy sector. In this paper, we fill this knowledge gap and modify the Business Model Canvas. Based on the cause–effect analysis combined with the literature searching method, we suggest that Osterwalder's Canvas for energy enterprise should be modified because the available Canvas adaptations cannot fully capture the energy enterprise's business model or realise its business operations combined with the public interest. We propose a new original Canvas adaptation by adding two crucial blocks representing the mission, energy accountability, and impact on stakeholders in the Business Model Canvas. The findings make two main contributions. First, they contribute to developing entrepreneurship theory. We formulate an original definition of a business model, first showing the limitations of current definitions. We verify Chesbrough's functions of business models. Second, compared to earlier business model frameworks, the new model clearly points out that accountability in firms' everyday businesses is at the core of business development. Moreover, this article formulates future research avenues in the energy sector and provides a helpful planning tool for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]