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Abstract This paper aims to investigate government policy intervention for mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper has utilized a methodology comprising of bibliometrics, network, and content analyses on 831 documents extracted from the Scopus database to explore the extant literature on this domain. A systematic literature review has also been performed to propose the government policy intervention during the crisis framework. The analysis and review discerned that government policy interventions yielding the greatest success display a pronounced industry focus, regardless of a country’s economic context. Notably efficacious interventions encompass government support for market access and promotion, regulatory flexibility, wage subsidies, supply chain bolstering, sustainable long-term support, training and development, digitization aid, and industry-specific access to credit and capital. Collaborative efforts between governments and financial institutions also proved instrumental in expediting SME recovery. Furthermore, initiatives like knowledge-sharing, capacity-building, digitalization of SMEs, and crisis management training played pivotal roles in ensuring SME survival during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper has also provided guidelines for future research direction.

Abstract The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) is steadily increasing. However, the implementation of ICT in SMEs is hindered by constraints, such as limited financial resources, lack of ICT knowledge, and reluctance to change. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze prevalent patterns, obstacles and influences that impact the adoption of ICT in SMEs in developing nations. In addition, this study aims to provide recommendations on the most effective methods to optimize the utilization of ICT in these contexts. This review is conducted using a sample of 25 publications that have been published and are available in the Scopus database. The selection process focuses on works that have received significant citations and have been published between 2014 and 2023. The PRISMA statement form was utilized to elucidate the comprehensive procedure of selecting and accepting pertinent publications. This research makes two distinct contributions. The writers begin by doing a thorough literature analysis to examine the progress of ICT in the past decade. They next emphasize noteworthy research discoveries in this field. Furthermore, the authors give a comprehensive analysis of the ICT literature by quantifying yearly publications and identifying SMEs that primarily utilize ICT, academic journals that publish pertinent articles, and ICT-related publications across various fields and areas in developing nations. The study also discloses the papers, journals, and authors that have received the highest number of citations. The author's final argument in the paper is that, despite the extensive research conducted in the field of ICT, there is a necessity to customize strategies and policies that can support SMEs in the ICT sector, particularly in developing countries.

Utilizing innovative and creative strategies to enhance English language teaching is one of the most significant factors that English teachers should consider. This review paper focuses on the significance of the innovative and creative teaching strategies that educators should adopt. These strategies will create an engaging and motivating learning environment to help college EFL/ESL students improve their problem solving and critical thinking skills. This paper elucidates how technology, lesson planning, student-centered approach, and teaching flexibility contribute to enhancing teachers’ skills to implement innovative and creative teaching strategies in the classroom. As a result, a conceptual framework was developed by integrating Vygotsky’s social constructivism theory to cultivate innovative and creative English language teaching strategies. These strategies include a student-centered approach, cooperative learning, and flexibility in teaching, which contribute to more holistic learning.

Purpose – The authors investigate how foreign investment in securities market informs about the future firm performance in emerging markets. Design/methodology/approach – The authors define the independent variable abnormal foreign investment (AFI) as the residuals of the foreign ownership equation. The authors regress foreign ownership on its first lag and factors and define the residuals as the AFI. The AFI is the over- or under-investment reflecting foreign conscious (clear-purpose) investment, thus better indicating how foreign investment affects firm performance. The dependent variable is Tobin’s q (Q), which represents the firm performance. Then, the authors regress the Tobin’s q next quarters (Qt + k) on the AFI current quarter (AFIt). The authors use a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) and check endogeneity with the D-GMM model for the regression. Findings – The results show that the current AFI is positively correlated with the firm performance in each of the next four quarters (the following one year). This positive relationship is pronounced for large firms, firms with no large foreign investors, liquid firms and firms listed in the active market. The results suggest that foreign investment might choose well-productive firms already. Also, the current AFI is significantly positively correlated with stock returns in each of the next three quarters. These results suggest that the AFI is informative up to one-year period. Research limitations/implications – The results suggest that foreign investors (most of them are small) in the Vietnamese market might choose well-productive firms already. However, if the large investors have long-term investment in tangible, intangible, human capital and so on, and lead to a significant increase in firms’ performance is still the limitation of this paper. Practical implications – The results of this paper may guide investors whose portfolios are composed of stocks with foreign investment. Originality/value – This paper adds to the literature to enrich the conclusion of a positive relationship between foreign ownership and firm performance.

Purpose – This study investigates the optimum size for manufacturing firms and the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood of achieving their optimal scale in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach – Using data from the enterprise census in 2017 and 2021, the paper first estimates the production function to identify the optimum firm size for manufacturing firms and then applies the logit model to investigate factors associated with the optimal firm size. Findings – The study reveals that medium-sized firms exhibit the highest level of productivity. Nevertheless, a consistent trend emerges, indicating that nearly 90% of manufacturing firms in Vietnam operated below their optimal scale in both 2017 and 2021. An analysis of the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood to achieve their optimal scale emphasizes its crucial role, especially for foreign firms, exerting an influence nearly five times greater than that of the judiciary system. Practical implications – The paper's findings offer crucial policy implications, suggesting that initiatives aimed at enhancing the overall productivity of the manufacturing sector should prioritise facilitating contract arrangements to encourage firms to reach their optimal size. These insights are also valuable for other countries with comparable firm size distributions. Originality/value – This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between firm size and productivity as well as the role of subcontracting in firms' ability to reach their optimal scale in a country with a right-skewed distribution of firm sizes.

Purpose: This paper aims to identify complementary strategies for urban freight logistics in a low emission zone (LEZ) that can be implemented in downtown Medellin, Colombia. The strategies will be executed by identifying the characteristics and problems of the business establishments in the area and the entrepreneurs’ opinions. Design/Methodology/Approach: First, a literature review is performed in order to identify global and complementary strategies for the future LEZ, which is the study subject. Then, a “pilot” zone (a main corridor) of downtown Medellín is selected and the business establishment of the area are identified in order to spot problems and evaluate possible strategies for the future LEZ. This identification and evaluation phase is conducted through an interview with logistics managers in 105 establishments selected in the corridor for analysis. Findings: One of the outstanding findings concerns the specificity of the logistics and mobility problems in downtown Medellin, which is located in Colombia, a developing country. The main problems are traffic congestion, lack of regulation and control in loading and unloading areas, as well as inadequate infrastructure for these operations. These obstacles have a significant impact on business activities and air quality in the area. The proposed solutions to complement the LEZ strategy for freight transport focus on improving regulation, establishing specific loading and unloading areas, exploring sustainable transportation options such as the cargo bike, and supporting small and medium-sized businesses. This emphasizes the complexity of the situation and the need for a comprehensive approach to address these logistical and environmental challenges. Originality/Value: This study focuses on the analysis of urban freight logistics strategies that complement the traffic flow restriction policies imposed by low-emission zones. Unlike other studies that address these two issues independently, this paper specifically examines how to improve a LEZ as a comprehensive strategy to reduce the environmental impact of freight transport. In addition, it is noted that most publications tend to focus on passenger mobility strategies, which highlights the potential for research in the freight logistics field.

In this paper, we investigate if the perceived name-based ethnicity of CEOs has any relationship with the likelihood of shareholder class-action lawsuits. Using machine learning algorithms on CEO names, we develop an objective proxy of name-based ethnicity and find that firms managed by ‘foreign-sounding’ CEOs exhibit a lower likelihood of class-action lawsuits. Our results are robust to matched sample analysis, Heckman two-stage selection, alternate model specifications as well as use of an alternate proxy. We further find that succession of a foreign-sounding CEO by a non-foreign-sounding CEO increases the likelihood of class-action lawsuits. Our paper has important implications for firms, especially in high litigation industries or high litigation situations.

Due to the dramatic spread of information and communication technologies tools increased by the forced lockdown, the digital transition of all economic sectors has become a prime concern for all European countries. Not only that having digital skills and competences was a question that swiftly turned into a priority, but also developing a well-equipped smart infrastructure capable of reducing the digital exclusion of socially disadvantaged groups. Taking into consideration the profound impact of digital technologies on the educational environment, the main objective of this paper is investigating the digital transformation of the Romanian pre-university system after a decade paved with numerous regulatory changes, a global pandemic crisis, and a refugee crisis generated by the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine up to the Romanian borders. At the same time, the paper highlights a comparative overview of key indicators for the education sector of Romania, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova. In order to create resilient education systems, all European countries must urgently adopt and implement sustainable standards that place digital education on top of their priorities. Therefore, regulators and policymakers must focus on their key role in translating the European Commission\’s ambitions for the digital compass 2030 in concrete measures. The research is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods that study the positive impact of ICT on education, but also the challenges that need to be repressed in an effort to reduce the digital exclusion. With the sudden conversion of didactic activities into the digital universe, the negative repercussions of e-learning affected primarily the teachers and students in rural areas with poor/ no access to Internet, but also digitally unequipped. The findings of this research show positive premises for the Romanian educational pre-university system to recover the digital gap in relation to the best education systems in Europe.

Digital technologies and digitalization represent a growing trend across countries in Europe, especially for developed economies and markets. Today, it is commonly acknowledged that an important factor for the SMEs’ competitiveness, growth, and success, is the implementation of digital innovation and new tools. The varied and multidimensional reasons that either help or prevent SMEs from adopting digital tools and innovation, nevertheless, are numerous, and the ability of SMEs in Europe to obtain digital advancement and innovation is examined in this paper in relation to the influence of external factors such as governmental policies. By analysing different governmental policies among the EU, the aim of this paper is to establish a connection between various regulations and the innovation performance of Romanian SMEs.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore and describe how companies manage the level of standardisation of improvement practices in a multisite context. It seeks to explain the managerial strategies applied to change the standardisation level in manufacturing companies with multiple production sites worldwide. Design/methodology/approach: This paper collects data through interviews, observations and company documents from a large multinational producing company and, specifically, from of the largest production sites in the company. The research design resembles a grounded theory approach by being reflexive and open to emerging themes. The standardisation strategy was analysed at a company that strived to increase the standardisation of problem-solving practices within about 20 production sites as part of their corporate lean programme. Findings: Several managerial tools were applied at the corporate level to increase the standardisation level of problem-solving practices, such as developing standards and a company-specific toolbox aligned with an in-house maturity model. In addition, deploying change leaders and global implementation targets enabled audits and progress. However, consequences at the production-site level became minor adaptations of standards, the design of training models as a "roll-out", and a resource-demanding implementation process. Originality/Value: This paper empirically demonstrates strategic tools that corporate management teams apply to influence the company's standardisation level of practices. The study describes the purpose and consequences of the design of the toolbox, maturity model, training model, and implementation targets, which aims to simplify the complex task of managing standardisation in a corporate group. By applying a knowledge-based view, four processes (i.e. adaptation, integration, upskilling, and learning) were identified to improve the management strategies in multisite contexts.

Purpose: This paper aims at introducing the importance and the relevant concepts and tools for including gender dimension in teaching, with a special focus in the Operations Management knowledge field. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology is based on a literature review and on the knowledge and experience of the authors in teaching in the field of Operations Management and designing and implementing trainings and pilot programs for including gender dimension in teaching and. Findings: Even if there already exist some general guidelines for including gender dimension in teaching and in some countries the law requires the inclusion of gender dimension in high education, the effective inclusion of gender dimension in teaching is still in a very preliminary stage. Moreover, there are not specific studies focused on the Operations Management field. Research limitations/implications: Even if the authors have wide experience in the field, the proposals have not been applied to many courses so there is no empirical evidence of the achieved results. Practical implications: The paper can be useful for people teaching in Industrial Engineering and Operations Management courses’, as it gives not only some general guidelines and concepts but also specific examples that can be directly applied to their courses. Social implications: Including gender dimension in Industrial Engineering and Operations Management courses, which are still male dominated, can help achieving the SDG 5, which is focused on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Specifically, including gender dimension in teaching allow breaking stereotypes, changing the image of the knowledge field, empowering female students and giving both men and women tools for including the gender dimension in their professional careers. Originality/value: There exist some general guidelines for including gender dimension in teaching but, to the best of our knowledge, there is no any specific work that is focused on the Operations Management knowledge field.

Purpose: This paper studies the problem that occurs on material purchase quantity in price uncertainty situation. Larger buying quantity when the price at high will increase the purchase amount while smaller buying quantity could risk the inventory level. The decision on the purchase quantity of a cycle takes future price as input from price prediction output. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines five price prediction models, Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Random Forest Regressor (RFR), Support Vector Regressor (SVR), Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) to predict four Petrochemical products, Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) and Cast Polypropylene (CPP) using dataset built from weekly datapoints from January 2020 to June 2023. The most performing model is validated with data from July 2023 to September 2023 where the prediction result is fed into Linear Programming Simplex method to minimize the amount of purchase by making advanced or postpone orders. Findings: Result that RFR performs higher at most products tested, while SVR performs higher in LDPE product. The fitting of RFR and SVR models prediction, as predicted price to Linear Programming that decides optimum purchase quantity, delivers a total 2.2% of purchase amount reduction compared to original purchase quantity reflecting base scenario issued by the planner. Research limitations/implications: This study does not include additional prediction factors such as freight cost and the hyperparameters tuning studies on the existing factors. Originality/value: The novelty of this paper is prediction value is followed up by an optimization model that would guide the Procurement team decisions for future anticipation because imported raw materials should be purchased ahead of time. This research will provide a scientific approach input that would counterbalance or strengthen decision making that is typically made by individuals owning years of experience. This combined approach is rarely researched and has not been done to polymer products.

The emergence of sustainable business practices has garnered interest among stakeholders. However, the question of whether sustainability performance provides companies with a competitive advantage is still being debated in the literature. This paper aims to examine the influence of sustainability performance – namely economic sustainability performance and environmental, social, governance (ESG) – on competitive advantage, with the effectiveness of enterprise risk management (ERM) as the moderating variable. This paper used 202 firm-year observations during 2015–2022 from non-financial sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. To test the hypotheses, panel data regression with a one-year time-lag analysis is conducted. The findings show that economic sustainability performance has no relationship with competitive advantage, while ESG has a positive effect. Furthermore, ERM effectiveness strengthens the effect of economic sustainability and ESG on competitive advantage. Further investigation used a two-year time-lag analysis for a long-term perspective. The analysis shows that economic sustainability performance and ESG have a positive impact on competitive advantage. In contrast, ERM effectiveness has no effect on the relationship between economic sustainability performance and competitive advantage. Moreover, additional analysis incorporates the effect of COVID-19 into the main model and shows that the pandemic did not affect competitive advantage; this is consistent with the main results. The findings encourage companies to improve their risk management and sustainability initiatives. The government may also take it into account when developing rules that promote the implementation of sustainable development. AcknowledgmentThis research was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia through the Center for Higher Education Fund (BPPT) and Indonesia Endowment Funds for Education (LPDP) for providing the Indonesian Education Scholarship (BPI-Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia).

The rapid development of digital technologies, digital transformation, business innovation, and the emergence of such technologies as artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things provides significant potential for transforming business processes and creating new innovative models. The trend analysis conducted in this article (using the Google Trends tool) around the world for 2009-2023 showed that public interest in “business innovation” was almost constant until 2021 (according to the GT Scale, it ranged from 0.25 to 0.5). After 2021, it increased (according to the GT Scale, it was more than 0.5). At the same time, public interest in “digital transformation” has significantly increased since 2014, reaching almost maximum values in 2020-2023 (0.75 - 1.00 on the GT Scale). This confirms a growing need in society to acquire new knowledge related to the ability of businesses to adapt to digital transformation, including through creating innovative developments. Unlike trend analysis, bibliometric and comparative analyses identify trends in developing interest in this topic not among ordinary citizens - users of the Google search platform ‒ but among scientists who publish the results of their research either in monographs or in authoritative peer-reviewed scientific journals indexed by leading scientometric databases. The comparative analysis conducted in the article using the Google Books Ngram Viewer (Google) tool, which displays the frequency of references to relevant terms in English-language books for 2009-2019 worldwide, showed similar trends: the persistence of scholars' attention to business innovation, while their interest in digital transformation is growing: in 2009-2013 - a slight increase, in 2013-2019 ‒ a significant increase. In the bibliometric analysis, a five-level mechanism for limiting the research sample was applied: only English-language and most recent (for 2018-2022) scientific articles indexed by the Scopus database in the subject area of Business, Management and Accounting were subject to analysis. Based on these limitations, the research sample for the keyword “digital transformation” was reduced from 12131 to 1700 papers, and for “business innovation” from 865 to 70. The analysis of the published articles, their views and citations, carried out using the SciVal tool, fully confirmed the conclusions drawn from the trend and comparative analysis results. In terms of digital transformation, the leaders in terms of the number of papers and the number of views are Germany, Italy, the UK and the US; in terms of citations - the UK, Germany, the US, and in terms of individual scientists - Brazil and Germany. As for the topic of business innovation, the United States is the undisputed leader in all these parameters, followed by China and the United Kingdom. Some scientists from Germany and Spain also attract the attention of the academic community (in terms of views and citations). Changes in trends and research priorities in each of the studied topics were identified and described using SciVal (analysis of the reference dynamics to the top 50 keywords in articles for 2018-2023). For example, in 2023, compared to 2022, scientific interest in issues related to “value creation” (+61.5%), "incumbents" (+66.7%), “service economy” (+83.3%), “digital marketing” (+75.0%), and “design thinking” (+150.0%) increased the most. VOSviewer software made it possible to cluster the scientific work by thematic areas. The largest cluster on digital transformation relates this concept to small and medium-sized businesses and technologies, and the largest cluster on business innovation relates it to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and the protection of property rights.

The paper aims to extend our understanding of how effective educational leadership impacts a nation’s performance in the context of public sector risk and value. It seeks to broaden the insights gleaned from the author’s empirical research conducted within the scope of their dissertation on this topic, namely “Leadership and organizational change in the financial decision making in Greek public sector in a time of financial and humanitarian crises”. This paper replicates the author’s empirical research, focusing on the educational impact of leadership qualities in Greek secondary education. Accordingly, it examines leadership through surveys from teachers and stakeholders, highlighting attributes such as influence, motivation, intellectual stimulation, personal attention, and job satisfaction. The study investigates the connection between these leadership characteristics and critical economic indicators, thoroughly analysing their interplay. Data spanning 2015-2019 from sources like the World Bank, the Greek Ministry of Economics and Finance, the OECD, and Eurostat underpins this investigation, shedding light on how educational leadership influences economic patterns. By employing a robust econometric technique using the OLS method, the research reveals that enhanced leadership within schools directly benefits educational quality from the perspectives of teachers, professors, and students. Furthermore, the implementation of transformational leadership strategies significantly boosts performance across various quantiles, reflecting the value added to Greece’s public sector education.

The foreign reserves sufficiency is important to maintain macroeconomic stability. The main objective of this paper is to model the behaviour of the central bank in accumulating the foreign reserves in the case of Indonesia. Unlike the previous empirical studies, this paper disaggregates the components of foreign reserves into foreign currency, securities, gold, and special drawing rights. This paper relies on the Almost Ideal Demand System combined with the Error Correction Model. The estimation result for monthly data over the period 2010(1)-2020(12) reveals that the own-price coefficients are negative and statistically significant which is consistent with the standard theory of demand. While the foreign currency-securities pairwise is substitutive, the foreign currency-gold and the foreign currency-special drawing rights pairwise are complementary or even independent. However, the wealth effect is inelastic except for securities reserves. These results imply that the central bank of Indonesia can re-balance its reserves. The securities holding which have the highest proportion of foreign reserve scan be switched to foreign currency, gold, and/or special drawing rights. The rebalancing measures would remain having an optimal level of foreign reserves holding in terms of its opportunity cost. Therefore, the monetary authority can conduct a further macroeconomic stabilisation without substantially losing the returns.

This paper investigates the dynamics of market synchronicity and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in Africa. It seeks to determine whether or not IFRS is an augmentor or inhibitor of market synchronicity in Africa. This study is not only a foundational study that unfolds the dynamics of market synchronicity and IFRS adoption in Africa but also extends the scope of synchronicity from firm-level assessment to country-level market synchronicity. It is one of the few studies which have shifted the literature on synchronicity from one largely limited to firm-level synchronicity to country-level synchronicity through analyses of cross-border market synchronisation. It employs Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) and Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) to investigate the market synchronicity-IFRS nexus. The study uses monthly data from March 2005 to November 2021 in five African markets: Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa generating 1005 observations in an 18-year data span. The paper reveals a significant negative consequence of IFRS on market synchronicity. Thus, IFRS exhibits an inhibition role in market synchronicity (reduces synchronicity) and improves price informativeness. A decreasing pattern was also observed immediately after IFRS was adopted by the stock markets and persisted for about five years. It implies that the price informativeness of stock markets through IFRS makes them good candidates for intra-Africa portfolio diversification due to reduced investors’ risk exposure to market synchronicity.

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze the thematic content of research addressing the relation between board of directors (BoD) and business transformation (BT) to obtain better understanding of status and to derive future areas of study. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews literature through a bibliometric analysis based on co-occurrence of articles published in Web of Science Core Collection ™ (WoS) between 1990 and 2022, identifying key concepts, setting network of relations and identifying the strategic importance of clusters of concepts. Findings and implications are discussed, future lines of research are presented and limitations are noted. Findings – Thematic research on boards addressing transformation shifted from the analysis of individuals' traits to an organizational approach with majority of research centered on the role of boards under different theories and the consequences of strategic changes on firm's performance. Further research is around gender diversity, sustainability and the moderating role of ownership structure and business culture. Research limitations/implications – Some limitations are also noted. This analysis considered articles indexed by WoS for Q1+Q2 publications as source of literature, while including others such as Scopus would increase knowledge base. Also, to identify main streams of research, the authors considered keywords with cumulative occurrence spanning from 30% to 40% while increasing this percentage would add terms that might improve precision to the connections among keywords. Other techniques could have been used such as co-citation or bibliographic coupling, although the authors find these as better suited to investigate the basic structure behind the foundational knowledge of the topic while the authors’ intention was to understand the positioning of study fields regarding the degree of research progress. Practical implications – This paper presents some practical implications for future researchers. Those who wish to leverage previous evidence to address new research questions might look into principal themes covering BoD dynamics and composition to exert CG, and the relation between strategic decisions and performance measured by different variables. Those who wish to position their research as new findings to shed light on dilemmas, might find opportunities in the fields of climate change-sustainability, R&D for growth and innovation under the perspective of intangible assets. Originality/value – This paper, is the first to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to identify research clusters for the intersection of boards and transformation and to determine their stage of development. 研究目的 – 本文旨在分析探討董事會與業務轉型之間的關係的學術研究的專題內容，以能對有關課題的研究狀況有更深入的了解，並擬從分析中取得未來可供研究的範疇。 研究設計/方法/理念 – 本文透過科學計量分析法來進行文獻探討。方法乃基於在1990年至2022年期間在Web of Science Core Collection 刊載的學術論文的共現分析而進行; 透過這個研究方法，研究人員建立了聯繫的網絡，並確認了各個概念群組的策略重要性。在本文中，研究結果和研究結果帶來的啟示會被討論，未來的研究領域和方針也會得到說明，研究的局限也會被認定和記錄下來。 研究結果 – 探討董事會而又涉及業務轉型的專題研究，由當初集中探討董事個人的特質、轉移到現在研究整體的組織理念和處事取向，而就後者來說，大部份的研究都集中於在不同的理論框架裡董事會所扮演的角色，以及因策略上的改變而為公司的業績帶來的影響。進一步的學術研究都是圍繞著性別多元化、可持續性、所有權結構所扮演的緩和角色和商業文化的研究。 研究的原創性/價值 – 盡我們所知，本文乃為首篇學術論文，去鑑定關於董事會與業務轉型之間的關聯的研究集群，也是首篇學術論文，去確定這些研究集群的發展階段。

Purpose – The gap that this research attempts to fill is to analyse the explanatory factor “industry” when assessing the reputation of a corporate group. In other words, this research attempts to demonstrate the impact of the “industrial halo” on the assessment of corporate reputation, given that, to date, the academic literature has not considered industry as an explanatory variable in the assessment of the reputation of private companies. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 43 Spanish companies was used to analyse the relationship between the reputation of firms as measured by the Merco Empresas index, and the industries to which they belong, after controlling for company performance, size, turnover, public recognition of their leadership, and corporate responsibility. This involved conducting a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between the variables for each year in the time period from 2005 to 2016. The available data were taken from the firms' annual financial reports and websites, as well as from the Merco. Findings – The paper shows the existence of industrial halos that account for the corporate reputation of businesses in Spain. It is also shown that industrial halos are not permanent over time, and that they tend to occur in years of crisis. Research limitations/implications – It would have been desirable for this study to have had sufficient data to include other industries, but this was not possible. As for possible extensions, in addition to expanding the period considered, other analytical techniques, such as panel data models, could be applied to allow comparison with the results obtained here. Practical and social implications – The results of this study have some practical implications. Firstly, firms that publish corporate reputation rankings should be aware of the distortion that the industrial halo can produce, especially in times of uncertainty, and seek to correct for it in their measurements. And secondly, corporate groups themselves should assume that the reputation of the industry affects their individual reputation, and consequently, they should see the other companies in the industry not only as competitors but also as “reputational allies”. They should therefore make collective efforts to improve in this respect, especially in the face of reputational crises. Originality/value – This paper provides a better understanding of the relationship between the reputation of a company and the industry to which it belongs, and of its permanence over time. This relationship has been little studied in the Spanish market to date. 研究目的 – 本研究擬分析當企業集團的信譽被評估時的解釋性因素-行業,以填補現時的研究缺口。具體來說,研究人員鑒於學術文獻至今仍未於評估私營企業的信譽時、把行業當作是一個解釋變量來看待,故擬進行研究、以顯示行業光環在評估企業信譽時所產生的影響。 研究設計/方法/理念 – 研究使用的樣本為43間西班牙公司。研究人員分析以Merco Empresas 指數來測量的公司信譽與公司所屬行業之間的關係。有關的分析調控了公司的業績、規模、營業額、企業責任、以及企業領導能力的公眾認可程度所帶來的影響。研究人員對有關變量間的關係進行橫向分析 分析於2005年至2016年期間年度性地進行。現有數據取自有關公司的年度財務報表和其網站,也有取自Merco的。 研究結果 – 研究結果表明了可解釋西班牙企業信譽的行業光環是存在的。研究結果亦顯示、行業光環不是永恆的,而且,行業光環往往會在營運極其困難的年度內出現。 研究的原創性/價值 – 本文讓我們更深入瞭解公司信譽與公司所屬行業之間的關係,以及其在時間上的永恆性。就這相關的關係而言,探討西班牙市場的研究至今為數不多。

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the antecedents and postcedents of customer satisfaction, including utilitarian, social and emotional factors, in a fair trade (FT) coffee consumption context. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a broad range of 177 consumers of FT coffee in Spain, the data analysis used structural equation modeling (SEM) with SPSS/AMOS 26.0 software. Findings – This paper supports that both customer social value and quality affect perceived value (PV). PV in turn has effects on customer satisfaction and the latter influences loyalty. Conversely, both customer emotional value and customer expectations were not confirmed as antecedents of PV. Research limitations/implications – The consumer satisfaction analysis conducted differs substantially from those of conventionally traded coffee, as social and emotional factors were considered along with utilitarian factors. Practical implications – Practitioners, retailers and relevant institutions should design strategies to manage efficiently channel efforts to improve the consumer satisfaction and its loyalty. Originality/value – This paper contributes to a substantial improvement in the understanding of consumer satisfaction and its consequences, in FT coffee consumption contexts. A new integrated theoretical model on customer satisfaction has been provided, which includes social and emotional perception factors, along with cognitive perception (quality and expectations) factors. 研究目的 – 研究旨在確認在公平貿易咖啡消費的課題上，顧客滿意的誘因及其後因，這包括實用的因素，社會的因素和情感的因素。 研究設計/方法/理念 – 研究之數據廣泛來自在西班牙177名公平貿易咖啡消費者; 分析則以結構方程模型，並以SPSS Amos 26軟件來進行。 研究結果 – 研究結果證實，顧客社會價值和質量是會影響認知價值的;認知價值繼而影響顧客滿意度，而顧客滿意度又進而影響他們的忠誠。相反的，顧客情緒價值或他們的期望、均未能證實是認知價值的先決條件。 研究的局限/啟示 – 本研究所進行的消費者滿意度分析，與其它以傳統方法銷售的咖啡之相關研究有很大的分別，這是因為本研究除了考慮實用的因素外，還納入了社會因素和情感因素。 實務方面的啟示 – 從業人員、零售商和有關的機構應制訂適切的策略，以能有效地管理各個管道，來提升消費者的滿意度和忠誠。 研究的原創性 – 本研究的貢獻在於它幫助我們在公平貿易咖啡消費的課題上，對消費者滿意及其效果有更深入的認識。研究亦提供了一個探討顧客滿意度的嶄新、綜合的理論模型，而這個理論模型，除了涵蓋知覺認知 (質量和期望) 的因素外，還納入了社會的和情感的知覺因素。

Both social media marketing and the digital activity of Instagram influencers have transformed the virtual landscape of book promotion. In other words, the growth of the #bookstagram community has given the entire publishing industry the opportunity to interact with potential readers and, by extension, increase product visibility through the social media platform Instagram. With this in mind, the present study aims to deepen the importance of promotion techniques within bookstagram and, moreover, to portray the modern methods implemented as central pillars in 21st century marketing strategies. Therefore, the paper investigates the broad spectrum of online approaches accessible to book influencers in the field of social media marketing through qualitative research, with in-depth interviews as the research method. As promotion can be achieved through a number of valuable techniques, the research focuses on highlighting the bookstagram tour, but also other equally effective strategies in terms of expanding the target audience and maximizing interactions. Moreover, there is the approach of types of posts, the involvement of awards or even touching on divergent topics of the books. Thus, by examining the phenomenon present in social media – influencer marketing and their methods of attracting consumer attention, the paper helps to build on the literature and offers new insights for both publishers and influencers. In particular, the research contributes to the evolving information on influencer marketing and highlights the importance of incorporating social media into marketing strategies to keep the online landscape current and dynamic.

The Greek economic crisis produced severe economic and social outcomes. A massive rescue package was conditional on implementing a Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies agreed upon between the Greek government and the EU, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The extremely austere fiscal consolidation and the structural reforms accompanying the Greek Economic Adjustment Programmes reduced the country’s GDP. Implementing the austerity policies on the Greek National Health System, which was already facing structural problems, reduced the quality and availability of public health care services. This paper investigates the impact of the GDP change on public healthcare expenditures (HCE) from 2000 to 2018. The empirical analysis reveals a statistically significant positive correlation between the GDP per capita and public healthcare expenditure (HCE) from 2000 to 2014 while the effect of GDP on HCE after the 2015 remains unchanged. This paper contributes to the field’s literature since it determines the impact of GDP on public HCE, specifically matched with empirical results to derive conclusive answers.

Research on creative organizations often questions how artistic practices can be squared within the rational decision-making of economic thinking. This paper examines how the relational language, or conversation, between artistic and economic rationales unfolds for creative entrepreneurs. Through ethnographic work with a designer-entrepreneur, this paper presents a fine-grained analysis of the conversation the designer cultivates between artistic and economic rationales through work practices. We contribute to the literature about artistic and economic rationales at work, and more specifically to the concept of conversation. First, we show that high levels of conversing make way for low levels of conversing and vice versa. In the studio, the designer’s engagement with either rationale varies as the creative process progresses. Second, on a more global dynamic, we demonstrate the conversation is continuous. It relies on its variations, which ensure the balance between rationales in the long run. We also contribute to the field of creative entrepreneurship research. We identify here one type of creative entrepreneur, with what we call a ‘small is beautiful’ attitude. Far from the mythical figure of the entrepreneur, this unconventional entrepreneur aims for sustainable use of creative resources rather than growth at all costs.

Motivation: The relationship between ESG factors and sustainability is a widely debated topic in the literature, but to our knowledge, there is a gap concerning the investigation of links between groups formed with ESG and other sustainability concepts, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), green economy, circular economy, digitalization, technology, industry 4.0, and industry 5.0. Idea: The objective of this study is to identify the interest of researchers, their visibility, as well as the trends among publications, regarding the ESG factors in relation to other concepts within the realm of sustainability, like CSR, green economy, circular economy, digitalization, technology, industry 4.0, and industry 5.0. Data: The selected sample for the research includes 1430 papers screened from the Web of Science database. Tools: The aim of this study is achieved by conducting a bibliometric analysis, using VOSviewer and PowerBI. Findings: The findings of this study include the interconnectivity of selected concepts, the co-occurrence of authors’ keywords, the number of publications over time, as well as the paper types, the publishing activity by journal, the most productive authors, the co-authorship, their affiliation, the papers’ length, references, and citations trend, the most cited papers, the publishing activity by country and the collaboration patterns between countries. Contribution: This analysis supports the identification of potential gaps in current ESG-related research and points toward new areas of investigation. It also contributes to the advancement of ESG research and to the achievement of sustainable development goals.

Using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as a research sample, this paper examines the relationship between negative media coverage and corporate ESG performance using a two-way fixed-effects model. It is found that, first, negative media coverage can effectively promote corporate ESG performance. Second, the mediation mechanism study shows that negative media coverage positively promotes corporate ESG performance by increasing the degree of corporate financing constraints and information asymmetry and prompting corporations to change their ESG governance level. Third, the results of the heterogeneity test find that the positive relationship between negative media coverage and corporate ESG performance is more pronounced among firms without executives with overseas backgrounds, and the positive relationship between the two is more significant after the promulgation of China’s Code of Governance for Listed Companies in 2018. Fourth, further discussion revealed that negative media coverage has the strongest promotion effect on the performance of corporate environmental governance, followed by social governance performance, and lastly, corporate governance performance. The research in this paper contributes to an in-depth understanding of the impact of negative media coverage on corporate ESG performance and provides empirical evidence to facilitate policy formulation related to the role of media monitoring and to fully utilize the media’s role in corporate ESG governance.

The latest effort in delivering computing resources as a service to managers and consumers represents a shift away from computing as a product that is purchased, to computing as a service that is delivered to users over the internet from large-scale data centers. However, with the advent of the cloud-based IoT and artificial intelligence (AI), which are advancing customer experience automations in many application areas, such as recommender systems (RS), a need has arisen for various modifications to support the IoT devices that are at the center of the automation world, including recent language models like ChatGPT and Bard and technologies like nanotechnology. This paper introduces the marketing community to a recent computing development: IoT-driven fog computing (FC). Although numerous research studies have been published on FC “smart” applications, none hitherto have been conducted on fog-based smart marketing domains such as recommender systems. FC is considered a novel computational system, which can mitigate latency and improve bandwidth utilization for autonomous consumer behavior applications requiring real-time data-driven decision making. This paper provides a conceptual framework for studying the effects of fog computing on consumer behavior, with the goal of stimulating future research by using, as an example, the intersection of FC and RS. Indeed, our conceptualization of the “fog-based recommender systems” opens many novel and challenging avenues for academic research, some of which are highlighted in the later part of this paper.

Since 2012, researchers have explored various factors influencing Bitcoin prices. Up until the end of July 2023, more than 9100 research papers on cryptocurrencies were published and indexed in the Web of Science Clarivate platform. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of publications on Bitcoin prices. This study aims to uncover significant themes within these research articles, focusing on cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin specifically. The research employs latent Dirichlet allocation to identify key topics from the unstructured abstracts. To determine the optimal number of topics, perplexity and topic coherence metrics are calculated. Additionally, the abstracts are processed using BERT-transformers and Word2Vec and their potential to predict Bitcoin prices is assessed. Based on the results, while the research helps in understanding cryptocurrencies, the potential of academic publications to influence Bitcoin prices is not significant, demonstrating a weak connection. In other words, the movements of Bitcoin prices are not influenced by the scientific writing in this specific field. The primary topics emerging from the analysis are the blockchain, market dynamics, transactions, pricing trends, network security, and the mining process. These findings suggest that future research should pay closer attention to issues like the energy demands and environmental impacts of mining, anti-money laundering measures, and behavioral aspects related to cryptocurrencies.

Purpose – This paper aims to address the question: What is the distribution of value (in pounds) created in a sample of domestic takeovers in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2020 among acquirer and target stockholders? Design/methodology/approach – The author employs a traditional event study methodology to calculate the percentage excess returns of companies on the announcement date. These returns are then converted into pound-denominated excess returns using the companies' market capitalizations. This allows the author to estimate the synergies of the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and how they are allocated between acquirers and targets. This innovative transformation from percentage to pound excess returns establishes a new ratio methodology for addressing the paper's objective. Findings – This paper reveals that in UK takeovers, 40 percent of the synergies in pounds are allocated to the stockholders of acquiring companies, while 60 percent go to the stockholders of target companies. In other words, acquirers retain a significant portion—more than half—of the synergies generated in these domestic deals. This original finding is statistically significant at the one percent level and strongly contradicts the hypothesis that acquirers, at best, merely break even. Originality/value – The evidence that UK takeovers distribute value gains nearly equally between domestic deal parties challenges the enduring conventional insight in the M&A literature. This conventional wisdom suggests that the value created by business combinations is entirely distributed to target company stockholders. Consequently, this reexamination may have broader implications, offering an alternative perspective on the motives behind business combinations. This perspective differs from the “managerial hubris hypothesis,” which aligns with the prevailing conventional insight but receives limited support in the original finding reported here.

The digital agriculture adoption strive by farmers could be assimilated with the adoption efforts of the computer technologies (ICT) by their respective users in other professional fields. Therefore, this paper proposes the adaptation of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology (UTAUT) model to explore the motivations for the use of digital tools by field crop farmers in Romania. The history of TAM and UTAUT is explored as well as the usage of UTAUT2 and UTAUT3 in digital agriculture adoption studies globally. Furthermore, comparison is also made with other farmer studies based on a different research architecture conceived also to explore their motivations to use digital agriculture tools. The proposed model is building on the decades long research and validation of the UTAUT model, and it will be employed in subsequent quantitative studies to evaluate the Romanian farmers’ motivations to embrace the digital agriculture technologies and practices. The paper is the outcome of the individual research done by the author and it was enhanced following academic debates and conference presentations. It is deemed to have a dual applicability, as a field tool for academic research but also provides guidance for companies developing digital tools for farmers in Romania and beyond.

The aim of this paper is to examine the existence and persistence across various portfolios of stocks of the January effect, a market anomaly suggesting that security prices exhibit distortions in the first month of every year compared to the rest of the year. The existing empirical studies on the January effect in contemporary financial markets, particularly in recent years, are somewhat limited. To provide a comprehensive overview, this paper utilizes data encompassing all American stocks listed on NASDAQ, AMEX, and NYSE from 1980s to 2023. The selection of the American stock market as the sample is based on its complexity and substantial trading activity. This investigation delves into the anomaly by assessing its impact on stock portfolios categorized by size, book-to-market ratio, and dividend yield. Additionally, the paper scrutinizes cross-sectional variations within the portfolios to uncover potential patterns explaining this anomaly, by looking at the corresponding quintile distribution. The data undergoes regression analysis using dummy Ordinary Least Squares. The results of the analysis reveal that the anomaly affects only a subset of stocks that share common characteristics: small capitalization, high book-to-market value and the ones that did not yield investors any dividends. The results are in line with previous findings in literature, particularly those of Ross (1983) and Reinganum (1983), suggesting evidence in favour of the window dressing hypothesis and the tax-loss selling hypothesis.

Modern e-businesses heavily rely on advanced data analytics for product recommendations. However, there are still untapped opportunities to enhance user interfaces. Currently, online stores offer a single-page version to all customers, overlooking individual characteristics. This paper aims to identify the essential components and present a framework for enabling multiple e-commerce user interfaces. It also seeks to address challenges associated with personalized e-commerce user interfaces. The methodology includes detailing the framework for serving diverse e-commerce user interfaces and presenting pilot implementation results. Key components, particularly the role of algorithms in personalizing the user experience, are outlined. The results demonstrate promising outcomes for the implementation of the pilot solution, which caters to various e-commerce user interfaces. User characteristics support multivariant websites, with algorithms facilitating continuous learning. Newly proposed metrics effectively measure changes in user behavior resulting from different interface deployments. This paper underscores the central role of personalized e-commerce user interfaces in optimizing online store efficiency. The framework, supported by machine learning algorithms, showcases the feasibility and benefits of different page versions. The identified components, challenges, and proposed metrics contribute to a comprehensive solution and set the stage for further development of personalized e-commerce interfaces.

The objective of this paper is to clarify the influence of the structural characteristics of organizations in Japanese enterprises on market-oriented behavior, starting from a study to grasp the market orientation of organizations represented by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) from the behavioral perspective. This paper focuses on the centrality of the influence of marketing decision-making, formulation of strategy, and task conflict among departments as precedent factors affecting market-oriented behavior, which are strongly related to management of marketing strategies. The paper takes an empirical approach using structural equation modeling based on a survey of marketers in the Japanese manufacturing industry on how the combination of preceding factors affect each other, after segmenting the process of market-oriented behavior into the generation and diffusion of market information and the reaction. The results showed that (1) the market-oriented behavior process does not persist as a seamless process, and (2) it is difficult to design an optimal organizational structure that satisfies all conditions in improving market-oriented behavior, and it is necessary to adjust the organizational structure according to the situation.

Islamic Banking (IB) still struggles to institutionalise its practices at the wider societal level. The literature, despite having covered the sector from several angles, has overlooked an objective evaluation of the root causes of its restricted institutionalisation so far. This empirical investigation into Pakistan's IB sector fills this void and investigates the sector's apparent limited success in institutionalising its practices despite having been formally accorded legitimate legal status around the world. The paper, bringing the sector's governance to the spotlight, concludes that the social practice's 'site' of development – the Islamic Shari'ah jurisprudence, has too strong a coupling of internal elements to accommodate the sector's current loose adherence to its principles and laws, and thus the sector, rather than its 'site' of its development, needs to adapt and reorient to accomplish unrestricted institutionalisation. The paper also extends Foucault's theoretical constructs in the sector's peculiar context, which stems from a unique cultural, economic, and regulatory environment. The paper aims to add a new dimension to the IB governance literature and help steer future research focus to areas with the highest marginal utility for the sector and its stakeholders.

Abstract Passive investments such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide an opportunity to invest in indexes, asset classes, and sectors with low maintenance costs and high transparency. Today ETFs dominate the world, with nearly 50% of the investment in the USA coming through ETFs. Numerous studies on specific aspects on ETFs have been done earlier; however, considering the scarcity of thorough summaries in the existing body of literature, this bibliometric and systematic review aims to adopt a methodical approach with the goal of delivering qualitative and quantitative understanding of ETFs, while highlighting general research trends. The authors analyzed 2058 articles associated with ETFs from the Scopus database during the last 50 years, i.e., from 1973 till date. The search was initially conducted using title, keyword, and abstract, yielding 2058 articles, which were narrowed to only include research papers and review papers, resulting in a final count of 958 items. The most important authors, highest cited articles, prominent journals, important themes, and associated countries have been identified using bibliometric research. The numerical and visual representations of the analysis show that ETFs are a widely studied research area, and the enormous rise in publications in 2020, 2021, and 2022 demonstrates that researchers are quite interested in the topic. According to affiliation statistics, most research is focused in the USA together with other developed nations, opening new options for the research on ETFs in relation to developing economies. The current analysis reconciles numerous exchange-traded fund studies associated with volatility, liquidity, risk-return trade-off, and tracking errors and identifies possible research gaps. Some of the emerging topics that evolved in passive investments include the use of machine learning, AI, and the emergence of ETFs associated with ESG and sustainability. This research will help lawmakers, scholars, and regulators understand the core principles of ETFs and identify areas that deserve additional investigation.

Abstract This paper investigates the effects of corporate risk disclosure (CRD) and dividend policy (DP) on firm value (FV) for non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. Using a sample of 45 non-financial firms from 2016 to 2022, which yielded 315 firm-year observations, we find a significant positive relationship between CRD and FV, supporting signaling theory. DP also exhibits a positive association with FV. Additionally, DP positively moderates the CRD-FV relationship, indicating a complementary effect where dividends enhance the CRD's positive signal. The results are robust across fixed effects, random effects, and pooled OLS models. This study makes key empirical and theoretical contributions by validating the hypothesized relationships in the Egyptian context. It also provides managerial insights into value drivers for public firms in developing economies. Further research can corroborate the findings in other emerging markets. Overall, this paper enhances understanding of the linkages between risk disclosure, dividend policy, and firm valuation outcomes.

Abstract This research paper aims to investigate the impediments faced by innovation-driven enterprises in Thailand and to explore the current measures, policies, and mechanisms related to innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs)’ development both domestically and internationally. The study encompasses a comprehensive approach, including an analysis of an innovation entrepreneur database comprising 320 investors and 883 IDEs. Moreover, semi-structure in-depth interviews were conducted with three investors, twenty-two IDEs’ founders, eight executives, and experts from various sectors, including government, university incubators, and the private sector in Thailand. Through this multifaceted investigation, this paper sheds light on the key factors that hinder the success of IDEs in Thailand, which primarily revolve around the quality of entrepreneurs (Team), Product and Market Fit, and Support. These factors collectively impact the depth of knowledge, business incubation, acceleration programs, and the effectiveness of laws, measures, and policies in supporting innovation capability development within IDEs. In addition, this paper presents a framework for Thailand’s IDEs hub, facilitating the connection between the university's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem with public and private stakeholders. This framework serves as a mechanism to address the identified hindrances and foster a conducive environment for IDEs development. To address the obstacles, this paper proposes three crucial strategies, namely, (1) talent management, (2) ease of doing scaleup, and (3) availability of funding. These strategies are envisioned to counteract the identified challenges and can be effectively implemented through an operating model and practical working procedures tailored to suit the specific context of Thailand.

Abstract Considering the pressures of fluctuating external environments, organizations are constantly seeking ways to be responsive and able to improve their performance with lower costs. Employer–employee relationships have changed rapidly in recent years, and there is growing interest in considering human resources as a form of capital, and a strategic factor for business excellence. A focal point for HR professionals is employee loyalty, recognized as pivotal in realizing long-term organizational goals. This paper delves into the concept of Wasta social capital and its pivotal role in fostering employee loyalty and innovation within the unique cultural context of the Arab world. It is argued here that Wasta social capital is the fundamental dynamic that stimulates employee loyalty in the workplace. This conceptual paper provides new insights through understanding the significant role Wasta social capital plays in affecting employee loyalty in a collectivist culture, differing from the conventional business-context factors of loyalty. Obtaining a deeper understanding of employee loyalty and how it is developed in Arab-world business contexts can promote innovation.

Developing a sustainable competitive advantage has emerged as a pivotal objective for organizations due to the dynamic and constantly evolving business environment, challenges modern organizations encounter, rapid market fluctuations, and intense competition. This study aims to examine the impact of strategic agility on sustainable competitive advantage and the mediating role of strategic renewal within an emerging economy such as Jordan. The study collected data from 217 executives holding senior and intermediate positions in telecommunications companies in Jordan. This paper utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS4 software to test hypotheses and assess the measurement and structural models. According to the findings, strategic agility has a significant positive impact on sustainable competitive advantage (β = 0.590, t = 8.042, p ≤ 0.000) and high explanation power (R2 = 0.828), which means that 82.8% of the variance in sustainable competitive advantage has been explained by strategic agility and strategic renewal. Moreover, strategic renewal partially mediates the relationship between strategic agility and sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, the study revealed that the model’s predictive power was medium. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge and existing literature about the impact of strategy renewal and agility on sustainable competitive advantage in Jordanian telecommunications companies. Organizations incorporating strategic agility and renewal into their strategy can manage uncertainties, swiftly adjust to changes, and attain sustainable competitive advantage.

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the effects of mineral rents, conflict and population growth on countries' growth, with a specific interest in 13 selected economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a combination of research methods: the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), the fixed effect and the system generalized method of moment (GMM). The consistent estimator (system GMM), which provides the paper's empirical findings, remedies the inherent endogeneity bias in the model formulation. The utilized panel dataset for the study spans from 1980 to 2022. Findings – The study suggests that mineral rents positively affect countries' growth by about 0.407 percentage points in the short run. The study further demonstrates the long-run negative impacts of population growth rates and prevalence of civil war on economic growth. The empirical work of the study reveals that an increase in the number of international borders within the group promotes mineral conflicts, which impedes economic growth. Evidence from the specification tests performed in the study confirmed the validity of the empirical results. Social implications – Mineral rents, if well managed and conditioned on good institutions, are a blessing to an economy, contrary to the assumptions that mineral resources are a curse. The utilization of mineral rents in Sub-Saharan Africa for economic growth depends on several factors, notably the level of mineral conflicts, population growth rates, institutional factors and the ability to contain civil war, among others. Originality/value – This study is the first attempt in the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era to revisit the investigation of the impacts of mineral rents, conflict and population growth rates on the countries' growth while controlling for the potential implications of the qualities of institutions. One of the significant contributions of the study is the identification of high population growth rates as one of the primary drivers of mineral conflicts that impede economic growth in the states with enormous mineral deposits in Sub-Saharan Africa. The crucial inference drawn from the study is that mineral rents positively impact countries' growth, even with inherent institutional challenges, although the results could be better with good institutions.

Purpose – In Ghana, legal and illegal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) activities have attracted the attention of the general populace and academia with varied opinions. This study examined how adopting the coping strategies for ASM operations affected the welfare of farm households. Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were solicited from respondents using a semi-structured questionnaire. This paper used the endogenous treatment effect model to quantitatively estimate whether or not farmers who adopt coping strategies for activities of ASM have improved or deteriorated welfare. Findings – The results revealed that households adopted coping strategies such as diversification, social networking, land reclamation, borrowing, dependence on the market for food and resettlement in other communities. The endogenous treatment effect model results show that households that adopted land reclamation and social networking had improved welfare regarding consumption expenditure and food security compared to non-adopters. Conversely, diversification was associated with lower consumption expenditures and high food insecurity among adopters. Practical implications – This paper recommends that farm households in mining communities form cooperatives and farmer-based organizations to ensure improved access to joint resources for enhanced capacity to cope with ASM-induced shocks. There is a need for government and civil society organizations to encourage and support land reclamation measures. Originality/value – This paper covers a broader perspective and deploys more than one welfare proxy, which has not been considered before in previous studies.

This study aims to analyze the reliability of Nepal’s industrial policies, focusing on the effects of macroeconomic variables on implementation and outcomes. This paper assesses Nepal’s industrial policies, emphasizing the need for improvements, export promotion, and human capital development while recognizing the importance of strategic planning and context-specific approaches for economic growth, stability, and development. The analytical and descriptive approaches have been applied to analyze the data by collecting secondary data sources that include official publications, which encompass 47 time series variables from 1974 to 2020. The findings provide mixed evidence for the economic impacts of liberalization, with exports and liberalization driving overall GDP growth. In contrast, other factors like economic openness, tourism, and their relationship with industrial GDP remain statistically insignificant. The paper indicates that remittances and investment have the most substantial impact on GDP, raising it by 1.86 and 1.21 units per unit increase, respectively. Exports have a moderate impact on industrial GDP (0.403 units). Export-oriented industries and tourism lack significant associations with either type of GDP. Liberalization significantly boosted both GDP and industrial GDP, with an increase of 179465.3 and 49595.62 units, respectively. Imports also jumped post-liberalization, driven by higher remittances as 1.215 units per unit increase. This study on industrial policies in developing economies, focusing on Nepal, adds valuable insights. The findings can ensure policymaking, boost economic growth, and strengthen Nepal’s industrial sector.

This paper delves into the relationship between inflation and economic growth, two pivotal elements in contemporary economic discussions. It aims to demystify and elucidate these concepts, particularly examining how they are interlinked through the development of a comprehensive econometric model. The study pays special attention to key economic indicators such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI) and the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In addition, the paper considers the role of monetary and fiscal policies in managing inflation and fostering economic growth. This exploration not only contributes to a deeper understanding of economic dynamics but also offers valuable insights for policymakers and economists in formulating effective economic strategies.

This paper illustrates economic challenges on motherhood, womanhood, children, and the issue of GBV. It has become evident in numerous families that societal role of mothers has shifted immensely. As a result, many scholars decided to study the various components of motherhood. Hence, the objective of this paper is to comprehend motherhood in society and its acceptance in the domestic domain. Becoming a mother was not the mother’s decision, it was a response to sociocultural pressure that held women accountable pertaining to children. Women had distinct motherhood experiences, but it is kept secret from the family and society. The issue of GBV cause mothers to face immense pressure in a morally acceptable motherhood society. Therefore, mothers have a very negative perception of motherhood, particularly in a highly demanding patriarchal society.

The last decades have seen an increase in entrepreneurial development based on innovation. Having access to innovation and setting up a business in a country that can serve as an innovationenabler can increase the degree of attractiveness of that respective country. Governments around the world have adopted innovation-centered views and implemented relevant policies to serve as a driver for reaching high competitiveness and to ensure a more rapid economic and, implicitly, social progress. The aim of the paper is to present the top ten countries in the world in their evolution specific to the Global Innovation Index (GII) for the 2021-2023 period. The research methodology is based on a qualitative method. The paper shows that the top ten ranked countries in the world using this specific index remained the same for the investigated period, also maintaining a fairly constant relative position for the three years subject to analysis, Switzerland being the acknowledged leader.

The automotive industry has always represented a key sector within the economy of any country. Moreover, its significant contribution to the gross domestic product of many countries transformed this industry into one of the main pillars of the global economy. Therefore, numerous countries have built and produced various motor vehicles on different continents. The purpose of the paper is to briefly present and analyze the evolution of the world motor vehicle production on the four continents (Europe, America, Asia-Oceania, and Africa) in the period 2018-2022. The research methodology is based on a qualitative research method. The paper shows that the pre-pandemic period was a better period for the automotive industry than the pandemic period. Also, it demonstrates that AsiaOceania dominates the production hierarchy by continents.

Action nominalizations are employed in business English to attain a higher degree of condensation, abstraction, and accuracy. This paper reports on a corpus-based study of the actual usage patterns of -tion nominals in business news. In contrast to previous corpus-based studies of nominalizations, we adopt a syntactic approach and focus on the realization of the argument structure of -tion nominals. The primary aim of the paper is to shed light on the formal characteristics of the action nominalization patterns in business English, as well as to identify tendencies in the usage of -tion nominals in business writing.

This paper tackles the speaking skill, in general, and its role in language teaching and learning, focusing also on various ways of developing it, in particular by the employment of the debate technique EFL/ ESP classes. The theoretical part of the paper further deals with several definitions of the debate technique, with the classification of debates and with the advantages brought by the implementation of debates in EFL/ ESP classes – in particular as far as the enhancement of the learners’ speaking skills is concerned. The practical part of the paper proposes a case study which consists of an experiment that will highlight the benefits of the debate technique when adequately used in the Business English teaching and learning processes.

The purpose of this paper is to further strengthen the belief within the academic, professional and policy making communities about the need to speed up the adoption of Agriculture 4.0 technologies in the Romanian farms as the grassroot constituents of the national agriculture in order to secure their future competitiveness in the context of new European agricultural policies and regulations. A review of the most influential papers and the bibliometric mapping of articles on change management as well as ways to accelerate change processes through change agents is discussed. Agrinnovator is the think tank of young digital agriculture practitioners in the Romanian farms. Their public policy proposal to create The Farm Technology Officers Program in order to accelerate digitalization through relevant change agents is also discussed. Their interviews highlighted the need for government support in creating scale and impetus for the digitalization of agriculture. It is deemed to be a structural countrywide change that will happen faster if the adequate change agents are used.

In the 2022-2023 school year, about 47% of candidates were admitted to their first-choice high school, while 1.44% were not admitted to any school. This research paper explores the dynamics of Romania's educational landscape, focusing on the National Evaluation Exams in the 2022-2023 school year. The paper investigates the path of pupils who, despite obtaining passing final admission scores, were not assigned in the first admission round to an upper-secondary educational facility. Two crucial research questions guide this study: on one hand, how many of these students competed in a different county than their residential county? On the other hand, what similarities and differences exist among them in terms of performance at the National Exam and average scores in the lower-secondary educational cycle? The findings aim to shed light on the challenges and opportunities within Romania's education system.

In recent decades, although most tourists have made several trips during a year, the average length of their vacations has decreased. The tendency to reduce the average length of stay of tourists has been evident in many destinations around the world in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an analysis of how the average length of stay of tourists in the main categories of destinations in Romania has evolved over the last decade, providing details about the evolution regarding tourist destinations located in the Romanian Black Sea coastal area. Starting from the possible causes identified in this paper, of the almost continuous decrease in the average length of stay in these destinations, we consider it necessary to undertake more in-depth studies, to find out the causes of these developments, which will be the basis of future development and marketing strategies regarding the respective tourist resorts.