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PurposeThe poor leadership style is a key obstacle to the effective implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. To successfully apply the Industry 4.0 technologies, which can enhance the sustainability of firms, senior management needs to be inspiring and transformational. On the other hand, numerous factors can hinder the Industry 4.0 transition and “Circular Supply Chain (CSC)” transformation. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate the related barriers of CSCs in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.Design/methodology/approachThe current study developed an innovative decision-making approach with the help of the “Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo)” method and “Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC)” method on the “q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Sets (q-ROFSs).” CRITIC in this combined method was used to predict the importance or weighting degrees of the CSCs barriers in the age of Industry 4.0 transition.FindingsThe results of this study found that the absence of knowledge about the Industry 4.0 technologies and circular approaches was the first barrier followed by the problems associated with data security in relationship management in circular flows, the deficiency of knowledge regarding the data management among stakeholders and the lack of awareness about the potential benefits of autonomous systems in labor-oriented “End-of-Life (EOL)” activities for CSCs in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation may be that despite the generalizability of the proposed framework, the results may differ when it is implemented in different sectors. By emphasizing the obstacles to sustainable operations of supply chains (SCs) in the context of circular economy (CE) and Industry 4.0, researchers working in the same domain may be encouraged to find ways to remove such obstacles in different settings. As suggested in this study, the priority of various barriers helps researchers suggest effective strategies for the sustainable development of companies within the current dynamic business atmosphere.Practical implicationsThe findings of this paper can aid industry practitioners in fixing their attention on the digitization or automation of their systems in the context of sustainability or resource circularity. Note that within the current context of CE, one of the crucial issues is how to conserve the existing resources; the answer to this question can save the environment.Originality/valueThe current paper proposed a new multi-criteria decision-making method using q-ROFSs to analyze, rank and evaluate the CSC barriers in the age of Industry 4.0 transition. To this end, a new decision-making approach with the help of CRITIC and CoCoSo methods on q-ROFSs called q-ROF-CRITIC-CoCoSo was introduced to evaluate the CSCs barriers in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.

Recently, the assessment and selection of most suitable low-carbon tourism strategy has gained an extensive consideration from sustainable perspectives. Owing to participation of multiple qualitative and quantitative attributes, the low-carbon tourism strategy (LCTS) selection process can be considered as multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. As uncertainty is usually occurred in LCTSs evaluation, the theory of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIFSs) has been established as more flexible and efficient tool to model the uncertain decision-making problems. The idea of the present study is to develop an extended method using additive ratio assessment (ARAS) framework and similarity measures in a way to find an effective solution to the decision-making problems using IVIFSs. The bases of the proposed method are the IVIFSs operators, some modifications in the traditional ARAS framework and a calculation procedure of the weights of the criteria. To calculate criterion weight, new similarity measures for IVIFSs are developed aiming at the achievement of more realistic weights. Also, a comparison is demonstrated to the currently used similarity measures in order to show the efficiency of the developed approach. To confirm that the developed IVIF-ARAS approach can be successfully employed to practical decision-making problems, a case study of LCTS selection problem is considered. The final results from the developed approach and the extant models are compared for the validation of the proposed approach in this study.

In recent years, the important role of sustainable development is highlighted in the literature; therefore, a company to make a sustainable business success needs to be well focused on social, environmental, economic, and technological characteristics of the business to address risks and capture value properly. The process of Sustainability Enterprise Risk Management (SERM) is typically implemented to integrate all social, economic, environmental, and technological aspects in a systematic way to properly manage emerging risks and other non-quantifiable risks for company survival. Therefore, in this study, an attempt has been carried out to develop a comprehensive framework to implement the ERM framework under the sustainability platform by considering 29 sub-criteria based on four main aspects, including social, environmental, technological, and economic. In addition, a new fuzzy decision-making approach using the VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje) approach under q-rung orthopair fuzzy set (q-ROFSs) called VIKOR-q-ROFSs approach is introduced to identify, rank, and evaluate the main criteria of SERM in the universal appeal for all industries such as Chinese manufacturing Small And Mid-Size Enterprises (SMEs) based on expert opinions and literature review. To determine the weights of SERM criteria by the decision experts, this study has introduced q-ROFNs. Moreover, to facilitate the q-ROFNs, a novel q-rung orthopair fuzzy weighted averaging operator (q-ROFWAO) is proposed. Furthermore, VIKOR is applied to rank and evaluate the manufacturing SMEs as the alternatives for this study. The results of this paper showed that technological suitability was the important risk factor followed by technological advance, occupational safety and health, product and services responsibility, (benefit) anti-corruption labor practices, and technological practicability. In addition, the findings of the analysis show that the proposed method was efficient and effective in evaluating risk assessment of SERM in the SMEs.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) on Competitive Advantage (CA) by moderating role of information technology dimensions including Information Technology (IT) strategy and Information Technology (IT) structure. A total of 84 valid questionnaires were obtained through self-administered survey conducted at Iranian financial institutions. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was conducted for the analysis of data and hypotheses testing. The findings of this study showed that ERM had a positive relationship with the firms’ competitive advantage. The results also showed that IT strategy and IT structure had a direct effect on the competitive advantage as a well as moderating effect on ERM-competitive advantage relationship. This study extends on previous ERM studies by considering Iran as a developing country which is neglected among previous empirical researches. It also extends previous ERM works by empirically evaluating ERM, IT, competitive advantage and relationships among them. This paper provides insights into the value of implementation of ERM among organizations which could lead to improve competitive advantage. In addition, this study provides implication in terms of manager's planning and decision making to consider IT as one of the critical success factors of ERM practices.

In the current dynamic environment, organizations are exposed to many risks from different directions. Therefore, this study using the theoretical lens explored the effect of enterprise risk management (ERM) on both financial and non-financial firm performance and the moderating role of intellectual capital (IC) and its dimensions on the relationship between ERM and firm performance. To test the study hypotheses, a questionnaire survey was distributed to 84 Iranian financial institutions. Structural equation modeling (PLS software) was used to analyze the data statistically. The findings revealed that ERM had a positive relationship with firms’ performance. The results also showed that the overall IC had a moderating effect on ERM-firm financial performance. However, regarding components of IC, knowledge, and information technology (IT) had a positive and significant moderating effect while training, organizational culture, and trust did not affect. This study provides an insight into the impact of ERM in recent years on non-financial performance and the influence of intangible assets on ERM and its function. The model developed in the current study and result can be extended and implemented to other organizations in developing countries.

Despite the wide-ranging studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), firm performance, and Organizational Leadership (OL), there have been only a few studies examining the inter-relationship between them. Accordingly, this investigation has tried to investigate how OL contributes to the firm's performance through the CSR strategies. It has an internal orientation to CSR motivations compared to the existing studies that mostly considered the external factors in implementing of CSR in firms; also, it has a comprehensive view toward the firm's performance by considering both financial and non-financial aspects of performance. It could be said that this study has tried to answer the question of whether or not CSR can be as a mediator between the OL and firm performance. Data collection was performed from 285 manufacturing and consumer products firms located in Malaysia during the four-month period of June–September of 2020. AMOS Structural Equation Modeling (AMOS-SEM) method was applied to analyze the model. Following the Baron and Kenny approach in testing the hypotheses, it was found that the relationships of OL and financial performance, as well as OL and non-financial performance were partially mediated by CSR. In addition, the non-financial performance was found as a full mediator between the OL and financial performance. Further, the results revealed two full mediated relationships in this way that non-financial performance was a full mediator variable between CSR and financial performance, as well as CSR and non-financial performance which were found as two multiple full mediators between OL and financial performance. The results help Malaysian managers to understand their current status, capabilities, strong points and weaknesses in leadership regarding to CSR. Moreover, due to the positive effects of CSR on both firm's financial and non-financial performance, CSR is recommended to be integrated in leadership style and the organizational strategies in order to having better performance., Organizational leadership; Corporate social responsibility; Financial performance; Non-financial performance; Malaysia.

Due to the large number of global marketers and global brands, retailers face many challenges. With an increase in the number of competitors, customers normally have more preferred retailers from which to choose. Therefore, retail stores are searching for affective methods to satisfy and fulfil the needs and expectations of their customers. Service quality is highly associated with customer behaviour in terms of their satisfaction toward retail stores and their intention to visit and purchase. It is important for retailers to evaluate service quality in relation to customer satisfaction. However, there is lack of empirical research in assessing the retail service quality related to customer satisfaction in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Therefore, this study aimed to empirically measure service quality and satisfaction of customers from four retail stores (Tesco, AEON/Jusco, Giant and The Store) in Johor Bahru. 200 questionnaires were directly collected from customers in retail stores to test and evaluate the hypothesis. The results of the study confirmed the positive and effective relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. The findings highlight the importance of service quality in purpose of satisfying the customer’s needs.

Our key research objectives in this study are: 1: to examine whether firms’ sales growth is positively and significantly affected by CSR implementation? and 2: to examine whether the relationship between corporate social responsibility and firm’s sales growth is mediated by competitive advantage. A total of 107 (out of 843) SMEs in manufacturing and consumer product industry from Iran were engaged in this study. Structural equation methodology based on AMOS path modeling was applied to test both hypotheses of the study. The first part of the results reveals that firms’ sales growth is positively and significantly affected by CSR implementation. The second part discloses that the positive effect of CSR on sales growth is positively mediated by competitive advantage. Taken together, these findings suggest a role for CSR in indirectly promoting firms’ sales growth through enhancing competitive advantage.

Direct relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance has been examined by many scholars, but this direct test seems to be spurious and imprecise. This is because many factors indirectly influence this relation. Therefore, this study considers sustainable competitive advantage, reputation, and customer satisfaction as three probable mediators in the relationship between CSR and firm performance. The findings from 205 Iranian manufacturing and consumer product firms reveal that the link between CSR and firm performance is a fully mediated relationship. The positive effect of CSR on firm performance is due to the positive effect CSR has on competitive advantage, reputation, and customer satisfaction. The final findings show that only reputation and competitive advantage mediate the relationship between CSR and firm performance. Taken together, these findings suggest a role for CSR in indirectly promoting firm performance through enhancing reputation and competitive advantage while improving the level of customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among innovation, environmental management accounting (EMA), and firm's financial performance. Specifically, this study explores the relationships of both product and process innovations with financial performance. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating role of EMA on the above relationships. Data were collected in a survey of top managers of the SMEs in manufacturing and consumer product industries in Iran, using a questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test all hypotheses. The findings revealed that both product and process innovations have positive relationships with firms' financial performance, while this effect is significant about product innovation and not significant about process innovation. Moreover, contrary to expectations, this study found a negative moderating effect of EMA on the relationship between process innovation and financial performance. However, no moderating effect of EMA was found on product innovation and financial performance relationship.