Search results

This study analyzes the performance implications of adopting blockchain to support supply chain business processes. The technology holds as many promises as implementation challenges, so interest in its impact on operational performance has grown steadily over the last few years.

Drawing on transaction cost economics and the contingency theory, we built a set of hypotheses. These were tested through a long-term event study and an ordinary least squares regression involving 130 adopters listed in North America.

Compared with the control sample, adopters displayed significant abnormal performance in terms of labor productivity, operating cycle and profitability, whereas sales appeared unaffected. Firms in regulated settings and closer to the end customer showed more positive effects. Neither industry-level competition nor the early involvement of a project partner emerged as relevant contextual factors.

This research presents the first extensive analysis of operational performance based on objective measures. In contrast to previous studies and theoretical predictions, the results indicate that blockchain adoption is not associated with sales improvement. This can be explained considering that secure data storage and sharing do not guarantee the factual credibility of recorded data, which needs to be proved to customers in alternative ways. Conversely, improvements in other operational performance dimensions confirm that blockchain can support inter-organizational transactions more efficiently. The results are relevant in times when, following hype, there are signs of disengagement with the technology.

This study aims to examine the obstacles and approaches to achieving sustainable development in India’s cement solid and hollow brick production business, with a specific emphasis on incorporating the triple bottom line (TBL) concept into strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Using the step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA)–weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) approach, the study prioritized 11 economic, 9 environmental and 14 social sustainability indicators based on information collected from literature and expert opinions.

The study provides valuable insights into the difficulties encountered by SMEs while implementing strategies that focus on the TBL. By putting emphasis on the sustainability criteria, the key areas that require attention to promote sustainability get identified and addressed.

The study’s focus on SMEs in this industry limits its generalizability. To have a more complete picture, future studies may include many areas.

The identified and prioritised sustainability characteristics help small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) design strategies to address sustainable development concerns. The research findings could also inform policymakers and regulatory bodies about the challenges faced by SMEs in the cement and brick production sector regarding sustainability. It could highlight the need for supportive policies and regulations to promote sustainable practices and incentivize SMEs to adopt the TBL approach. The paper can offer practical insights for SME owners and managers on integrating sustainability principles into their business strategies. Actionable recommendations and best practices for enhancing environmental performance, social impact and economic viability within the context of cement and brick production are outlined.

TBL policies improve the sustainability and profitability of small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) and promote environmentally and socially responsible practices that benefit the industry and society. The research paper may facilitate greater engagement and collaboration among various stakeholders involved in the cement and brick production industry, including SMEs, larger corporations, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local communities. This cooperative approach can encourage open communication, the establishment of trust and coordinated actions to tackle sustainability challenges, ultimately improving social cohesion and collaboration.

This study provides new and valuable insights by investigating the development of TBL strategies in SMEs in the cement solid and hollow brick manufacturing sector in India. The utilization of the SWARA–WASPAS technique brings novelty to research on sustainable development in this field.

The purpose of this article is to illustrate an emerging typology that theoretically links work values with personal values and to provide evidence of construct validity for this typology.

A hypothesis was developed that four types of work values – intrinsic, extrinsic, prestige and affective – underlie the relative importance that individuals place on aspects of work. Evidence of construct validity was provided using triangulation analysis. Data from three different samples in Japan were analysed with three different techniques; exploratory factor analysis (N = 229), hierarchical cluster analysis (N = 244) and smallest space analysis (N = 203).

The results demonstrate acceptable internal consistency and a coherent structure that fits the theoretical model across methods and samples. These findings lend strong support to the use of the intrinsic, extrinsic, affective and prestige typology for studying work values. This will hopefully encourage field scholars to adopt the typology in future values-based explorations in the context of work.

The study adds to the emergent literature in business research that stresses the importance of triangulation analysis to enhance the reliability and validity of findings. In this sense, it is an innovative paradigm of a multiple triangulation approach, which combines both data and within-method triangulation. The methods employed covered – for the first time – all commonly applied techniques for exploring the structure underlying the data and provided inductive, deductive and spatial evidence to corroborate the observed structure of work values.

There is still an ongoing debate on the value relevance of capital structure and its determinants. Recently the issue has been explored in family firms after being explored in mature firms. This paper investigates the role of institutional investors and the firm's innovation activity in influencing the firm's decision and ability to acquire debt capital.

A large sample of 700 privately-held family firms in Italy from 2010 to 2019. Two analysis techniques are used: panel analysis and path analysis. The value of debt and the debt ratio are used as leverage measures. The value of patent (as a proxy for innovation) and institutional investor are the explanatory variables.

The results show that institutional investors have no relationship with financial leverage measures except when controlling for an interaction variable (Institutional investors × Lombardy region). The patent value is positively correlated with debt; however, the ratio patent-to-asset is negatively related to financial leverage indicating higher risk exposure. The nonlinearity test demonstrates a turning point when the relationship between patent value and debt inverts.

Firms should monitor their innovation activity since excessive innovation increases risk exposure and affects financing opportunities and value. The involvement of institutional investors does not always enhance value.

Existing literature focuses separately on family firm innovations and financial leverage as outcome variables, emphasizing the role of institutional investors in both fields by adopting agency theory and socioemotional wealth framework. In this study, the authors go further by merging both relationships, investigating the dynamics of the institutional-family firm innovation relationship in influencing the firm's capital structure. The authors contribute to the ongoing debate by providing original findings on capital structure, governance and innovation, supported by rigorous methods to enhance family firms' decision-making.

This study analyzes the impact of the information environment (IE) and credit default swap (CDS) transaction costs on information transmission between the stock and CDS markets. Using the daily regression analysis on the Korean firm’s stock and CDS data from 2004 to 2023, the results show that companies with superior IE in the stock market exhibit a larger and more sensitive total information flow from the stock market to the CDS market. Companies with lower transaction costs in the CDS market demonstrate faster information flow. In the case of companies with superior IE, fundamental information is reflected in stock prices with high weight and thus the CDS spreads change reflecting information about stock prices. According to this study’s findings, the primary factor influencing the information flow from the stock market to the CDS market is the information environment of the company in the stock market, rather than transaction costs in the CDS market.

Given the growing significance of contemporary socio-economic and infrastructural conversations of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), this research seeks to provide a general overview of the academic landscape concerning PPP.

To offer a nuanced perspective, the study adopts the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) methodology to meticulously analyse 3,057 journal articles, mapping out the thematic contours within the PPP domain.

The analysis highlights PPP's pivotal role in harmonising public policy goals with private sector agility, notably in areas like disaster-ready sustainable infrastructure and addressing rapid urbanisation challenges. The emphasis within the literature on financial, risk, and performance aspects accentuates the complexities inherent in financing PPP and the critical need for practical evaluation tools. An emerging focus on healthcare within PPP indicates potential for more insightful research, especially amid ongoing global health crises.

This study pioneers the application of LDA for an all-encompassing examination of PPP-related academic works, presenting unique theoretical and practical insights into the diverse facets of PPP.

To delve into the integration of global logistics and supply chain networks amidst the digital transformation era. This study aims to investigate the potential role of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in facilitating the integration of global flows encompassing both tangible goods and intangibles. Additionally, the study seeks to incorporate third-party logistics activities into a comprehensive global logistics and supply chain integration framework.

Prior research is synthesised into a global logistics and supply chain integration framework. A case study was undertaken on Yuan Tong (YTO) express group to investigate the framework, employing qualitative data analysis techniques. The study specifically examined the context of the BRI to enhance comprehension of its impact on global supply chains. Information was collected in particular to two types of supply chain flows, the physical flow of goods, and intangible information and cash flows.

The proposed framework aligns well with the case study, leading to the identification of global logistics and supply chain integration enablers. The results demonstrate a range of ways BRI promotes global logistics and supply chain integration.

The case study, with multiple examples, focuses on how third-party logistics firms can embrace global logistics and supply chain integration in line with BRI. The case study approach limits generalisation, further applications in different contexts are required to validate the findings.

The framework holds promise for aiding practitioners and researchers in gaining deeper insights into the role of the BRI in global logistics and supply chain integration within the digital era. The identified enablers underscore the importance of emphasising key factors necessary for success in navigating digital transformation within global supply chains.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the business streamlining (BS) model proposed in 2017.

This study/paper develops and validates the qualitatively generated BS model, a conceptual model of service sourcing relationships, by testing it quantitatively. A survey was sent to chief exective officers, chief purchasing officers or facility managers in 764 private or public companies in Sweden with an annual turnover exceeding € 10m. The categories were tested and analyzed by means of factor analysis.

The BS model for managing service sourcing processes was confirmed to be significant overall, meaning that it is applicable irrespective of service sourcing context. The efficiency pursuing (EP) was found to have an interlinking role that calls for a revision of the BS model. Furthermore, the four categories tended to load pairwise.

Although this cross-sectional study confirms the relevance of the BS model for managing service-sourcing processes, further studies should examine both the relative significance of its categories in different service-sourcing contexts and why the four main categories tend to pair.

The results support that the model is flexible and adaptable to a wide range of service-sourcing circumstances. Irrespective of the relative complexity of facility management (FM) sourcing processes, the categories can be adapted to fit the service sourcing context. Thus, it can be used as a tool to analyze and facilitate strategic decision-making.

The paper validates that the BS model can represent the dynamics of different service-sourcing processes, regardless of the complexity of the context.

The present study investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and governance quality on carbon emissions in the Economics Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

To achieve the objective of this research, panel data for dependent and explanatory variables over the period 2005–2016, collected in the World Development Indicators (WDI) database and World Governance Indicators (WGI), are analyzed using the generalized method of moments (GMM). Also, the panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) method is applied to the four segments of the overall sample to analyze the stability of the results.

The findings of this study are (1) FDI inflows have a negative effect on carbon emissions in ECOWAS and (2) The interaction between FDI inflows and governance quality have a negative effect on carbon emissions. These results show the decreasing of environmental damage by increasing institutional quality. However, the estimation results on the country subsamples show similar and non-similar aspects.

This study suggests that policymakers in the ECOWAS countries should strengthen their environmental policies while encouraging FDI flows to be environmentally friendly.

The subject has rarely been explored in West Africa, with gaps such as the lack of use of institutional variables. This study contributes to the literature by drawing on previous work to examine the role of good governance on FDI and the CO2 emission relationship in the ECOWAS, which have received little attention. However, this research differs from previous work by subdividing the overall sample into four groups to test the stability of the results.