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Due to the young age of proptech, little is known about the dynamics of its expansion. In particular, there is limited agreement about a definition of “proptech,” while different categorizations are popping up. A severe lack of information emerges for the proptech scenario in Italy. The goal of this paper is to systematize multiple proptech maps in the attempt to create a framework for comparison of country-specific trends and an overarching definition of proptech. The research examines the evolutionary stage of the Italian digital real estate sector and compares it to the international context.

An in-depth analysis of 12 proptech maps at both national and international level was conducted based on online research. A list of Italian proptech companies was composed through multiple methods. A map was built for a cross-country comparison.

Each country or organization tends to develop its own categorization. This creates a multifaceted context where comparison and analysis are challenging. The Italian proptech sector seems underdeveloped compared to neighboring countries. Big room for improving the proptech business in this country still exists.

The results are valuable for proptech start-ups, business investors and well-established real estate actors to build on new entrepreneurial initiatives. The opportunity to advance proptech mapping and categorization emerges as a prospect for future research.

This research adds an overview of cross-country proptech categories and proposes the first analysis of Italian proptech. This will contribute to support entrepreneurial opportunities.

Understanding the determinants that influence consumers' attitude to adopt sustainable diets represents an important area of research to promote sustainable food consumption. The aim of this study is to investigate how (1) the individual openness to new foods (ONFs), (2) the involvement in food trends (IFTs) and (3) the social media use (SMU) can potentially impact the attitude towards the adoption of a sustainable diet (ATSD).

The authors conducted a structured survey in eight countries: Italy, Germany, Poland, USA, Brazil, Japan, Korea and China. The final sample of 5,501 individuals was analysed applying a structural equation model.

The main results show that attitude towards the ATSD is influenced differently by the antecedents investigated in each country. In particular, the ONF positively influences the ATSD only in Italy, USA and Germany. IFT positively influences the ATSD only in Italy, Poland and USA, while negatively in Germany. SMU has a positive influence on the ATSD only in Japan, USA and Germany, while a negative one in Brazil and Korea.

This study presents a cross-country comparison about the antecedents of attitude towards the ATSD, thus providing evidence for the need of ad hoc marketing strategies by companies and policies by institutions at single country level.

This policy paper compares the performance of state-owned enterprise (SOEs) versus private firms in selected emerging economies in Asia, focusing on a number of performance indicators. The indicators are internationally recognized quality innovation, product and/or service innovation, financing of operations, dealing with government regulations and labor performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no such comparative study for these indicators between SOEs and private firms and across countries. Most studies of SOEs have been national case studies. As such, they give us little knowledge of how a country compares with other countries at similar stages of economic development. A cross-country comparative analysis can help us identify broader trends and patterns.

The authors compare and discuss the performance of SOEs versus private firms in a number of emerging Asian countries, namely China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. To do so, the authors use data from the 2018 World Bank Enterprise Survey (which is the latest available) for the period 2012–2015. The authors focus on a number of key performance indicators, namely internationally recognized quality innovation, product and/or service innovation, financing of operations, dealing with government regulations and labor performance.

The comparative analysis uncovers some interesting differences between the two types of firms. For example, somewhat surprisingly, SOEs tend to innovate more than private firms. However, the single most significant pattern the authors find is that in middle-income Asia both types of firms face formidable challenges with respect to doing business – e.g. scarcity of relevant training programs for employees. Therefore, the priority of policymakers must be to improve the overall business environment for all firms, regardless of their ownership structure.

The nature of this paper is a policy paper. This is because the data used in this study is survey data, conducted every four–five years (or more) for each country in the study and available for very few countries. As the data are not available for a continuous period of time, The authors could not conduct empirical research for this topic and thus made it a policy paper that presents a comparison across Asian countries as case studies.

The five selected Asian countries are interesting case studies for a comparative analysis since they are middle-income countries where SOEs play a significant role in the economy. Furthermore, state ownership is an important institutional dimension in emerging markets, and strong ties with the government can influence the performance of SOEs through various market and non-market channels. Despite the potential importance of the research theme, there is very little existing research on cross-country comparisons of the performance of SOEs vis-à-vis private firms. This could be explained by scarce data availability. With this in mind, the study attempts to shed some light on SOEs' performance and add to the rather limited literature.

The purpose of this paper is to represent the first empirical attempt to explore global-local consumer identities as drivers of global digital brand usage. Specifically, this study considers a unique category of digital products, social networking sites (SNS), and develops a set of hypotheses to assess the mechanism through which location-based identities influence the actual usage of global SNS (Facebook and Instagram). Moreover, cross-country variations are investigated under the lens of developed vs developing countries.

Cross-country surveys in a developed (Austria) and a developing country (Thailand) were conducted. Data collected from 425 young adults were analyzed using SEM techniques in order to test a set of hypotheses.

Results show that in Thailand, users with a global identity enjoy participating in global SNS more than their counterparts in Austria. In addition, consumers with a local identity in Thailand demonstrate less pleasure when participating in global SNS than their counterparts in Austria, and consequently are less inclined to use global SNS.

Findings provide digital marketers with useful insights into important strategic decisions regarding the selection and potential adaptation of global digital brands according to the country context.

This research is the first to extend the location-based identity research in the context of global digital brands, explain how global-local identities predict SNS usage through an engagement mechanism and investigate cross-country variations of this mechanism.

This research aims to analyse the perceptions of practitioners in three regions regarding the challenges faced by their firms during the pandemic, considered a black-swan event. It examines the strategies implemented to mitigate and recover from risks, evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and assesses the difficulties encountered in their implementation.

In the summer of 2022, an online survey was conducted among supply chain (SC) practitioners in France, Poland and the St. Louis, Missouri region of the USA. The survey aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their firms and the SC strategies employed to sustain operations. These regions were selected due to their varying levels of SC development, including infrastructure, economic resources and expertise. Moreover, they exhibited different responses in safeguarding the well-being of their citizens during the pandemic.

The study reveals consistent perceptions among practitioners from the three regions regarding the impact of COVID-19 on SCs. Their actions to enhance SC resilience primarily relied on strengthening collaborative efforts within their firms and SCs, thus validating the tenets of the relational view.

COVID-19 is (hopefully) our black-swan pandemic occurrence during our lifetime. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from it can inform future SC risk management practices, particularly in dealing with rare crises. During times of crisis, leveraging existing SC structures may prove more effective and efficient than developing new ones. These findings underscore the significance of relationships in ensuring SC resilience.

The paper aims at addressing the following research questions: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency? And which pillars of institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

By specifying a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method where GHG emissions are considered as the bad output and the GDP is referred as the desirable one, the work computes the environmental efficiency into the appraisal of a production function for the European countries over three decades.

According to the countries' performance, the findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries. In this environmental context, the role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries.

This article attempts to analyze the role of different dimensions of institutional quality in different European countries' performance – in terms of mitigating GHGs (undesirable output) – while trying to raise their economic performance through their GDP (desirable output).

1. The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

2. We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

3. The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

4. The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

Doctoral students’ ill-being in terms of stress, exhaustion and high levels of mental health problems has been well documented. Yet, the well-being of doctoral students is more than the absence of these negative symptoms. The number of studies exploring the combination of positive and negative attributes of doctoral students’ well-being is limited. Therefore, this study aims to focus on exploring individual variation in doctoral students’ experienced engagement and burnout across two distinct socio-cultural contexts in Finland and in South Africa.

A total of 884 doctoral students from Finland (n = 391) and South Africa (n = 493) responded to the cross-cultural Doctoral Experience Survey. The data were quantitatively analyzed.

Altogether four distinctive engagement–burnout profiles were detected, including engaged, engaged–exhausted, moderately engaged–burnout and burnout profiles. Differences between the Finnish and South African students were identified in profile emphasis. The profiles were also related to several study progress attributes such as drop-out intentions, time-to-candidacy and satisfaction with study.

This study provides new understanding on doctoral students’ well-being by focusing on both positive and negative attributes and exploring doctoral students’ discrepant profiles with a cross-country design.

This study aims to compare the humanitarian supply chains and logistics of two countries in earthquake preparedness by modifying and using a previously established preparedness evaluation framework.

A European flood emergency management system (FEMS) is a seven-dimensional framework to assess a country’s preparedness for flood emergencies. The FEMS framework was modified to apply to earthquakes. Leveraging a multiple explanatory case study approach with data analysis, the authors reconstructed the events of the earthquakes in Pakistan (2005) and Japan (2011) with an applied grading (1–5). Findings were evaluated within the adopted FEMS framework. From a practitioner’s perspective, the framework is applicable and can accelerate support in the field.

Pakistan lacked emergency plans before the 2005 earthquake. In contrast, Japan possessed emergency plans before the disaster, helping minimise casualties. Overall, Japan demonstrated considerably better emergency management effectiveness. However, both countries significantly lacked the distribution of responsibilities among actors.

Practical factors in the humanitarian supply chain are well understood. However, synthesising individual factors into a comprehensive framework is difficult, which the study solves by applying and adopting the FEMS framework to earthquakes. The developed framework allows practitioners a structured baseline for prioritising measures in the field. Furthermore, this study exemplifies the usefulness of cross-hazard research within emergency management and preparedness in a real-world scenario.

This article aims to investigate the financial constraints and nonlinearity of farm size growth.

Farm size growth is measured with land, labor and output using data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for Hungary and Slovenia. A dynamic panel model is applied to assess financial constraints and nonlinearity of farm size growth.

Results show that, except for land in Slovenia and output in Hungary, liquidity constraints are less important for farm size growth than endogenous factors based on farm size growth expectations and steady farm size restructuring. Smaller farms are growing faster than larger ones. The hypothesis that a higher level of subsidies would increase farm size is not supported for Hungary. When farms reach a certain size, the land area of the largest farms increases. Farm debts in Hungary are linked with land growth and in Slovenia with output growth.

Further research on the impact of liquidity constraints and subsidies can be conducted at a disaggregate farm-type level to examine whether there is variability in the underlying interlinkages at the farm-type specialization level.

The implication that farm size growth is dependent on initial size and that smaller farms are growing faster than bigger ones indicates that it is not necessary to favor the fastest growing smaller farms thus supports the application of a non-discriminatory farm size policy for observing farm size structural changes.

The dynamic panel econometric model that incorporates cash flow as a measure of financial constraints provides insight into farm size growth in cross-country comparison in relation to potential farm liquidity constraints, farm debt and the nonlinearity of farm size, which information is of relevance to policy makers and practitioners.