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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of environmental and cultural factors on the benchmarking implementation process and management control within organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). By exploring the complex interplay of these factors, the study aims to uncover how environmental considerations and cultural dynamics shape the effectiveness and outcomes of benchmarking initiatives in the UAE's unique business environment. The research seeks to provide valuable insights for organizations in the UAE to optimize their benchmarking practices and enhance their overall performance and competitiveness.

The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to comprehensively explore the influence of environmental and cultural factors on benchmarking implementation and management control in the UAE. This study draws on the integration of two main theoretical perspectives: institutional theory and contingency theory. This is the first attempt to integrate these different frameworks in a single study. The study presents a case study of Emirates Industrial City (EIC), which has been recognized by global industries for boosting efficiency, cost control, quality and overall operations. The quality method known as benchmarking maximizes the potential for organizations to achieve optimal levels of production efficiency.

This paper provides compelling evidence that the benchmarking implementation process and management control in the UAE are significantly influenced by the complex interplay of environmental and cultural factors. By recognizing the importance of environmental sustainability and cultural values in guiding benchmarking practices, UAE organizations can optimize their performance and competitiveness. The findings contribute valuable insights to the existing literature, offering practical implications for UAE organizations seeking to leverage benchmarking as a strategic tool for growth and continuous improvement. The findings reveal that UAE organizations incorporating environmental considerations into benchmarking practices demonstrate a proactive approach to sustainability, aligning their goals with eco-friendly practices. Cultural influences, including a culture of collaboration and openness to external learning, contribute to successful benchmarking adoption and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the study highlights that the integration of benchmarking outcomes into the management control process positively correlates with organizational performance. UAE organizations that leverage benchmarking data for decision-making and performance evaluation exhibit higher levels of competitiveness and efficiency.

This paper has important implications for organizations in the UAE seeking to optimize their benchmarking practices and management control. The study's findings can guide organizations in aligning their benchmarking efforts with environmental sustainability goals and cultural values to enhance performance and competitiveness. Understanding the influence of environmental and cultural factors on benchmarking adoption and implementation allows organizations to foster a benchmarking culture that embraces knowledge sharing and learning. Managers can tailor their approaches to accommodate cultural nuances and enhance the effectiveness of benchmarking initiatives.

This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge in several ways. Integrated approach: By examining the complex interplay of environmental and cultural factors, this study takes an integrated approach of institutional and contingency theories to understanding their influence on benchmarking implementation and management control. It offers a comprehensive view of how these factors interact to shape organizational practices and outcomes. UAE context: The study focuses specifically on the UAE, providing insights into benchmarking practices within the unique environmental and cultural context of the nation. This research addresses a gap in the literature by examining the influence of these factors in a distinct business environment.

This study was conducted to analyse the socio-ecological problems faced by the Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary and understand its potential and challenges for developing ecotourism following Triple Bottom Line (TBL) principles. The study also benchmarked best ecotourism practices across the globe to create an ecotourism plan that would provide alternative livelihood and help in sustainable management of the area by reducing poverty, dependency on forests and biodiversity protection.

Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary was chosen because this area has several socio-ecological crises with limited livelihood options, and there is an urgent need for alternative livelihood opportunities in the form of ecotourism. The study followed an ethnographic approach through observation, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. Content and thematic analysis was conducted through Atlas Ti9.0 software for data analysis. Subsequently, benchmarking best ecotourism practices through a literature review was done to develop an ecotourism action plan.

The First finding was related to the study area divided into three themes: problems, potential for ecotourism development, and challenges for ecotourism development. The second finding was related to benchmarking best practices and suggesting an action plan.

This work studied an area not sufficiently acknowledged by academicians and policymakers concerning ecotourism development. The work also benchmarks the best practices for ecotourism and proposes a sight-specific ecotourism action plan in accordance with TBL.

Growing concern over sustainability adoption has presented an array of challenges to businesses. While vital to an economy's success, banking is not immune to societal, environmental and economic consequences of business practices. The study has examined the sustainable performance of banking institutions on the suggested multidimensional framework comprising economic, environmental, social, governance and financial dimensions and 52 sustainability indicators. The study benchmarks the significant performance indicators of leading banks indispensable to sustainable banking performance. The findings attempt to address research questions concerning the extent of sustainable banking performance, ranking the sustainability dimensions and indicators and standardizing sustainability adoption metrics.

To determine the responsiveness of the banking industry to sustainability dimensions, content analysis was conducted using NVivo software for the year 2021–2022. Furthermore, a hybrid multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is used by integrating entropy, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) to provide relative weights to performance indicators and prioritize banks based on their sustainable performance. Sensitivity analysis is used to ensure the robustness of results.

In the context of the Indian banking industry, the pattern of sustainability reporting is inconsistent and concentrated on addressing environmental and social concerns. The results of the entropy methodology prioritized “Environmental” sustainability over other selected dimensions while “Financial” dimension has been assigned the least priority in the ranking order. The significant sustainable performance indicators delineated in this study should be used as standards to ensure the accountability and credibility of the sustainable banking industry. Additionally, the research findings will provide valuable inputs to policymakers and regulators to assure better contribution of the banking sector in meeting sustainability goals.

Considering the paucity of studies on sustainable banking performance, this study makes two significant contributions to the literature. First, the suggested multidimensional disclosure model integrating financial and nonfinancial indicators would facilitate banking institutions in addressing the five aspects of sustainability. As one of the first studies in the context of the Indian banking industry, the findings would pave the way for better diffusion of sustainability practices. Second, the inclusion of MCDM techniques prioritizes the significance of sustainability indicators and benchmarks the performance of leading banks to achieve better profits and more substantial growth.

The study's objectives are to conduct a comprehensive review of existing knowledge, thoroughly understand the present state of green finance, identify emerging research trends, perform content analysis and offer valuable guidance for advancing this field.

Data has been collected by selecting highly indexed databases, Scopus and Web of Science. These databases are well-known repositories of academic papers, journals and other scholarly publications related to various fields of study. This research uses the PRISMA methodology for conducting a structured literature review and employs a bibliometric approach to summarize the findings of the previous studies. “R” studio and Biblioshiny are used to clean the data and visualize the results. The TCCM framework is utilized to propose potential avenues for future research in the domain of green finance.

The research uncovers the potential areas in the domain of green finance for future work, encompassing green bonds, the green economy, connectivity, forces, constraints and sustainable development. Furthermore, this process enhances the theoretical underpinnings of scholarly investigations within the discipline by succinctly synthesizing and evaluating preexisting literature. This contribution could facilitate more informed and focused research endeavors in green finance.

The research findings have practical implications for researchers, practitioners, regulators, legislators, issuers and investors involved in green finance. The results can take initiatives to improve practices related to issuing and pricing green financial products and enhance the understanding of interconnectedness within the field.

This ground-breaking research sheds light on various emerging areas by taking a new approach, including the most widely read articles, authors and journals and the broader conceptual and intellectual framework. That includes finding and expanding original research streams, summarizing the most seminal works, and suggesting new research pathways.

This study aims to focus on assessing the status of agribusiness enterprises in Nigeria. The specific goals were to ascertain the level of performance of different categories of agribusiness enterprises, and determine the institutional and firm-level characteristics that influence agribusiness performance.

The study is based on secondary data. These data were sourced from the World Bank business enterprise survey. The World Bank Enterprise survey employed a purposive sampling technique to select major staple agribusiness categories in Nigeria. The categories selected were those included in the World Bank's categorization of agribusiness enterprises. These categories include tobacco, food, textiles, leather, garments, paper industries and wood. The individual firms included in the survey were randomly selected from the selected agribusiness categories. In total, 721 agribusiness firms were selected. Data were analyzed with multiple linear regression at a 5% probability level.

The result of the analysis showed that small-scale agribusiness enterprises have the best performance based on an average of the five performance indicators considered in this study. The determinants of agribusiness performance showed that the credit constraint, size of enterprise, bureaucracy and corruption negatively and significantly affected the performance of agribusiness enterprises in the country, while the gender and educational status of the top manager were positively significant.

The findings imply that small agribusinesses are instrumental in the development of the agribusiness sector and by extension the economy of the nation.

This study enhances the understanding of how best to deliver improved system-level performance policy and wealth creation, especially within the agribusiness subsector.

Low back disorders are more predominant among construction trade workers than their counterparts in other industry sectors. Floor layers are among the top artisans that are severely affected by low back disorders. Exoskeletons are increasingly being perceived as ergonomic solutions. This study aims to compare the efficacy of passive and active back-support exoskeletons by measuring range of motion, perceived discomfort, usability, perceived rate of exertion and cognitive load during a simulated flooring task experiment.

In this study eight participants were engaged in a repetitive timber flooring task performed with passive and active back-support exoskeletons. Subjective and objective data were collected to assess the risks associated with using both exoskeletons. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. Scheirer-Ray-Hare test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were adopted to compare the exoskeleton conditions.

The results show no significant differences in the range of motion (except for a lifting cycle), perceived level of discomfort and perceived level of exertion between the two exoskeletons. Significant difference in overall cognitive load was observed. The usability results show that the active back-support exoskeleton made task execution easier with less restriction on movement.

The flooring task is simulated in a laboratory environment with only eight male participants.

This study contributes to the scarce body of knowledge on the usage comparison of passive and active exoskeletons for construction work.

The existing literature reflects that the connection between enablers of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), Supply Chain (SC) sustainability and reliability is understudied. To cover this gap, the purpose of this study is to identify and benchmark the enablers of I4.0 for SC sustainability to build a Reliable Supply Chain (RSC).

This study benchmarks the I4.0 enablers for SC sustainability for building a RSC and analyses them with a multi-method approach. The identified potential enablers are validated empirically. A multi-method approach of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Preference Ranking for Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE-II) was used to investigate the influence of the identified benchmarking enablers and develop an interrelationship diagram among the identified enablers.

This study benchmarks the potential enablers of I4.0 to achieve high ecological-economic-social gains in SCs considering the Indian scenario. Digitalization of the supply chain, decentralization, smart factory technologies and data security and handling are the most prominent enablers of I4.0 for SC sustainability to build a RSC.

The findings from the study may benefit managers, practitioners, specialists, researchers and policymakers interested in I4.0 sustainability applications.

The exact process of construction projects performance assessment and benchmarking still remains subjective relying on qualitative techniques, which does not allow stakeholders to address the issues and the drawbacks of their respective projects as effectively as possible for performance improvement purposes. Hence, this research aims to establish a unified project performance score (PPS) for assessing and comparing projects performance.

Data were collected from Construction Industry Institute (CII) members and through University of Wisconsin active research projects. Exploratory data analysis was done to investigate the calculated performance metrics and the collected data characteristics. Data were converted into six performance metrics which were used as the independent variables in creating the PPS model. Logistic regression model was developed to generate the unified PPS equation in order to explain the variables that significantly affect construction projects successful post-completion performance. The PPS model was then applied on the collected dataset to benchmark projects in terms of project delivery systems, compensation types and project types in order to showcase the PPS capabilities and possible applications.

The model revealed that construction cost and schedule growth are the most important metrics in assessing projects performance, while RFIs’ processing time and change orders per million dollars were the features with the least effect on the PPS value. The authors found that integrated project delivery (IPD) and target value (TV) projects outperformed all other project delivery and compensation types. While, industrial projects showed the worst performance, as compared to commercial or institutional projects.

The PPS model can be used to assess the performance of any pool of executed projects, and introducing a novel addition to the field of construction business analytics which is a supplementary tool to successful decision making and performance improvement. Additionally, the bidding selection system can be revolutionized from a cost-based to a performance based one using the PPS model to improve the outcomes of the buyout process.

Stirred by scant regard for market phases in portfolio performance assessments, the current paper investigates the active versus passive investment strategies under the bull and bear market conditions in emerging markets focusing on South Africa as a case study.

Methodologically, the measures of Jensen's alpha and Treynor index are applied to the monthly returns of 20 funds from January 2010 to June 2022.

The results are enlightening; though they contradict developed market evidence, they are consistent with emerging market trends. The findings show that actively managed funds outperform the market benchmark and passive investing style under bear and normal market conditions. Passive investment strategy outperforms both market benchmark and actively investing style under bull market conditions.

In the face of improved market efficiency, increased liquidity and recent technological impact, the findings of this study have practical application. The study outcomes should inform and update global investors, especially asset managers interested in emerging markets; however, the limitations of the study should also be considered.

While limited studies consider market conditions when comparing and contrasting the performance of passive versus active investing, such consideration is lacking in emerging markets. The current study corrects this literature imbalance.

The paper tries to investigate the impact of applications of the resource-based view (RBV) theory in the management field to improve the firm’s profitability. Global firms are innovating and adopting new technology, paving the way to improve their performance.

We have adopted RBV in management practices such as marketing, strategy, finance, and human resources.

RBV has gained researchers' attention with the growing competitive world and new challenges to retaining customers and achieving their pre-defined targets. We attempt to identify the issues related to the usage of RBV in management.

Using RBV in management may help researchers create a competitive mindset and be prepared for uncertain challenges in the business world.