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This chapter will explore how independent coffee shops and cafés are creating unique servicescapes to meet the needs and desires of their clientele. Using the model of servicescape, the authors report on several micro-case studies in which the researchers play the role of customers and explore their own feelings and preferences when choosing and visiting an independent coffee shop or café. In each case, the researchers noted their feelings and experiences of the environment under the headings of ambience; arrangement and function with reference to the furnishings and crockery; the signs, symbols and artefacts were considered in relation to the name of the business and the marketing message of the business.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between top management commitment and energy management in small and medium manufacturing firms in a developing country context.

This study was executed through a survey of 66 manufacturing firms in Kampala, Uganda. The data collected were analysed using SPSS v.26.

The results show that top management commitment influences energy management. A further probe of its three dimensions of top management participation, top management support and top management beliefs reveals that all of them positively and significantly predict energy management in manufacturing firms.

The current study results were obtained from manufacturing small and medium firms in Kampala, Uganda. Therefore, caution should be taken prior to generalization. Furthermore, this study only focuses on top management participation, top management support and top management beliefs as the dimensions of top management commitment. This study thus provides the foundation for future studies to test other dimensions of top management commitment, particularly in other sectors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the contribution of top management commitment dimensions top management participation, top management support and top management beliefs to energy management in a developing country context. Although all dimensions are significant, top management beliefs contribute more to energy management.

This study aims to examine whether social initiatives adopted by firms lead to improved financial performance. The authors analyse the impact of different elements of social initiatives on wealth creation for firms in terms of operating and market performance.

The study is based on the social initiative scores of over 4,500 firms collected from Thomson Reuters' ESG database. The study uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) to analyse the relationship between social initiatives and firm performance.

Profitable, mature, capital intensive and firms with high sales growth rate tend to invest more in social initiatives. Firms with high agency costs invest in social initiatives for workforce efficiency, maintaining human rights and product responsibility. The study documents evidence that social investments are value creating mechanism for firms which leads to improved financial performance in terms of operating and stock market performance. Firms with high dividend intensity invest in social initiatives for workforce welfare and human rights initiatives. Investment in employee well-being and community initiatives results in intangible benefits such as improved stock market valuation.

The research model has not considered the impact of intervening variables to understand the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance.

Firms ought to recognize that social investment is beneficial in terms of value creation of firms as stock market perceive such investments favourably. Firms must focus more on community development initiatives and workforce initiatives for the value creation of firms compared to investments directed towards human rights initiatives and product responsibility initiatives.

This study focusses exclusively on the social dimension of the CSR activities. The authors examine the impact of social welfare scores on firm performance by analysing the valuation effects on scores representing workforce, human rights, community and product responsibility. Moreover, the paper also examines the impact of a new dimension of product responsibility on firm performance. They also focus on both aspects of financial performance in terms of operating performance (proxied by ROE) and the joint impact of both operating and market performance (proxied by Tobin’s Q). This paper contributes to the research on the linkage of social performance to financial performance by observing that firms with high agency cost characteristics tend to invest in social initiatives for work force efficiency, maintaining human rights and product responsibility.

This paper aims to examine the impact of ownership structure on the accounting-based performance of listed Nigerian deposit money banks (DMBs) on Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) from 2011 to 2020.

The study adopts ex post facto research design, using initially “the panel fixed and random effects regression analysis and Hausman specification test and thereafter, the IV Generalised method of moments (GMM) to check for endogeneity issues and strengthen the robustness of the results.

The one lagged value result reveals that ownership structure of DMBs in Nigeria has cumulative significant impact to influence corporate financial performance of the banks in the future. Overall, CEO, board/managerial, family, government and foreign ownership structures in DMBs in Nigeria do not have significant influence on accounting-based corporate financial performance of the banks. However, the study reveals that board/managerial ownership could significantly improve market value/growth of DMBs in Nigeria.

Policy makers, investors (both local and foreign), academics, corporate governance administrators, and the government could apply the study's findings to the management of banking operations in Nigeria.

The paper highlights the impact of five ownership structures on the accounting-based performance of DMBs in Nigeria from 2011 to 2020, providing valuable insights into the influence of stockholding categories on corporate financial performance, which is a shift from extant literatures with limited insights.

This study aims to synthesize and analyze research on the Supply Chain Management Practices (SCMPs)-performance nexus, examine current knowledge, identify emerging trends, and provide plausible suggestions for future research engagements in the manufacturing sector in the context of Developing and Emerging Economies (DEEs).

Following a systematic review approach, this study analyzed 20 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published between 2007 and 2021. The study sample was systematically selected from the Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar databases, following strict evaluation and selection criteria.

Numerous dimensions of SCMPs have been considered in the extant literature; however, six have stood out as the most common. In addition, operational performance stood out as the most widely investigated measure in the SCM literature. Moreover, SCMPs have predominantly shown positive effects on performance outcomes. Methodological issues that future studies should consider are suggested.

The sample size was not sufficiently large relative to the rule of thumb set in the literature because of the scarcity of studies in the manufacturing sector in the DEEs context. Despite these limitations, the results of this study provide crucial insights into knowledge and practice.

This review is the first of its kind to examine the SCMPs-performance nexus in the context of DEEs. Based on the findings of this study, future research directions are proposed.