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A port plays a crucial role in total logistics chain by conducting its function as a gateway for inbound (import) and outbound (export) cargo operations. The port has traditionally been regarded as a connecting place where handles ships on one side and cargoes on the other side. These interactive functions to be carried out by the port imply that a port organization should be established, maintained and altered in a way that generates a value-adding activity to the whole logistics chain. This paper aims to suggest an alternative direction for a port organization in context of changing global logistics environment so as to be better prepared for the ever-changing business horizon. Such an attempt will provide global logistics and port management with a strategic insight into innovative and responsive port organizational strategies.

This study aims to investigate the impact of supply chain concentration (SCC) on corporate research and development (R&D) investment and determine the moderating roles of industry concentration and financing constraints on the relationship between SCC and R&D investment.

The study collected data from Chinese listed companies, used the fixed effects model to test the research hypotheses and further used the two-stage Heckman test and propensity score matching (PSM) to address potential endogeneity issues.

The result reveals a negative impact of SCC on corporate R&D investment. In addition, industry concentration mitigates the negative impact of SCC on corporate R&D investment, but financing constraints strengthen the negative impact.

This study introduces the concept of SCC and empirically tests its effect on R&D investment, further explaining the lack of corporate innovation. This study inspires companies to strengthen SC management and weigh the level of SCC with environmental factors.

Decentralized finance (DeFi), enabled by blockchain, could bring about a new financial system, where peers will interact directly, with little or no place for traditional intermediation. However, some crucial tasks cannot be left solely to an algorithm and, consequently, most DeFi applications still require human decisions. The aim of this research is to assess the role of intermediation in the light of DeFi, analysing how humans and algorithms will interact.

The authors based their work on a twofold qualitative methodology, first analysing publicly available secondary data, particularly from white papers and DeFi Pulse (a website providing data on DeFi solutions) and then running two focus group discussions.

DeFi does not eliminate financial intermediation, but enables it to be performed in new ways, where decentralization means that no single entity can hold too much power or monopoly. DeFi has, however, inherited risks from the underlying technologies that unintentionally facilitate illegal behaviour and can hamper the authorities’ supervision. The complex duality algorithm- vs human-based actions will not be solved indisputably in favour of the former, as DeFi solutions can range from requiring algorithms to play a dominant role, to enabling greater human interaction by actively involving more people.

This research contributes to the emerging debate between algorithm- and human-based intermediation, especially in relation to the standing literature on financial intermediation, where considerations made in the light of the newest theories on blockchain and DeFi are still scarce.

This paper aims to conceptualize the digital behavior of startups and investigate the emerging behaviors about digital strategies of the Italian startup firms enrolled in the Startup Act policy initiative. Digital technologies were divided into intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures, and this categorization offers startups the opportunity to identify a set of enabling technologies that could be used to improve their digital strategies.

An empirical analysis has been conducted to investigate the degree of adoption of digital intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures in the entire population of 6,178 Italian firms listed in the Register of Innovative Startups.

The paper proposes a taxonomy bringing together four startup behaviors for adopting digital technologies: digital follower, technical influencer, social influencer and digital leader. From the perspective of policy makers, considering the financial efforts that public authorities are supporting in the last decade, implications are mainly concerned with policy measures aimed both to reinforce the overall adoption of digital technologies and to develop a balanced adoption of intra- and inter-organizational digital infrastructures.

Measures addressed to support female and foreign entrepreneurship could be useful to support a more dynamic and well-balanced cultural and racial contamination, thus improving the adoption of digital tools.

This study aims to explore the effects of long-term orientation (LTO) and strategy formation mode on corporate social responsibility. While many researchers have investigated how large businesses address corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is little empirical evidence on how small- and medium-sized businesses implement CSR or what individual drivers shape this process.

The paper surveyed 282 small and medium-sized managers from the United Kingdom. The respondents were recruited using platform Prolific Academic.

The findings reveal that LTO is a prerequisite for developing CSR and shapes strategy formation mode. The findings also suggested that deliberate strategies are positively related to CSR. The results are consistent across different components of LTO (futurity, continuity and perseverance) and CSR types (internal and external).

The results show that all aspects of LTO are relevant for CSR in SMEs. Besides LTO, deliberate strategy formation model is an important factor contributing to CSR. The paper presents as first an empirical contribution to the strategy literature by examining positive relationship between LTO and deliberate strategy formation mode.

Recognition that not every climate adaptation policy is a good one has shifted attention to new tools and methods to measure the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation policies. This study aims to propose and apply and applies an innovative adaptation policy assessment framework to identify the extent to which climate adaptation policies in Vietnam exhibit conditions that are likely to ensure a sufficient, credible and effective adaptation.

In total, 21 conditions, categorized under five normative principles and covering critical issue areas in adaptation domain, form the climate adaptation policy assessment framework. The principles were double-checked and tested in case studies through observations and analyses of policy documents to ensure that each condition should be distinct and not overlapping across principles. To see if the principles and attendant conditions were able to capture all relevant aspects of adaptation, the authors used structured expert judgment. In total, 39 policy documents pertaining to climate change adaptation were selected for qualitative document analysis. In-depth interviews with local officials and experts were conducted to address data gaps.

The study reveals major weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation policies in Vietnam since several critical conditions were underrepresented. These results shed new light on why some adaptation policies falter or are posing adverse impacts. The findings suggest that a sound policy assessment framework can provide evidence on what effective adaptation policy looks like and how it can be enabled. The framework for climate adaptation policy assessment in this study can be easily adjusted and used for different socio-environmental contexts in which new conditions for policy assessment might emerge.

The findings show underlying weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation regime in Vietnam. In the absence of mechanisms and measures for accountability and transparency in policy processes, adaptation in Vietnam appears more likely to be prone to maladaptation and corruption. While solving these problems will not be easy for Vietnam, the government needs to evaluate whether the short-term gains in sustaining the existing adaptation policies really make progress and serve its long-term climate-adaptive development goals.

Although interpretations of adaptation effectiveness may be very divergent in different normative views on adaptation outcomes, the authors argue that a common, agreed-upon effectiveness can be reached if it is clearly defined and measurable in adaptation policies. Thus, the climate adaptation policy assessment framework proposed in this study is critical for policymakers, practitioners, donors and stakeholders dealing with adaptation to better understand the weaknesses in policymaking processes, pinpoint priority areas of action and timely prevent or prepare for possible adverse impacts of policies.

The theory of consumption values (TCV) has successfully explained much consumer choice behavior, but few studies have investigated the values that drive food-delivery application (FDA) use. This study aims to bridge this gap by extending the TCV to the FDA context to examine food consumption-related values and interpreting and rechristening generic consumption values to adapt the TCV to the FDA context.

An explorative mixed-method research approach was taken to conduct focus group discussions with 20 target users to develop the questionnaire and then administer it for a cross-sectional survey (pen and pencil) to FDA users aged 22–65 years; 423 complete responses so received were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that epistemic value (“visibility”) is the chief driver of purchase intentions toward FDAs, followed by conditional (“affordances”), price (part of functional value) and social value (“prestige”). Food-safety concerns and health consciousness (proposed as part of functional value) did not share any statistically significant association with purchase intentions toward FDAs.

The findings of this study are insightful for FDA service providers competing for higher shares in the market by helping them understand ways to influence consumer choices and purchase intentions.

It is the first study that combines FDAs 2014 an online service that it is attracting a lot of investment 2014and TCV which has continued to be one of the most relevant theories of consumer behavior. It extends the TCV by adapting it to the FDA context with food-consumption-related values. Thus, it adds to the relatively scant literature on FDAs on the whole which is essential, as FDAs represent the business model of new economy, i.e. online-to-offline (O2O). Finally, this study formulates a conceptual framework that may serve as the basis of future research.

Satisfaction and loyalty as vital and strategic concepts in the marketing literature are highly important to companies and marketers. The review of the existing literature reveals a gap of the role of emotional constructs that can begin in a regular and rational sequence of satisfaction and ultimately lead to the formation of consumer loyalty. Hence, this study aims to answer the question of whether emotional constructs such as emotional attachment and love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in the correct sequence.

A total of 300 valid questionnaires on smartphone and apparel brands were collected from respondents and analyzed using the partial least squares method.

The results showed that brand love is the strongest antecedent of brand loyalty and is the only variable that directly influences brand loyalty in comparison to satisfaction and emotional brand attachment. Moreover, the examination of indirect effects revealed that our assumption based on that the emotional structures such as emotional attachment and brand love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in a correct sequence is supported.

Generalizability needs to be established with a wider range of consumer groups. The survey was conducted in Iran, and future research should assess the same product categories in other cultural settings as well as consider other product categories to assess the external validity of these results. The insights on consumers’ brand relationships help brand managers devise effective brand management strategies.

The managerial implications can guide managers toward enhancing the consumers’ loyalty to the brand through a better understanding of the consumer loyalty process to a brand as well as better relational marketing practices.

The study validates the mediating role of emotional brand attachment and brand love in the relationship between brand satisfaction and brand loyalty, is one of the first to develop a conceptual model that examines the role of emotional structures in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty, is one of few studies to develop the role of emotional structures in the form of a relational chain of brands in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty.

The authors systematically review empirical dyadic service encounter research published in top-tier journals between 1972 and 2022.

The authors employed bibliometric techniques, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling analysis to map schools of thought and research frontiers within the dyadic service encounter literature. In total, the authors analyzed 155 articles. To ensure inclusion of high-quality research, the authors screened articles from 139 journals with “4” or “4*” ratings on the 2021 Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) journal list, in addition to articles published in three service sector-specific journals: Journal of Service Management, Journal of Services Marketing and Journal of Service Theory and Practice.

The authors' co-citation analysis identified four distinct clusters within the dyadic service encounter literature: (1) shaping and explaining service encounters; (2) emotions in service work; (3) modeling, manipulating and measuring encounter service quality and (4) emotional labor and regulation in dyadic service encounters. Furthermore, the authors' bibliographic coupling analysis generated three research clusters: (1) service encounter characteristics; (2) emotions and emotional labor and (3) service encounter interaction content.

The authors' comprehensive review synthesizes knowledge, summarizing similarities among research clusters within the service encounter realm. Noteworthy are research clusters that clarify the emotion-based underpinnings and reciprocal nature of behaviors and emotions within dyadic encounters. By conducting complementary bibliometric analyses, the authors trace the evolution of the service encounter literature, providing an overview of the present state of dyadic service encounter research. These analyses offer valuable insights into the current landscape of the field, identifying future dyadic service encounter research opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of innovation on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam.

The paper uses data from the surveys on SMEs in Vietnam conducted by the Development Economics Research Group at the University of Copenhagen, the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research, Central Institute for Economic Management and Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, and applies least squared regressions and 2SLS regressions to examine the effect of innovation on the performance of SMEs.

The authors find that SMEs with innovation tend to perform better than SMEs without innovation. The authors further show that the positive effect of innovation on firm performance mainly comes from the effect of improvement of existing products, an important type of innovation in SMEs. This result is persistent when the authors use propensity matching score and 2SLS regression with instrumental variable approaches. Overall, the results show the important role of innovation in enhancing the firm performance of SMEs, which sheds light on the literature on the controversial relation between innovation and SMEs performance in the world.

The major limitation of the paper is the lack of data. Although the database used in the paper is widely used to analyze SMEs in Vietnam, it covers about 2,500 firms in only nine provinces/cities in Vietnam.

Policymakers should enact relevant policies to support SMEs with innovation activities, thereby increasing firm performance and their competitiveness. For instance, encouragement policies or financial incentives (tax reduction or subsidies) for innovative firms should be implemented and/or fostered.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the effect of different types of innovation on the performance of SMEs in Vietnam.