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The purpose of this research is to investigate how to introduce a financing scheme to tackle the manufacturer's capital constraint problem, discuss the effects of data-driven marketing (DDM) quality, cross-channel-return (CCR) rate and financing interest rate on the members' pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions and optimal performances, and analyzes `how to achieve the coordination within a dual-channel supply chain (DSC) by contract coordination.

This work establishes a DSC model with DDM, and the offline retailer can provide internal financing to the capital-constrained online manufacturer. The demand under the price is determined based on DDM quality, customer channel preference and delivery lead time. Then, combined with the Stackelberg game, the optimal pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions are discussed under the inconsistent and consistent pricing strategies with decentralized and centralized systems. Furthermore, it designs a manufacturer-revenue sharing contract to coordinate the members under the two pricing strategies.

(1) The increase of DDM quality will reduce the delivery-lead-time under the inconsistent or consistent pricing strategy and will push the selling prices; (2) The growth of the CCR rate will raise selling prices and extend the delivery-lead-time under the decentralized decision; (3) Under price competition, the offline selling price is higher than the online selling price when customers prefer the offline channel and vice versa; (4) The retailer and the manufacturer can achieve a win-win situation through a manufacturer-revenue sharing contract.

This paper contributes to the studies related to DSC by investigating pricing and delivery-lead-time decisions based on DDM, CCR, internal financing and supply chain contract and proposes some managerial implications.

The purpose of this paper is to supply basic insights into the principle of shūrā (consultation) in Islamic banking, the idea of a centralised approach to the corporate governance of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs), the roles of a centralised Sharīʿah board as the highest authority on Sharīʿah issues and its distinguishing features from a de-centralised system and the advantages and disadvantages of the two governance systems.

In analyzing these, the paper adopts the critical legal studies approach and refers to the provisions of the Qurʾan and Sunnah, ijmāʿ (consensus) of Sharīʿah scholars and recent Islamic banking reports.

Despite the fact that the double-digit growth of the current US$2tn Islamic banking industry is a promising sign for its further expansion – expecting to cross the US$6.5tn mark by 2020 – there remains concern over the lack of standardization or rather the diversified approaches to the corporate governance of IFIs across key Islamic banking regions.

There has been much debate surrounding the issue of whether the Islamic banking industry requires a centralised Sharīʿah board at the state level to complement the Sharīʿah boards at the IFIs’ individual level in providing better supervision of the Sharīʿah-compliance of IFIs. The fact that the industry is already equipped with two prominent standard-setting agencies in the form of the AAOIFI, the IFSB does little to suggest that best governance practices – which centre around the themes of consistency, harmony and uniformity – are on the horizon, at least not whilst their issued standards and guidelines remain voluntary for IFIs.

All in all, it is aspired that this paper may assist the reader in evaluating the pros and cons of the whole concept of Sharīʿah board centralisation.

This paper offers an empirical overview of European emergency managers' institutional arrangements and guidelines for using social media in risk and crisis communication.

The authors collected and analysed material including publicly accessible relevant legal acts, policy documents, official guidelines, and press reports in eight European countries – Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and Estonia. Additionally, the authors carried out 95 interviews with emergency managers in the eight countries between September 2019 and February 2020.

The authors found that emergency management institutions' social media usage is rarely centrally controlled and social media crisis communication was regulated with the same guidelines as crisis communication on traditional media. Considering this study's findings against the backdrop of existing research and practice, the authors find support for a “mixed arrangement” model by which centralised policies work in tandem with decentralised practices on an ad hoc basis.

Comparative insights about institutional arrangements and procedural guidelines on social media crisis communication in the studied countries could inform the future policies concerning social media use in other emergency management systems.

This study includes novel, cross-national comparative data on the institutional arrangements and guidelines for using social media in emergency management in the context of Europe.

Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese economists (especially Professor Liu Guoguang) in the concretization of Marx’s social capital reproduction theory combined with socialist construction since 1949.

During this process, Professor Liu Guoguang, a famous Chinese Marxist economist, has made an outstanding contribution by creating a Marxist social capital reproduction model with Chinese characteristics and a distinctive Marxist economic growth model. Professor Liu's exploration is still of crucial practical significance to building a socialist market economy today.

The process and achievements in the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory were reviewed. With the reform and opening up, fundamental changes have occurred in China's economic system – the centralized planned economic system has been transformed into a socialist market economic system.

The planned management of the national economy is replaced by a macro-regulation system characterized by gross control gradually, and the concepts of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, and their intercorrelation are no longer applied in theory and policy. However, the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory in the older generation of Marxist economists represented by Liu is not only of historical significance but also of important practical significance.

This paper analyses the degree of political decentralisation and its relation to the local councils in Tanzania. It explores the institutional and political set-up of the local councils originating from the degree of political decentralisation and how it influences the tension between the bureaucrats and local politicians.

Qualitative approach by a comparative case study is adopted to investigate the phenomenon in two local governments in Tanzania. The data were collected through interviews with 37 senior local government officials and eight focus group discussions with 48 administrators and councillors.

The findings indicate that the two local governments are subjected to a similar political system guided by similar rules and guidelines from the central government bureaucracy for implementing the party manifesto and central government priorities. Thus, the local politicians have little room for negotiation in adopting local agenda to reflect the preferences of the local community. Any attempt to challenge this status quo creates political tensions between bureaucrats and the administrators.

The findings provide invaluable insights to different stakeholders such as political scientists, government officials, and policymakers with interests in research or practice of political decentralization and political-administrative relation.

This study aims to focus on building a conceptual closed-loop vaccine supply chain (CLVSC) to decrease vaccine wastage and counterfeit/fake vaccines.

Through a focused literature review, the framework for the CLVSC is described, and the system dynamics (SD) research methodology is used to build a causal loop diagram (CLD) of the proposed model.

In the battle against COVID-19, waste management systems have become overwhelmed, which has created negative environmental and extremely hazardous societal impacts. A key contributing factor is unused vaccine doses, shown as a source for counterfeit/fake vaccines. The findings identify a CLVSC design and transshipment operations to decrease vaccine wastage and the potential for vaccine theft.

This study contributes to establishing a pandemic-specific VSC structure. The proposed model informs the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as potential future pandemics.

A large part of the negative impact of counterfeit/fake vaccines is on human well-being, and this can be avoided with proper CLVSC.

This study develops a novel overarching SD CLD by integrating the epidemic model of disease transmission, VSC and closed-loop structure. This study enhances the policymakers’ understanding of the importance of vaccine waste collection, proper handling and threats to the public, which are born through illicit activities that rely on stolen vaccine doses.

The study aims to develop a model that supports the application of data science techniques for real estate professionals in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. The present 4IR era gave birth to big data sets and is beyond real estate professionals' analysis techniques. This has led to a situation where most real estate professionals rely on their intuition while neglecting a rigorous analysis for real estate investment appraisals. The heavy reliance on their intuition has been responsible for the under-performance of real estate investment, especially in Africa.

This study utilised a survey questionnaire to randomly source data from real estate professionals. The questionnaire was analysed using a combination of Statistical package for social science (SPSS) V24 and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) graphics V27 software. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to break down the variables (drivers) into meaningful dimensions helpful in developing the conceptual framework. The framework was validated using covariance-based structural equation modelling. The model was validated using fit indices like discriminant validity, standardised root mean square (SRMR), comparative fit index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), etc.

The model revealed that an inclusive educational system, decentralised real estate market and data management system are the major drivers for applying data science techniques to real estate professionals. Also, real estate professionals' application of the drivers will guarantee an effective data analysis of real estate investments.

Numerous studies have clamoured for adopting data science techniques for real estate professionals. There is a lack of studies on the drivers that will guarantee the successful adoption of data science techniques. A modern form of data analysis for real estate professionals was also proposed in the study.

With increasing marine resource development, the rapid development of the marine economy, and the continuous decline of the marine natural resource system, the contradiction between marine resources and economic development is becoming increasingly acute. The study of marine resources and economic development has become a hot and challenging issue in marine resource economics research in recent years. The purpose of this study is to analyze the current situation of marine resources and to realize the sustainable use of marine resources.

This study systematically reviews and analyzes the current status of research on marine resources and economic development issues in four main aspects: marine resource management, marine resources and economic growth, marine resources and economic security, and marine resource accounting in the field of marine resource economics.

It is found that compared to the current status of research on land-based resources and economic development, there is a significant lag in both theoretical construction and methodological innovation in marine resources and economic development.

The purpose of this study is to systematically grasp the current status of marine resources research, promote the coordinated development of marine resources and economic growth, and then realize the safe and sustainable development and utilization of marine resources.