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1 – 10 of 725Ali Asghar Abbassi Kamardi and Sina Sarmadi
The decision to become international is a highlighted organisational decision that affects all dimensions at all firm levels. Human resources are also among the parts of the…
Abstract
The decision to become international is a highlighted organisational decision that affects all dimensions at all firm levels. Human resources are also among the parts of the organisation affected by this decision. Paying attention to employees can speed up and facilitate this process. Organisational integrity is one of the most significant issues that must be considered. In this regard, identifying, investigating and planning to deal with the destructive effects that may influence the employees of small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) in internationalisation, are among the subjects that have so far received less attention and should be studied more. The present study explores the destructive influences of internationalisation on the employees of SMEs by a hybrid multi-layer decision-making model-psychological solution. First, by reviewing the literature, the destructive impacts of internationalisation on employees are extracted. In the next stage, these factors are screened according to the condition of the SMEs in an emerging economy by interval-valued intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy Delphi (IVIHF-Delphi). The impact of these factors on each other is then evaluated applying interval-valued intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy DEMATEL-based ANP (IVIHF-DANP). Consequently, the highlighted destructive impacts are determined and the psychological solutions to face them are provided.
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Ying Zhang and Cong Cheng
This study seeks to explore the relationship between performance relative to aspiration and SMEs' internationalization speed, and moderating effects of top management's policy…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to explore the relationship between performance relative to aspiration and SMEs' internationalization speed, and moderating effects of top management's policy knowledge and institutional distance between the above relation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study tests the authors’ hypotheses using data on Chinese manufacturing SMEs over a 5-year period from 2013 to 2017. The authors leverage archival panel data on publicly listed companies on the SME Board, GEM and New OTC Market in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. The authors then collected data from the WIND and ZEPHYR databases.
Findings
The results confirm a U-shaped relation between performance relative to aspiration and SMEs' internationalization speed, and show that this relation is steepening by top management's policy knowledge in home country but flattening by institutional distance as environmental dynamics.
Originality/value
The study findings contribute to the international business field by exploring how a firm's risk situation in internationalization can change, thereby influencing SMEs' international expansion.
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The fourth industrial revolution and digital transformation have caused paradigm changes in the procedures of goods production and services through disruptive technologies, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The fourth industrial revolution and digital transformation have caused paradigm changes in the procedures of goods production and services through disruptive technologies, and they have formed new methods for business models. Health and medicine fields have been under the effect of these technology advancements. The concept of smart hospital is formed according to these technological transformations. The aim of this research, other than explanation of smart hospital components, is to present a model for evaluating a hospital readiness for becoming a smart hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is an applied one, and has been carried out in three phases and according to design science research. Based on the previous studies, in the first phase, the components and technologies effecting a smart hospital are recognized. In the second phase, the extracted components are prioritized using type-2 fuzzy analytic hierarchical process based on the opinion of experts; later, the readiness model is designed. In the third phase, the presented model would be tested in a hospital.
Findings
The research results showed that the technologies of internet of things, robotics, artificial intelligence, radio-frequency identification as well as augmented and virtual reality had the most prominence in a smart hospital.
Originality/value
The innovation and originality of the forthcoming research is to explain the concept of smart hospital, to rank its components and to provide a model for evaluating the readiness of smart hospital. Contribution of this research in terms of theory explains the concept of smart hospital and in terms of application presents a model for assessing the readiness of smart hospitals.
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Bekir Bora Dedeoğlu, Caner Çalışkan, Tzu-Ling Chen, Jacek Borzyszkowski and Fevzi Okumus
This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model was tested via structural equation modeling based on the empirical data collected from hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey.
Findings
The research findings suggest that emotional deprivation and social companionship have a significant impact on life satisfaction, that life satisfaction has a significant impact on positive and negative emotions, and that positive and negative emotions have the same impact on pathways and agencies.
Originality/value
The research findings should assist researchers and practitioners to understand the behaviors of hotel employees in continuous interaction and relationship with individuals to motivate them while providing more effective services.
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Mengying Zhang, Zhennan Yuan and Ningning Wang
We explore the driving forces behind the channel choices of the manufacturer and the platform by considering asymmetric selling cost and demand information.
Abstract
Purpose
We explore the driving forces behind the channel choices of the manufacturer and the platform by considering asymmetric selling cost and demand information.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops game-theoretical models to study different channel strategies for an E-commerce supply chain, in which a manufacturer distributes products through a platform that may operate in either the marketplace channel or the reseller channel.
Findings
Three primary models are built and analyzed. The comparison results show that the platform would share demand information in the reseller channel only if the service cost performance is relatively high. Besides, with an increasing selling cost, the equilibrium channel might shift from the marketplace to the reseller. With increasing information accuracy, the manufacturer tends to select the marketplace channel, while the platform tends to select the reseller channel if the service cost performance is low and tends to select the marketplace channel otherwise.
Practical implications
All these results have been numerically verified in the experiments. At last, we also resort to numerical study and find that as the service cost performance increases, the equilibrium channel may shift from the reseller channel to the marketplace channel. These results provide managerial guidance to online platforms and manufacturers regarding strategic decisions on channel management.
Originality/value
Although prior research has paid extensive attention to the driving forces behind the online channel choice between marketplace and reseller, there is at present few study considering the case where a manufacturer selling through an online platform faces a demand information disadvantage in the reseller channel and sales inefficiency in the marketplace channel. To fill this research gap, our work illustrates the interaction between demand information asymmetry and selling cost asymmetry to identify the equilibrium channel strategy and provides useful managerial guidelines for both online platforms and manufacturers.
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Hamid Karimi Kivi, Rita Rezaee, Mahmoudreza Peyravi and Milad Ahmadi Marzaleh
Community-based disaster management and access to social resilience during disasters are fundamentally based on the concept of participation of all social groups. Up to now, no…
Abstract
Purpose
Community-based disaster management and access to social resilience during disasters are fundamentally based on the concept of participation of all social groups. Up to now, no comprehensive study has been done regarding adolescents’ roles and experiences in all stages of disaster management, and discussions existing in the domain of adolescents’ engagement in disaster risk management are usually restricted to children’s participation. Thus, this study aims to extract the effective components and factors in disaster education to improve adolescents’ resilience to disasters.
Design/methodology/approach
This systematic review was done through English databases and three Persian databases between August 18, 2001, and August 31, 2021. The articles were searched based on the PRISMA checklist using four key dimensions of “resilience,” “disasters,” “adolescents” and “education.” Finally, the effective components and factors in disaster education for improving adolescents’ resilience during disasters were extracted.
Findings
Totally, 29,856 articles were extracted through the systematic review. After studying the titles, abstracts and contents of the extracted articles, 17 were selected for the final analysis. Among these articles, 3, 12 and 2 had qualitative, quantitative and mixed research designs, respectively. The extracted components were categorized into five major categories including education, community, adolescents, resilience and governing policies and approaches.
Research limitations/implications
Unfortunately, due to sanctions, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences did not have access to the Embase database, and consequently, this database could not be used.
Originality/value
The results of this systematic review presented an overall view of the effective components of adolescents’ disaster resilience education. The formation of thoughts developed feelings, and social knowledge in this age group provides a wide range of opportunities for social empowerment and intergenerational knowledge transfer.
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Changyuan Xia, Xieen Mao, Haizong Yu and Kam C. Chan
This paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm’s pension insurance contributions (PIC) on its financialization (investment in risky assets) using a sample of Chinese firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm’s pension insurance contributions (PIC) on its financialization (investment in risky assets) using a sample of Chinese firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a multiple regression model to conduct the analysis.
Findings
The findings suggest that a firm’s PIC increases its financialization. Additional analysis suggests that firms with higher PIC are more likely to have lower operating profit and higher financial risk. In addition, the impact of PIC on financialization is more salient when a firm faces high industry competitiveness, holds more cash, has high labor costs and labor intensity or is non-state owned.
Practical implications
The paper adds to the growing literature on the effect of social insurance on corporate policies. The findings complement those related to the relationship between defined contributions and defined benefits retirement plans and corporate policies.
Social implications
The study contributes to the debate on the merits of financialization. The literature is mixed on the pros and cons of financialization. The results suggest that financialization has an adverse effect on a firm’s performance and risk in the lens of increased PIC.
Originality/value
China has seen a trend of financialization arising from the rapid economic development in the past decade. Moreover, the PIC premiums in China are not trivial. Thus, the significant cost of PIC and the financialization trend suggest that the answer to the research question is timely and meaningful.
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Li Ding and Caifen Jiang
This study aims to explore the impact of tourists’ perceptions of two rural destination attractiveness dimensions on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavioral intentions…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the impact of tourists’ perceptions of two rural destination attractiveness dimensions on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavioral intentions (ERBI). Further, the mediating effects of tourists’ green self-identity on the relationship between the perception of rural destination attractiveness and ERBI are investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected survey data from 188 tourists who had visiting experiences in rural attractions located in the Guangdong Province of China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The results found that rural destination specialty fresh food attractiveness perceived by tourists was positively associated with their ERBI. Moreover, tourists’ green self-identity positively mediated the perception of rural destination attractiveness and ERBI.
Originality/value
This study explains how the tourists’ perceptions of two rural destination attractiveness dimensions influence their ERBI. By exploring the mediating role of tourists’ green self-identity, this study also emphasizes the transforming mechanism from tourists’ perceived experience to their ERBI. The study provides insights into nature-based tourism destination management and sustainability practices.
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Aniekan Essien, Godwin Onyekachi Chukwukelu, Nikolai Kazantsev and Nachiappan Subramanian
The global food industry is faced with the dilemma of finding a balance between food wastage and food shortage. Approximately one-third of food produced globally goes to waste…
Abstract
Purpose
The global food industry is faced with the dilemma of finding a balance between food wastage and food shortage. Approximately one-third of food produced globally goes to waste, while about 800 million people suffer from undernourishment. Given this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the unresolved challenges related to enhancing transparency associated with products of high perishability and low shelf life.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted 25 interviews with global agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) experts to ask what impedes the progress of the current technologies, such as blockchain, to enable transparency and traceability (T&T) in AFSCs.
Findings
The findings indicate barriers at the individual, firm and supply chain levels. Based on these barriers, the authors propose an interconnected framework to explain technologically-driven T&T and guide on barrier removal from AFSCs. The authors conclude that by applying technology (i.e. blockchain) the authors can resolve the tension of supporting T&T in AFSCs. This can enable the efficient and transparent tracking of goods, reduction of food waste and loss, as well as promotion of the use of recyclable packaging and further sustainable practices and materials, all of which are aligned with a range of UN Sustainable Development Goals (2, 8, 10 and 12). Moreover, the authors see that some factors are interrelated. Based on these factors, the authors build an interconnected framework to guide on barrier removal from AFSCs. Managers in AFSC would find the findings especially relevant.
Originality/value
Drawing on industrial network theory and signalling theory, the authors propose an interconnected framework for explaining barriers (challenges) and potential solutions (opportunities) to T&T in AFSCs. This framework is developed by examining the interconnections of barriers at micro, meso and macro levels and applying signalling theory to explain how solutions address these barriers. The specific contributions of this study are: the list of barriers that impede the implementation of technological solutions for T&T in AFSCs; and a three-stage framework that explains how to remove the barriers for T&T. The study is limited by the focus on blockchain, which calls for future research once the next decentralised technology becomes available.
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