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Factors like bid price, submission time, and number of bidders influence the procurement process in public projects. These factors and the award criteria may impact the project’s financial compliance. Predicting budget compliance in construction projects has been traditionally challenging, but Machine Learning (ML) techniques have revolutionised estimations.

In this study, Portuguese Public Procurement Data (PPPData) was utilised as the model’s input. Notably, this dataset exhibited a substantial imbalance in the target feature. To address this issue, the study evaluated three distinct data balancing techniques: oversampling, undersampling, and the SMOTE method. Next, a comprehensive feature selection process was conducted, leading to the testing of five different algorithms for forecasting budget compliance. Finally, a secondary test was conducted, refining the features to include only those elements that procurement technicians can modify while also considering the two most accurate predictors identified in the previous test.

The findings indicate that employing the SMOTE method on the scraped data can achieve a balanced dataset. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the Adam ANN algorithm outperformed others, boasting a precision rate of 68.1%.

The model can aid procurement technicians during the tendering phase by using historical data and analogous projects to predict performance.

Although the study reveals that ML algorithms cannot accurately predict budget compliance using procurement data, they can still provide project owners with insights into the most suitable criteria, aiding decision-making. Further research should assess the model’s impact and capacity within the procurement workflow.

Previous research predominantly focused on forecasting budgets by leveraging data from the private construction execution phase. While some investigations incorporated procurement data, this study distinguishes itself by using an imbalanced dataset and anticipating compliance rather than predicting budgetary figures. The model predicts budget compliance by analysing qualitative and quantitative characteristics of public project contracts. The research paper explores various model architectures and data treatment techniques to develop a model to assist the Client in tender definition.

This is an acceptable fact that firms put efforts to maximize shareholders wealth but there is growing demand that firms are also accountable to various stakeholders associated directly or indirectly with the firms' business activities. Investors now evaluate firm's performance not only from financial perspective but also consider environment, social, and governance (ESG) factors when taking investment decision. ESG is not visible in firm's annual financial reports but investors do not deny its significance when valuing firms. There are increasing interests in ESG by communities, professionals, and government bodies, and all are interested to keep it as part of firms' regular activity and have to relate it with firm performance and efficiency that affects firm value. Still, there are difficulties in integration of ESG factors into investment decision-making, but efforts are being put to overcome all the issues. Firms which consider ESG are in a good position to achieve their long-term financial goals as they are likely to attract capital, lower borrowing costs, mitigate risks, and maximize shareholders value.

Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.

Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.

We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.

In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.

We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.

This study investigated the moderating role of democracy in the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment. The purpose of this study is to understand whether corruption has different effects on the location decisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) depending on the regime type.

This study explored how institutional context influenced the impacts of corruption on the location decisions of MNEs, specifically using a sample of Chinese cross-border mergers and acquisitions between 2000 and 2020.

This study assessed the role of democracy in the relationship between corruption and the location decisions of Chinese MNEs. In general, this study found that Chinese MNEs were hindered by host country corruption, but that these detrimental effects were weaker in the presence of more effective democratic institutions.

This study contributes to the literature on institutional factors in international business through its simultaneous investigation of the effects of both democracy and corruption on the location decisions of MNEs. Moreover, there is a prevailing view that Chinese MNEs are willing to enter countries with high corruption, but the results of this study indicate that they are risk-averse in ways similar to their Western counterparts.