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1 – 10 of over 5000Samuel Adusei, Dorcas Nuertey and Emmanuel Poku
This study investigated the relationship between last-mile distribution or delivery (LMD) and commodity access through the mediating role of commodity availability and commodity…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated the relationship between last-mile distribution or delivery (LMD) and commodity access through the mediating role of commodity availability and commodity security and the moderating effect of supply chain integration (SCI).
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted the survey research design and employed the questionnaire instrument in collecting primary data from respondents in Eastern Regional Health Institutions in Ghana. The total number of valid responses received was 204. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was adopted to analyze the relationship between the study variables.
Findings
The findings showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between LMD and commodity availability as well as LMD and commodity security. Moreover, while the relationship between commodity availability and commodity access is positive and significant, that between commodity security and commodity access is positive but insignificant. Furthermore, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between LMD and commodity access. The study discovered that the interaction between LMD and commodity access is insignificant and negatively affected by SCI.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous studies have empirically verified the effect of LMD on commodity access in the presence of mediating factors such as commodity availability and commodity security and SCI as the moderating factors.
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Florian Cramer and Christian Fikar
Short food supply chains have the potential to facilitate the transition to more sustainable food systems. Related distribution processes, however, can be challenging for…
Abstract
Purpose
Short food supply chains have the potential to facilitate the transition to more sustainable food systems. Related distribution processes, however, can be challenging for smallholder and family farmers. To extend the market reach of farmers without the need for extensive investments, crowd logistics (CL) can be used. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits and trade-offs of implementing CL platforms in short food supply chains (SFSCs).
Design/methodology/approach
A decision support system (DSS) based on agent-based and discrete event simulation (DES) modelling is developed, which closely approximates the behaviour of customers and distribution processes at outlets. Different scenarios are explored to evaluate the potential of CL in rural and urban settings using the example of regions from Bavaria, Germany.
Findings
Results show that CL can be used to increase the reach of farmers in SFSCs at the cost of minor food quality losses. Moreover, a difference between urban and rural settings is noted: An urban scenario requires less investment in the driver base, whereas the rural scenario shows a higher potential to increase market reach.
Originality/value
Platform-based food delivery services are still mostly unexplored in the context of SFSCs. This research shows that platform services such as CL can be used to support local agriculture and facilitate the distribution of perishable food items, introducing a simulation-based DSS and providing detailed results on various application settings; this research serves as a steppingstone to facilitate successful real-world implementations and encourage further research.
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Aurolipsa Das and Narayan Sethi
Since the last decade, debates regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the forms of transfer, i.e. in the form of in-kind or cash transfers, have been gaining momentum. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the last decade, debates regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the forms of transfer, i.e. in the form of in-kind or cash transfers, have been gaining momentum. This paper aims to explore the preferences revealed by the beneficiaries, the role of contextual conditions in moulding these preferences, factors associated with the transfer scheme that defines the preferences and the rationale behind such responses.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducted involves primary data collected from an Indian state, Odisha. 308 beneficiaries of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) were interviewed concerning specific objectives in a rural district (Mayurbhanj) and another highly urbanised district (Khordha).
Findings
The comparative results show that the strength of the contextual conditions significantly influences the preferences of the beneficiaries in the rural district as compared to the effect on the beneficiaries of the urban district. Education seems to have an insignificant impact in rural areas. However, income and standard of living have positive significant effects on shaping the preferences for cash or in-kind transfers.
Originality/value
Examining the strength of the contextual conditions and emphasising beneficiaries' perspectives would stimulate a better understanding of the implementation of the proposed quasi-Universal Basic Income. The study would hence, be instrumental in dealing with the transition towards cash transfers in the Indian context where the co-responsibility of both stakeholders, the government and the beneficiaries, should be given equal weightage.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0158
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Kirti Nayal, Rakesh Raut, Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Balkrishna Eknath Narkhede and Vidyadhar V. Gedam
This article sheds light on the missing links concerning the study of using integrated enabling technologies toward sustainable and circular agriculture supply chains by examining…
Abstract
Purpose
This article sheds light on the missing links concerning the study of using integrated enabling technologies toward sustainable and circular agriculture supply chains by examining the available literature and proposing future research possibilities.
Design/methodology/approach
The relevant literature was researched through online databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, Emerald, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, World Scientific Net and Springer-Link Journals, covering a period from 1999 to 2020. A systematic literature review based on 75 papers analyzed the integration of the concepts of enabling technologies, sustainability, circular economy and supply chain performance in agriculture supply chains.
Findings
It was identified that enabling technologies and agriculture supply chains alone have been explored further than integrated enabling technologies, sustainability, circular economy, supply chain performance and agriculture supply chains. Enabling technologies and agriculture supply chains' main findings are: enabling technologies have been studied to improve food safety, food quality and traceability in agriculture supply chains. The main results regarding integrated enabling technologies, sustainability, circular economy, supply chain performance and agriculture supply chains are: Internet of Things and information communication technology play an important role in addressing food security, traceability and food quality, which help achieve sustainable development goals.
Originality/value
This review study provides 13 research questions to underpin future trends regarding integrated technologies' application in agriculture supply chains for circular and sustainable growth.
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Shahin Alipour Bonab, Alireza Sadeghi and Mohammad Yazdani-Asrami
The ionization of the air surrounding the phase conductor in high-voltage transmission lines results in a phenomenon known as the Corona effect. To avoid this, Corona rings are…
Abstract
Purpose
The ionization of the air surrounding the phase conductor in high-voltage transmission lines results in a phenomenon known as the Corona effect. To avoid this, Corona rings are used to dampen the electric field imposed on the insulator. The purpose of this study is to present a fast and intelligent surrogate model for determination of the electric field imposed on the surface of a 120 kV composite insulator, in presence of the Corona ring.
Design/methodology/approach
Usually, the structural design parameters of the Corona ring are selected through an optimization procedure combined with some numerical simulations such as finite element method (FEM). These methods are slow and computationally expensive and thus, extremely reducing the speed of optimization problems. In this paper, a novel surrogate model was proposed that could calculate the maximum electric field imposed on a ceramic insulator in a 120 kV line. The surrogate model was created based on the different scenarios of height, radius and inner radius of the Corona ring, as the inputs of the model, while the maximum electric field on the body of the insulator was considered as the output.
Findings
The proposed model was based on artificial intelligence techniques that have high accuracy and low computational time. Three methods were used here to develop the AI-based surrogate model, namely, Cascade forward neural network (CFNN), support vector regression and K-nearest neighbors regression. The results indicated that the CFNN has the highest accuracy among these methods with 99.81% R-squared and only 0.045468 root mean squared error while the testing time is less than 10 ms.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, a surrogate method is proposed for the prediction of the maximum electric field imposed on the high voltage insulators in the presence Corona ring which is faster than any conventional finite element method.
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Yenal Yağmur, Altan Demirel and Gül Damla Kılıç
The main purpose of the study is to reveal the hotel managers' perspectives strategies, and predictions on smart technologies, and their expectations for current staff and…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of the study is to reveal the hotel managers' perspectives strategies, and predictions on smart technologies, and their expectations for current staff and potential staff to be employed in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research approach was used to reveal the internal perspectives of managers to determine their Smart Tourism (ST) perspectives. With the snowball sampling method, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 16 senior hotel managers working in a 5-star hotel in Antalya. The data obtained were carried out with inductive content analysis and descriptive analysis from qualitative research analysis methods.
Findings
In this study, hotel managers' broad perspectives on ST were discussed in depth and presented comprehensively. Managers' perceptions of smart technologies are classified in terms of aggregate dimensions and themes. Among the most important findings, rapidity/quickness, managing/holistic assessment, standardization, harmony/integration-coordination and experience-memory, defined as the crossroads of total dimensions or the heart of smart technologies, were identified as the most important themes. In addition, Stylos et al. (2021), another important finding is the classification of technologies used in top-quality hotels, based on the conceptual framework for smart technologies presented in the literature.
Practical implications
The effective and efficient use of technology, its internalization and openness to technology provides important advantages in hotels such as increasing revisits and satisfaction, providing loyalty and reducing costs. Thus, the perceptions, practices, strategies and prediction of senior managers working in high-level hotels about ST provide valuable data to other hotels that want to survive in the competition.
Originality/value
From a theoretical point of view, this study is valuable in that it deals with the ST perceptions of senior managers with an exploratory research approach. Managerially, the research findings offer valuable contribution about the attitudes, trends, forecasts and expectations of senior managers working in high-level hotels towards ST.
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Marco Fabio Benaglia, Mei-Hui Chen, Shih-Hao Lu, Kune-Muh Tsai and Shih-Han Hung
This research investigates how to optimize storage location assignment to decrease the order picking time and the waiting time of orders in the staging area of low-temperature…
Abstract
Purpose
This research investigates how to optimize storage location assignment to decrease the order picking time and the waiting time of orders in the staging area of low-temperature logistics centers, with the goal of reducing food loss caused by temperature abuse.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied ABC clustering to the products in a simulated database of historical orders modeled after the actual order pattern of a large cold logistics company; then, the authors mined the association rules and calculated the sales volume correlation indices of the ordered products. Finally, the authors generated three different simulated order databases to compare order picking time and waiting time of orders in the staging area under eight different storage location assignment strategies.
Findings
All the eight proposed storage location assignment strategies significantly improve the order picking time (by up to 8%) and the waiting time of orders in the staging area (by up to 22%) compared with random placement.
Research limitations/implications
The results of this research are based on a case study and simulated data, which implies that, if the best performing strategies are applied to different environments, the extent of the improvements may vary. Additionally, the authors only considered specific settings in terms of order picker routing, zoning and batching: other settings may lead to different results.
Practical implications
A storage location assignment strategy that adopts dispersion and takes into consideration ABC clustering and shipping frequency provides the best performance in minimizing order picker's travel distance, order picking time, and waiting time of orders in the staging area. Other strategies may be a better fit if the company's objectives differ.
Originality/value
Previous research on optimal storage location assignment rarely considered item association rules based on sales volume correlation. This study combines such rules with several storage planning strategies, ABC clustering, and two warehouse layouts; then, it evaluates their performance compared to the random placement, to find which one minimizes the order picking time and the order waiting time in the staging area, with a 30-min time limit to preserve the integrity of the cold chain. Order picking under these conditions was rarely studied before, because they may be irrelevant when dealing with temperature-insensitive items but become critical in cold warehouses to prevent temperature abuse.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unexplored part of the historical evolution of travel agencies in Spain, from the end of the 20th century to the 21st century. When…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unexplored part of the historical evolution of travel agencies in Spain, from the end of the 20th century to the 21st century. When examining promotion strategies, the study focuses on the change in marketing and public relations strategies based on the incorporation of information and communication technologies and, in particular, the use of the internet.
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws on a qualitative analysis of the different strategies used by traditional agencies and online agencies in Spain from the mid-19th century to the present. This analysis shows how traditional communication strategies survived at the beginning of the 21st century, together with other more innovative ones, while some disappeared, being eliminated by the new online travel agencies, which created a particular conception of marketing and communication. This paper is divided into the following parts: the introduction; the beginnings of travel agency promotion in the 20th century; the evolution of promotion in travel agencies since the late 20th century; communication innovation at the beginning of the 21st century; online travel agencies; and conclusions.
Findings
This study shows that although online agencies did not manage to position themselves with a large turnover, they generated advantages and sharpened their imagination to create a new, more economical advertising model, eliminating the costs of public relations and advertising campaigns. In addition, they allowed clients to have greater independence when making their reservations, while enabling them to monitor the tastes of potential and real clients and add blogs so that consumers could express their degree of satisfaction with the product or services provided by the agency.
Originality/value
The focus of attention is the travel agency sector in Spain and, more specifically, communication. Studies on travel agencies and their marketing have been very scarce and partial, impeding professionals in the tourism sector from having a broad vision to direct their promotional and public relations actions. The originality of this article lies in its making a comparison between two different visions of tourism marketing and, specifically, of travel agencies, that is, the traditional vision and the innovative one. It thus helps all professionals in the sector to value and improve their marketing and communication strategies.
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Benjamin Appiah Osei, Neethiahnanthan Ari Ragavan, Balasubramanian Kandappan and Foster Frempong
While there was heightened awareness on the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0) prior to COVID-19, studies have shown that the adoption of these advanced…
Abstract
Purpose
While there was heightened awareness on the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0) prior to COVID-19, studies have shown that the adoption of these advanced technologies (e.g. Big Data, robotics, Internet of Things, etc.) continues to remain low across global industries. This qualitative study sought to explore the reasons for the low rate of adoption of these technologies and appropriate measures to enhance their adoption at hotels, through the lens of hotel executives.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on interpretivist's ideals, this study follows a case study design and adopts a qualitative method of enquiry. The heterogenous purposive sampling technique was employed to gather data for the study, using semi-structured interviews.
Findings
Grounded on the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework, the thematic analysis revealed technology, organisation and environment-related reasons for the low rate of IR 4.0 technologies adoption at hotels in Malaysia. Also, the study uncovered some interesting measures that will enhance the adoption of these advanced technologies at hotels.
Originality/value
This study unearths technology, organisation and environment-related reasons for low adoption, and measures to enhance the adoption of IR 4.0 technologies in hotels. This study also enlightens hotel owners and technology providers about practical issues that will ensure the successful adoption of such technologies to enhance hotel business. In line with SDG 9, this study also seeks to promote sustainable innovation in the hospitality industry. Practical and theoretical implications have also been discussed in this study.
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Md Borak Ali, Rahat Tuhin, Md Abdul Alim, Md Rokonuzzaman, Sheikh Matiur Rahman and Md Nuruzzaman
This study aims to investigate the technology usage behaviour of the tourists in line with the modified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the technology usage behaviour of the tourists in line with the modified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from a survey of 265 tourists using the random sampling technique. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyze the data.
Findings
The findings revealed that performance expectancy, hedonic motivation and habit significantly influence the behavioural intention of tourists to use information and communication technology (ICT), while effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions do not have a significant influence. However, actual ICT usage behaviour largely depends on the behavioural intention of the tourists, and their habits, while the facilitating conditions do not have any influence in this case.
Practical implications
The findings uncover the core factors influencing tourists' actual ICT use behaviour that can assist the concerned stakeholders in designing tourism planning and sales. The study results also offer pathways for the world's tourism industry for a healthy recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
The findings have made robust contributions by extending the existing UTAUT-based literature by adding two new moderators in the relationship between behavioural intention and actual ICT usage behaviour.
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