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The increasing demand for high-quality logistics services has forced container shipping firms to decrease logistics service failure to retain the customers. This study thus aims to apply organizational information processing theory (OIPT) to construct a maritime supply chain collaborative decision-making model and examine its impact on logistics service performance.

In total, 142 usable questionnaires were collected from questionnaire survey. A two-step structural equation modeling approach including confirmatory factor analysis was subsequently performed to test the hypotheses.

The results show that internal information integration positively impacts external information integration, that external information integration positively impacts collaborative decision-making, and that collaborative decision-making positively impacts logistics service performance for container shipping firms. However, a relationship between internal information integration and collaborative decision-making was not found in this study.

This study primarily examines collaborative decision-making from the view of container shipping firms. Future research including other supply chain members is needed to generalize the results and could also incorporate other factors such as relationship quality and culture, into the model to address this issue.

To decrease the occurrence of logistics failures and improve service quality in the maritime logistics process, it is suggested that container shipping firms apply information technology for acquiring and assimilating logistics information internally and externally across the supply chain to facilitate decision-making.

This study contributes to the knowledge about the antecedents and impacts of collaborative decision-making for container shipping firms in Taiwan. Particularly, in line with OITP, the findings indicate that container shipping firms can facilitate logistics decision-making and strategy formulation through information integration, which in turn enhances logistics service performance.

The objective of this research is to examine the performance of weather routing service in the North Pacific Ocean based on a global container shipping company.

The data comprise two passages: one that departs from the port of Taipei to the port of Los Angeles (TPE-LAX) and another that departs from the port of Tacoma to the port of Kaohsiung (TCM-KSG). A weather routing service was utilized to compare the differences of the distance, sailing time and fuel consumed among different voyages.

Results indicated that the average speed of vessel in winter is faster than in summer. The vessels consumed much more fuel in the winter than they did in the summer. In terms of the distance of the passage, the results show that the ships' sailing distance across the North Pacific Ocean in the summer was shorter than it was in the winter.

Due to the difficultly of practical data collection, relatively few sailing records were employed in this study. It is suggested that additional sailing records should be collected, which adopt weather routing recommendations, to more comprehensively analyze sailing performance in future research.

The study's findings offer valuable guidance to different stakeholders in the maritime industry (e.g. seafarers, marine hull and machinery companies, Protection and Indemnity Club (P&I), ocean container carriers and freight forwarders) to clarify their responsibilities in order to achieve desired sailing outcomes.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the current study is the first research to utilize practical sailing data to provide objective evidence of sailing performance based on a weather routing service, which can assist various stakeholders to make optimal decisions.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of working capital efficiency (WCE) and its components on the composite financial performance of a sample of Indian firms.

Our sample includes 796 non-financial listed firms from 2015–16 to 2021–22. Sample firms’ profitability, liquidity, solvency, cash flow management, and financial and operational leverage have been used to classify them into companies with high composite financial performance (HCFP) and with low composite financial performance (LCFP) by using K-Means Clustering technique. A composite financial performance score (CFPS) of 1 has been assigned to HCFP and 0 to LCFP. We have used logistic regression models with fixed effect to estimate the effect of cash conversion cycle (CCC) and its components, i.e. inventory days, accounts receivable days and accounts payable days on CFPS in the presence of control variables such as growth, leverage, firm size, and age.

The study finds that CCC and inventory days are inversely associated with CFPS. This finding shows that the firms’ WCE leads to superior financial performance on a composite basis.

The research findings are based on samples drawn from the population of the listed Indian non-financial companies. Since the operation, financial practices, working capital policies, and management styles of firms vary greatly among nations, the results of this study should be extended to firms in other countries after taking into account the degree of resemblance to the sample firms.

The findings of this study hold significant value for industry practitioners, as they provide guidance in determining the optimal allocation of funds for working capital and devising strategies for effectively managing inventory levels, credit sales, and vendor payments in order to increase the overall value of the company. This study aims to help investors in building their investment portfolios by identifying companies with superior composite financial performance. Investors can enhance the construction of their investment portfolios by strategically selecting companies that demonstrate superior overall performance.

The results of our study will help companies improve their WCM strategies to enhance their overall value, and their significance increases manifold during economic downturns. Business firms that perform well by efficiently managing their working capital have a multiplier effect on the economy and society at large in the form of GDP contribution, labor income, taxes to the government, investment in capital assets, and payments to suppliers.

To understand the impact of WCE on firms’ performance, the extant working capital literature focuses on some specific characteristics such as profitability, valuation, solvency, and liquidity. The limitation of employing a single parameter is its inability to present the comprehensive performance evaluation of firms. This study is among the earliest studies that focus on the holistic evaluation of WCE's impact on the composite performance of a company.

The purpose of this study is to introduce working capital efficiency multiplier (WCEM) as a direct profitability measure of working capital management. The existing accounting measures in the literature establish an indirect approach to study the relationship between working capital efficiency and profitability of the firms.

Using the help of a set of companies from CMIE Prowess database, the study introduces WCEM as a direct profitability measure of working capital efficiency.

In this study, a new direct measure of working capital efficiency is introduced which is multiplicative in nature. WCEM is a product of three components, namely, WACC, ratio of the sum of trade receivables and inventories to trade payables and ratio of net working capital (NWC) to net sales.

The importance of direct measure like WCEM could be enormous in performance evaluation of a firm. It can be used as an indicator for choosing a suitable investment opportunity by an investor. This is due to the fact that the firm that is highly efficient in managing working capital is less exposed to liquidity risk. At the same time, the firm is less dependent on external financing. Therefore, such firms eventually create more value for their shareholders. Another indication that WCEM provides is to gauge the bargaining power of the firm and its competitive position in the market. Lower WCEM indicates higher bargaining power of a firm across the value chain, and its superior position relative to its competitors.

Most of the studies on WCM are of the empirical type and there is a complete dearth on theoretical framework. Researchers hereafter can consider WCEM as one of the financial performance variables in place of the existing measures such as return on asset (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), return on equity (ROE), gross operating income (GOI) and net operating income (NOI) and thereby can contribute new empirical insights through their research outcomes.

This chapter elaborates on the perspectives of financial development of countries of Central Asia and China through cooperation with Russia. The authors determine financial resources for the development of the countries of Central Asia and China and figure out possible scenarios for attracting additional financial resources and conclude that financial resources have a decisive role in socioeconomic development. It is substantiated that the increase and expansion of cooperation with Russia are the preferable scenario for attracting additional financial resources. The authors recommend expanding cooperation with Russia within the implementation of the selected optimal scenario are given.

Although there are many efforts within organisations to improve the financial performance of business processes, the results of studies on the impact of internal factors on the financial performance of business processes in an organisation are inconsistent, even contradictory. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the extent and trends of the impact of factors inside companies on the financial performance of business processes and discover lessons learned to improve the financial performance of business processes.

This analysis was done through a quantitative study of listed companies in Vietnam. Pooled OLS regression, REM, FEM and robust regression were performed on 566 companies.

The results provide four main findings. First, firm size and operational efficiency strongly correlate with financial performance. Second, financial leverage has a negative, significant connection with financial performance. Third, net working capital has a positive and meaningful relationship with EPS and a negative association with ROE. Fourth, liquidity does not have any significant association with financial performance.

This study only restricts the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes without mentioning the external factors. Furthermore, this study is limited to one emerging country and has not been compared with companies in different countries.

The findings of this study may help inform users inside and outside the organisation to understand the factors that affect the financial performance of business processes. As a result, information users will focus more on aspects that can improve their financial performance to make informed decisions.

This study has many differences compared to previous studies. First, it focuses on the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes in non-financial listed companies in Vietnam, which has an emerging economy. First, it focuses on the internal factors affecting the financial performance of business processes in non-financial listed companies in Vietnam, which has an emerging economy. Second, this study analyses data in companies' financial statements for the ten years from 2012 to 2021, when the Vietnamese economy, in particular, and the world economy experienced many fluctuations due to the impact of the post-financial crisis 2007–2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Third, this study provides empirical evidence to support RBV, RDT theories and the trade-off theory of capital structure.

Grey modeling technique is an important element of grey system theory, and academic articles applied to agricultural science research have been published since 1985, proving the broad applicability and effectiveness of the technique from different aspects and providing a new means to solve agricultural science problems. The analysis of the connotation and trend of the application of grey modeling technique in agricultural science research contributes to the enrichment of grey technique and the development of agricultural science in multiple dimensions.

Based on the relevant literature selected from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Web of Science, SpiScholar and other databases in the past 37 years (1985–2021), this paper firstly applied the bibliometric method to quantitatively visualize and systematically analyze the trend of publication, productive author, productive institution, and highly cited literature. Then, the literature is combed by the application of different grey modeling techniques in agricultural science research, and the literature research progress is systematically analyzed.

The results show that grey model technology has broad prospects in the field of agricultural science research. Agricultural universities and research institutes are the main research forces in the application of grey model technology in agricultural science research, and have certain inheritance. The application of grey model technology in agricultural science research has wide applicability and precise practicability.

By analyzing and summarizing the application trend of grey model technology in agricultural science research, the research hotspot, research frontier and valuable research directions of grey model technology in agricultural science research can be more clearly grasped.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the co-seismic and post-seismic behaviors of an existed soil-foundation system in an actual alternately layered sand/silt ground including pore water pressure, acceleration response, and displacement et al. during and after earthquake.

The evaluation is performed by finite element method and the simulation is performed using an effective stress-based 2D/3D soil-water coupling program DBLEAVES. The calculation is carried out through static-dynamic-static three steps. The soil behavior is described by a new rotational kinematic hardening elasto-plastic cyclic mobility constitutive model, while the footing and foundation are modeled as elastic rigid elements.

The shallow (short-pile type) foundation has a better capacity of resisting ground liquefaction but large differential settlement occurred. Moreover, most part of the differential settlement occurred during earthquake motion. Attention should be paid not only to the liquefaction behavior of the ground during the earthquake motion, but also the long-term settlement after earthquake should be given serious consideration.

The co-seismic and post-seismic behavior of a complex ground which contains sand and silt layers, especially long-term settlement over a period of several weeks or even years after the earthquake, has been clarified sufficiently. In some critical condition, even if the seismic resistance is satisfied with the design code for building, detailed calculation may reveal the risk of under estimation of differential settlement that may give rise to serious problems.

The purpose of the present study is to determine how the cash conversion cycle (CCC) affects the financial performance of manufacturing companies in Bangladesh.

The authors have collected data of 61 Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE)-listed firms from the 10 distinct manufacturing industries of Bangladesh for 18 years, from 2003 to 2020. The data have been analyzed through the two-steps system generalized method of moment (GMM) regression model, using profitability indicators return on asset (ROA) and earnings per share (EPS) as dependent variables, while CCC has been used as the independent variable, whereas asset turnover (ATO) and financial leverage (LEV) were used as control variables to assess the relationship between the CCC and financial performance.

The findings indicated that CCC has a negative connection with profitability – ROA and EPS, with the connection between CCC and EPS being highly significant. This indicates that reducing the inventory conversion time, reducing the period of receivable collection and making payments to creditors with potential delays might help Bangladeshi manufacturing firms boost their profitability. In addition, the firm-specific characteristics, namely ATO and LEV significantly affect the firm's profitability.

The research was based only on secondary sources and information was scarce. This research was conducted to determine the impact of the CCC on the corporate profitability of the manufacturing sector solely. There might be many other working capital variables that are still unexplored through this study.

The current study's findings are consistent with the traditional rule that minimizing the firm's days of the cash cycle may optimize financial performance. The results of this research have added to the existing body of knowledge on the topic of working capital management (WCM). Future research endeavors can be initiated for assessing the impact of the CCC on the firm's profitability in other industrial sectors or to identify other working capital variables that have much impact on corporate profitability.

This study is an original work of the researchers and adds value to the current literature in the domain of WCM and corporate profitability. The present study is the first one that covers firms in all the manufacturing industries in Bangladesh. The corporate managers, creditors, investors and other concerned stakeholders will be benefited from the findings of the present study.

This paper reports a comparison of the retrieval effectiveness of the Alta Vista, Excite and Lycos Web search engines. A method is described for comparing the recall of the three sets of searches, despite the fact that they are carried out on non‐identical sets of Web pages. It is thus possible, unlike previous comparative studies of Web search engines, to consider both recall and precision when evaluating the effectiveness of search engines.