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Although public‐private partnerships (PPPs) have been used internationally, the New Zealand Government has only recently started to consider using PPPs to deliver public assets and services. However, there is uncertainty about whether the New Zealand Government should actively enter into PPP arrangements. The government lacks a robust decision‐making tool for assisting with choosing alternative procurement methods. PPPs are seen as risky, but innovative procurement options, with obstacles to overcome before they use can become common place. Nervousness about the use of PPPs requires the New Zealand Government to have a thorough understanding of the drivers and obstacles, and also to understand the applicability of international PPP experience to New Zealand. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers and obstacles for adopting PPPs in New Zealand and provide details on how these obstacles might be overcome by using innovative country‐specific solutions.

Semi‐structured interviews with senior industry players and round table discussions are the research methods used.

The research found that the drivers for PPP adoption include acceleration of infrastructure provision, better risk allocation, whole of life cost savings, improved quality of services, access additional revenue sources, benefits for local economic and social development, and improved project scrutiny. The results show that the drivers appear to be more than securing private financing for public infrastructure. Greater efficiency in the use of resources has been emphasised by New Zealand practitioners. With regard to the apparent obstacles, research showed these to be: political, social and legal risks, unfavourable economic and commercial conditions, high transaction costs and lengthy lead time, problems related to the public sector and problems with the private sector. Possible solutions to these obstacles are derived from national and international research and assessed for their applicability to New Zealand.

The paper presents discussion on the concerns expressed by the New Zealand industry about PPPs at strategic, institutional, and industry level. The identified obstacles and suggested solutions provide some initial guidance on how to proceed with PPP implementation in New Zealand. More research needs to be done to understand the various key facets identified here (e.g. tendering process, contractual arrangement, and risk allocation) and their wider effects. The research is based on interviews with a limited number of senior industry respondents, along with the general results of three industry round table discussions. Therefore, follow‐on interviews need to be conducted with private sector partners, sponsors and funding bodies, in order to gain a wider view of the issues under investigation.

The findings of the research are of assistance to decision makers in both the public and private sectors in New Zealand. By understanding the drivers and obstacles for PPP adoption, and posing solutions to these obstacles, the New Zealand construction industry might be in a better position to adopt PPP schemes.

In the global economy, vendor‐managed inventory (VMI) is gradually becoming an important element of supply chain management strategy of organizations. Recently, Indian industries, both large and small, have started adopting VMI for their supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate apparent differences among large and small industries in terms of objectives, drivers, obstacles and impacts of VMI in Indian context.

A survey was conducted to examine organizational objectives, strategic drivers, obstacles and affected operations pursuant to VMI adoption. By reviewing the literature, four hypotheses were formed and tested from the responses.

It is observed that both large and small industries in India have started adopting VMI for improving the business performance. Results clearly indicate that adoption factors are different in large and small industries.

The paper explores current practices with respect to VMI in Indian industries. The analysis would be useful for the developing VMI adoption strategies in Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a novel delay grey incidence analysis model to analyze drivers and obstacles of university R&D performance.

With respect to the fact that university R&D activities typically experience two stages of knowledge creation and technology transfer, and different drivers and obstacles come into play to affect the conversion of R&D investment to outcomes at each stage, based on the thought of grey incidence analysis and the specific characteristics of science and technology (sci-tech) development, a novel delay grey incidence analysis model is proposed in this paper, and then according to the yearbook statistical data, Chinese university R&D activities are investigated and the drivers and obstacles of university R&D performance are analyzed.

The results show that the R&D full-time staff and R&D funds of basic research are the key drivers of influencing factors, and the sci-tech innovation talents in universities’ R&D institutions and experiment development funds are the restraining factors to improve R&D performance in the stage of knowledge creation; the expenses of R&D achievement application and technology service and the full-time staff of achievement application and technology service are the key drivers and obstacles of influencing the aggregate amount of patent sale respectively.

This research helps policy makers to reflect on their university R&D policies and understand how to enhance the technology transfer rate in China.

The paper succeeds in identifying key drivers and obstacles of affecting university R&D performance in China by examining the input and output incidence at both the knowledge creation and technology transfer stages.

To explore the key factors that motivate organizations in China to outsource and the obstacles these companies are facing in comparison with the situation in Western developed countries.

A case study approach was adopted with primary data collected through in‐depth interviews with six companies in China and secondary data aggregated from company reports and documents. Research findings were analyzed within and across all case studies to identify key drivers and obstacles of outsourcing.

Economic factor is a strong motivation for outsourcing in China, of which cost reduction, cost saving, and capital investment reduction are the main concerns. Strategic considerations, such as the use of outsourcing to accelerate re‐engineering benefits, to focus on core competence, to increase flexibility, and to facilitate market penetration, are identified. Environmental factors like information technology (IT) development and capability of supplier can influence organizations' decisions to outsource. Meanwhile, companies in China have encountered obstacles and problems in the outsourcing process. They include the lack of capable service providers, loss of control, poor transportation and IT infrastructure, presence of local protection regulations, and lack of overall post‐outsourcing measurement.

This paper presents a systematic exploration of the drivers and the obstacles of outsourcing in China and provides a framework that may guide business organizations to make better outsourcing decisions. It may assist organizations to clearly define their expectations, develop strategic outsourcing plans, and make appropriate decisions to achieve outsourcing objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to review the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept in Egypt via six sub-purposes which are the operational definition, activities, corporations’ strategic direction, budgeting and drivers for and obstacles against CSR alongside the implications of the January 25th 2011’s revolution on the concept.

This research is a perception study adopting a mixed methodology. A sample of 20 corporate managers undertaking CSR activities had been interviewed. Results are analyzed using content analysis and non-parametric z-tests.

The research identified the prevalent hands-on definitions of CSR which highlight an identification problem, as well as the leading two activities undertaken that are highly linked to the lack of a corporate strategic direction. Also, it showed that budgeting was a vague undisclosed aspect and further highlighted the drivers for and obstacles against CSR before and in transition post January 25th 2011, revolution.

This overview serves as a building block for practitioners to identify the CSR build-up in Egypt, to guide further current or future endeavors undertaken.

This paper provides a genuine contextualized review of CSR in Egypt that had been a reported gap in literature by identifying its operational definition, activities, budgeting, corporations’ strategic direction and drivers for and obstacles against the concept in light of the timeline pre and in-transition post the January 25th 2011 revolution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the trends and prospects for the development of the halal market for Italian foods, with a focus on pasta production as one of the most valued products of the Made in Italy brand. The analysis takes into consideration drivers and obstacles for developing halal orientation strategies in world and internal markets and opportunities and threats for Italian food firms.

Market dynamics were investigated by a forecasting tool, the Delphi method, which aims to explore future market trends and give suggestions for firm strategies and policy intervention. Besides firms, other experts involved in the Italian halal food sector were interviewed. Answers were organised according to the level of importance given to the different issues and to the level of agreement between the opinions of the experts. These findings were then discussed in relation to the contexts, both external and internal to companies, that had given rise to such opinions.

The halal food market represents a good opportunity for enlarging the overseas markets for Italian products and producers. Several external and internal factors related to the demographic, the institutional, the market and the firm contexts, emerged. The challenges that non-Islamic countries, markets and firms face in the adoption of halal strategies are mainly due to the institutional context, to the scarce awareness of halal principles and practices, and to some suspicion of Islamic food and culture that does not yet seem well-known and accepted on the domestic market.

The Islamic food market has still to be fully explored in Italy, this is despite strongly emerging demand and a growing number of firms showing interest in implementing halal certification and entering new Islamic markets. The paper findings contribute to the scarce empirical literature about the halal market in Italy and give some recommendations both for supporting further studies, identifying preliminary implications and suggesting policy measures.

The aim of this study is to explore the current situation in the Russian construction industry and the obstacles, drivers and strategies that affect innovation implementation most significantly. The Russian construction industry is highly conservative and is often criticised for its lack of innovation. Construction firms invest relatively little in innovation adoption, development of new ideas and formal research and development.

This study utilised an extensive literature review followed by a questionnaire survey incorporating some post hoc interviews with 52 experts from the Russian architecture, engineering and construction industry to identify the most significant drivers, enablers, barriers and strategies related to innovation diffusion in construction.

Findings indicated that economic and financial difficulties, as well as inappropriate legislation, are the most significant barriers to innovation. Financial incentives, legislative improvements and the promotion of alternative construction procurement methods were viewed as the most critical strategies to improve the current lacklustre rate of innovation diffusion.

While there is anecdotal evidence that the Russian construction industry is lagging in terms of technological advancement, its closed nature means that there is still little reported evidence on what are the main barriers to innovation diffusion in this country. Hence, there is a lack of focus on innovation diffusion rates in different construction sectors, such as building and civil infrastructure and limited consideration on how effectively the research and development sector contributes to innovation.

The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of affairs in the product recovery domain as perceived by Greek industry. The extent of involvement of original equipment manufacturers in product recovery activities (PRA), the direct profitability of PRA and the most important specific drivers and barriers to the implementation of PRA are the main issues that are explored. The paper also investigates whether these issues are affected by two factors: level of PRA and profitability of existing PRA.

A questionnaire‐based survey was conducted and 312 valid responses were received. Statistical analysis of the responses was carried out via non‐parametric χ²‐tests for homogeneity, Mann‐Whitney U‐tests and Friedman two‐way analysis of variance.

The results suggest that PRA are not very much developed by manufacturing companies in Greece. The companies engage in PRA mainly because they want to provide service to their customers; they are hesitant to embark on an unknown set of new activities, which complicate their manufacturing operations.

A limitation of the study is the variability in the manufacturers' responses as the data comes from the entire Greek industry.

The paper responds to the repeated calls for more empirical research in reverse logistics. It is the first survey‐based study of PRA in an industry that is not as developed as the industry in the USA or Western Europe, where most similar empirical research is conducted.

The goal of this research is to evaluate obstacles to innovation according to the perception of firms in the Chilean food sector, and to assess the relationships of these obstacles with innovation spending and willingness to innovate.

We analyzed data from the Chilean National Innovation Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Innovación) of 2017 and 2019, which were administered by the Ministry of Economy and the National Institute of Statistics. This survey is designed to be nationally representative. The methods we employed to analyze the data include linear regression, probit and logit models and factor analysis.

We found that obstacles to innovation can be grouped into five types, namely: cost-based, knowledge-related, market problems, lack of necessity for innovations and regulatory. Cost was positively, and significantly, associated with innovation (expenditures and willingness to innovate). We argue that this is because as firms engage in innovation, they become aware of the associated costs. Also, knowledge obstacles and lack of necessity were negatively associated with innovation. This may mean that as firms engage in innovation, they are able to overcome said obstacles; which speaks well of their innovation ecosystem.

We develop the argument that survey-based studies of obstacles are amenable to a perception-based interpretation of obstacles, because most surveys tend to collect firms' perceptions. Consequently, we provide perception-based explanations for our findings. Additionally, most empirical studies of obstacles in the food sector are of a qualitative nature. Our work supplements this literature with a quantitative analysis that can expand our understanding of innovation in the food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the environmental sustainability practices of third-party logistics providers (TPLs) in a developing country and analyze the efforts made by TPLs to implement green practices through a case study of Moroccan TPLs.

This qualitative case study of Moroccan TPLs was conducted using an interview guide.

The findings indicate that the internal and external drivers motivate TPLs to implement green practices while internal and external obstacles hinder them. The authors identified two groups of TPLs, each with a specific environmental sustainability approach. The results indicate also that environmental sustainability is at an early stage of development in Moroccan TPLs. Based on these findings, the authors were able to develop several propositions for further research. It is suggested that TPLs market coverage can influence positively their green initiative; the lack of collaboration and partners involvement hinders TPLs environmental initiatives; and the lack of clear environmental strategy limits TPLs environmental sustainability initiatives.

This study has some limitations that provide future research opportunities. Because this study is qualitative, further statistical support is needed to justify wider generalization of its findings. The possibility of generalizing the present findings to countries beyond Morocco is limited by the fact that data were collected exclusively there. Studies might therefore do well to investigate TPLs in developing countries other than Morocco to increase the external validity of the results. Also, the research could be expanded by taking into account how shippers or client companies collaborate with TPLs to improve sustainability initiatives.

The results can be used to inform companies about environmental sustainability initiatives that have been implemented or to identify practices that can be adopted.

The relevant literature has centered on advanced countries, and few studies have been conducted in the logistics market. Research on the sustainable initiatives of TPLs in developing countries in general and African countries in particular is sparse. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the sustainable practices of TPLs in Morocco.