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This paper aims to provide authorities managing free trade zones, business enterprises, financial institutions and dedicated free zone customs, police and immigration command assigned to deal with aspects of movement of goods and persons in and out of the free zones with a clear understanding of the cross-border financial crime risks associated with the African Continental Free Trade Area and the risk control measures that combines human intelligence with advanced technology to combat cross-border financial crimes in the African Continental Free Trade Area.

A range of research activities would be used in this study. In addition to a sweeping literature review of academic, official studies and media writings, the main focus is on critically evaluating and analysing primary data by searching and collecting statutes, court cases, administrative rules and regulations and policy documents.

This paper identified bribery and corruption; modern slavery; and trade-based money laundering as the financial crime risks that are of priority concern to African Continental Free Trade Areas and demonstrated how countries can assess and mitigate these risks through adequate policies, procedures and controls including appropriate compliance management arrangement and adequate screening procedures to ensure high standards when hiring employees; corporate transparency; training on managing incidents of modern slavery, forced labour and third-party exploitation; and appropriate monitoring framework for trade-based money laundering activities.

While many authors have written research papers on intra-African trade, none of those research papers explained how countries can assess and mitigate financial crime risks in free trade zones. This research paper describes the ways in which cross-border financial crime risks can be assessed and adequately addressed by the authorities managing free trade zones. This research paper analyses the risk assessment topic in line with the African Continental Free Trade Area with a focus on free trade zones in Nigeria. This research paper would help authorities managing free trade zones, commercial organisations and business enterprises to identify, prevent and mitigate cross-border financial crime risks. Zone managements and business enterprises that implement the risk-based approach, in line with the guidance given in this research paper, will be well-placed to avoid the consequences of inappropriate de-risking behaviour.

This study aims to adapt analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for choosing the optimal location for sport facilities. The location of a sports facility contributes significantly to its potential success or failure. Therefore, factors affecting such location-related decisions must be carefully studied and prioritized in a systematic fashion.

This study develops a seven-step framework which may be used to decide on a location from among several alternatives. Through an extensive literature review, this study first determines the factors affecting sports facility location selection and then applies AHP steps by asking several sports facility owners and managers to assess importance of the criteria.

This study determined the sport facility location selection factors as “ease of access,” “facility features,” “financial issues,” “neighborhood” and “market,” and further divided each factor into its subfactors. To illustrate the framework of using AHP as a tool to select the right location for sport facilities, we chose three candidate locations and scored them according to the calculated weight scores of the criteria, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each location.

This study provides several managerial implications that may guide sport facility investors in choosing the right location.

This study presents a method to evaluate different factors for different actors of sport industry in a systematic way. Private investors can use the method for securing sufficient number of potential customers in a well-selected location. Government institutions and public policymakers can use the method, possibly with different sets of factors, to decide on the location of public sports facilities to maximize the number of visitors or to reach disadvantaged or underserved populations.

This framework of AHP method can help private and public investors and policymakers evaluate and make the optimal decision for choosing sports facility locations. This study contributes both to sport management theory and practice as well as to operation management literature. This study also refined the scattered factors in the literature of selecting a sport facility site in a more understandable and adaptable way.

Construction enterprises are achieving the goal of production safety by increasingly focusing on the critical factor of “human” and the impact of individual characteristics on safety performance. Emotional intelligence is categorized into three models: skill-based, trait-based and emotional learning systems. However, the mechanism of action and the internal relationship between emotional intelligence and safety performance must be further studied. This study intends to examine the internal mechanism of emotional intelligence on safety performance in construction projects, which would contribute to the safety management of construction enterprises.

A structural equation model exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence and safety performance is developed, with political skill introduced as an independent dimension, situational awareness presented as a mediator, and management safety commitment introduced as a moderator. Data were collected by a random questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 26.0. The structural equation model tested the mediation hypothesis, and the PROCESS macro program tested the moderated mediation hypothesis.

The results showed that construction workers' emotional intelligence directly correlates with safety performance, and situational awareness plays a mediating role in the relationship between emotional intelligence and the safety performance of construction workers. Management safety commitment weakens the positive predictive relationships between emotional intelligence and situational awareness and between emotional intelligence and safety performance.

This research reveals a possible impact of emotional intelligence on safety performance. Adding political skills to the skill-based model of emotional intelligence received a test pass. Political skill measures the sincere and cooperative skills of construction workers. Using people as a critical element plays a role in the benign mechanism of “Emotional Intelligence – Situational Awareness – Safety Performance.” Improving emotional intelligence skills through training, enhancing situational awareness, understanding, anticipation and coordination and activating management environment factors can improve safety performance. Construction enterprises should evaluate and train workers' emotional intelligence to improve workers' situational awareness and safety performance.

The objective of this study is to explore the impact of a government-supported initiative for operational security, specifically the establishment of the national security emergency industry demonstration base, on the profitability of local publicly traded companies. Additionally, the study investigates the significance of firms' blockchain strategies and technologies within this framework.

Using the differences-in-differences (DID) approach, this study evaluates the impact of China's national security emergency industry demonstration bases (2015–2022) on the profitability of local firms. Data from the China Research Data Service (CNRDS) platform and investor Q&As informed our analysis of firms' blockchain strategy and technology, underpinned by detailed data collection and a robust DID model.

Emergency industry demonstration bases have notably boosted enterprise profitability in both return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). Companies adopting blockchain strategies and operational technology see a clear rise in profitability over non-blockchain peers. Additionally, the technical operation of blockchain presents a more pronounced advantage than at the strategic level.

We introduced a new perspective, emphasizing the enhancement of corporate operational safety and financial performance through the pathway of emergency industry policies, driven by the collaboration between government and businesses. Furthermore, we delved into the potential application value of blockchain strategies and technologies in enhancing operational security and the emergency industry.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) turnover on strategic change and explore the mediating role of organizational slack between them, as well as the moderating role and joint moderating role of top management team (TMT) external social network, ownership nature and industry type.

Based on the upper echelons theory, resource allocation theory and structuration theory, this paper takes the unbalanced panel data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges of China from 2001 to 2018 as the research sample, uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression method and fixed effect model to study the relationship between CEO turnover and strategic change, and focuses on the mediating mechanism and moderating mechanism between them.

The authors find that CEO turnover is positively related to strategic change. When a CEO turns over, a new CEO will initiate strategic change. Precipitation organizational slack plays a mediating role between CEO turnover and strategic change. Non-precipitation organizational slack has no mediating effect between CEO turnover and strategic change, which is embodied as “suppressing effects.” When the non-precipitation organizational slack variable is controlled, the impact of CEO turnover on strategic change will be enhanced. TMT external social network, ownership nature and industry type all negatively moderate the relationship between CEO turnover and strategic change. TMT external social network and ownership nature have a joint moderating effect between CEO turnover and strategic change. When TMT external social network is small, CEO turnover has a positive effect on strategic change in both state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises, but the promotion effect is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises. When TMT external social network is large, the positive effect of CEO turnover on strategic change in state-owned enterprises is from strong to weak, but in the non-state-owned enterprises is from weak to strong. TMT external social network and industry type have a joint moderating effect between CEO turnover and strategic change. When TMT external social network is small, CEO turnover has a positive impact on strategic change in high-tech enterprises and non-high-tech enterprises, but the promotion effect is stronger in non-high-tech enterprises. When TMT external social network is large, the positive impact of CEO turnover on strategic change in high-tech enterprises is from strong to weak, but in the non-high-tech enterprises is from weak to strong.

On the basis of previous studies, this paper further expands the research scope of the mechanism of CEO turnover on strategic change, echoing the research arguments of relevant scholars. At the same time, the research results reveal the mechanism of organizational slack, TMT external social network, ownership nature and industry type in the relationship between CEO turnover and strategic change, and further deepen the application of upper echelons theory, resources allocation theory and structuration theory in China. In addition, the research conclusions of this paper also provide reference value for Chinese enterprises in carrying out strategic change, promoting enterprise transformation and improving the level of corporate governance, and help to enhance the understanding and attention of Chinese enterprises to CEO turnover, organizational slack, TMT external social network, strategic change and corporate governance under the background of high-quality economic development.

Given the significance of innovation in enabling firms to maintain a long-term competitive edge and secure excess profits, this paper aims to investigate whether and how stakeholders’ attention to innovation (SATI) influences corporate innovation.

This paper introduces a novel variable, SATI, which is achieved by segmenting stakeholders’ attention into two categories: attention to innovation and attention to other facets, using textual analysis methods. Subsequently, this paper empirically examines the influence of SATI on corporate innovation.

This paper finds that SATI positively affects corporate innovation input, and the result remains true after addressing possible endogeneity issues using instrumental variable regression. Furthermore, the positive effect of SATI on corporate innovation is stronger in firms facing greater financing constraints, thus verifying the financing constraints hypothesis. The positive effect is also stronger in firms with lower risk-taking levels, thus confirming the innovation failure tolerance hypothesis. Further analysis suggests that SATI increases both corporate innovation output and efficiency, thus ruling out the catering hypothesis.

This paper highlights the importance of SATI in driving corporate innovation. It enriches the literature on the repercussions of stakeholders’ attention and determinants of corporate innovation. In addition, it provides practical suggestions for further implementing China’s national innovation-driven development strategy.

Despite widespread recognition of the importance of place in entrepreneurship research, much less attention has been paid to the methodological challenges that inquiries into place presents. Understanding the relationship between place and entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important as focus turns to sustainable entrepreneurship and as policy makers turn to ‘place-based’ approaches to regional sustainability challenges. This chapter provides insight one researcher’s experiences engaging stakeholders in discussions about the relationship between a place-based university programme for sustainability and local sustainability agendas. The chapter reveals the struggles experienced by both researcher and participants in articulating what places and the local region means to both individuals and to the programme. The findings provide an important insight into how researchers studying place need to be cognisant of the limitations and flexibility of language when engaging research participants in discussing the relationship between place, sustainability, and entrepreneurship.

Socioeconomic aims and impacts are an explicit part of the UK City of Culture (UKCoC) application, bidding, delivery and evaluation stages. This article engages with existing debates on evaluating cities of culture and introduces perspectives from critical data studies to examine the collection and analysis of different data for the purposes of the CoC application and evaluation processes.

The meta-methodological concept of accompanying researcher is used to analyse the experiences of researchers based within a city bidding for UKCoC 2025 in dialogue with the evaluation reports from past UKCoC host cities.

Findings are analysed under three themes: defining data morsels; local histories and infrastructures of data generation and sharing; and resources, capacities and expertise for data generation and evaluation. The discussion examines data still to be generated and/or brought into relation; tensions around data and measurement; and how constructing an evaluation baseline is generative—creating new organisations, relationships and practices.

The conceptual and methodological approach and empirical findings will be relevant for academic, policymakers and practitioners engaging with cultural evaluation.

In focussing on the bidding stage in real time through the accompanying researcher position, this article presents original empirical insights into the process of creating a baseline for cities of culture evaluation. The conceptual originality of this article is in using critical data studies to explain strategies of data generation and analyse data relations and frictions.

Corruption is a major social problem, and scholars have devoted considerable attention to this phenomenon. However, less attention has been paid to how corruption spreads among organizations and what factors can make its spread more likely. This study aims to fill the gap by modelling corruption as an interorganizational contagion.

The authors used social contagion theory to model corruption as an interorganizational contagion, influenced by the susceptibility of organizations and the strength of contagion sources. The study analysed 736 medium and large Italian municipalities over a five-year period, with 3,146 observations (excluding missing data). The authors conducted a longitudinal analysis using panel logistic regression techniques and performed robustness and endogeneity checks through a dynamic panel data model.

The authors found that municipalities with a higher percentage of corrupt neighbouring municipalities were more likely to experience corruption. The probability of experiencing corruption was also significantly higher for municipalities with weaker organizational resistance to corruption contagion.

Previous studies have not clearly explained the organizational mechanisms behind the spread of corruption at the interorganizational level. The study suggests that corruption contagion at the municipal level occurs via reduced uncertainty in decision-makers and is influenced by the prevalence of corruption locally. The spread can be driven by conscious or unconscious mechanisms. This study challenges the idea that corruption contagion is immediate and inevitable. Organizational resistance to corruption can affect the risk of contagion, highlighting the importance of anti-corruption controls and ethical systems in preventing it.