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This study aims to identify and examine the critical resultant impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on quality assurance (QA) of cross-border construction logistics and supply chain (CB-CLSC).

This is achieved via embedded mixed-method design pragmatically involving desk literature review, survey and interviews from related experts within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)–Mainland China links. The design is further integrated with descriptive analysis, criticality test, rank agreement analysis, spearman correlation test and sentiment analysis.

The study revealed 10 critical resultant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the QA of CB-CLSC, with the top three including “increased use of digital technologies (M10)”, “worker absence, labour shortage and decrease in work rate (M3)” and “changes to how construction sites operate (M9)”. Three underlying dimensions were discovered among all the critical resultant impacts: “cost-time-worker (CTW)-related impacts”, “work contract and operation (WCO)-related impacts” and “work process (WP)-related impacts”. The critical resultant impacts are reflected in the time, cost, raw materials and work processes, and this could manifest as negative as well as an opportunity to position the QA system to be adequate during the pandemic and post-pandemic era.

The study contributes to the knowledge body as it identifies and examines the critical resultant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the QA of CB-CLSC. This is original research with invaluable primary data collected in the form of surveys and interviews from construction quality experts within the Hong Kong (SAR)–Mainland China links, known as the world’s factory.

This paper aims to explore the role of heuristics in the reassessment of relationship events and how it influences perceptions of commitment, fairness and relationship value. It answers the question of how heuristics interrelate with decision-makers’ evolving interpretations of commitment, fairness and relationship value in a specific buyer-supplier relationship.

This paper presents data from a longitudinal study of an evolving buyer–supplier relationship involving a multinational supplier of fast-moving consumer goods and a medium-sized and highly specialized supplier. It analyzes qualitative data about the use of heuristics in buyer–supplier relationships, and it is based on evidence collected from interviews, presentations, meetings and secondary data.

This paper shows that a buyer’s unexpected behavior can lead to a reassessment of commitment, fairness and relationship value. Heuristics can delay relationship reassessments, however. The case shows that heuristics have a preserving quality and that the effect of transformative events only slowly changes the perception of the value of the relationship. In this change process, the link between commitment, perceived fairness and heuristics is crucial.

This paper contributes to research on the relationship between buyer–supplier relationships and heuristics. In particular, the paper contributes to the understanding of how relational events in a buyer-supplier relationship change the commitment and perception of fairness, and how heuristics change accordingly. On a more overarching level, the study contributes to our understanding of business relationship dynamics.

Limiting the use of antibiotics in food animals is a cornerstone of contemporary EU policy. Despite that marketing of antibiotics for growth promotion and nutrition has been banned since 2006, the use is still high and varied. This paper aims to investigate the forces behind the different usage patterns in Italy, with one of the EU’s most extensive use of antibiotics in animals, versus Sweden, with the union’s most restricted use, including how these usage patterns are related to EU and national policies.

The industrial network approach/the 4R resources interaction model is adopted to investigate the major forces behind the different antibiotic usage patterns. Furthermore, the study relies on the notion of three main characteristics related to the use of a resource activated in several user settings (Håkansson and Waluszewski, 2008, pp. 20–22). The paper investigates the Swedish and the Italian using settings, with a minimised, respectively, extensive usage of antibiotics. The study is exploratory in nature and based on qualitative data collected through a combination of primary and secondary sources.

The paper underlines the importance of integrating forces for policy to succeed in attempts to reduce the use of a particular resource. It reveals that Sweden’s radically reduced use was based on great awareness, close interactions between animal-based food producers and policy – and that integrating forces were supported by an era of state-protected food production, with promising ability to distribute the cost of change. The Italian characteristics hindering the integration of forces mounting for reduced use were restricted awareness, top-down business and policy interactions – and a great awareness about the difficulties of distributing the cost of change.

The study deals with the analysis of forces affecting the different usage of antibiotics within two EU settings. The investigation, based on the industrial network approach’s notion of connectivity of economic resources, that is, of exchange having a content and substance beyond discrete transactions, reveals how indirect related contextual forces, neglected by policy, have an important influence on the ability to achieve change, in this case of antibiotics usage patterns.

Medicine distribution logistics pattern in pharmaceutical supply chains is a hot topic, which aims to predict applicable and efficient medicine distribution patterns so that the medicine can be distributed effectively. This research aims to propose a new method, named density-distance method, that works based on Kth proximity using patient features (including age, gender, education, inherent diseases, systemic diseases and disorders); geographical features (city, state, population, density, land area) and supply chain features (destination and transportation system).

The proposed method of this research consists of two main phases where in the first phase, quantitative data analytics will be carried out to find out the significant factors and their impacts on medicine distribution. Then, in the next phase, a new Kth-proximity density-distance-based method is proposed to determine the best locations for the wholesalers while designing a supply chain.

The findings show that the proposed method can effectively design a supply chain network using realistic features. In addition, it is found that while the distance-density aggregate index is applied, the wholesalers' locations will be different compared to classic supply chain designs. The results show that age, public hygiene level and density are the most influential during designing new supply chains.

The outcomes of this research can be used in the medicine supply chains to predict appropriate medicine distribution logistics patterns.

In this research, the machine learning method based on the nearest neighbor has been used for the first time in the design of the supply chain network.

The service environment is becoming increasingly turbulent, leading to calls for a systemic understanding of it as a set of dynamic service ecosystems. This paper advances this understanding by developing a typology of service ecosystem dynamics that explains the varying interplay between change and stability within the service environment through distinct behavioral patterns exhibited by service ecosystems over time.

This study builds upon a systematic literature review of service ecosystems literature and uses system dynamics as a method theory to abductively analyze extant literature and develop a typology of service ecosystem dynamics.

The paper identifies three types of service ecosystem dynamics—behavioral patterns of service ecosystems—and explains how they unfold through self-adjustment processes and changes within different systemic leverage points. The typology of service ecosystem dynamics consists of (1) reproduction (i.e. stable behavioral pattern), (2) reconfiguration (i.e. unstable behavioral pattern) and (3) transition (i.e. disrupting, shifting behavioral pattern).

The typology enables practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of their service environment by discerning the behavioral patterns exhibited by the constituent service ecosystems. This, in turn, supports them in devising more effective strategies for navigating through it.

The paper provides a precise definition of service ecosystem dynamics and shows how the identified three types of dynamics can be used as a lens to empirically examine change and stability in the service environment. It also offers a set of research directions for tackling service research challenges.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of companies using a hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach. Specifically, the study examines Türkiye’s Top 500 Industrial Enterprises to analyze their performance before and during the pandemic, and to capture their performance in determining investment and production strategy.

To achieve the study’s objectives, the Fuzzy Best-Worst Method (F-BWM) was used to obtain importance levels of performance indicators, decreasing the vagueness in experts’ decision-making preferences. The Measurement Alternatives and Ranking According to Compromise Solution (MARCOS) method was used to rank enterprises based on their performance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly had a substantial impact on the performance of Türkiye’s top 500 industrial enterprises. While some companies suffered decreased sales, others reported that their revenues increased or remained constant during the outbreak. The results reveal that the pandemic caused a shift in the initial ranking outcomes for the first two enterprises.

The study’s limitations include the sample size and the time period under consideration, which may have an impact on the generalizability of the findings.

Decision-makers’ investment, employment and operational decisions were influenced by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results provide insights for decision-makers on how to achieve higher growth and performance under the pressure of the pandemic.

The study’s practical consequences help decision-makers understand how to attain higher growth and performance in the face of the epidemic.

The originality of this study lies in using a hybrid MCDM approach to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on company performance. A hybrid MCDM approach is proposed to help decision-makers make the best possible investment and implementation decisions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of the characteristics of procurement strategies, in this instance labour-only, on project performance concerning health and safety (H&S), a project performance indicator.

Using non-probability purposeful and snowballing sampling methods, questionnaires were used to collect data from construction professionals in Nigeria. This was then analysed using descriptive (frequency and mean scores) and inferential statistics (Mann–Whitney-U and Kendall's Tau_b tests).

The findings indicate a statistically significant negative correlation between ‘the level of client involvement and ‘fatalities' and a positive one with ‘conducting of health and safety risk assessment' and ‘conducting employee surveys on health and safety attitude’. Poor hygiene is found to be the worst lagging indicator, while conducting of inspection is the most adopted leading indicator of project health and safety performance. It also emerged that there is no significant difference in the health and safety performance of projects procured through the procurement strategy in urban and rural areas.

The study provides valuable insight into the complexities in H&S management due to the high level of client involvement in labour-only procurement system (LoPS) projects and the level of diversity in their responsibilities therein. It creates a fundamental direction for developing a detailed framework or guidance notes for client involvement in the integration of H&S into LoPS projects.

This is the first study that examines the influence of the characteristics of procurement strategy on project health and safety performance. Evidence in the literature shows that project delivery outcomes significantly improve if procurement is strategically used, including when it is considered early in projects. However, integrating H&S into procurement strategies has received little attention.

Examining synergies between Lean, Industry 4.0, and Industry 5.0 principles, the aim is to showcase how Lean's focus on people enhances Industry 5.0 implementations, leading to the development of the Lean 5.0 paradigm. In addition, insights from artisanal industries, like the fashion one, are specifically collected.

First, a literature review was conducted to define a comprehensive framework to understand how Lean fits into the Human-Centric (HC) paradigm of Industry 5.0. Second, a case study was employed to give empirical insights and identify practical initiatives that brands can pursue, involving two best-in-class leather goods brands located in Italy.

A conceptual framework to pave the way for new paradigm Lean 5.0 was defined and validated through a case study. To path the way for a case study in the fashion industry, the Lean HC paradigm is detailed into domains and related categories to group practices. The empirical insights demonstrate that Lean HC actions can be effectively supported by Industry 4.0 technologies in traditional sectors like the fashion industry, shifting towards Industry 5.0.

The proposed framework and related practices can be used by companies to facilitate their transition towards Industry 5.0, leveraging on Lean Manufacturing.

The innovative contribution of the present work mainly refers to the proposed conceptual framework, encompassing Lean, HC and Industry 4.0 and introducing Lean 5.0 paradigm. The case study enriches the empirical contributions in the fashion industry.

This study seeks to examine motivations, challenges and strategies implemented to sustain environmentally friendly practices in Macau hotels and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on such practices.

Executives in sustainability departments of hotels in Macau were purposefully targeted for the in-depth interviews. Ten executives were interviewed either face-to-face or via video call.

The findings revealed that hotels in Macau implement sustainable practices. The main motivation for their implementation was the need to protect the environment, compliance and business-driven reasons. The major challenge involved the implementation costs. The pandemic had a limited impact on the implementation of these practices.

The study recommends that the Macau government should establish clear environmental policies and regulations for hotels with guidelines and support systems. Hotels can also benchmark their performance and collaborate on sustainable practices, develop innovative financing mechanisms and cost-efficient waste recycling practices, organize customer education and engagement programs to promote environmentally friendly practices and incorporate crisis management and resilience strategies into environmental strategies.

The current study denotes that the “sustainable development” concept is crucial in Macau because the largely gaming-driven hospitality industry has been developed over the last decade, significantly impacting environmental degradation. This study examined how hotels respond to these environmental challenges and how their responses can be sustained in the long term. The authors suggest the environmental practice indicators that can be helpful for the hospitality industries in Macau. Social and economic implications are discussed based on the findings.

This paper aims to explore “rotting” in the workplace, characterized by antisocial hibernation, where employees become isolated and disengaged. The study examines underlying factors and provides actionable insights and practical interventions to address “rotting” and restore a healthy work environment, empowering readers with the means to make positive changes.

The research integrates various theories of employee behavior, including Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the job demands-resources model, cognitive load theory, distraction-conflict theory and engagement theory. By connecting these frameworks with practical HR strategies, the paper ensures a comprehensive understanding of employee isolation, instilling confidence in the research’s depth.

Employee isolation and disengagement significantly challenge organizational health and productivity. The study identifies key factors such as poor management practices, lack of social support, high job demands and inadequate communication channels. Addressing these factors through supportive environments, effective communication and mental health support can enhance engagement and reduce isolation.

This paper offers an innovative perspective on employee rotting by integrating multiple theoretical frameworks and practical HR strategies. It emphasizes the urgent need to address employee isolation, especially with increasing remote work and digital communication.