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The article examines the supply chain (SC) in a food industry in Bulgaria. The relations between suppliers and the degree of integration of the activities along with the SC will be studied by building forms of partnerships with suppliers and the areas of cooperation they work in. The relevance of the topic is determined by the increasing pressure exerted by the consumers in terms of quality and safety, caused by the scandals with food products, the regulations concerning the traceability along the SC and providing safety and quality. The purpose of the study, in the present paper, is the theoretical and applied aspects of collaboration along the SC and the use of modern information systems and technologies in the food industry in Bulgaria.

The objectives of the study, in the present paper, are the theoretical and applied aspects of collaboration along the SC and the use of modern information systems and technologies in the food industry in Bulgaria. The subjects of this study are the enterprises of the food industry in Bulgaria. The number of companies surveyed is 93. Small and medium-sized enterprises generate 48.7% of the turnover in the industry and 63% of the employment in the sector. A research survey with structured questionnaire was conducted in the period 2018–2019. The interrelations in the SC are underdeveloped and there is a low degree of integration between the participants in the food industry in Bulgaria. The implementation of information and communications technology (ICT) and blockchains in the SC in the food industry in Bulgaria is at a low level.

The subjects of this study are the enterprises of the food industry in Bulgaria. The number of companies surveyed is 93. Small and medium-sized enterprises generate 48.7% of the turnover in the industry and 63% of the employment in the sector. The sectors which are traditionally included in the food industry are as follows: flour milling, milk processing, meat processing, canning industry and production of dried and canned fruit, vegetables and seeds, fishery, production of sugar and confectionery, chocolate and desserts and production of spices. The present research study does not focus on production of drinks, mineral water bottles and production of alcoholic drinks, as well as production of tea and coffee, bread and bakery products. A research survey with structured questionnaire was conducted in the period 2018–2019. The questions included in the questionnaire helped to study general indicators for the evaluation of the degree of cooperation and the implementation of modern ICT in organizations in the food industry. The first part of the questionnaire included questions related to the general information about organizations, which determines the form of ownership, the existence of foreign participation in the enterprise, the number of settlements where the activity is carried out and geographic distribution of sales in the country and abroad. These questions are important to frame a general characteristic of the studied enterprises.

The study had few limitations, which in turn suggest avenues for further research. This study does not include the production of beverages, mineral water bottles and the production of alcoholic beverages as well as tea and coffee production. With regard to the subject of the study, the article focuses mainly on relations between suppliers and the degree of integration of the activities along the SC, which will be studied by building forms of partnerships with suppliers and the areas of cooperation they work in, while remaining outside the scope of the study themes and challenges in making SCs environmentally sustainable. Although a large amount of data were analyzed, there exists an opportunity to widen this study significantly. The possibilities of omnichannels along the SC in the food chain will be explored first as well as the possibilities for building an omnichannel strategy in the food supply chain.

This study provides insights to manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and managers of the food industry for supply chain management (SCM) and for connections and cooperation with suppliers and partners. The research study provides clarity about the degree of integration in the management of SC and the opportunities for development of the cooperation between the SC participants.

This study reveals for the first time the SC in the food industry in Bulgaria and provides directions for development. This study shows the degree of SCM integration as well as the opportunities for developing cooperation between the actors in the chain.

While circular economy (CE) is fast becoming a political and economic agenda for global urban development, there are still substantial knowledge gaps in possible strategies to speed up such transition, especially in the construction industry. This study analyses literature surrounding CE to unpack current trends possible future research directions to foster CE implementation in the construction industry.

The study undertakes a systematic review of CE literature published between 1990 and 2019. It adopts a five-stage procedure as a methodological approach for the review: formulation of the research question(s), locating and identifying relevant studies, selection and evaluation of studies, analysis or synthesis and results reporting.

The findings on CE research in the construction industry show extensive focus on resource use and waste management. There are limited investigations in other areas of construction such as supply chain integration, building designs, policy, energy efficiency, land use, offsite manufacturing, whole life costing, and risk, cost reduction, cost management, health and safety management. The study findings provide evidence that current CE practice fails to incorporate other areas that would facilitate the network of true circular construction industry.

This research provides a comprehensive overview of research efforts on CE in the construction context, identifying areas of extensive and limited coverage over three decades. Besides, it identifies possible pathways for future research directions on CE implementation, towards the accelerated transition to a true circular construction industry for the benefit of funding bodies and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among choice of industry diversification, capabilities and business group performance, as well as to point out the potential concern about endogenous role of industry diversification.

Using data from the top 100 business groups in Taiwan from TEJ database. This study uses Heckman’s two-step estimation procedure and contingency model to achieve unbiased results and examine our hypotheses.

The results of this study find that if business groups’ marketing or operational capabilities are strong they should adopt a high level of diversification strategy and if business groups’ R&D capability is strong they should adopt a low level one. The results of this study also show that the endogenous problem of industry diversification exists, and needs to be considered. Moreover, our finding confirms the importance of capability–strategy fit, which, in turn, can achieve better performance.

On average, high industry diversification groups perform better than low industry diversification groups after controlling for endogeneity issues. Business groups can achieve better performance if their strategy choices match the capabilities they encounter. Managers should pay attention to strategy-capability fit issues. Specifically, they should review their organizational capabilities as well as check their strategies within firms.

This study is one of the first that attempts to explore the endogenous role of diversification strategy choices, and empirical examine strategy-capability fit on business group performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine institutional influences on the customer service (CS) and complaints handling (CH) practices of the Australian Internet industry.

The study adopted a qualitative research methodology using semi-structured interview as a research method. The study was informed by constructivist/interpretive research paradigm approaches to knowledge. Eleven senior executives from key Internet industry stakeholder organizations were interviewed.

Using the neo-institutional theory lens, this study found that the institutional forces (regulatory, customer and competition pressures) played a pivotal role in bringing all Internet industry stakeholders together to address CS/CH shortcomings in the old Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code 2007. This led to significant changes to the CS/CH practices detailed in the revised TCP Code 2012. The study findings revealed that frequent and fateful collaborations between central institutional actors have led to the emergence of organizational fields. The actors identified in the emerging organizational fields actively influence the CS/CH practices and the subsequent implementation of the practices in vLISPs.

The study focused on the functional aspects of service quality (SQ). Technical aspects of SQ is equally important, and future research needs to consider both aspects of SQ when assessing overall performance of vLISPs.

The study findings encourage vLISP managers to continue collaboration with external stakeholders and develop customer-friendly practices that deliver desirable CS/CH outcomes.

The study findings revealed that when all vLISP industry stakeholders collaborate with each other on a focal issue, there is noticeable progress towards development of CS practices that will contribute to a better CS experience.

An evidence-based approach was used towards understanding and explaining how and why institutional actors of technology-based service organizations act together. A significant contribution arising from this study is the identification and discussion of emerging organizational fields comprising the central actors in the Internet industry. These emerging organizational fields have the potential to develop into mature organizational fields and inform future CS/CH practices and consumer protection policies in the Australian Internet industry.

For the studies whose purposes are to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation activities of the enterprises, there are some limitations in the measures of industrial characteristics and using traditional statistical techniques. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries using grey system theory. The research results show that grey system theory is suitable to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.

This paper proposes the measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises. First, based on the data on Chinese large and medium-sized high-tech enterprises for the period of 2011-2013, this paper applies grey relational analysis to identify the relatively most important indexes on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises. Second, based on the results from grey relational analysis, this study draws a ranking of the five Chinese high-tech industries in terms of innovation capabilities by grey decision making. Finally, based on the results from grey decision making, this study applies GM (0, N) model to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.

The results of this study show that in the evaluation indexes system of innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises, personnel in R & D institutions, R & D personnel, internal expenditure on R & D, expenditure on new product development, expenditure on technology imports, expenditure on technology renovation, and expenditure on technology assimilation and absorption are relatively most important elements affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises. In addition, the two top ranking on innovation capabilities are manufacture of electronic equipment and communication equipment, and manufacture of medicines. At last, the findings indicate that in the measures of industrial characteristics, the three top ranking on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises are R & D intensity, technology absorption intensity of indigenous high-tech enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises size. The opening level is in the middle position. Technology intensity, market concentration, and state-owned enterprises size are the three bottom ranking on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises.

This study has some limitations. First, this study is limited to Chinese high-tech industries. The findings may not be applicable to other countries’ high-tech industries. Further studies with other countries’ high-tech industries could be extended and examined how industrial characteristics affect innovation capabilities of the firms in these industries. Second, the measures of industrial characteristics proposed in this study are somewhat theoretically weak. In the future, the authors will further improve the current analysis, and develop the measures of industrial characteristics. Finally, with the advent of the more data with the consistent statistical coverage released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics during the more continuous years, other methods, such as panel data regression model in econometrics could be used to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries. By then, the scholars can compare the results from grey system theory and those from panel data regression model in econometrics.

Appropriate industrial environment is favorable for Chinese high-tech enterprises to feed their innovation capabilities. Scientific evaluation on the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries is of great significance for Chinese high-tech enterprises in exerting technological catch-up and promoting their competitive advantage. The purposed measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises in this paper, and combined methodology based on grey system theory could be applied to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises.

This paper proposes the measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises, and uses grey system theory to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how the emergent theme of Industry 4.0 is considered in the context of supply chain management (SCM) and to identify important areas for future research.

A systematic literature review of 334 studies is carried out. The papers have been analyzed by having a focus on the unit of analysis, research methods used, the key themes covered and how the debate has evolved over a period of time.

Findings of the study reveal that scholars have so far focused on principles and practices for digitized SCM, identified enablers and barriers, and considered the Industry 4.0 at various levels, particularly at the firm level. Majority of studies focus on manufacturing from the perspective of the focal firm.

Limitation of this study is its unit of analysis where only peer-reviewed journal and conference articles published in the English language have been considered.

This review identifies the important themes and areas for practitioners to consider vis-à-vis the implementation of Industry 4.0 standards in supply chains. The review provides insights into under-researched areas and highlights the need for future researchers to develop more practical models for guiding the implementation of Industry 4.0.

This paper is one among the few studies that assess the Industry 4.0 implementation in the context of SCM and provides insights and implications for further research.

The technological and digital revolution has introduced important changes in the tourism industry. However, capturing the extent of the new tourism 4.0 paradigm is still difficult. This study aims to assess the dimensions related to the concepts of industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem when considered simultaneously, and their role in promoting a new wave of competitiveness in the tourism industry.

A bibliometric study was conducted based on tourism 4.0, hotel 4.0, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem using 120 eligible articles published between 2008 and 2021 from the Web of Science database.

This study demonstrated the advances in industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality publications over 13 years and identified five interconnected dimensions: (1) knowledge transfer in tourism; (2) networking tourism innovation; (3) sources of tourism innovation; (4) smart tourism ecosystem and (5) innovation research in tourism. It was also concluded that tourism development should be a regional competence based on strategic networking and externalisation of regional knowledge flows.

This bibliometric review provides important implications and recommendations for several players of industry 4.0 in tourism and hospitality and policymakers. Not only did it make it possible to create a state of art, but also to categorise the existing interconnections between the dimensions of Tourism 4.0, Hotel 4.0, Tourism innovation and Tourism ecosystem to optimise its implementation and generate greater value. In addition, practical implications were inferred that improve the tourism sector’s competitiveness, helping strategic decision-making at the level of policymakers and actors in this sector.

Apart from state of the art, this bibliometric review made it possible to categorise the existing interconnections between the dimensions of tourism 4.0, hotel 4.0, tourism innovation and tourism ecosystem to optimise its implementation and generate greater value. Practical implications were inferred that improve the tourism sector’s competitiveness, helping strategic decision-making at the level of policymakers and several players in this sector.

This study addresses the existing literature gap in the interconnection of industry 4.0 with tourism and hospitality by describing the most relevant conceptual interconnections and setting practical implications for improving the competitiveness of the tourism industry. Furthermore, it integrates previous studies and outlines future lines of investigation.

Research on high-growth firms (HGFs) or gazelles is expanding due to their significant contribution to job growth and economic development. However, the knowledge about the conditions and factors that set these firms on their rapid growth trajectory remains fragmented. Therefore, this chapter provides an abreast inventory of the surging gazelle studies by systematically reviewing the international gazelle growth literature and consolidating firm-level, industry-level, and macroeconomic-level growth factors and their interactions as elaborated in the studies. Based on the review of 62 international empirical studies, this chapter finds that the gazelle growth is complex and multidimensional in its scope and nature. The firm’s growth intention and entrepreneurial nature emerge as necessary but not sufficient conditions to guarantee rapid growth as it results from the impact of and interaction between various firm-level and external factors. The different growth-influencing factors are summarized using a theoretical gazelle growth model, which supports the rare and temporal nature of the gazelle growth.

There is considerable variation in the extent of globalization across industries. The authors attempt to identify the structural conditions of the industry that lead to these variations.

Based on a sample of 33 manufacturing industries over the nine-year period from 2007 to 2016, the authors test for antecedents of industry globalization.

The authors find that industry globalization is positively affected by medium levels of barriers to entry, industry competition, industry assistance, low and mediums levels of capital intensity, industry concentration and industry regulation and negatively affected by low levels of technological change and industry assistance. In addition, the life cycle stage of the industry has an impact on the level of globalization with the growth stage having the highest level of globalization.

First, the major limitation of the paper is that the authors rely entirely on trade data to measure the level of industry globalization. The authors did not have a choice because foreign direct investment (FDI) data are available only at the country level. Second, given that globalization can occur at the country, industry and firm levels, the focus on industry-level structural characteristics alone may be seen as a limitation.

The results of the study can provide guidance to practicing managers to apply industry analysis for predicting the potential for and direction of globalization of their industries. This will enable them to formulate appropriate strategies to cope with global competition.

The study has important public policy implications. National governments have many levers at their command that can be used to influence the structural characteristics of industries, such as industry regulation, industry assistance and industry concentration. They can selectively use these levers to either facilitate or impede globalization.

Much of the empirical focus of prior research on globalization has been on countries, rather than industries, as the unit of analysis. There is clearly variation in the extent of globalization across industries with some industries highly integrated while others remain primarily local or regional. Based on a novel approach to measure the extent of globalization at the industry level, the authors identify its antecedents. The value of the paper lies in the fact that the analysis of 33 manufacturing industries over a ten-year period shows that the structural characteristics of the industries drive their extent of globalization.

The purpose of this paper is to aim for the development and analysis of green manufacturing (GM)-based framework on the identified critical success factors (CSFs) and performance measures (PMs) in the context of the Indian cement industry.

The research follows survey method for data collection. For framework development, it uses factor analysis on the identified CSFs and regression along with the appropriate measures for checking statistical consistency and validity.

This is the first research towards GM framework for the Indian cement industry. Till date, no framework is available which could guide researchers and practitioners of this environment unfriendly industry. Study exposes lack of connectivity between CSFs and PMs for a GM framework and highlights weaknesses of cement industry in this regard. It offers a generalised GM framework linking PMs with top management, human resource management, organisational culture, green practices, process management and supply chain management.

The framework is expected to help both researchers and practitioners from cement, construction and other industries who are serious towards GM implementation and are looking for appropriate mechanism. This framework if implemented properly will result in enhanced productivity.

This work is one of the few and pioneering efforts to investigate GM linking CSFs and PMs in Indian manufacturing sectors and the first in cement industry. Not many studies are available in the context of cement industry, which is the lifeblood of infrastructure and construction sectors. The importance of the work increases as it is conducted in the Indian context, which is undeniably an important economy of the world.