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Little is known about the determinants of supply chain finance (SCF) adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. This study aims to address this relevant research gap and hence, draws on the resource-based view and transaction cost economies to empirically investigate five factors that make SCF adoption practicable among SMEs in Ghana.

The approach involves a sample of 257 SME managers/owners and modelling via structural equations modelling.

All five factors (innovative capability, information sharing, inter- and intra-firm collaboration, external financing and trade process digitization) were found to impact positively and significantly on SCF adoption. The findings provide SME managers/owners with a research model which guides them on how to settle the SCF process.

This paper used a cross-sectional survey, which makes it impossible to access changes over time. In addition, the use of quantitative method limits respondents from expressing their feelings fully. Using a mixed or qualitative methodology will provide avenues for future research.

This paper offers a completive advantage for Ghanaian SMEs to strengthen their relationships while collaborating with each other. The findings suggest that by adopting SCF solutions, SMEs can optimize their liquidity and working capital. The factors underpinning SCF adoption are of incredible attractiveness for SME managers/owners to discover the relevant practice of SCF solutions. SMEs should adopt SCF strategies for improving their capability to respond promptly to transactions.

This paper is among the few papers that have examined these five factors in a developing economy context. The study also provides new understanding of the factors that influence SCF adoption in the context of a developing economy.

Through the use of the Markov Decision Model (MDM) approach, this study uncovers significant variations in the availability of machines in both faulty and ideal situations in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The first-order differential equations are used to construct the mathematical equations from the transition-state diagrams of the separate subsystems in the critical part manufacturing plant.

To obtain the lowest investment cost, one of the non-traditional optimization strategies is employed in maintenance operations in SMEs in this research. It will use the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize machine maintenance parameters and find the best solutions, thereby introducing the best decision-making process for optimal maintenance and service operations.

The major goal of this study is to identify critical subsystems in manufacturing plants and to use an optimal decision-making process to adopt the best maintenance management system in the industry. The optimal findings of this proposed method demonstrate that in problematic conditions, the availability of SME machines can be enhanced by up to 73.25%, while in an ideal situation, the system's availability can be increased by up to 76.17%.

The proposed new optimal decision-support system for this preventive maintenance management in SMEs is based on these findings, and it aims to achieve maximum productivity with the least amount of expenditure in maintenance and service through an optimal planning and scheduling process.

While previous operations management literature acknowledges the positive influence of Lean and Industry (I4.0) on performance, recent studies examining the synergy between these two factors have produced inconsistent and contradictory results. Therefore, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effect of Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance.

This study utilised a meta-analysis approach, examining 23 empirical studies exploring multiple effects of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. Multiple subgroup analyses were conducted to assess the contradictory outcomes and identify in what conditions such synergy may achieve performance.

The results affirm the prevailing positivist perspective among most scholars regarding the positive influence of the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. However, the overall effect size derived from the studies indicates a weak relationship, suggesting that this synergy alone is not the sole determinant factor of firm performance. In addition, the subgroup analyses reveal the presence of contingent conditions that may affect the performance outcomes when integrating Lean and I4.0, as most effects exhibit a weak relationship.

This study represents the first meta-analysis investigating the relationship between the Lean and I4.0 synergy on firm performance. By shedding light on the contradictory effects often depicted in the operations management literature, this study provides a critical reflection for researchers who tend to adopt an overly optimistic view of such synergy.

This study investigates whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level roles within the supply chain management (SCM) field is justified or the result of gender injustices. The analysis examines if there is a gender compensation gap within executive-level SCM roles and whether performance differences or other observable factors explain disparities.

Publicly reported executive compensation and financial data are merged to empirically test if gender differences exist and investigate whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level SCM roles is unjust.

Women occupy only 6.29% of the positions in the sample of 447 SCM executives. Unlike prior studies, we find that women executives receive higher compensation. The analysis does not identify observable factors explaining the limited inclusion of women in top-level roles, suggesting that gender injustices are prevalent in SCM.

This study only considers observable factors and cannot conclusively determine if discrimination is occurring. The low level of inclusion of women in executive roles suggests that gender injustice is intrinsic within the SCM profession. These findings will hopefully motivate firms to undertake transformative actions that result in outcomes that advance gender equity, ultimately leading to social justice for female SCM executives.

The use of social justice and feminist theories, a focus on SCM roles, and an empirical methodology utilizing objective measures represents a novel approach to investigating gender discrimination in SCM organizations, complementing prior survey-based studies.

This paper aims to deepen the current knowledge of seasonality by investigating visitors’ intentional and behavioural patterns during peak and off-peak seasons. It compares the variation in several key behavioural factors, namely, duration of stay, party size, revisit intention, spending and breakdown of spending in different sectors in hospitality and tourism including entertainment, restaurant, accommodation and transportation. Moreover, this research expands the understanding by examining the effectiveness of two innovative strategies of offering a digital app and organising a unique event to tackle seasonal imbalances through stimulating visitors’ intention to change their timing of visit from peak to off-peak periods.

The author initially used a Delphi approach to gather experts’ opinion on the two scenario settings: event organisation and a trip planner app. The scenarios aimed to potentially encourage visitors to change their visit time to off-peak seasons. Then, using a quantitative survey, the travel habits and spending behaviours of 310 participants were captured. Furthermore, the survey assessed their intention to travel during off-peak seasons in response to the implementation of the two innovative strategies.

The results revealed that although the number of visitors who travel in off-peak seasons may be lower, their daily spending is higher than peak season visitors. In addition to total spending per day, the duration of stay, part size, quality of accommodation and re-visit intention of visitors indicated significant variation between peak and off-peak seasons. According to the statistical analysis’ results, organising events (including festivals) proves more effective in encouraging visitors to travel during off-peak seasons compared to digital innovation (i.e. a trip planner app). This finding is in line with the tenets of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory of innovation.

This study contributes by conceptualising the mechanism of seasonality and its impacts on subsectors of tourism and hospitality. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the few empirical research that compares the behavioural patterns of visitors including their average spending per day between peak and off-peak seasons. Previous studies focused on specific regions or sectors, whereas this research investigates visitors’ behaviour on a broader scale to provide more comprehensive view. Furthermore, this study is novel due to practising an outside-in approach through investigating the effectiveness of the two innovative strategies aimed at addressing seasonality in the hospitality and tourism industry from visitors’ point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal auditing as the pandemic forced individual internal auditors and audit teams to conduct the work remotely.

Five in-depth semi-structured interviews of internal audit experts that work in German retail and manufacturing industry were conducted between February and April 2021.

The authors find that the importance of audit technologies did not change significantly due to the pandemic, as audit technologies were already an integral part of internal audits. Interestingly, the transition to remote audits occurred with remarkable speed and efficiency. The presence of well-functioning information and communication technologies emerges as a critical facilitator for effective remote communication, collaboration and data exchange. However, audit technologies can only partially replace physical on-site examinations and human interaction. The main challenges of remote audits are related to the auditing of non-digitalized processes and the inherent limitations of auditee interviews and interactions.

The authors' interview approach does not allow to cover variations between industries and between countries. While internal audit experts provided notably consistent responses during the interviews, acknowledging that the sample size is very small is important.

The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a catalyst for increased digitalization and technology adoption within the realm of internal auditing. A hybrid approach combining the benefits of on-site and remote audits is expected to prevail in the future.

The paper is among the first to document the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the work of internal auditing using field-based research methods.

This study aims to evaluate the adequacy of climate risk disclosure by providing empirical evidence on whether corporate disclosure meets rising stakeholders’ demand for risk disclosure concerning climate change.

Drawing on a triangulated approach for collecting data from multiple sources in a longitudinal study, we perform a panel regression analysis on a sample of multinational firms between 2007 and 2021. Inspired by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) principles, our innovative and inclusive model of measuring firm-level climate risks underscores the urgent need to redefine materiality from a broader value creation (rather than only financial) perspective, including the impact on sustainable development.

The findings of this study provide evidence of limited corporate climate risk disclosure, indicating that organisations have yet to accept the reality of climate-related risks. An additional finding supports the existence of a nexus between higher corporate environmental disclosure and higher corporate resilience to material financial and environmental risks, rather than pervasive sustainability risk disclosure.

We argue that a mechanical process for climate-related risk disclosure can limit related disclosure variability, risk reporting priority selection, thereby broadening the short-term perspective on financial materiality assessment for disclosure.

This study extends recent literature on the adequacy of corporate risk disclosure, highlighting the importance of disclosing material sustainability risks from the perspectives of different stakeholder groups for long-term success. Corporate management should place climate-related risks at the centre of their disclosure strategies. We argue that reducing the systematic underestimation of climate-related risks and variations in their disclosure practices may require regulations that enhance corporate perceptions and responses to these risks.

This study emphasises the importance of reconceptualising materiality from a multidimensional value creation standpoint, encapsulating financial and sustainable development considerations. This novel model of assessing firm-level climate risk, based on the GRI principles, underscores the necessity of developing a more comprehensive approach to evaluating materiality.

This paper aims to explore current trends in how companies disclose climate-related risks and opportunities in their financial statements. As part of the authors’ analysis, they examine: whether forward-looking assumptions and judgements are typically considered in reporting climate-related risks/opportunities; whether there are differences in the reporting practices of firms in carbon-intensive industries versus non-carbon-intensive industries; and whether negative media reports have an influence on the levels of disclosure a firm makes.

The authors chose content analysis as their methodology and examined the financial statements published by firms listed on the UK’s FTSE 100 between 2016 and 2020. This analysis is framed by Suchman’s three dimensions of legitimacy, being pragmatic, cognitive and moral.

Climate-related disclosures in the notes and financial accounts of these firms did increase over the period. Yet, overall, the level the disclosures was inadequate and the quality was inconsistent. From this, the authors conclude that pragmatic legitimacy is not a particularly strong driving factor in compelling organisations to disclose climate-related information. The firms in carbon-intensive industries do provide greater levels of disclosure, including both qualitative and quantitative (monetary) content, which is consistent with cognitive legitimacy. However, from a moral legitimacy perspective, this study finds that firms did not adapt responsively to negative media coverage as a way of reflecting their accountability to broader public norms and values. Overall, this analysis suggests that regulatory enforcement and a systematic reporting framework with adequate guidance is going to be critical to developing transparent climate-related reporting in future.

This paper contributes to existing studies on climate-related disclosures, which have mainly examined the ‘front-half’ of annual reports. Conversely, this study aims to shed light on these practices in the “back-half” of these reports, exploring the underlying reasons for reporting climate-related risks and opportunities in financial accounts. The authors’ insights into the current disclosure practices make a theoretical contribution to the literature. Practitioners can also draw on these insights to improve how they report on climate-related risks and opportunities in their financial statements.

This study aims to evaluate the adoption of four types of supplier sustainability risk management (SSRM) strategies, namely, risk avoidance (RA), risk acceptance (RAC), collaboration-based risk mitigation (CBM) and monitoring-based risk mitigation (MBM) in Sri Lankan apparel and retail industries, and to investigate their effect on supply chain performance (SCP).

This study uses the dynamic capability view (DCV) to develop its hypotheses. Data collected from 89 firms were analysed using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling and PLS-based multiple group analysis.

Sri Lankan apparel and retail firms adopt RA and MBM strategies relatively more than CBM and RAC strategies, whereas there is no significant difference between the two industries in terms of the use of SSRM strategies. The path analysis revealed significant effects of RA and RAC strategies on SCP of both industries. The effect of CBM strategy on SCP is moderated by industry, while MBM has no significant impact.

While managing supplier sustainability risks effectively, RA and RAC strategies provide more opportunities for managers to improve SCP. In achieving SCP, CBM strategies are proven to be more effective for retail industry compared with the apparel sector. Although MBM strategies offer sustainability advantages to firms, their contribution to improving the performance of apparel and retail supply chains is not significant. This research is limited to only two industries (apparel and retail) in Sri Lanka, where the evidence for the effects of SSRM strategies is not available for other contexts.

Either the effects of the four types of SSRM strategies on SCP or the moderating effect of industry on these effects have not been empirically confirmed in the literature. Evaluating the extent to which different strategies are implemented in Sri Lankan apparel and retail industries is another significant contribution of this research. Furthermore, this study contributes by using DCV to a sustainability-based supply chain risk management research.

This study is the maiden attempt to understand the effect of specific human resource practices (HRPs) on employee retention (ER) with the mediation of job satisfaction (JS) and moderation of work experience (WE) and job hopping (JH) in the context of the textile industry.

This study adopted a quantitative methodology and applied quota sampling to gather data from employees (n = 365) of leading textile companies in India. The conceptual model and hypotheses were tested with the help of Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings of a path analysis revealed that compensation and performance appraisal (CPA) have the highest impact on JS followed by employee work participation (EWP). On the other hand, EWP had the highest impact on ER followed by grievance handling (GRH). The study revealed that JS significantly mediates between HRPs like CPA and ER. During Multi-group analysis (MGA) it was found that the importance of EWP and health and safety (HAS) was more in employee groups with higher WE, but it was the opposite in the case of CPA. In the case of JH behavior, the study observed that EWP leads to JS in loyal employees. Similarly, JS led to ER, and the effect was more pronounced for loyal employees.

In the context of the Indian textile industry, this work is the first attempt to comprehend how HRPs affect ER. Secondly, it confirmed that JS is not a guaranteed mediator between HRPs and ER, it could act as an insignificant, partial or full mediator. Additionally, this study establishes the moderating effects of WE and JH in the model through multigroup analysis.