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This work conducts a comprehensive analysis of how to incorporate resilience and sustainability into capacity expansion strategies for business-to-business (B2B) chemical supply chains. This study aims to guide both researchers and managers on ensuring profitability in B2B chemical supply chains while minimizing environmental impacts, complying with regulations and mitigating disruptions and risks.

A systematic literature review is conducted to analyze the interplay between sustainability and resilience in chemical B2B supply chains, specify the quantitative and qualitative methods used to tackle this challenge and identify the drivers and barriers concerning capacity expansion. In addition, a comprehensive conceptual framework is suggested to outline a compelling research agenda.

The findings emphasize the increasing importance of modeling and resolving decision-making challenges related to sustainable and resilient supply chains, particularly in capital-intensive chemical industries. Yet, there is no standardized strategy for addressing these challenges. The predominant solution methods are heuristic and metaheuristic, and the selection of performance metrics tends to be empirical and tailored to specific cases. The main barriers to achieving sustainability and resilience arise from resource limitations within the supply chain. Conversely, the key drivers of performance focus on enhancing efficiency, competitiveness, cost effectiveness and risk management.

This work offers practitioners a conceptual framework that synthesizes the knowledge and tackles the challenges of designing sustainable and resilient supply chains as well as managing their operations in the context of B2B chemical supply chains. Results provide a practical guide for navigating the complex interplay of sustainability, resilience and chemical supply chain expansion.

The key concepts and dimensions associated with capacity expansion planning for a resilient and sustainable chemical supply chain are identified through structured and comprehensive analyses of existing literature. A conceptual framework is proposed for delineating the intersections among sustainability, resilience and chemical supply chain expansions. This mapping endeavor aims to facilitate a future characterized by the deployment of a nexus of resilience and sustainability in chemical supply chains. To this end, a promising future research agenda is accordingly outlined.

This paper aims to explore how graphene can improve the mechanical and anti-corrosion properties of TiO₂-SiO₂ sol-gel coating. This sol-gel coating has been prepared on aluminum alloy substrate using graphene as both nano-filler and corrosion inhibitor.

To examine the effect of graphene on mechanical properties of sol-gel coating, the abrasion resistance, adhesion strength and scratch resistance of coating have been evaluated. To reveal the effect of graphene on the anti-corrosion property of coating for aluminum alloy, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has been conducted in 3.5 Wt.% NaCl medium.

Scanning electron microscopy images indicate that graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have been homogeneously dispersed into the sol-gel coating matrices (at the contents from 0.1 to 0.5 Wt.%). Mechanical tests of coatings indicate that the graphene content of 0.5 Wt.% provides highest values of adhesion strength (1.48 MPa), scratch resistance (850 N) and abrasion strength (812 L./mil.) for the sol-gel coating. The EIS data show that the higher content of GNPs improve both R₁ (coating) and R₂ (coating/Al interface) resistances. In addition to enhancing the coating barrier performance (graphene acts as nanofiller/nano-reinforcer for coating matrix), other mechanism can be at work to account for the role of the graphene inhibitor in improving the anticorrosive performance at the coating/Al interface.

Application of graphene-based sol-gel coating for protection of aluminum and its alloy is very promising.

The purpose of the study is to identify the soft skills and abilities that are crucial to success in the fields of operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM), using the O*NET database and the classification of a set of professional figures integrating values for task skills and abilities needed to operate successfully in these professions.

The study used the O*NET database to identify the soft skills and abilities required for success in OM and SCM industries. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the tasks required for the job roles and their characteristics in terms of abilities and soft skills. ANOVA analysis was used to validate the findings. The study aims to help companies define specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the job position.

As a result of the work, a set of soft skills and abilities was defined that allow, through correlation analysis, to explain a large number of activities required to work in the operations and SCM (OSCM) environment.

The work is inherently affected by the database used for the professional figures mapped and the scores that are attributed within O*NET to the analyzed elements.

The information resulting from this study can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for the roles of OM and SCM to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. The study aims to address the need to identify soft skills in the human sphere and determine which of them have the most significant impact on the OM and SCM professions.

The originality of this study lies in its approach to identify the set of soft skills and abilities that determine success in the OM and SCM industries. The study used the O*NET database to correlate the tasks required for specific job roles with their corresponding soft skills and abilities. Furthermore, the study used ANOVA analysis to validate the findings in other sectors mapped by the same database. The identified soft skills and abilities can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. In addressing the necessity for enhanced clarity in the domain of human factor, this study contributes to identifying key success factors. Subsequent research can further investigate their practical application within companies to formulate targeted growth strategies and make appropriate resource selections for vacant positions.

The concept of “participation” has become a buzzword in contemporary public governance models. However, despite the broad and significant interest, defining participation remains a debated topic. The aim of the current study was to explore how participants perceived and interpreted the meaning and scope of participation.

This study is part of a four-year (2019–2022) longitudinal research project investigating stakeholder participation in the context of developing and establishing a strategic regional plan in Region Skåne in southern Sweden. The research project has a qualitative approach and uses interviews with different stakeholder groups such as municipal politicians and public officials and a survey as empirical material.

The authors developed a participation spectrum including eight types of participation: to be open, to be informed, to be listened to, to discuss, to be consulted, to give and take, to collaborate and to co-create. The authors also identified four different purposes of participation: creating a joint network, creating a joint understanding, creating a joint effort and creating a joint vision. The spectrum and the purposes were related through four characteristics of participation, i.e. involvement, interaction, influence and empowerment.

The study rests on a single case, and so the results have limited transferatibility.

Researching participation in terms of the participants' perceptions contributes a new perspective to the existing literature, which has commonly focussed on the organizers' perceptions of participation. Moreover, in order to clarify what participation meant to the participants, the study puts emphasis on untangling this from the why question of participation.

This study examines the effect of Human Resource Management (HRM) policies in respect to workplace flexibility and employee empowerment on two employee behaviour related outcomes (employee organisational commitment (EOC) and collegiality) and organisational resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data were collected using an online survey questionnaire managed by Qualtrics. The questionnaire was distributed to the lower, middle and senior managers of 1,000 Australian organisations with 337 responses used in the analysis.

The findings indicate that workplace flexibility exhibits a direct and indirect (through collegiality) significant positive association with organisational resilience, and employee empowerment exhibits a direct and indirect (through both EOC and collegiality) significant positive association with organisational resilience.

The results highlight the importance of implementing desirable HRM policies in respect to empowering employees and enhancing workplace flexibility due to their role in facilitating organisational resilience both directly and indirectly through their influence on employee behaviour related outcomes, specifically EOC and collegiality.

With the continued rise of digital marketing, the opportunity for the hospitality industry to re-imagine and re-design processes and systems to create a seamless customer journey has never been bigger.

In this chapter, the authors look at how customer experience drives innovation and how our changing values, precipitated by social, economic and behavioural flux, mean that hospitality and tourism brands are creating new systems and processes.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw an influx of technology solutions that offered the service industry a multitude of platforms to capture the public's attention to drive both profit and guest experience. The authors have found that the pandemic accelerated trends, and customers have now become increasingly accustomed to instantaneous service. This chapter explores how technology has been leveraged to meet this behaviour and the guest expectations associated with it.

The authors have interviewed four hospitality leaders from various sectors of the hospitality industry to help identify and analyse customer and employee trends. These leaders included: Florence Alloing – Group General Manager at Georgian House in London; David Gardner – Managing Partner at 80 Days; Rob Flinter – General Manager of Park Plaza Waterloo in London and Andrea Shaw – Director at FM Recruitment. Each interviewee was presented with a questionnaire to explore their experiences regarding customer experience, guest expectations, technological advancement, recruitment and organisational values. The authors used a thematic method to identify trends and have presented these findings to support the article. All quotes from these interviews will be referenced (Donald & Donald, 2023).

The purpose of this study is to provide new insights into the relationship between fiscal policy and total factor productivity (TFP) while accounting for several economic and econometric issues of the phenomenon like non-stationarity, fiscal feedback effects, persistence in productivity, country heterogeneity and unobserved global shocks and local spillovers affecting heterogeneously the countries in the sample.

The paper is empirical. It builds an Error Correction Model (ECM) specification within a dynamic heterogeneous framework with common correlated effects and models both reverse causality and feedback effects.

The results of this study highlight some new findings relative to the existing related literature. The outcomes suggest some relevant evidence at both the academic and policy levels: (1) the causal effects going from fiscal deficit/surplus to TFP are heterogeneous across countries; (2) the effects depend on the time horizon considered; (3) the long-run dynamics of TFP are positively impacted by improvements in fiscal budget, but only if the austerity measures do not exert slowdowns in aggregate growth.

The main originality of this study is methodological, with possible extensions to related phenomena. Relative to the existing literature, the gains of this study rely on the way econometric techniques, recently proposed in the literature, are adapted to the economic relationship of interest. The endogeneity due to the existence of reverse causality is modelled without implying relevant performance losses of the models. Moreover, this is the first article that questions whether the effects of fiscal budget on productivity depend on the impact of the former on aggregate output growth, thus emphasising the importance of the quality of fiscal adjustments.

This study empirically examines the moderating role of geopolitical risk on the tourism–economic growth nexus by applying a recent geopolitical risk indicator developed by Caldara and Iacoviello (2022) in a cross-country panel data growth model context for a sample of 24 countries.

A Dummy Variable Least Squares panel data model, nonparametric covariance matrix estimator and SYS-GMM estimation techniques are employed for the analysis. The authors capture the GPR moderating effect by disaggregating the cross-country sample according to low versus high country GPR score and through a GPR interaction coefficient. Several controls are included in the models such as gross fixed capital formation and—consistent with Barro (1990)—government consumption. Trade openness is used to account for the export-led growth effect. In line with neoclassical growth theory (e.g. Barro, 1991), the authors also include the real interest rate, to account for policy makers' commitment to macroeconomic stability, financial depth, as a proxy for financial development, population growth and the level of secondary school education. The authors also control for unobserved country-specific and time-invariant effects.

The research finds that the interaction term of geopolitical risk significantly contributes to the predictive ability of the regression and provides empirical evidence that confirms that only in low geopolitical risk countries international tourism positively and significantly contributes to economic growth. Important theoretical and policy implications flow from these findings.

The study not only contributes to advancing academic knowledge on the tourism–growth nexus, it also has impact beyond academia. Many countries have in the past pursued and many continue to pursue, tourism specialization and/or tourism-led growth strategies based on the theoretically well-established and empirically validated positive link between inbound tourism and economic growth. The findings alert policy makers in such countries to the significant moderating role that geopolitical risk plays in affecting the above-mentioned relationship and to the importance of prioritizing geopolitical stability as a policy precursor for the successful implementation of such strategies.

Corporate leadership and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance are closely intertwined, as effective corporate leadership can facilitate the achievement of strong ESG performance. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of corporate board leadership on the ESG performance of listed firms.

The sample has been taken from the listed firms of the Nifty 500 index spanning the period of 10 years from 2012 to 2022. Dynamic panel data estimations are applied through a fixed effect model.

The findings of this study revealed that board size, board independence and board qualification have a significant positive influence on ESG performance. It is evident that good corporate governance practices can positively influence ESG performance by fostering accountability, transparency and ethical behavior, as well as better integrating ESG considerations into their decision-making processes and ensuring that ESG issues are prioritized at the highest levels of management. Further findings also revealed that chief executive officer (CEO) duality has a significant negative relationship with ESG performance, which goes against the belief of stakeholder theory.

It has practical implications for policymakers, as they can enact new regulations pertaining to the CEO’s position in the organizations to make corporate governance responsible for improved sustainability and ESG performance.

There are very few studies analyzing the impact of corporate board structure on ESG performance related to emerging markets. Thus, this study contributes to that literature by using the methodology GMM panel data for the first time as per our knowledge

In this paper, the heterogeneity of the linkages among financial development, productivity and growth across income groups is emphasized.

An empirical analysis is conducted with an illustrative sample of 130 economies over the period 1991–2019 and classified into four subsamples: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), developing, least developed and net food importing developing countries. Forecast error variance decompositions and panel vector auto-regressive estimations are computed, with insightful findings.

Higher levels of output stimulate the economic development in the agricultural sector, mainly via the productivity channel and, in the most developed economies, also through access to credit. Differently, in developing and least developed economies, the role of access to credit is marginal. The findings have practical implications for stakeholders involved in the planning of long-run investments. In less developed economies, priorities should be given to investments in technology and innovation, whereas financial markets are more suited to boost the development of the agricultural sector of developed economies.

The authors conclude on the credit–output–productivity nexus and contribute to the literature in (at least) three ways. First, they assess how credit access, agricultural output and agricultural productivity are jointly determined. Second, they use a novel approach, which departs from most of the case studies based on single-country data. Third, they conclude on potential causality links to conclude on policy implications.