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This study aims to provide a series of drivers that prompt the blockchain technology (BT) adoption decisions in circular supply chain finance (SCF) and also assesses their degrees of influence and interrelationships, which leads to the construction of a theoretical model depicting the influence mechanism of BT adoption decisions in circular SCF.

This study mainly uses the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, which focuses on the aspects based on the nature of innovation, intra-organizational characteristics and extra environmental consideration, to identify the drivers of blockchain adoption in circular SCF context, while the significance and causality of the drivers are explained using interpreting structural models (ISMs) and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method.

The findings of this study indicate that government policy and technological comparative advantage are the underlying reasons for BT adoption decisions, management commitment and financial expectations are the critical drivers of BT adoption decisions while other factors are the receivers of the mechanism.

This study provides theoretical references and empirical insights that influence the technology adoption decisions of both BT and circular SCF by practitioners.

The theoretical research contributes significantly to current research and knowledge in both BT and circular SCF fields, especially by extending the existing TOE model by combining relevant enablers from technological, organizational and external environmental aspects with the financial performance objectives of circular SCF services, which refer to the optimization of the financial resources flows and financing efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how supply chain actors in an Italian cashmere supply chain reacted to dependence and power use during the Covid-19 crisis and how this affected their perceptions of justice.

The research took a case study approach exploring issues of dependence, power and justice in a multi-tier luxury cashmere supply chain.

The authors found two types of dependence: Craftmanship-induced buyer dependence and Market-position-induced supplier dependence. The authors also identified four key archetypes emerging from the dynamics of dependence, power and justice during Covid-19. In the repressive archetype, buying firms perceive their suppliers as dependent and use mediated power through coercive tactics, leading the suppliers to perceive interactional, procedural and distributive injustice and use reciprocal coercive tactics against the buying firms in the form of coopetition. In the restrictive archetype, buying firms that are aware of their dependence on their suppliers use mediated power through contracts, with suppliers perceiving distributive injustice and developing ways to circumvent the brands. In the relational archetype, the awareness of craftmanship-induced buyer dependence leads buying firms to use non-mediated power through collaboration, but suppliers still do not perceive distributive justice, as there is no business security or future orders. In the resilient archetype, buying firms are aware of their own craftmanship-induced dependence and combine mediated and non-mediated power by giving the suppliers sustainable orders, which leads suppliers to perceive each justice type positively.

This paper shows how the actors in a specific supply chain react to and cope with one of the worst health crises in living memory, thereby providing advice for supply chain management in future crises.

Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

Digital transformation has gained particular interest among academics and policymakers in recent years. However, the empirical quantification of digital transformation stages and their impact on innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains understudied. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of digital transformation stages on a differentiated measurement of innovation performance in SMEs.

The authors propose a simplified one-dimensional digital maturity path to estimate the stages of digital transformation in SMEs. The authors validate their approach with a cluster analysis and perform an ordered logistic regression to estimate the impact of digital transformation stages on SMEs' innovation performance.

The authors' results show that digital transformation in general has a positive impact on SMEs' innovation performance. More precisely, the authors find that the early stage of digital transformation has a detrimental effect on innovation performance, while significant and positive effects can be expected from the experimental stage onward. Furthermore, the advanced stage of digital transformation significantly increases the probability of producing radical innovations.

This study contributes to the ongoing discussion about the relationship between digital transformation and innovation in SMEs by presenting an approach to quantify digital transformation stages in SMEs. Additionally, this study provides new insights into the specific dynamics of the relationship between different stages of digital transformation and their impact on a differentiated measurement of innovation performance, including technological, non-technological and radical innovation.