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Industry 4.0 with artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, and automation are giving way to Industry 5.0 which places emphasis on workers' well-being, people, and society. The new era accentuates interaction between humans and smart machines to drive prosperity and induce sustainable contribution of industry to society. It must build a resilient economy to cope with future uncertainties or external shocks. Moreover, the sustainability effort of companies demanded by consumers, employees, shareholders, governments, and civil society requires sustainability transformation of business strategies. Applying sustainability principles in product design implies the consideration of a product's entire life cycle. Technologies accelerate sustainable production and support using natural resources efficiently taking into consideration planetary boundaries. This condition also makes for a novel perception of products, including financial products. Under the current circumstances of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, the focus on consumers and recognition of their dominance play a pivotal role in business models to maintain customer relationships. Thus, the digital, sustainable, human-centric industry is emerging. This chapter deals with digital products to enable twin transition and accomplish a sustainable business strategy simultaneously. It examines the reciprocal reinforcement of sustainability and digitalization and discusses the impact of digital sustainability on products. In this sense, this chapter also outlines the business contribution to sustainable development through digitalization. Finally, a holistic model for a hypothetical financial remittance product is offered to demonstrate how a digital product can contribute to sustainable development.

Platform certification constitutes an effective mechanism for managing the lemon problem concerning food e-commerce. This work aims to evaluate the market effect of platform certification and analyzes its correction mechanism for lemon problem combined with reputation mechanism.

Utilizing the Gold Seller certification of Taobao.com to serve as an illustration, the authors conducted an empirical study based on the sales data of hairy crabs among 2,239 sample sites over six points in time from October to December 2019, systematically examining the market effect of food e-commerce platform certification along with the interaction between food e-commerce platform certification and reputation mechanisms, followed by a heterogeneity test by product price.

This study finds that sellers with platform certification can significantly increase their sales. The market effect of platform certification is more easily observed in the low-price product market. In addition, platform certification and reputation mechanisms have complementary effects. In a low-price product market, the complementary effect of platform certification and product reputation diminishes, while the complementary effect of platform certification and seller reputation disappears.

This study explores the market effect of food e-commerce platform certification, reveals the market effect of certification mechanism when multiple signaling mechanisms exist simultaneously and conducts an empirical test based on real market data. It provides a better comprehension of how platform certifications work in food e-commerce.

This paper aims to propose a simulation-based performance evaluation model for the drone-based delivery of aid items to disaster-affected areas. The objective of the model is to perform analytical studies, evaluate the performance of drone delivery systems for humanitarian logistics and can support the decision-making on the operational design of the system – on where to locate drone take-off points and on assignment and scheduling of delivery tasks to drones.

This simulation model captures the dynamics and variabilities of the drone-based delivery system, including demand rates, location of demand points, time-dependent parameters and possible failures of drones’ operations. An optimization model integrated with the simulation system can update the optimality of drones’ schedules and delivery assignments.

An extensive set of experiments was performed to evaluate alternative strategies to demonstrate the effectiveness for the proposed optimization/simulation system. In the first set of experiments, the authors use the simulation-based evaluation tool for a case study for Central Florida. The goal of this set of experiments is to show how the proposed system can be used for decision-making and decision-support. The second set of experiments presents a series of numerical studies for a set of randomly generated instances.

The goal is to develop a simulation system that can allow one to evaluate performance of drone-based delivery systems, accounting for the uncertainties through simulations of real-life drone delivery flights. The proposed simulation model captures the variations in different system parameters, including interval of updating the system after receiving new information, demand parameters: the demand rate and their spatial distribution (i.e. their locations), service time parameters: travel times, setup and loading times, payload drop-off times and repair times and drone energy level: battery’s energy is impacted and requires battery change/recharging while flying.

This study analyzes the evolution of topics related to COVID-19 on Chinese social media platforms with the aim of identifying changes in netizens' concerns during the different stages of the pandemic.

In total, 793,947 posts were collected from Zhihu, a Chinese Question and Answer website, and Dingxiangyuan, a Chinese online healthcare community, from 31 December, 2019, to 4 August, 2021. Topics were extracted during the prodromal and outbreak stages, and in the abatement–resurgence cycle.

Netizens' concerns varied in different stages. During the prodromal and outbreak stages, netizens showed greater concern about COVID-19 news, the impact of COVID-19 and the prevention and control of COVID-19. During the first round of the abatement and resurgence stage, netizens remained concerned about COVID-19 news and the prevention and control of the pandemic, however, less attention was paid to the impact of COVID-19. During later stages, popularity grew in topics concerning the impact of COVID-19, while netizens engaged more in discussions about international events and the raising of spirits to fight the global pandemic.

This study contributes to the practice by providing a way for the government and policy makers to retrospect the pandemic and thereby make a good preparation to take proper measures to communicate with citizens and address their demands in similar situations in the future.

This study contributes to the literature by applying an adapted version of Fink's (1986) crisis life cycle to create a five-stage evolution model to understand the repeated resurgence of COVID-19 in Mainland China.

In this paper, the authors suggest that Central Americans can use entrepreneurship to solve economic uncertainty in their home country and that entrepreneurship can contribute to reducing the number of undocumented migrants to the USA.

The authors first illustrate the context of Central American illegal migration to the USA from a transitional entrepreneurship perspective, the authors address the economic drivers of illegal migration from Central America, which results in marginalization in the USA. Second, the authors build a theoretical model that suggests that Central Americans can improve their entrepreneurial abilities through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism.

Central Americans at risk of illegally migrating to the USA have high entrepreneurial aptitudes. Entrepreneurship can help them avoid the economic uncertainty that drives Central Americans to illegally migrate to the USA and become part of a marginalized community of undocumented immigrants. This conceptual paper introduces an entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism as a tool for Central Americans to reshape their personalities and increase their entrepreneurial abilities in their home countries. In particular, entrepreneurial intentions reshape the personality characteristics of individuals (in terms of high agreeableness and openness to experiences, as well as low neuroticism) through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism, which consists of reflective action in sensemaking, cognitive frameworks in pattern recognition and coping in positive affect.

This paper studies Central Americans at risk of illegal migration using the lens of transitional entrepreneurship, which advances the understanding of the antecedents to marginalized immigrant communities in the USA and suggests a possible solution for this phenomenon. Besides, the authors build a cognitive mechanism to facilitate the transitional process starting from entrepreneurial intention to reshaping individuals' personality, which further opens individuals' minds to entrepreneurial opportunities. Since entrepreneurial intention applies the same way to all entrepreneurs, the authors' aim of constructing the entrepreneurial intention unfolding process will go beyond transitional entrepreneurship and contribute to intention-action knowledge generation (Donaldson et al., 2021). Moreover, the conceptual study contributes to public policy such that international and local agencies can better utilize resources and implement long-term solutions to the drivers of illegal migration from Central America to the USA.

This paper aims to study whether international niche market leaders (INMLs) gained their leading position as early mover or diligent follower, and assess whether they leveraged hard or soft forms of technological, supply pre-emption and customer lock-in advantage mechanisms.

Empirical material stems from qualitative and quantitative data on a sample of 20 niche companies from the Basque Country (Spain) that operate in business to business markets.

The sample predominantly followed an early entrant strategy and applied soft measures to reach niche market leadership.

Findings imply that early entering fosters conquering leadership in niche markets, that pioneer advantage is easier to sustain in niches than in mainstream markets, and that soft measures are more effective in niche markets than in larger markets. A limitation to our findings is that they follow from explorative research on a sample of firms from a reduced geographic setting.

Hidden champions and INMLs can be important sources of technological progress and economic value for the localities that host them. Therefore, despite their traditional low profile and the fact that they are not always the largest firms around, policymakers may want to pay more attention to this type of companies.

Tot he best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to research entry timing and its outcome for market leadership with regard to niche players or hidden champions-type of firms. It introduces an original taxonomy to operationalize and distinguish between hard and soft measures to leverage advantage mechanisms related to market entry timing.

Endeavoring to expand their global market presence, firms often launch products into emerging markets where managers face the daunting task of deploying products by managing available, and often limited, supply chain resources. Yet, literature has not empirically examined managerial resource orchestration in this context. Accordingly, by embedding resource orchestration theory (ROT) into the emerging market context, the authors offer middle-range theorizing on supply chain resource orchestration (SCRO) and empirically test how acquiring, bundling and leveraging activities impact new product launch performance.

The authors test the model by analyzing empirical data from 175 individual product launches into emerging markets using a survey methodology.

The authors’ results suggest that SCRO holds the promise of being a viable middle-range theory in the supply chain field, especially where managers face limited resources and must “work with what they have to do what they can.”

The authors’ study also has some limitations. First, because a panel data service company was used to collect the data, the authors were not provided with any information regarding the respondents' company names or other identifying data. Second, because the authors did not directly interact with the respondents nor were the authors able to contact multiple individuals from their respective organizations, the study was limited to a single-respondent design. However, to counter issues associated with single-response bias, the central constructs in the study referenced phenomena related to a specific product launch project as opposed to constructs at the firm or inter-firm relational level.

The authors’ results reveal that SCRO activities can enhance the performance of new product launches, even in resource-starved emerging market contexts.

The results validate measures for several of the SCRO processes (i.e. supply chain resource acquisition, supply chain resource bundling and supply chain leveraging) and provide evidence that supply chain resource bundling and supply chain leveraging mediate the relationship between supply chain resource acquisition and product launch performance. Further, soft logistics infrastructure is found to be an important boundary condition for these relationships.

The commercialization of research produced by universities constitutes a core facet of academic entrepreneurship (AE). Academic literature reveals the need to shed light on entrepreneurial processes in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study intends to fill this gap by researching the mechanisms for facilitating AE and the variables that can moderate the relationship between such mechanisms and AE in Portuguese HEIs.

Our research model aims to assess the mechanisms of academic entrepreneurship (AE) within a sample of 125 Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs). To test our research hypotheses, we employed a structural equation model (SEM) using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Additionally, our evaluation examines the potential moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs (PoCs). Our research model seeks to evaluate the mechanisms for facilitating AE and explore the effects of including incubator programs, support initiatives, and PoCs as moderators. The seven variables (Research mobilization, Unconventionality, Industry collaboration, University policies, Incubator programs and support initiatives, Proof-of-concept programs, and academic entrepreneurship) were measured using a 7-point Likert scale.

The results revealed that different drivers of AE influence the creation and development of entrepreneurial activities. Our findings also show the moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs on AE. We find that incubator programs, other support initiatives, and PoCs maintain a moderating effect on AE and benefit their respective HEIs.

The study examines only the Portuguese HEI context. Therefore, generalizing these results necessitates reservations. However, the responses came from various actors in HEIs, from different academic backgrounds and research interests. This makes the results more generalizable. Limitations are evident in external validity, given that we gathered the data over a relatively short period.

Observed factors are explored to gain a deeper understanding of their influence on the mechanisms of AE. The implications arise from the new perspective presented and the methodology used to identify mechanisms capable of fostering AE. We hope this research will encourage other researchers to study this topic further.

the engagement of universities at the global level should be emphasised in future policy. While universities in innovation systems often have a local focus, their engagement in innovation ecosystems transcends the boundaries of geographic locations.

PoCs had a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of research mobilization and university policies on AE. Thus, we find interactions between universities and industry boost AE. This study demonstrates how AE benefits HEIs by extending orientation towards mobilizing research, unconventional approaches, cooperation with industry, and university policy implementation. We thus advocate a new approach, demonstrating the influence that the mobility of research, unconventionality, industry collaboration, and university policies hold over AE.

This study investigates the extent to which a firm’s centrality and autonomy in its supply network are associated with the intensity and complexity of its competitive actions.

Utilizing social network analysis and dynamic panel data models, this study analyzes a comprehensive panel dataset with 10,802 firm-year observations across various industries between 2011 and 2018 to test the hypotheses.

Our findings show that a firm’s level of centrality in its supply network has an inverted U-shaped relationship with both competitive intensity and competitive complexity. In addition, the turning points of these two inverted U-shaped relationships differ in that firms with a lower level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching more actions within fewer categories, while firms with a higher level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching fewer actions that cover a larger range of categories. Finally, we find that a firm’s structural autonomy has a positive relationship with competitive complexity.

This study bridges the gap between the supply chain management literature and strategic management literature and investigates how supply networks shape competitive aggressiveness. In particular, this research investigates how a firm’s structural position in its supply network affects its competitive actions, an important intermediate mechanism for competitive advantage that has been overlooked in the supply chain management literature.