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High failure rates characterise the experience of new entrepreneurial ventures in Nigeria and other emerging economies. Reliance on strategic tools such as entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is critical to the growth and survival of new ventures. This empirical study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between EO and performance of new venture logistics firms in Nigeria. It further explores the contingent effects of social capital and marketing capabilities on the hypothesised direct relationships from a transport industry perspective.

Managers of 650 new venture logistics service providers in selected Nigerian cities were Web-surveyed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Regression analysis was further performed. Common method variance and other validity checks were assessed.

The 469 valid responses showed a positive relationship between EO and new venture performance (NVP). Social capital and marketing capabilities positively moderate the direct relationship between EO and NVP. Managerial implications suggest that context-specific dynamics must be considered when making strategic EO decisions to aid firm growth and survival.

This study directly responds to the contingency approach recommendation of past studies (Anwar et al., 2022; Van Stel et al., 2021; Covin and Wales, 2019) using the logistics service and emerging economy context. It also introduces social capital and marketing capabilities as moderators.

This paper aims to examine the role of owners/managers’ big five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness on SMEs internationalization.

The research design is a quantitative approach. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 303 owners and managers of Pakistani SMEs. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using AMOS.

The findings reveal that conscientiousness has an insignificant influence on the degree of internationalization while neuroticism has a significant negative influence on internationalization. Extroversion, openness and agreeableness have a significant positive influence on internationalization. The findings disclose that owners and managers with extrovert, openness and agreeable personality are more likely to enter into international markets, while managers and owners with conscientiousness and neuroticism personality do not endorse entry into foreign markets.

The results suggest that not all the personality traits facilitate internationalization process. Hence, firms that intend to enter international markers can benefit from hiring extrovert, open and agreeable personalities as managers to achieve their objectives. While managers with conscientiousness and neuroticism can be gainfully employed in other departments, they should be kept away from the decision-making processes leading to internationalization of a firm’s operations. In addition, the insights gained from this study could facilitate CEOs and executives of large firms operating in developing and developed markets to design effective strategies to promote and get the advantages of internationalization process.

This research contributes to personality literature, upper echelons theory and internationalization theory by testing the model based on the empirical evidence. This research is an intersection of the international entrepreneurship literature and psychological studies that have remained relatively unattended in prior studies. After extensive search, we have concluded that no previous study has as yet explored the role of big five personality traits in SMEs internationalization, particularly in this part of the world. It is believed that lack of studies in this sphere is, to a considerable extent, impeding the pace of internationalization by SMEs in developing countries.

Advanced fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have been increasingly used over the past two decades for strengthening, upgrading and restoring degraded civil engineering infrastructure. Substantial experimental investigations have been conducted in recent years to understand the compressive behaviour of FRP-confined concrete columns. A considerable number of confinement models to predict the compressive behaviour of FRP-strengthened concrete columns have been developed from the results of these experimental investigations. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of experimental investigations and theoretical models of circular and non-circular concrete columns confined with FRP reinforcement.

The paper reviews previous experimental test results on circular and non-circular concrete columns confined with FRP reinforcement under concentric and eccentric loading conditions and highlights the behaviour and mechanics of FRP confinement in these columns. The paper also reviews existing confinement models for concrete columns confined with FRP composites in both circular and non-circular sections.

This paper demonstrates that the performance and effectiveness of FRP confinement in concrete columns have been extensively investigated and proven effective in enhancing the structural performance and ductility of strengthened columns. The strength and ductility enhancement depend on the number of FRP layers, concrete compressive strength, corner radius for non-circular columns and intensity of load eccentricity for eccentrically loaded columns. The impact of existing theoretical models and directions for future research are also presented.

Potential researchers will gain insight into existing experimental and theoretical studies and future research directions.

This study aims to examine the association between national culture and corporate carbon emissions. Specifically, the research explores how firm-level carbon emissions are associated with Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions: power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and uncertainty avoidance.

The study examines 36,945 firm-year observations across 39 countries and uses panel regressions to assess the association between firm-level carbon emissions and national culture. This research also uses instrumental variable regression to address the potential endogeneity issues. Alternative proxies for culture are used to test the sensitivity of the findings.

The findings of this study reveal that power distance and uncertainty avoidance are negatively while individualism and masculinity are positively associated with corporate carbon emissions. The results are robust to the instrumental regressions and alternative measures of culture.

For policymakers, this research highlights the importance of national culture in assessing the efficacy of potential emissions reduction policies, identifying the possible challenges posed by the cultural differences of the targeted groups and designing policy adjustments accordingly. The local culture in which the branches of multinational corporations operate should be considered when the management implements emissions reduction policies for the business units in diverse cultural settings.

Aligning emissions reduction policies with regional cultural dimensions has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of corporate and national emissions reduction policies, which can contribute to mitigating global climate change adversities.

This study provides insights into firm-level carbon emissions and Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions in a global setting.

The aim of this research is to understand how government incentives (financial and non-financial) influence the relationship between green innovation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in SMEs.

To contribute to the literature, this research uses empirical evidence of 204 Pakistani small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and tests the moderating role of government support between green innovation and SDGs.

The findings indicate that green innovation has a significant influence on SDGs, community development and environmental activities. The government support significantly strengthens the relationship between green innovation and environmental practices, while it does not moderate the path between green innovation and community development.

The research recommends SMEs focus on the adoption of green innovation and green technology to protect the environment and facilitate the community. Moreover, the research advises the government to assist SMEs financially and nonfinancially, so they will in turn help in the attainment of SDGs.

This research is the first attempt to assess the importance of green innovation in SDGs with a moderating role of government incentives in emerging SMEs. It provides several useful implications for policymaking.

This study evaluates the two-way relationship between digital capabilities and market competitiveness along with the twofold mediation of circular economy, business model innovation (BMI) and energy policies based on the dynamic capability and ecological modernization theories.

Data were compiled through questionnaire-based survey from the top management of new ventures and evaluated through partial least squares structural equation modeling to find results.

The study discovered a two-way relationship between digital capabilities and market competitiveness among new ventures along with the twofold mediation of circular economy and BMI. Surprisingly, the energy policies have no twofold mediation.

The findings have important implications for policy and guide the practitioners to focus on digital efficiencies to attain higher competitive advantage in the light of environmental initiatives.

Although past research has paid wide attention to the defined factors, but to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study in these domains.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of experimental and theoretical studies on the flexural capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened using externally bonded bi-directional glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites and different end anchorage systems.

A series of nine RC beams with a length of 1,600 mm and a cross-section of 200 mm depth and 100 mm width were prepared and externally strengthened in flexure with bi-directional GFRP composites. These strengthened beams were anchored with three different end anchorage systems namely closed GFRP wraps, GFRP U-wraps and mechanical anchors. All these beams were tested with four-point bending system up to failure. The experimental results are compared with the theoretical results obtained using the relevant design guidelines.

The experimental results demonstrate a significant increase in the flexural performance of the GFRP strengthened beams with regard to the ultimate load carrying capacity and stiffness. The results also show that GFRP strengthened beams without end anchorages experienced intermediate concrete debonding failure at the GFRP plate end, whereas all the GFRP strengthened beams with different end anchorage systems failed in rupture of GFRP with concrete crushing. The theoretical results revealed no significant difference among the relevant design guidelines with regard to the predicted ultimate moment capacities of the bi-directional GFRP strengthened RC beams. However, the results show that ACI Committee 440 Report (2008) design recommendation provides reasonably acceptable predictions for the ultimate moment capacities of the tested beams strengthened externally with bi-directional GFRP reinforcement followed by FIB Bulletin 14 (2001) and eventually by JSCE (1997).

The research work presented in this manuscript is authentic and could contribute to the understanding of the overall behaviour of RC beams strengthened with FRP and different end anchorage systems under flexural loading.

The purpose of this paper is to study numerically the influence of a magnetic field on the transient free convective boundary layer flow of a nanofluid over a moving semi-infinite vertical cylinder with heat transfer

The problem is governed by the coupled non-linear partial differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. The fluid is a water-based nanofluid containing nanoparticles of copper. The Brinkman model for dynamic viscosity and Maxwell–Garnett model for thermal conductivity are used. The governing boundary layer equations are written according to The Tiwari–Das nanofluid model. A robust, well-tested, implicit finite difference method of Crank–Nicolson type, which is unconditionally stable and convergent, is used to find the numerical solutions of the problem. The velocity and temperature profiles are studied for significant physical parameters such as the magnetic parameter, nanoparticles volume fraction and the thermal Grashof number Gr. The local skin-friction coefficient and the Nusselt number are also analysed and presented graphically.

The present computations have shown that an increase in the values of either magnetic parameter M or nanoparticle volume fraction decreases the local skin-friction coefficient, whereas the opposite effect is observed for thermal Grashof number Gr. The local Nusselt number increases with a rise in Gr and ϕ values. But an increase in M reduces the local Nusselt number.

This paper is relatively original and presents numerical investigation of transient two-dimensional laminar boundary layer free convective flow of a nanofluid over a moving semi-infinite vertical cylinder in the presence of an applied magnetic field. The present study is of immediate application to all those processes which are highly affected by heat enhancement concept and a magnetic field. Further the present study is relevant to nanofluid materials processing, chemical engineering coating operations exploiting nanomaterials and others.

Blockchain technology has the potential to enhance information and knowledge management among members of the supply chain. This study aims to demonstrate the direct and indirect impact of blockchain adoption on achieving supply chain competitive advantage and improving innovation capabilities to achieve greater supply chain performance.

The study opted for a quantitative research approach. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 284 respondents from various Jordanian manufacturing firms. Smart PLS software was used to conduct structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The analysis revealed that investing in and using blockchain-enabled supply chain applications improves the ability to achieve higher levels of productivity, lead times, customer service and relationships with supply chain members. Moreover, blockchain technology integration with supply chain management processes has a positive impact on innovative activities that support supply chain operations. Finally, blockchain adoption has enhanced supply chain performance by reducing transaction costs, improving customer service and increasing the speed of supply chain operations.

The study provides guidance for decision-makers and academicians on the use of blockchain adoption to improve supply chain performance. Future studies should use a larger sample size and random sampling techniques to achieve better generalizability of the results.

The study fulfils an identified gap in the application of blockchain technology to improving supply chain performance within a broader context that encompasses supply chain innovation capabilities and competitive advantage.

Assessing the research performance of researchers offers inducement toward excellence in research. This study aims to analyze the research productivity of the most prolific authors of Pakistan considering their trends toward publications, citations and collaboration.

Top 100 authors from the top 10 Pakistani universities from Web of Science over the 10 years with the rigorous data cleaning process were selected. Scientometric analysis techniques were carried out to evaluate the research profile of these authors.

The findings revealed that majority of the productive authors were male working in the position of Professor in the physical sciences area. The publications and citations gradually increase with time. They preferred to collaborate for their publications, while first authorship publications were found less in number. Moreover, the propensity to collaborate at the international level increases double-fold from the first five years to the next five years period. In addition, the position of the authors was explored among different performance metrics. The finding exhibits variation in the ranking of authors among them. The impact of numbers of authors, funding status, publication of articles, presence of collaboration and international collaboration on the dependent variable and citation count was insignificant. However, the publication of review papers has a significant impact on the citation counts.

Findings have significant implications for policymakers to make maximum opportunities for researchers to strengthen linkages for collaboration and increase the funding prospects.

Studies on this topic are scarce, and therefore, this study provides useful recommendations to researchers and institutes to improve research productivity.