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This study aims to measure social enterprises’ (SEs’) social objectives under the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, and explore the impact of SEs’ social objectives on their choices of legal forms.

This study used semi-structured questionnaires followed up by field interviews and observations of the sampled SEs. The survey sample includes 80 participants of Social Entrepreneurs Stars Competition in Zhejiang Province of China. The authors conduct content analysis to measure the objectives of SEs. The authors also perform descriptive analysis, chi-square test and regression analysis on the data.

The findings confirm the theoretical discussions that SEs’ choices of legal forms reflect SEs’ strategies toward achieving social objectives. Similar to certain countries, some SEs in China register as nonprofit entities to concentrate on nonprofitable sustainability objectives, while others register as commercial enterprises or hybrid organizations to generate profits. However, some SEs focus on profitable non-sustainability issues and fail to prioritize social objectives over economic objectives. There are positive effects of social entrepreneurs’ background similarity and negative effects of social entrepreneurs’ educational level on their SEs’ choices to register as commercial enterprises.

Due to the small size and nonrepresentative sample this study is based on, the findings need be further tested by a larger sample. SEs in different service domains rely on different types of financial resources (Mair et al., 2012; Doherty et al., 2014). In future research, the model can be expanded to test the effects of service domains and types of financial sources on SEs’ choices of legal forms.

To encourage more societal resources being allocated toward achieving the United Nations’ SDGs, policymakers and SE certification programs are recommended to explicitly incorporate sustainability objectives into the evaluation standards and supportive policies for SEs. Social entrepreneurs who aim to balance the social and economic objectives in their business are suggested to target the population with whom they share similar community background. Training or consulting programs for social entrepreneurs are suggested to provide advice tailored to their socio-economic background and personal experiences.

To the best of the authors’ this study is the first quantitative analysis to identify factors that associate with SEs’ choice of legal forms in China. The authors developed new instruments to measure SEs’ social objectives and service targets, access to financial resources and social entrepreneurs’ social-economic backgrounds.

This paper aims to design a hybrid model of knowledge-based performance management system (KBPMS) for facilitating Lean Six-Sigma (L6s) application to increase contractor productivity without compromising human safety in Indonesian upstream oil field operations that manage ageing and life extension (ALE) facilities.

The research design applies a pragmatic paradigm by employing action research strategy with qualitative-quantitative methodology involving 385 of 1,533 workers. The KBPMS-L6s conceptual framework is developed and enriched with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize fit-for-purpose Key Performance Indicators. The application of L6s with Human Performance Modes analysis is used to provide a statistical baseline approach for pre-assessment of the contractor’s organizational capabilities. A comprehensive literature review is given for the main pillars of the contextual framework.

The KBPMS-L6s concept has given an improved hierarchy for strategic and operational levels to achieve a performance benchmark to manage ALE facilities in Indonesian upstream oil field operations. To increase quality management practices in managing ALE facilities, the L6s application requires an assessment of the organizational capability of contractors and an analysis of Human Performance Modes (HPM) to identify levels of construction workers’ productivity based on human competency and safety awareness that have never been done in this field.

The action research will only focus on the contractors’ productivity and safety performances that are managed by infrastructure maintenance programs for managing integrity of ALE facilities in Indonesian upstream of oil field operations. Future research could go toward validating this approach in other sectors.

This paper discusses the implications of developing the hybrid KBPMS- L6s enriched with AHP methodology and the application of HPM analysis to achieve a 14% reduction in inefficient working time, a 28% reduction in supervision costs, a 15% reduction in schedule completion delays, and a 78% reduction in safety incident rates of Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR), Days Away Restricted or Job Transfer (DART) and Motor Vehicle Crash (MVC), as evidence of achieving fit-for-purpose KPIs with safer, better, faster, and at lower costs.

This paper does not discuss social implications

This paper successfully demonstrates a novel use of Knowledge-Based system with the integration AHP and HPM analysis to develop a hybrid KBPMS-L6s concept that successfully increases contractor productivity without compromising human safety performance while implementing ALE facility infrastructure maintenance program in upstream oil field operations.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the affordability and sustainability of residential water consumption in Ecuador, a developing country.

To determine affordability, the authors assess water consumption and its distribution across different income levels of the population in the three main cities: Cuenca, Guayaquil and Quito. The authors then simulate the effects of a pricing policy on sustainability by deriving demand elasticities through a quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS).

Results show that Ecuador has low water tariffs with respect to other cities in Latin America, which points to its affordability. However, sustainability might not be guaranteed since consumption is overall higher than the level suggested by the World Health Organization. From an economic point of view, this could be motivated by the low tariffs. Indeed, the simulation of a pricing policy shows that higher prices can significantly reduce demand for most of the sample. However, in low-income households this reduction may compromise vital consumption.

This research has important implications in terms of stimulating the discussion of how water affordability and sustainability can be achieved. For the case study, Ecuador, the results indicate that sustainability may not be guaranteed and that policies need to be designed to encourage it. Another implication is that population income levels should be considered to avoid negative effects for the most vulnerable groups. The main limitations of this study are methodological. First, the QUAIDS model is based on a conditional demand model (Zhen et al., 2013), which does not take into account spending on other goods. Second, data availability is limited and prevents a deeper analysis.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to analyze these issues in Ecuador, a country that recognizes the human right to water at the constitutional level.

In the era of new technological revolution, seeking to survive and guarantee business sustainability in their digital internationalization, enterprises choose to become environmentally oriented. The need for new green business models has become evident in recent years, and enterprises offer green services in creative and eco-friendly ways. However, does the display of a green label on hotels' websites really promote the eco-conscious tourists' online booking intention? This study aims to examine the impact of the perceived label on the online sustainable hotel booking intention of the eco-conscious tourists, using the foundations of signal theory.

This study adopted a structural equation model to integrate several constructs with a sample of 349 validated responses.

The empirical results highlight, the importance of the green label perception on the eco-conscious tourists' booking intention of online sustainable hotel and the role that green trust and green perceived risk play as a mediating variable between the perception of the exposed label and the booking intention. Indeed, when booking a sustainable hotel online, the tourists may be sensitive to the exposure of a green label. Therefore, this signal decreases the perceived risk of unsustainability and ultimately increases the trust in hotel's sustainability.

The first limitation is related to the sample employed in this study. Given that most of the participants were residents of France, the results of this study may not be generalized to the entire population. Secondly, a range of other factors can affect the eco-conscious tourists' intentions to book online a hotel with green label, such as their attitude, social media influence, tourists' satisfaction, etc. Indeed, other variables and/or signals could be adopted to study online booking intention in the pandemic era.

In light of these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. The findings make an important contribution to SMEs sustainability and internationalization by exploring new ties. This study considers how SMEs and specifically hotels start following green practices (e.g. adoption of an eco-label) relevant to their international environment where they operate and in response to global pressures. SMEs can survive better in the highly competitive global environment where they need to employ more green practices, however, managers should consider how green trust and green perceived risk can affect customer behavior. It also adds to the existing literature by dealing with customer perceptions about the green label of sustainable hotels and its subsequent effect on booking intention.

This study had shown the importance of the display of green label on the eco-conscious tourist's online booking intention.