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Used clothes supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, fragmented and less transparent due to rising volumes of discarded clothes and its dispersed reverse logistics operations across the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS). While it has a promising impact on circular economy and international trade growth, increasing exports of used clothes and overflowing landfills raise some negative concerns on its overall sustainability. This paper addresses the dichotomy that exists in terms of interpreting the sustainability credentials of used clothes supply chains.

A systematic literature review was carried out and 55 articles were examined to identify the triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability impacts of used clothes supply chains. TBL sustainability issues were identified, reflected through the lens of natural resource-based view and interpreted in the form of propositions.

The paper pinpoints seven TBL sustainability concerns and prescribes three sets of strategic resources required in glocal used clothes supply chains for mitigating these. These are (1) slowing the supply chain by tackling poor quality, overproduction and oversupply issues, (2) improving logistics/supply chain infrastructure and ecosystem collaboration and (2) embedding transparent environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures taken by both value chain actors and regulatory bodies, for embracing system-level sustainable development.

This is one of the first studies to analyse TBL sustainability of glocal north–south used clothes supply chains. The study is unique in terms of its scope and contribution to the sustainable supply chain literature.

This paper aims to establish the determinants of production in the Spanish Designation of Origin (DO) area for Cava wine and forecasts sales to establish vineyard area variations that maintain market equilibrium.

By applying a vector autoregressive (VAR) model, the authors forecast demand and the consequent requirements for base wine production.

The results show that Cava sales determine the base wine supply. After forecasting demand and the consequent requirements for base wine, the authors’ results show that, to avoid oversupply, the vineyard area for Cava wine should not be increased.

The paper develops a simple and effective method for DOs affected by the current European wine plantation regulations to forecast from a supply and demand perspective and their surface needs in response to market changes.

This study contributes to the literature because, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has investigated the determinants of Cava supply and demand or defines a model to assess the effects of changes in growing areas. The model is applicable to other European protected designations of origin wines and would help policymakers to accurately establish vine planting authorizations.

This paper aims to examine lean thinking in medical commodities supply chains by considering its applications and success factors. It determines the drivers and wastes of medical commodity supply chain, and the existing lean tools and practices together with their application in the supply chain processes. The paper also examined the challenges and success factors for effective lean application in the medical commodities supply chains.

The study used qualitative approaches, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with key informants to form the basis for data collection. Through thematic analysis, the collected data were analyzed by developing themes reflecting the objectives of the study.

The main drivers for waste associated with the supply chain were demand management, supplier development, institutional framework and governance. The wastes were observed at the level of inventory, operation costs, transaction costs, delays in terms of service, commodity delivery time and quality. Digitalization, information technology and standardization were the tools for medical supply chain. Poor infrastructure, unreliable internet supply, environmental uncertainty and poor management support were challenges to realizing an effective supply chain.

Although the qualitative approach used in the study provides detailed information, a quantitative study covers a larger sample for generalization.

Capacity building and professionalism should be given a priority because the philosophy of lean focuses on waste removal and continuous improvement, which highly depends on the quality of human resource (Brito et al., 2020). Limited human resource capabilities in supply chain management will, therefore, result into poor operational efficiency, which are wasted. Moreover, systems interoperability is key waste minimization and, therefore, demands interventions.

The government under the Ministry of Health and other key sector ministries such as local and regional governments should better understand the role of the waste drivers and adopt system-wide reforms to support improvements to remove waste in the medical supply chain. For example, the current institutional framework creates an administrative block and hence leads to wastes. This bureaucratic procedure should be removed to minimize wastes along the chain.

This study is among the first studies to determine applicability and implementation of lean in a resource-constrained context. The paper identifies contextual factors for lean implementation. This paper focused on a holistic view of the entire supply chains to enhance a well-functioning supply chain in delivering health commodities.

The purpose of the article is to explore the perceptions of Brazilian game developers about the power relations between them and the sponsors of digital game platforms. It also aims to identify forms of collective action that developers can use to counteract the asymmetry of power.

The research employed an abductive approach, seeking empirical evidence that would challenge consolidated theory. To achieve this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Brazilian developers. The data were analyzed qualitatively using NVivo software. The aim was to resolve theoretical ambiguities identified in the literature review and to explore unexpected findings.

The study explores Brazilian game developers' perceptions through interviews, revealing their experiences within the industry’s concentrated structure and their use of collective action to navigate power dynamics.

The study's focus on Brazil limits the generalizability of its findings to the broader game development industry.

The study suggests Brazilian game devs can leverage collective action to counteract power imbalance with platforms, collaborate through events and projects and facilitate internationalization of their games.

The study suggests collective action could empower developers to challenge platform dominance and foster a stronger community among Brazilian game developers.

The article’s value lies in examining Brazilian devs' experiences within their specific industry context and highlighting collective action as a potential strategy for developers.

Regarding the retail internal supply chain (SC), both retailers and research are currently focused on reactive food waste reduction options in stores (e.g. discounting or donations). These options reduce waste after a surplus has emerged but do not prevent an emerging surplus in the first place. This paper aims to reveal how retailers can proactively prevent waste along the SC and why the options identified are impactful but, at the same time, often complex to implement.

The authors follow an exploratory approach for a nascent topic to obtain insights into measures taken in practice. Interviews with experts from retail build the main data source.

The authors identify and analyze 21 inbound, warehousing, distribution and store-related options applied in grocery retail. Despite the expected high overall impact on waste, prevention measures in inbound logistics and distribution and warehousing have not been intensively applied to date.

The authors provide a structured approach to mitigate waste within retailers' operations and categorize the types of barriers that need to be addressed.

This research provides a better understanding of prevention options in retail operations, which has not yet been empirically explored. Furthermore, this study conceptualizes prevention and reduction options and reveals implementation patterns.

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new class of information workers, the “information have-less” has risen. This class of workers alleviates the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) revolution on poverty and unemployment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of this class of workers in Egypt and assess the size and potential growth of this category of workers.

The study clarifies the conceptual framework of the new division of labor, in the information age. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Information and Decision Support Center websites provided secondary data for this study. These data are used to assess the size of “the information have less” in Egypt.

The division of work and class, in the 21st century, depends on the level of skills possessed to work with ICTs. So, class and labor nowadays could be divided into self-programmable labor (Innovators). Information have-less labor class, adding value to the economy by learning skills and presenting repetitive work. Generic labor class, who cannot work with ICTs, and work in jobs, that do not need computers or other ICTs. The study has shown that the “information have-less” labor class is present in Egypt since the beginning of the 21st century, in all its categories; entrepreneurism, the service sector and the manufacturing sector. There are approximately 50% of this labor class in the service sector and only 13% of the information have-less works in manufacturing sector despite the great opportunities that Egypt has to expand manufacturing to absorb more employment. The inclusion of information technology (IT), in all domains, has not decreased employment in Western countries but has reallocated information have-less employment toward the service sector, and there would probably be the same effect in Egypt.

The study highlights the need for Egyptian policymakers to encourage the manufacturing and service sectors to provide huge working opportunities. The Egyptian government has to change the educational policies, at all stages, to include digital learning skills so IT can be incorporated in a wide range of economic activities. Further research includes: conducting a survey to measure the contribution of the entrepreneurial part of the information have-less employment in Egypt. In addition, a model may be developed, by the researcher to examine the reallocation of employees in Egypt.

Studying employment, in Egypt, using the conceptual framework of the information age is rarely being done.

Competition among seaports is rapidly increasing due to various factors such as the global recession, resurgence of COVID-19, tight environmental regulations of IMO, sharp rise in ocean freight charges, increasing global uncertainties and growth in ship sizes. It is essential to have precise knowledge of shipping companies' port selection factors to secure the competitive advantage of seaports. This study aims to empirically analyze recent changes in the importance of port selection factors.

By employing a longitudinal study, this study conducted the t-test analysis. The first survey was conducted from January 2005 to April 2005. Then, the second survey was conducted in May 2021.

First, the importance of port facilities (berth length and the number of berths, shed and terminal areas, possession of adequate equipment and maximum berth size) increased significantly. Second, while ship and cargo safety were the critical port service factors in previous studies, speed, flexibility and reliability for handling cargo and berthing schedule were found to be crucial in this study. Third, the importance of ship arrival/departure frequency, route diversity and ship arrival/departure information systems increased when shipping companies selected the port.

This study has academic significance in that it reveals the changing importance of port selection factors in the 2020s and has taken the form of a longitudinal study on the importance of port selection factors from 2005 to 2021, moving beyond the cross-sectional approach. This study can provide valuable insights into and implications for port policymakers and managers when developing and formulating port policies and strategies.

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula aimed at training future workers with specific new skills. Presented here is comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities, with their global growth in numbers and enrollments, in concert with expanding research capacity, create and privilege knowledge and skills, legitimate new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies. A process referred to as academization of occupations has far-reaching implications for understanding the transformation of capitalism, new dimensions of social inequality, and resulting stratification among occupations. Academization is also eclipsing the more limited professionalization processes in occupations. Additionally, it fuels further expansion of advanced education and contributes to a new culture of work in the 21st century. Commissioned detailed German and US case studies of the university origins and influence on workplace consequences of seven selected occupations and associated knowledge, skills, and degrees investigate the academization process. And to demonstrate how universal this could become, the cases contrast the more open and less-restrictive education and occupation system in the US with the centralized and state-controlled education system in Germany. With expected variation, both economies and their occupational systems show evidence of robust academization. Importantly too is evidence of academic transformations of understandings about approaches to job tasks and use of authoritative knowledge in occupational activities.

Radical changes in consumer habits induced by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic suggest that the usual demand forecasting techniques based on historical series are questionable. This is particularly true for hospitality demand, which has been dramatically affected by the pandemic. Accordingly, we investigate the suitability of tourists’ activity on Twitter as a predictor of hospitality demand in the Way of Saint James – an important pilgrimage tourism destination.

This study compares the predictive performance of the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) time-series model with that of the SARIMA with an exogenous variables (SARIMAX) model to forecast hotel tourism demand. For this, 110,456 tweets posted on Twitter between January 2018 and September 2022 are used as exogenous variables.

The results confirm that the predictions of traditional time-series models for tourist demand can be significantly improved by including tourist activity on Twitter. Twitter data could be an effective tool for improving the forecasting accuracy of tourism demand in real-time, which has relevant implications for tourism management. This study also provides a better understanding of tourists’ digital footprints in pilgrimage tourism.

This study contributes to the scarce literature on the digitalisation of pilgrimage tourism and forecasting hotel demand using a new methodological framework based on Twitter user-generated content. This can enable hospitality industry practitioners to convert social media data into relevant information for hospitality management.

2019冠狀病毒病引致消費者習慣有根本的改變; 這些改變顯示，根據歷史序列而運作的慣常需求預測技巧未必是正確的。這不確性尤以受到大流行極大影響的酒店服務需求為甚。因此，我們擬探討、若把在推特網站上的旅遊活動視為聖雅各之路 (一個重要的朝聖旅遊聖地) 酒店服務需求的預測器，這會否是合適的呢?

本研究比較 SARIMA 時間序列模型與附有外生變數 (SARIMAX)模型兩者在預測旅遊及酒店服務需求方面的表現。為此，研究人員收集在推特網站上發佈的資訊，作為外生變數進行研究。這個樣本涵蓋於2018年1月至2022年9月期間110,456個發佈資訊。

研究結果確認了傳統的時間序列模型，若涵蓋推特網站上的旅遊活動，則其對旅遊需求方面的預測會得到顯著的改善。推特網站的數據，就改善預測實時旅遊需求的準確度，或許可成為有效的工具; 而這發現對旅遊管理會有一定的意義。本研究亦讓我們進一步瞭解朝聖旅遊方面旅客的數碼足跡。

現存文獻甚少探討朝聖旅遊的數字化，而本研究不但在這方面充實了有關的文獻，還使用了一個根據推特網站上使用者原創內容嶄新的方法框架，進行分析和探討。這會幫助酒店從業人員把社交媒體數據轉變為可供酒店管理之用的合宜資訊。

This paper explores flexible working practices (FWPs) and takes a critical view that argues a need to consider not only access to digital technological resources but also the vast array of factors that constrain one’s ability to use technology for its intended benefits, as constituting the digital divide post-COVID-19 lockdown.

Using a critical evaluation of the extant literature, we engage in a conceptual undertaking to develop theoretical propositions that form the basis for future empirical undertakings. To theoretically ground the arguments raised, we deploy the ontological lens of actor-network theory to illuminate the socio-technical dimensions of the digital divide in light of FWPs.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to adopt socially distanced work practices has become a reality for many organisations. We find that the adoption of FWPs, enabled by digital technologies, simultaneously signals hidden inequalities. We also develop a conceptual framework which depicts user responses in different technology environments that can either be limiting or enabling for individuals’ work productivity.

With regards to the digital divide, attention has often focused on access to digital technologies, as the term “digital divide” portrays. The implication is that the array of factors and resources that individuals are heterogeneously networked to, which also constitute the digital divide, is often taken for granted. We take a different ontological view that brings to the fore other factors at play within an individual’s network of relations.

本文擬探索彈性工作安排,並以批判性的觀點、去論證當我們探討2019冠狀病毒病封鎖解除後的數字鴻溝究竟是由什麼組成時,我們必須考慮數字技術資源的使用權限,以及關注各個有關的因素,因這些因素限制了我們從應用技術獲得預期效益的能力。

我們對現存文獻作批判性的評價,藉此參與一項概念性的工作,以便能建立可以成為將來實證性工作基礎的理論命題;為使提出的論點能得到理論上的依據,我們使用行動者網絡理論的本體論鏡頭,去闡明鑒於彈性工作安排的數字鴻溝的各個社會技術維度。

由於2019冠狀病毒病大爆發的關係,許多機構和組織都因實際情況而需採用保持社交距離的工作安排。我們發現、當我們採用有賴數字技術的發展而成行的彈性工作安排時,我們同時也會使不為人知的不平等狀況浮現出來;我們也注意到、不同的技術環境會限制個人的工作生產力,又或相反地助其建立工作生產力;就此,我們建立了一個可以描繪就這些不同的技術環境、用戶會如何回應的概念框架。

就數字鴻溝而言,人們的關注總放在數字技術使用權限的差異上,就如數字鴻溝這個術語所塑造的形象一樣。這種關注可能帶來的影響是即使有不同的因素和資源、即使個人會以各種形式與不同的因素和資源聯繫起來,而這些因素和資源構成了數字鴻溝,人們卻把這些因素和資源視為理所當然。我們採用不同的本體論觀點,希望藉此使個人關係網絡內起著作用的其它因素能突顯出來、免被忽視。