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Work is central to human life. It requires high mental and emotional involvement from organizational leaders, whose decisions have far-reaching impacts. Currently, industrial and technological societies struggle with growing problems of trust in leadership, mental health, feelings of emptiness and the search for relevant meaning, which highlights the importance of attending to spirituality at work. This study aims to fill two main gaps: the need for empirical research on spirituality in organizational leaders, and access to the meanings and experiences of leaders themselves.

Qualitative data from 25 Portuguese organizational leaders were collected through in-depth interviews. We followed a phenomenological approach to reveal participants' own meanings and experiences of spirituality. Content analysis was performed to identify emergent categories and a framework of spirituality development.

The results suggest the participant’s plural views and spirituality practices, which generate common achievements – Ways to Inner. Relations of leaders’ spirituality with their development and integration at work are also evidenced – Ways to Wisdom. A spirituality development framework is presented with aspects revealed in leaders’ ways, from deepening individual issues to the orientation for existential impacts.

This study proposes a framework of spirituality development based on empirical data, with the potential for adaptation to various professional contexts. Spirituality is approached as a human dimension in leaders, as whole beings and a decisive dimension of present organizational change towards a holistic work paradigm.

This paper aims to promote the higher quality development of high-tech enterprises in China. While science and technology have greatly promoted human civilization, resources have been excessively consumed and the environment has been sharply polluted. Therefore, it is particularly important for current enterprises to make use of scientific and technological innovation to maximize the benefits of mankind, minimize the loss of nature, and promote the sustainable development of our country.

By using DEA-Banker-Charnes-Cooper (BCC) model and DEA-Malmquist model, this paper comprehensively examines the innovation efficiency of high-tech enterprises from both static and dynamic perspectives, and conducts a provincial comparative study with the panel data of ten representative provinces from 2011 to 2020.

The research findings are as follows: the rapid number increase of high-tech enterprises in most provinces (cities) is accompanied by an ineffective input–output efficiency; the quality of high-tech enterprises needs to comprehensively examine both input–output efficiency and total factor productivity; and there is not a positive correlation between element investment and innovation performance.

Because the DEA model used in this paper assumes that the improvement direction of invalid units is to ensure that the input ratio of various production factors remains unchanged but sometimes the proportion of scientific and technological activities personnel and the total research and development investment is not constant. In the future, the nonradial DEA model can be considered for further research. Due to historical data statistics, more provinces, cities and longer panel data are difficult to obtain. The samples studied in this paper mainly refer to the provinces and cities that ranked first in the number of national high-tech enterprises in 2020. Limited by the number of samples, DEA analysis failed to select more input and output indicators. In the future, with the accumulation of statistical data, the existing efficiency analysis will be further optimized.

Aiming at the misunderstanding of emphasizing quantity and neglecting quality in the cultivation of high-tech enterprises, this paper comprehensively uses DEA-BCC model and DEA Malmquist index decomposition method to make a comprehensive comparative study on the development of high-tech enterprises in ten representative provinces (cities) from two aspects of static efficiency evaluation and dynamic efficiency evaluation.

Operational risks can cause considerable, atypical disturbances and impact food supply chain (SC) resilience. Indicatively, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions in the UK food services as nationwide stockouts led to unprecedented discrepancies between retail and home-delivery supply capacity and demand. To this effect, this study aims to examine the emergence of digital platforms as an innovative instrument for food SC resilience in severe market disruptions.

An interpretive multiple case-study approach was used to unravel how different generations of e-commerce food service providers, i.e. established and emergent, responded to the need for more resilient operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SC disruption management for high-impact low-frequency events requires analysing four research elements: platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency. Established e-commerce food operators use partner onboarding and local waste valorisation to enhance resilience. Instead, emergent e-commerce food providers leverage localised rapid upscaling and product personalisation.

Digital food platforms offer a highly customisable, multisided digital marketplace wherein platform members may aggregate product offerings and customers, thus sharing value throughout the network. Platform-induced disintermediation allows bidirectional flows of data and information among SC partners, ensuring compliance and safety in the food retail sector.

The study contributes to the SC configuration and resilience literature by investigating the interrelationship among platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency for safe and resilient food provision within exogenously disrupted environments.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the relationships between barrier-breakers and customers’ intention to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs).

Survey data were analyzed using statistical methods focusing on hypothesis testing with an ordinal regression model and moderation analysis using the PROCESS macro extension. Participants were divided into two groups of customers in Sweden: adopters-accepters, i.e. young bank customers and adopters-resisters, i.e. members of a formally organized group opposed to a cashless society.

The findings revealed that only the credibility barrier-breaker could increase the adopters-accepters’ intention to fully adopt DPMs. Credibility also seemed to be an important barrier-breaker for the adopters-resisters, as were perceived usefulness and social influence. Additional analyses showed that the impersonalization barrier reduces the impact of the barrier-breakers on DPM adoption.

Retail banks and merchants can use these results as a guide to what barrier-breakers might affect various customers’ intention to fully adopt DPMs, and to act accordingly. The impersonalization barrier also merits attention when creating an emotional connection to customers who use DPMs.

This study provides empirically based knowledge of the influence of barrier-breakers on the intention of customers, categorized as adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters, to fully adopt DPMs, and highlights the importance of maintaining a human touch in the post-COVID-19 digital era.

This paper aims to identify and empirically analyze useful and applicable metrics for measuring and managing the sustainability performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

To achieve the objective of the paper, potential metrics were adopted from previous research related to industrial sustainability and an empirical analysis was carried to assess the applicability of the metrics by collecting empirical data from Italian footwear SMEs using a structured questionnaire. The SMEs were selected using a convenience sampling method.

The results of the within-case analysis and the cross-case analysis indicate that the majority of the metrics were found to be useful and applicable to each of the SMEs and across the SMEs, respectively. These metrics emphasized measuring industrial sustainability performance related to financial benefits, costs and market competitiveness for the economic sustainability dimension; resources for the environmental sustainability dimension; and customers, employees and the community for the social sustainability dimension.

Apart from the within-case analysis and cross-case analysis, it was not possible to conduct statistical analysis since a small number of SMEs were accessible to collect empirical data.

The findings of the paper have considerable academic, managerial and policy implications and will provide a theoretical basis for future research on measuring and managing industrial sustainability performance. By providing a set of empirically supported metrics based on the triple bottom line approach (i.e. economic, environmental and social metrics), this paper contributes to the existing knowledge in the field of industrial sustainability performance measurement.

Exploring the intrinsic connection between the ecological environment and the digital economy and empirically testing how the level of digital economic development affects the ecological environment. Using the entropy weighting method to analyze the weights of the indicators in the digital economic development level and ecological environment system to explore the factors that have the greatest impact on the ecological environment in the indicator system of the digital economic development level so as to deepen the theoretical understanding of the relationship between the level of development of the digital economy and the ecological environment. Explore the regional heterogeneity of the level of development of the digital economy to promote the healthy development of China’s ecological environment proving the difference in the level of development of the digital economy in the east west and central regions of China and the difference in the effect on the ecological environment.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2021 this paper fits the index system of digital economy development level with three factors. A digital infrastructure digital industry and digital application combines environmental pollution and energy consumption to construct ecological environment indicators and explored the impact of digital economy development level on the ecological environment by using the entropy weight method and the random effect model.

The findings indicate that the degree of digital economic development has a positive and significant impact on promoting the healthy development of the ecological environment, in which the digital industry has the greatest impact on the ecological environment. Meanwhile, the improvement of industrial structure also has a positive effect on the improvement of the ecological environment, whereas the level of human capital inhibits the healthy development of the ecological environment, and the governmental support fails to effectively and significantly promote the improvement of the ecological environment. Furthermore, the empirical research indicates that the level of digital economy development has obvious regional heterogeneity on the healthy development of the ecological environment: the eastern and central regions have a significant effect, while the western region has a less significant effect.

Although domestic and foreign scholars and experts have conducted sufficient studies on the ecological environment and the development level of digital economy respectively, there are few studies on the empirical analysis of the positive significance and regional heterogeneity of the impact of the development level of digital economy on the ecological environment, which can be supplemented and referred to in this study. At the same time, it also provides intellectual support for our country to achieve high-quality development of digital economy and efficient governance of ecological environment.

The demand for electric vehicles (EVs) has significantly increased in recent years, though some countries like Sri Lanka have reported the opposite direction compared to the global trend. Hence, this study focused on identifying factors affecting EV purchase intention and barriers to the widespread adoption of EVs in a developing country context. Also, this study presents an overview of the theoretical perspectives utilized for understanding consumer intentions and adoption behavior toward alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs).

The questionnaire method was employed, and 394 individuals who lived in Colombo City, Sri Lanka, with valid driving licenses and a hybrid or conventional vehicle were the study sample. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research hypothesis.

The findings confirmed that the three relationships between the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) variables and EV purchase intention are significant, and there is no significant moderator effect from the consumer’s perceived risk.

These results offer useful information for governments and EV companies to better understand consumer behavior toward purchasing EVs.

This paper integrates the action phase theory (APT) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to analyse the dynamic mechanisms involved in the configuration of goals and implementation intentions throughout the entrepreneurship process.

The empirical analysis compares individuals in different phases of this process (not yet decided, potential and nascent entrepreneurs). A large sample of adults from Spain is analysed. Structural equation models and multi-group analysis (MGA) serve to test the hypotheses.

The results confirm that perceived behavioural control (PBC) is the most influential antecedent of entrepreneurial goal intention (EGI) in pre-actional phases (undecided and potential entrepreneurs), whilst attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE) takes this role during nascency. Subjective norms (SNs) are more important in Phase 1 (establishing the goal) and in Phase 3 (performing nascent behaviour).

This study contributes to both the TPB and the APT. It provides the most relevant insight into the mental process that leads to starting up and helps explain certain previous conflicting results found in the literature. Additionally, it has important implications not only for theory building but also for support bodies and for entrepreneurship educators.

The ability of companies to develop organizational resilience before, during and after crises is crucial for their development and growth. The future forecasts increasingly more crises, thus this paper aims at identifying key topics around organizational resilience in COVID-19 times, differentiating them of pre-crisis literature and synthesizing them into a research framework.

Based on Web of Science and Scopus, the authors analysed the content of the only twenty-seven VHB-ranked primary studies discussing organizational resilience during COVID-19, providing a complete survey of this research area.

Following a content analysis, the authors identified main topics of interest for researchers at the moment of COVID-19, how it differed from before this adversity and provide an outlook on future research. The results presented include in the COVID-19 context: an adapted definition of organizational resilience, key theoretical framework, insights for future research. Some topics have been found to be increasingly more important during COVID-19 (i.e. digitalization, partnerships and learning) while others have been less explored although present in pre-COVID-19 research on organizational resilience (i.e. dynamic capabilities, anticipation and preparedness).

Understanding key issues in global disruptions could help practitioners in fostering resilience as much as researchers in identifying new ways to advance and maintain resilience. This paper differs from other reviews by providing a full text analysis, based on qualitative content analysis, of all ranked published papers in the considered period.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the appropriateness of equal weights estimation (sumscores) and the application of the composite equivalence index (CEI) vis-à-vis differentiated indicator weights produced by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The authors rely on prior literature as well as empirical illustrations and a simulation study to assess the efficacy of equal weights estimation and the CEI.

The results show that the CEI lacks discriminatory power, and its use can lead to major differences in structural model estimates, conceals measurement model issues and almost always leads to inferior out-of-sample predictive accuracy compared to differentiated weights produced by PLS-SEM.

In light of its manifold conceptual and empirical limitations, the authors advise against the use of the CEI. Its adoption and the routine use of equal weights estimation could adversely affect the validity of measurement and structural model results and understate structural model predictive accuracy. Although this study shows that the CEI is an unsuitable metric to decide between equal weights and differentiated weights, it does not propose another means for such a comparison.

The results suggest that researchers and practitioners should prefer differentiated indicator weights such as those produced by PLS-SEM over equal weights.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of the CEI’s usefulness. The results provide guidance for researchers considering using equal indicator weights instead of PLS-SEM-based weighted indicators.