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Circular economy (CE) initiatives are taking hold across both developed and developing nations. Central to these initiatives is the reconfiguration of core supply chain management (SCM) processes that underlie current production and consumption patterns. This conceptual article provides a detailed discussion of how supply chain processes can support the successful implementation of CE. The article highlights areas of convergence in hopes of sparking collaboration among scholars and practitioners in SCM, CE, and related fields.

This article adopts a theory extension approach to conceptual development that uses CE as a “method” for exploring core processes within the domain of SCM. The article offers a discussion of the ways in which the five principles of CE (closing, slowing, intensifying, narrowing, dematerialising loops) intersect with eight core SCM processes (customer relationship management, supplier relationship management, customer service management, demand management, order fulfilment, manufacturing flow management, product development and commercialization, returns management).

This article identifies specific ways in which core SCM processes can support the transition from traditional linear approaches to production and consumption to a more circular approach. This paper results in a conceptual framework and research agenda for researchers and practitioners working to adapt current supply chain processes to support the implementation of CE.

This article highlights key areas of convergence among scholars and practitioners through a systematic extension of CE principles into the domain of SCM. In so doing, the paper lays out a potential agenda for collaboration among these groups.

This paper aims to address the limitations of classical deterrence theory in dealing with violent non-state actors (VNSAs).

The study uses qualitative methods.

It suggests that two measures must be applied; the first one is to rephrase the assumptions of the theory towards a broader definition. The second one is to theorize certain approaches for deterring VNSAs which shall remain a key component in, but not the cornerstone of, national security strategies.

In the aftermath of 9/11 attacks and US war on terrorism, the need arose to “revisit” the “Deterrence Theory” to address several changes such as rogue states, cyber threats and VNSAs, especially after the end of the Cold War, when the theory was originally developed. The recent research on VNSAs relates to the fourth wave of deterrence, which highlights its proper role in a new security environment.

While remanufactured products represent an increasingly researched phenomenon in the literature, not much is known about consumers' understanding and acceptance of such products. This study explores this issue in the context of the theory of perceived risk (TPR), investigating return policy leniency and distribution channel choice as potential factors to foster remanufactured products' sales.

This research utilizes an experimental design composed of a pre-test and a scenario-based main experiment to explore how return policy leniency might mitigate consumers' perceived risk and how their related purchase intention differs across two types of retail distribution channel structures (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online).

The investigation into the efficacy of return policy leniency within two retail distribution channel settings (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online) illustrates that providing a lenient return policy is an effective “cue” in increasing consumer purchase intention for remanufactured products. While prior literature has established that consumers value return policy leniency for new products, the authors provide empirical evidence that this preference also applies to remanufactured products. Notably, that return policy preference holds true in both channel settings (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online) under consideration. Additionally, and contrary to the authors’ predictions, consumers perceived remanufactured products sold via both channel settings as equally risky, thus highlighting that both are appropriate distribution channels for remanufactured products. Finally, while research on new products provides some initial guidance on consumer perceptions of quality and risk, the study provides empirical evidence into the difference of perceived risk with regard to new versus remanufactured products.

By employing the TPR, this research explored the role played by two supply chain management related factors (returns policy and channel structure) in reducing consumer's perceived risk and increasing purchase intention. In doing so, this study answers the call for more consumer-based supply chain management research in a controlled experimental research setting.

The purpose is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurs’ exit strategies and modes of entry. The topic of exit strategies in the context of approaching retirement warrants further attention.

We apply logistic regression to analyse 1,192 responses to an online survey of firms with entrepreneurs aged over 55.

Family successors are more likely to choose family succession and buyers to choose to sell, but the association between founding and exit mode cannot be confirmed. Firm size is also significant. Our findings suggest that entry and exit via a business transfer are linked. Entrepreneurs might be influenced by their form of entry when choosing their exit strategy.

The data were collected from a single European country, limiting generalisation. Future research should incorporate intervening variables not controlled for here, such as, entrepreneurial experience. Future studies should also seek to test the existence of imprinting directly, as it is implied rather than verified here.

If the entry mode has a lasting effect on the entrepreneur as our results suggest, thus influencing the exit strategy selected, entrepreneurs could benefit from greater awareness of the imprinting mechanism. Increasing awareness of imprinted biases could unlock the benefits of exit strategies previously overlooked.

The study is the first to consider sale, family succession and liquidation as exit strategies in relation to the original entry mode of ageing owners. It contributes to the understanding of exit strategies of ageing entrepreneurs and proposes using entrepreneurial learning and imprinting as lenses to clarify the phenomenon.

All entrepreneurs face challenges during their venture start-up process, but immigrant entrepreneurs face additional and distinctive challenges due to their contextual newness. This paper focuses on understanding the intertwined journeys of nascent entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation of immigrants in a small Western European country where immigrant entrepreneurship is still a relatively new phenomenon.

The induction-driven, 18-month longitudinal empirical inquiry focused on six early-stage nascent entrepreneurs. Qualitative methods included participant observation during an enterprise program, qualitative interviews and ongoing informal communication.

The data uncovered the interplay between the nascent immigrant entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation. This led to the development of a novel conceptual framework which highlights how the cross-cultural adaptation domain links with the process of recognition, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities by immigrant entrepreneurs. While varying temporarily and contextually, cross-cultural adaptation was found to create both enabling and constraining tensions within the nascent entrepreneurial experiences of immigrants.

It is recognized that undertaking just six cases may present a significant limitation of the research, but a close examination of even one individual's lived experience can yield valuable insights. It is hoped that future work will test the highlighted research propositions and other findings in different empirical contexts, and so add to the emerging conceptual framework on nascent immigrant entrepreneurship within the context of cross-cultural adaptation.

No previous qualitative studies have been undertaken seeking to understand how cross-cultural adaptation interacts with the early stages of nascent immigrant entrepreneurial activity. By integrating new venture creation and cross-cultural adaptation theories, this research contributes to the conceptualisation of early stages of nascent entrepreneurial activities of immigrants in a new host environment. The implications of the research are also relevant to enterprise support bodies, policymakers and practitioners who support immigrant entrepreneurship.

This paper adopts an intellectual capital perspective to investigate the role of owners who are ethnic minorities in the foreign market expansion performance of SMEs, and in particular considers the human capital dimension of intellectual capital.

Based on the empirical investigation of a sample of 10,326 small- and medium-sized US high-tech manufacturing enterprises, the authors’ results reveal a positive relationship between the number of foreign markets where these SMEs operate and their financial performance, and that this effect is reinforced by the presence of ethnic minority owners, as ethnic minorities constitute a valuable source of intellectual capital which bring value to firms.

The authors’ findings reveal the importance of intellectual capital in an SME’s leadership position, specifically in terms of having individuals from normally disadvantaged groups as owners. In this sense, policymakers are crucial in supporting the inclusion of ethnic minorities in SME ownership, through advantageous treatment in firms, for example.

The study presents practical implications for managers seeking foreign market expansion. In addition, when defining ownership structure (e.g., in the start-up phase), the role of human capital, in the form of ethnic minorities, should not be neglected, especially if an SME intends to operate or is already operating in different national contexts.

The authors’ results provide important insights into the positive effect of human capital on SME foreign market performance. The idea of a moderating role played by owners from ethnic minorities suggested here contributes to the literature on human capital and is one of the first attempts to consider this moderating factor in this relationship, especially in the SME context.

This paper aims to gauge developers’ perspectives regarding the participation of the public and anonymous crowd testers worldwide, with a range of varied experiences. It also aims to gather their needs that could reduce their concerns of dealing with the public crowd testers and increase the opportunity of using the crowdtesting platforms.

An online exploratory survey was conducted to gather information from the participants, which included 50 mobile application developers from various countries with diverse experiences across Android and iOS mobile platforms.

The findings revealed that a significant proportion (90%) of developers is potentially willing to perform testing via the public crowd testers worldwide. This on condition that several fundamental features were available, which enable them to achieve more realistic tests without artificial environments on large numbers of devices. The results also demonstrated that a group of developers does not consider testing as a serious job that they have to pay for, which can affect the gig-economy and global market.

This paper provides new insights for future research in the study of how acceptable it is to work with public and anonymous crowd workers, with varying levels of experience, to perform tasks in different domains and not only in software testing. In addition, it will assist individual or small development teams who have limited resources or who do not have thousands of testers in their private testing community, to perform large-scale testing of their products.

This paper examines the theoretical issues and research themes of business and management impact. Our empirical setting is the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) and the focus is on the nature of research impact. Stakeholders, including Governments, now expect academic outputs to translate to real world benefits beyond the narrow bibliometric type metrics.

Despite decades of academic literature devoted to business and management research impact, current theories cannot explain the apparent disconnect between academic, economic and societal practice. Adopting a UK Business and Management perspective to frame our investigation, we consider the highly contested rhetorical question – What are the current themes and impacts of Business and Management research?

We propose a definition for research impact and consider its measurement. Then, using the 410 Impact Case Studies submitted to REF 2014 #x2013; Unit of Assessment 19, business and management, we examine how high impact unfolds. The implications for business and management research impact from the perspectives of economic, knowledge and responsibility impacts are considered.