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The paper focuses on Malaysia's huge waste challenges and how circular economy practices can turn that into increased and sustained economic growth.

Published official reports on the country's sustainable development initiatives, policy statements from local authorities and government agencies as well as UN bodies and other secondary materials were sourced for this article.

The paper finds that Malaysia's waste can be used in generating wealth for the country if and when a conscious effort is made towards establishing a sound circular economy in the country. It also sees enormous opportunities that exist for cooperative models of social enterprises and business innovations.

The paper details the numerous policies and initiatives that the Malaysian government has embarked upon in recent times and scrutinises them to decipher the direction of country's bid for sustainable development. It also carries details of what can be done to achieve circularity as well as the benefits that can accrue from that.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the emergence of “gated communities” in Ghana. It explores gated communities as a nexus of social and spatial relations within the context of urban inequality. It is concerned with the phenomenon in which the rich now live in isolation behind barbed wires and gates, fearing for their lives and properties.

The paper adopts a sociological approach to the study. It does so initially by focusing on the social constitution of a gated community. The gate becomes a focal point of the analysis because by its function, it separates the residents from others. This spatial construction of gated communities does not only preserve the social stratification of class and demographic groups, it institutionalises this already extant stratification. The paper, therefore, uses social inequality and the status attainment theory as the basis of its work. Status processes play a part in the development of powerful inequalities, which shape the structure of groups and societies as well as, directly and indirectly, the opportunities of individuals (Berger et al., 1980).

The paper finds that although people feel safer behind gates, at the same time the fear of the outside world increases for them. Their desire to find a small area in which they feel secure, meanwhile, only expands the vast areas in which they feel insecure. It notes that security can be achieved only and much better, if the causes of insecurity, namely poverty and exclusion, are addressed.

The paper wades into the gated communities’ phenomenon. It contributes to the discussion in which social difference and inequality have become more marked features of urban society. Its relevance lies in the fact that it analyses this issue through a sociological perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the recent horsemeat scandal in European markets. The paper is primarily interested in how this scandal has festered and what perhaps ought to be done to ensure consumers get what they feel they should be getting. It also attempts to identify the lapses that have created the basis for this to happen.

The paper mainly draws on reports in the media and discussions generated following the scandal to assess the issues under consideration. It also looks at the issues surrounding the global supply chain environment and provides solutions on how to strengthen the weak links in the meat supply chain.

The paper finds that the scandal has damaged consumer confidence in the industry's ability to regulate itself. It notes that pinpointing risk has become a difficult struggle as retailers are often inundated with data, and suppliers, for lack of time, have become reluctant to “waste time” completing check-lists and audits. The paper maintains that there is the urgent need for adequate inspection and a means to incentivise the food industry to police itself much better. It recognises that lack of visibility and a lack of direct influence over suppliers further down the supply chain have led to distinct problems within the food industry.

The paper contributes to an ongoing discussion that has been of considerable concern to many consumers. Its importance lies in the fact that it suggests important measures, which, if implemented, could help in ensuring the elimination of fraud in the food chain.

The paper aims to focus on how the dualism “petty trading and traffic” exacerbates the development of a social bond among traders from various communities and ethnic groups in Ghana. As understood in their normal innocuous sense, “traffic and petty trading” independently mark off two generally distinguishable exclusive partners. However, both petty trading and traffic now denote essential aspects of contemporary Ghana’s new social order shared uniquely among informal traders. The paper dilates on this phenomenon.

The theory underpinning this study is social constructionism. Social constructionism is part of a post-modern understanding of the nature of reality. It is a strand of sociology, pertaining to the ways in which social phenomena are created, institutionalised and made into tradition by humans. The core idea of constructionism, therefore, is that some social agent produces or controls some object. ’s (1967) situational constraints thesis also provides an important element to this paper. The thesis maintains that the poor in society are constrained by the facts of their situation; hence, the poor are unable to translate many of their ideals into reality in view of the considerable poverty that engulfs them. The thesis, reiterates that once the constraints of poverty are removed, the poor would have no difficulty adopting mainstream behavioural patterns and seizing available opportunities. The thesis is significant in exploring the objectives of this paper.

The paper finds that petty trading has given its adherents a new wave of life. The picture that emerges is that, although street hawkers are seen as a nuisance, a failure in society and lacking knowledge, they have become mindful of what society thinks about them. As a result, some have devised means to cope with what they do and also to find new ways to address the challenges facing them. The findings confirmed that people are self-reflexive beings and that they shape their own behaviour despite the influence of a variety of social factors that may constrain them. The study found that street hawkers have found a way to make life more meaningful for themselves than are actually perceived.

The paper seeks to discover the daily lives of petty traders, which have been stealthily tied in to urban development and planning. It brings a new dimension to the issue of petty trading. The fundamental argument of the paper is that the multidimensional nature of poverty is leading petty traders to a new consciousness which bodes well for them. These traders are shaping their own behaviour despite the influence of a variety of social factors that may constrain them. The social bond and interrelationship that permeate their working relationship has created a basis for which they now forge close ties that promote an inclusion from the exclusion that they are generally enjoined to.

Although the literature on the careers of skilled migrants is growing, relatively little is known about their experiences inside host country organizations. This article is a replication and an extension of a study by Zikic et al. (2010) on career challenges and coping strategies of skilled migrants. In contrast to the replicated study, where the focus was on the unemployed pool of talented migrants, in this study, the authors look at the career experiences of those who are already employed. Similar to the study of Zikic et al. (2010), the authors seek to explore how migrants understand their careers and what approaches they use to enact career opportunities from the perspective of “insiders” in local organizations.

The authors used a qualitative explorative approach. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with highly qualified specialists, who were hired for positions in Luxembourg corresponding to their professional profiles, the authors explore what challenges they face at the workplace and how they tackle them.

This research not only replicates the study of Zikic et al. (2010) but also extends the authors’ knowledge of the careers of skilled migrants in the context of local organizations. By focusing on employed skilled migrants, the authors open a “black box” of their career challenges and strategies and extend an earlier career typology (Zikic et al., 2010) into what happens within local organizations. In particular, this study identifies two major challenges that skilled migrants experience, namely, “trying to fit in” and “managing career mismatch”. Then, it shows three unique strategies that skilled migrants use to manage their careers. This allows us to cluster skilled migrants into three categories that the authors conceptualized, namely “workhorses”, “career rebels” and “career conformists”.

This study contributes to the literature on the careers of skilled migrants by theorizing the experiences of migrant careers after organizational entry. It also contributes to the talent management literature by providing nuanced insights into the challenges, strategies and profiles that this global talent has.

Research shows that employers are demanding generic skills from employees to complement disciplinary expertise. Evidence shows that majority of the higher institutions are struggling to meet this demand, especially in developing nations. Hence, these skills may be acquired while in the workplace through training and retraining. Studies concerning the Nigerian built environment professionals (BEP) generic skills in the workplace are scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate Nigeria’s BEP generic skills in the workplace via an unexplored mechanism and proffer feasible policy solutions that can improve BEP generic skills development.

The views of BEP were collated via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design across two major Nigerian cities where construction activities are soaring. Virtual interviews were conducted for 20 selected BEP. Data saturation was accomplished and the emerged three themes were analysed through a thematic analysis.

Findings show that generic skills enhance value for money in construction project delivery. But many of these professionals do not possess these skills in their daily operations. This has raised concerns about the present curriculum for preparing the built environment graduates in today’s profession. Findings categorised the hindrances into employers related-hindrances and employees related-hindrances in Nigeria’s BEP context.

This study is confined to the relevance and hindrances of the generic skills for Nigerian BEP, and proffer feasible policies to promote generic skills in the workplace via a qualitative approach. Future study is needed to investigate the role of the various professional Institutes within Nigeria’s built environment in promoting generic skills.

The paper advanced key stakeholders including BEP Institutes and regulatory bodies to redirect their continuing professional development towards developing professional values and identities as a trajectory to promote the growth of BEP generic skills in the workplace.

The proposed framework can be used to promote the implementation of generic skills for BEP across all levels. This would assist and stir up policymakers and other stakeholders in connection with the implementation of generic skills within the BEP.

This study determines whether government support for innovation (GSFI), knowledge sharing, knowledge management success (KMS) and intellectual capital (IC) strengthens the relationship between firm innovation and performance in the manufacturing industry in Vietnam.

A theoretical model and related hypotheses on manufacturers in Vietnam were developed based on the resource-based view and knowledge-based view. Data were collected from 361 respondents through a structured questionnaire and analyzed by partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

GSFI and IC significantly and positively influence firm innovation and performance. However, knowledge sharing does not affect firm innovation. Moreover, KMS fully mediates the positive relationship between knowledge sharing and firm innovation, and firm innovation partially mediates the positive relationships of IC and government support with firm performance.

The findings show how managers can utilize IC, KMS and government assistance to maximize the benefits of innovative outcomes and improve business performance.

This groundbreaking study creates a research model incorporating IC, knowledge sharing, KMS, GSFI, firm innovation and firm performance by extending two theories. Although the effects of various intangible assets on firm performance have been discussed extensively in the literature, there has been limited focus on the significance of KMS, knowledge sharing, IC and GSFI for enhancing innovative outcomes and driving business success in emerging markets such as Vietnam.

Corporate sustainability (CS) is becoming a popular research topic. In recent years, researchers have conducted a significant number of studies in this area. Although a number of those studies have used a variety of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, to date there is no systematic literature review of this area of research. This paper fulfills this research gap.

The authors use a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis approach to analyze the applications of MCDM methods in research on CS.

The authors have observed that both single and integrated MCDM methods have been used in this domain; however, single MCDM methods are dominant. Further, this review shows that most of the integrated methods use only two MCDM methods and that there has been no comparison of results obtained from different MCDM methods. After reviewing these developments and summarizing the findings, the authors propose directions for future research, including investigating and formulating strategies for specific CS initiatives, integrating three or more MCDM methods, integrating MCDM methods with optimization techniques, analyzing results from a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) perspective, reconsidering the tenets of existing theories via MCDM methods, and comparing the results of studies of CS in different kinds of economies, as well as the results of using different MCDM methods.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that has conducted a systematic literature review to analyze applications of MCDM methods to different aspects of corporate sustainability, including enablers of and barriers to CS, the evaluation and design of CS initiatives, system or strategy formulation, and performance evaluation, among others.

Despite blockchain's potential supply chain benefits, few organizations have moved beyond pilot projects. The paper aims to explore blockchain adoption intentions for supply chain applications using two theoretical perspectives: innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and institutional theory (IT).

Based on theory, five propositions were developed addressing the intention to adopt blockchain. The propositions were tested using scenario-based experiments with supply chain professionals. To provide additional insights, interviews with 21 supply chain professionals in 15 organizations representing 8 industries were content analyzed.

Experiments suggest that the intention to adopt blockchain is higher when there are government regulations regarding product origin, organizations are using updated cloud-based information systems and organizations are working with third-party consultants. The content analysis suggests that organizations that face normative pressures to adopt blockchain supply chain applications and recognize blockchain's relative advantage, compatibility and complexity are more likely to be actively seeking information about and adopting blockchain supply chain applications. The authors synthesize findings and provide new propositions to guide future research.

Using a multi-method approach, the study provides an important window into supply chain managers' perceptions of the necessary conditions to support organization-level blockchain adoption. The findings also indicate key characteristics present in supply chain networks poised for blockchain adoption.

Recent years have seen an increased demand for healthcare services, presenting a need to improve service quality through the deployment of sustainable Lean Six Sigma (LSS). This study aims to identify critical success factors (CSFs) of sustainable LSS and prioritize them based on their intensity of importance for the effective implementation of sustainable LSS in the healthcare environment.

The present study identified 33 leading CSFs through a comprehensive literature review and expert experience and classified them into six major categories based on organizational functions. The primacy of these CSFs is established using the best-worst-method (BWM) approach. The significant advantage of this approach is that the decision-maker identifies both the best and worst criteria among alternatives prior to pairwise comparisons, leading to fewer pairwise comparisons and saving time, energy and resources. It also provides more reliable and consistent rankings.

The findings of the present study highlight the economic and managerial (E&M) CSFs as the most significant CSFs among the major category criteria of sustainable LSS-CSFs, followed by organizational (O), knowledge and learning (K&L), technological (T), social and environmental (S&E), and external factors (EF). Similarly, management involvement and leadership to implement sustainable LSS (E&M1), structured LSS deployment training and education (K&L2), and availability of required resources and their efficient utilization (O2) are ranked as the topmost CSFs among sub-category criteria of sustainable LSS-CSFs.

The prioritization of sustainable LSS-CSFs determined in this study can provide healthcare managers, researchers and decision-makers with a better understanding of the influence on effective deployment of sustainable LSS, resulting in improved service quality in hospitals.

This paper is an original contribution to the analysis of CSFs in an Indian healthcare institute, utilizing the BMW method for ranking the sustainable LSS-CSFs. The advantage of utilizing and distinguishing the performance of this approach compared to other MCDA approaches in terms of (1) least pairwise comparison and violation, (2) consistency (3) slightest deviation and (4) conformity.