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This study examined how economic freedom and its related components, such as open markets, regulatory efficiency, rule of law and the size of government, affect bank risk behavior, focusing on the Japanese context.

The study employs a two-step GMM framework on the annual data of Japanese banks ranging from 2005 to 2020 to empirically test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we also use the ordinary least square method to ensure the robustness of our mainline findings.

The finding suggests that economic freedom increases the banks' risk-taking, thus making them fragile. The results also highlight that out of the four main subcomponents of economic freedom, regulatory efficiency and government size increase bank risk-taking, while the rule of law and open markets decrease banks' risk-taking. Additionally, we examine how the banks' specific characteristics affect the results by creating a subsample based on capitalization and liquidity ratios. Overall, the results are consistent with the baseline findings. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative proxy measures of risk.

The study's findings have several implications for regulators and policymakers. The results suggest that regulators and policymakers should reconsider their strategies for economic freedom to ensure that they promote stability in the banking system and reduce banks' risk-taking inclinations.

Although previous studies have examined the impact of economic freedom on bank stability and risk-taking, this study is the first to do so in the Japanese context, contributing to the literature by providing new insights and empirical evidence.

This study aims to understand how quickly Japanese banks readjust their capital ratios (leverage, regulatory capital, tier-I capital and common equity) following an economic shock.

This study uses a two-step system GMM framework to test the study's hypotheses using the annual data of Japanese commercial and cooperative banks ranging from 2005 to 2020.

The findings show that banks adjust their leverage ratio faster than regulatory capital, tier-I capital and common equity ratios. In addition to that, the results reveal that the speed of capital adjustment is higher for commercial banks than for cooperative banks, suggesting higher economic costs and implications for commercial banks. Furthermore, it is worth noting that well-capitalised (under-capitalised) banks tend to prioritise the adjustments to common equity (leverage) before considering the adjustments to leverage (common equity). According to the results, high-liquid (low-liquid) banks alter their regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios (leverage) more quickly (more slowly) than low-liquid (high-liquid) banks.

The findings suggest that when formulating and implementing new banking regulations, particularly in assessing and adjusting specific capital requirements under Pillar II of Basel III, management (including bankers, regulators and policymakers) should consider the heterogeneity observed in the rate of capital adjustment across various bank characteristics. Additionally, bank managers should also consider the speed of adjustment when determining optimal half-life and target capital structures.

To the author's knowledge, this study represents a pioneering investigation into the rate of adjustment of capital ratios (leverage, regulatory, tier-I and common equity) within Japan's banking sector. The study employs a comprehensive dataset encompassing both commercial and cooperative banks to facilitate this analysis. A notable contribution to the existing body of literature, this study offers a detailed analysis and emphasises the varying degrees of adjustment in capital ratios. The study also highlights the heterogeneous nature of the adjustment rate in these ratios by categorising the data into well-capitalised, under-capitalised, highly liquid and low-liquid banks.

This study aims to examine the hedge, diversifier and safe-haven properties of bonds against infectious disease-related equity market volatility (IDEMV), like COVID-19.

The authors apply wavelet coherence methodology on the daily data of IDEMV and bond market (US, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, China and Europe) indices from 1 January 2000 to 14 February 2021.

The results show no significant co-movement between these bond indices and IDEMV, thus confirming that they serve as a hedge against IDEMV. However, during the turbulent period like COVID-19, the authors find that the US, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, China and European bond markets act as safe-haven against IDEMV, whereas the UK, US, Japan and Canadian bond markets demonstrate an in-phase and positive co-movement with IDEMV during COVID-19, suggesting their role as a diversifier.

The study findings are important for investors and portfolio managers regarding risk management, portfolio diversification and investment strategies.

The authors contribute to the fast growing body of work on the financial impacts of COVID-19 as well as to ongoing consideration of whether a bond is a safe-haven investment.

This research explores the role of economic growth to influence the inter-relationship between capital, liquidity and profitability of commercial banks in selected asian emerging economies.

To achieve the research purpose, an empirical model was constructed to examine the role of economic growth in the inter-relationship between banks' capital, liquidity and profitability. The empirical model was tested through two stage lease square (2SLS) regression analysis using annual data of Asian commercial banks ranges from 2011 to 2019.

The findings indicate that bank capital and liquidity are interdependent and determined simultaneously. The outcome demonstrates that the strength of the inter-relationship between banks' capital, liquidity, and profitability improves when economic growth is taken into account in the analysis. The results report that market funding, loan ratio, credit risk, bank size and bank efficiency are significant indicators to influence commercial banks' liquidity, profitability and capital in Asian emerging economies. The findings are heterogeneous across large, medium and small-sized banks in emerging economies of Asia.

The results highlight that the model provides robust results with respect to sign and significance. However, the coefficient remains underestimated without incorporating economic growth, which has important implications for decision-makers and bankers.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the role of economic growth to influence the inter-relationship between capital, liquidity and bank profitability in the emerging economies of Asia.

This study aims to identify and prioritize the challenges to adopting blockchain in supply chain management and to make its taxonomic model. Moreover, validate whether these challenging factors exist in the real world and, if they exist, then in what percentage.

This research adopted the fuzzy best-worst method (F-BWM), which integrates fuzzy set theory with the best-worst method to identify and prioritize the prominent challenges of the blockchain-based supply chain by developing a weighted multi-criteria model.

A total of 20 challenges (CH's) were identified. Lack of storage capacity/scalability and lack of data privacy challenges were found as key challenges. The findings of this study will provide a robust framework of the challenges that will assist academic researchers and industry practitioners in considering the most significant category concerning their working area.

Blockchain provides the best solution for tracing and tracking where RFID has not succeeded. It can improve quality management in a supply chain network by improving standards and speeding up operations. For inventory management, blockchain provides transparency of documentation for both parties within no time.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous research has adopted the fuzzy best-worst method to prioritize the identified challenges of blockchain implementation in the supply chain. Moreover, no study provides a taxonomic model for the challenges of implementing a blockchain-based supply chain.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM)-based library services and head librarians' personal and academic variables. The status of CRM-based library services in the university libraries of Pakistan was also assessed.

A cross-sectional survey research design and quantitative research approach were applied. A structured questionnaire was emailed to the heads librarians of all university libraries recognized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, and the response rate was 74 percent.

The analysis showed that a relationship to CRM-based library services was confirmed by the head librarians' age, academic qualification, professional experience, CRM awareness and training. Moreover, several CRM-based library services such as face-to-face interaction, current awareness services, orientation for new users, coordination through e-mail services, special goodwill to regular users, make telephone calls, complaints/suggestions boxes, online services, provision of a conducive learning environment, user education, selective dissemination of information services, users' participation in the collection and service development, ask a librarian services and users' help desk services were currently being practiced by the university libraries.

This study is a valuable resource for developing user-centered library services and culture. Findings are helpful in enhancing CRM applications in libraries and making their users satisfied and loyal. This study makes a significant contribution to the body of literature and knowledge on library CRM.

The main purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive review and critical insights of the application of fuzzy methods in modeling, assessing and understanding the various aspects of green and sustainable supply chains (SSCs).

The present study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis of 252 research articles. This study employs various tools such as VOSviewer version 1.6.10, Publish or Perish, Mendeley and Excel that aid in descriptive analysis, bibliometric analysis and network visualization. These tools have been used for performing citation analysis, top authors' analysis, co-occurrence of keywords, cluster and content analysis.

The authors have divided the literature into seven application areas and discussed detailed insights. This study has observed that research in the social sustainability area, including various issues like health and safety, labor rights, discrimination, etc. is scarce. Integration of the Industry 4.0 technologies like blockchain, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT) with the sustainable and green supply chain (GSC) is a promising field for future research.

The authors' contribution primarily lies in providing the integrated framework which shows the changing trends in the use of fuzzy methods in the sustainability area classifying and consolidating green and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) literature in seven major areas where fuzzy methods are predominantly applied. These areas have been obtained after the analysis of clusters and content analysis of the literature presenting key insights from the past and developing the conceptual framework for future research studies.

This research aims to explore the various green supply chain management (GSCM) performance measures and develop the efficient performance measurement framework for evaluation of influence of GSCM adoption on organizational performance.

This research proposes a hybrid framework of Pythagorean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and Pythagorean fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment technique. The usefulness of proposed framework is validated using empirical case example of Indian manufacturing organization.

The finding reveals that the overall performance of case organization is 67.03% based on define set of performance measures. Further, the proposed framework has been validated with other three Indian automobile manufacturing organizations. The results obtained were confirmed with selected empirical case company. The proposed hybrid framework provides the effective path to measure and benchmark the impact of each performance measures on system performance.

This research is limited to automobile sector of India; hence the results obtained in this study may not be comprehensibly used to other sectors due to different product and process fields.

This research aids the industrial practitioners to effectively implement the green supply chain management (GSCM) and helps them to boost the overall performance of business organizations in three dimensions of sustainability.

The need for an efficient enterprise risk management (ERM) has never been greater than today when organisations face complex and interconnected risks targeting their business models. Macroeconomics and geopolitical uncertainties, digital transformations of industries and sectors, cybersecurity, and climate change, among other trends, present significant uncertainties. This article aims to analyse the scientific papers on research specific to ERM and review the links between the researched area and market or corporate governance topics. Risk management is underdeveloped in many organisations; the current standard for risk management is a reactive approach. It is usually treated in isolation rather than as a core competency and a strategic asset. As a result, risk management processes are ineffective and seen as adding value to decision-making and responding to uncertainties. Based on the literature, the scope is to set up the framework for future research on ERM by building a bibliometric analysis and examining articles collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The study identified the essential research on this topic based on the citations of the papers and the author’s countries with the highest number of publications and citations. VOSviewer software analysed the ERM system based on keywords, citations, geographical distribution, and authorships. The research proves a strong connection between the ERM and corporate governance topics considering the stage where most countries are regarding this subject.

This study aims to fabricate multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-mediated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite films using the solution casting approach.

The prepared films were evaluated for diverse structural, surface, optical and electrical attributes using advanced analytical techniques, i.e. electron microscopy for surface morphology, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for tracing chemical functionalities, x-ray diffraction (XRD) for crystal patterns, water contact angle (WCA) analysis for surface wettability and UV visible spectroscopy for optical absorption parameters. The specimens were also investigated for certain rheological, mechanical and electrical properties, where applicable.

The surface morphology results expressed a better dispersion of MWCNTs in the resultant PVA-based nanocomposite film. The XRD analysis exhibited that the nanocomposite film was crystalline. The surface wettability analysis indicated that with the inclusion of MWCNTs, the WCA of the resultant nanocomposite film improved to 89.4° from 44° with the pristine PVA film. The MWCNTs (1.00%, w/w) incorporated PVA-based film exhibited a tensile strength of 54.0 MPa as compared to that of native PVA as 25.3 MPa film. There observed a decreased bandgap (from 5.25 to 5.14 eV) on incorporating the MWCNTs in the PVA-based nanocomposite film.

The MWCNTs’ inclusion in the PVA matrix could enhance the AC conductivity of the resultant nanocomposite film. The prepared nanocomposite film might be useful in designing certain optoelectronic devices.

The results demonstrated the successful MWCNTs mediation in the PVA-based composite films expressed good intercalation of the precursors; this resulted in decreased bandgap, usually, desirable for optoelectronic applications.