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Outsourcing of logistics has great importance in disaster relief. Aid agencies spend several billion US dollars every year on logistics services. However, the concept of outsourcing has not been established adequately in literature on humanitarian logistics, leading to a fragmented view of the practice. This paper provides a holistic perspective of the concept by constructing a conceptual framework to analyze both practice and research of outsourcing in humanitarian operations. Based on this analysis, we explore future trends and identify research gaps.

The paper is based on a structured review of academic literature, a two-round Delphi study with 31 experts from aid agencies and a complementary full-day focus group with twelve experts from aid agencies and logistics service providers.

The paper systemizes the current practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics according to a conceptual framework of five dimensions: subject, object, partner, design and context. In addition, it reveals ten probable developments of the practice over the next years. Finally, it describes eight important research gaps and presents a research agenda for the field.

The literature review considered peer-reviewed academic papers. Practitioner papers could provide additional insights into the practice. Moreover, the Delphi study focused on the perspective of aid agencies. Capturing the views of logistics service providers in more detail would be a valuable addition.

The paper establishes the academic basis for the important practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics. It highlights essential research gaps and, thereby, opens up the field for future research.

This paper aims to explore the interdisciplinary nature of coordination challenges in the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the food supply chain positions involved.

This adopts an exploratory qualitative research approach over a period of 11 years. Multiple research periods generated 38 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus groups. All data is analysed by a thematic analysis.

The authors identified four key coordination challenges in the logistics response to food safety incidents: first, information quality (sharing information and the applied technology) appears to be seen as the biggest challenge for the response; second, more emphasis on external coordination focus is required; third, more extensive emphasis is needed on the proactive phase in the logistic response; fourth, a distinct difference exists in the position’s views on coordination in the food supply chain. Furthermore, the data supports the interdisciplinary nature as disciplines such as operations management, strategy and organisation but also food safety and risk management, have to work together to align a rapid response, depending on the incident’s specifics.

The paper shows the need for comprehensively reviewing and elaborating on the research gap in coordination decisions for the logistic response to food safety incidents while using the views of the different supply chain positions. The empirical data indicates the interdisciplinary nature of these coordination decisions, supporting the need for more attention to the interdisciplinary food research agenda. The findings also indicate the need for more attention to organisational learning, and an open and active debate on exploratory qualitative research approaches over a long period of time, as this is not widely used in supply chain management studies.

The results of this paper do not present a managerial blueprint but can be helpful for practitioners dealing with aspects of decision-making by the food supply chain positions. The findings help practitioners to systematically go through all phases of the decision-making process for designing an effective logistic response to food safety incidents. Furthermore, the results provide insight into the distinct differences in views of the supply chain positions on the coordination decision-making process, which is helpful for managers to better understand in what phase(s) and why other positions might make different decisions.

The findings add value for the general public, as an effective logistic response contributes to consumer’s trust in food safety by creating more transparency in the decisions made during a food safety incident. As food sources are and will remain essential for human existence, the need to contribute to knowledge related to aspects of food safety is evident because it will be impossible to prevent all food safety incidents.

As the main contribution, this study provides a systematic and interdisciplinary understanding of the coordination decision-making process for the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the views of the supply chain positions.

Intelligence level of a crowd network is defined as the expected reward of the network when completing the latest tasks (e.g. last N tasks). The purpose of this paper is to improve the intelligence level of a crowd network by optimizing the profession distribution of the crowd network.

Based on the concept of information entropy, this paper introduces the concept of business entropy and puts forward several factors affecting business entropy to analyze the relationship between the intelligence level and the profession distribution of the crowd network. This paper introduced Profession Distribution Deviation and Subject Interaction Pattern as the two factors which affect business entropy. By quantifying and combining the two factors, a Multi-Factor Business Entropy Quantitative (MFBEQ) model is proposed to calculate the business entropy of a crowd network. Finally, the differential evolution model and k-means clustering are applied to crowd intelligence network, and the species distribution of intelligent subjects is found, so as to achieve quantitative analysis of business entropy.

By establishing the MFBEQ model, this paper found that when the profession distribution of a crowd network is deviate less to the expected distribution, the intelligence level of a crowd network will be higher. Moreover, when subjects within the crowd network interact with each other more actively, the intelligence level of a crowd network becomes higher.

This paper aims to build the MFBEQ model according to factors that are related to business entropy and then uses the model to evaluate the intelligence level of a number of crowd networks.

This study examines the case of an initial training, called “Dojo”, invented and implemented at a production site in the Czech Republic. It clarifies the initial training program implementation process and offers a conceptual framework for cooperative management of subsidiary activities at the site and firm.

This study conducts an in-depth analysis of qualitative data from the Czech production site over a five-year period. The theoretical base is the theorization and labeling phase of management innovation (MI), the final phase of which legitimizes a new management practice. Interview data, archival data, pictures and financial data are used for the analysis.

To legitimize the Dojo in the operational flow controlled by the site and firm, the Czech production site acquires validation of the Dojo from employees and board members of the Japanese and European headquarters, helping the site build trustful relationships with them. Training programs, process standardization and skills standardization of the workers offer benefits to the trainees, production site and firm.

The authors offer theoretical insights into MI at the subsidiary-level, which past studies have not differentiated at the firm-level. The authors also provide details of the implementation and management of initial training for newly hired blue-collar workers at the production site. The findings complement related literature on human resource management and operational management.

This study examined the relationship of soft skills gained to the amount of leadership education completed by graduates from the Department of Leadership studies at a Midwestern regional university. Those who received no leadership education were compared with those who received a leadership certificate and those who received a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Leadership. The study provided insight into whether academic leadership education enhances graduate’s soft skill development and assessed the impact this had on their perception of teamwork proficiency. Results indicate that a bachelor’s degree in leadership does make limited significant changes in graduates’ soft skill proficiency as compared with graduates who received a leadership certificate. Multiple significant changes were found in graduates with bachelor’s degrees as compared with graduates who received no leadership coursework.

The accounting system plays an important role in the company’s organizational structure. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the integration of management accounting practices is subject to coordination between external and internal factors and accounting management practices.

Therefore, the authors move to the contingency model to determine the most significant external “unexpected factors” that explain the introduction of management practices for the management of the various stages of development. The exploratory study examines a sample of Pakistani companies from various sectors.

This study reveals that the main factors of uncertainty that affect the organizational structure, environmental uncertainty, advanced production technology, just-in-time method strategy, integrated management of quality and structure findings reveal that MAP affected all process and changes all system in simple to complex system in Pakistani’s industries.

This study is to acquisition the impact of external factors on management accounting practices, to find the impact of internal factors on management accounting practices, to establish the management accounting practices undertaken by the companies in Pakistan.

The study contributes to the literature by enhancing our understanding for the impact of external and internal factors on management accounting practices in Pakistan.

This paper aims to use intellectual thinking to solve the problem of how to carry out collaborative governance of the academic ecological environment.

This paper selected academic ecosystem, academic ecological environment and academic ecological governance as three keywords to collect literature data. The hot issues on the academic ecological environment and its governance system in China are analyzed, with visualization software such as Citespace, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and other literature metrology tools.

The previous research literature cannot fully explain the governance mechanism of the academic ecological environment. In this paper, the authors use the way of group cooperation thinking in the crowd science category, to build a collaborative governance framework of the academic ecological environment from the national level, the institutional level and the individual level, taking full advantage of the in-depth analysis on crowd intellectual thinking.

The authors use the way of group cooperation thinking in the crowd science category, to build a collaborative governance framework of academic.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential for implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the civil engineering bachelor degree in the School of Civil Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain).

All the 2019/2020 course syllabi were analyzed to diagnose at which extent each subject within the program curriculum contributes to achieving the different SDGs.

The results show a promising starting point as 75% of the courses address or have potential to address targets covering the 2030 Agenda. This paper also presents actions launched by the School of Civil Engineering to boost the SDGs into the civil engineering curriculum.

This paper presents a rigorous and systematic method that can be carried out in different bachelor degrees to find the subjects that have the potential to incorporate the SDGs into their program. This paper also presents actions launched by the Civil Engineering School to boost the SDGs into the civil engineering curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the comprehension of the importance of “Accessible Tourism” for the specialized travel agencies by proposing suggestions and key factors to improve the supply of accessible tourism offers.

The paper adopts specialized travel agencies on the accessible tourism perspective of disabled tourist flows. Also, this paper describes the circumstances, social, politic, economic consequences and key decisions that thereby Turkey would be recognized, preferring, establishing on the intention of purchased and suggested positive word of mouth among people.

According to European Commission (EU) (2013) more than half of the individuals with disabilities in the EU made approximately 170 million day trips and a similar number of overnight trips within the EU during the 12 months between mid-2012 and mid-2013. Despite the developments in tourism, lack of product/service appropriate to the travel rights of the individuals with accessibility needs is one of the obstacles should be overcome. Accessible tourism is one of the keys for the survival of the specialized travel agencies in the future. Providing appropriate product/service by targeting the individuals with accessibility needs together with a correct approach and strategy, the specialized travel agencies will be able to have a competitive advantage and continue their activities. Also this market segment will create having sustainable activity and a golden opportunity for the specialized travel agencies in the future.

Little research has been done on accessible tourism, future development and on the impact that disabled tourists have on tourism. The paper presents suggestions on what the specialized travel agencies should do with regards to making Turkey be preferred in the future by the individuals having accessibility needs.

Environmental issues have become an important concern in modern supply chain management. The structure of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) networks, which considers both forward and reverse logistics, can greatly improve the utilization of materials and enhance the performance of the supply chain in coping with environmental impacts and cost control.

A biobjective mixed-integer programming model is developed to achieve the balance between environmental impact control and operational cost reduction. Various factors regarding the capacity level and the environmental level of facilities are incorporated in this study. The scenario-based method and the Epsilon method are employed to solve the stochastic programming model under uncertain demand.

The proposed stochastic mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is an effective way of formulating and solving the CLSC network design problem. The reliability and precision of the Epsilon method are verified based on the numerical experiments. Conversion efficiency calculation can achieve the trade-off between cost control and CO₂ emissions. Managers should pay more attention to activities about facility operation. These nodes might be the main factors of costs and environmental impacts in the CLSC network. Both costs and CO₂ emissions are influenced by return rate especially costs. Managers should be discreet in coping with cost control for CO₂ emissions barely affected by return rate. It is advisable to convert the double target into a single target by the idea of “Efficiency of CO₂ Emissions Control Reduction.” It can provide managers with a way to double-target conversion.

We proposed a biobjective optimization problem in the CLSC network considering environmental impact control and operational cost reduction. The scenario-based method and the Epsilon method are employed to solve the mixed-integer programming model under uncertain demand.