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Little is known about the determinants of supply chain finance (SCF) adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. This study aims to address this relevant research gap and hence, draws on the resource-based view and transaction cost economies to empirically investigate five factors that make SCF adoption practicable among SMEs in Ghana.

The approach involves a sample of 257 SME managers/owners and modelling via structural equations modelling.

All five factors (innovative capability, information sharing, inter- and intra-firm collaboration, external financing and trade process digitization) were found to impact positively and significantly on SCF adoption. The findings provide SME managers/owners with a research model which guides them on how to settle the SCF process.

This paper used a cross-sectional survey, which makes it impossible to access changes over time. In addition, the use of quantitative method limits respondents from expressing their feelings fully. Using a mixed or qualitative methodology will provide avenues for future research.

This paper offers a completive advantage for Ghanaian SMEs to strengthen their relationships while collaborating with each other. The findings suggest that by adopting SCF solutions, SMEs can optimize their liquidity and working capital. The factors underpinning SCF adoption are of incredible attractiveness for SME managers/owners to discover the relevant practice of SCF solutions. SMEs should adopt SCF strategies for improving their capability to respond promptly to transactions.

This paper is among the few papers that have examined these five factors in a developing economy context. The study also provides new understanding of the factors that influence SCF adoption in the context of a developing economy.

Liquidity is a primary concern for businesses. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of the collaborative liquidity management within the supply chain. Larger firms prescribe favorable trade terms in the transactions and do not engage in value chain vision sharing with their smaller counterparts. Smaller firms encounter challenges with liquidity and often face the risk of bankruptcy. Such practice can threaten the entire supply chain. Instead, collaborative liquidity management can offer a win–win scenario to both parties. In that case, what are the benefits of implementing a collaborative liquidity management approach across the value chain, and what is the reward?

The authors selected key liquidity metrics that matter most to the organizations from a cohort of 307 firms from the Indian automobile industry for 10 years (2012–2021). The authors classified the businesses into five distinct revenue-based categories. They emphasized the importance of expanded supply chain finance adoption and demonstrated how collaborative liquidity management strategies boosted return on assets.

The research confirms the tangible benefits of greater adoption of supply chain finance in realizing supply chain members’ shared vision. The authors challenged the age-old practice of power-based relationships in the supply chain. They recommended a win–win scenario through practical cooperation and increased adoption of SCF by value chain members.

Existing research predominantly focuses on dyadic relationships and is restricted to Europe and China. According to the authors, no comprehensive investigation has been conducted in India. This application of simulation techniques to improve the liquidity performance of companies in developing economies is innovative.

With big data (BD), traditional supply chain is shifting to digital supply chain. This study aims to address the issues and challenges in the way toward the implementation of big data analytics (BDA) in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).

The factors that affect the implementation of BDA in SSCM are identified through a widespread literature review. The PESTEL framework is used for this purpose as it covers all the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. These factors are then finalized by means of experts' opinion and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

A total of 10 factors are finalized with 31 sub-factors, of which sustainable performance, competitive advantage, stakeholders' involvement and capabilities, lean and green practices and improvement in environmental performance are found to be the critical factors for the implementation of BDA in SSCM.

This research has taken up the case of Indian manufacturing industry. It can be diversified to other geographical areas and industry sectors. Further, the quantitative analysis may be undertaken with structured or semi-structured interviews for validation of the proposed model.

This research provides an insight to managers regarding the implementation of BDA in SSCM by identifying and examining the influencing factors. The results may be useful for managers for the implementation of BDA and budget allocation for BDA project.

The result includes green practices and environmental performance as critical factors for the implementation of BDA in SSCM. Thus the research establishes a positive relationship between BDA and sustainable manufacturing that ultimately benefits the environment and society.

This research addresses the challenges in the implementation of BDA in SSCM in Indian manufacturing sector, where such application is at its nascent stage. The use of PESTEL framework for identifying and categorizing the factors makes the study more worthwhile, as it covers full spectrum of the various factors that affect the strategic business decisions.

Different external supply scenarios faced by the retailers will affect their choice of strategy when supply is disrupted and becomes far less than demand, urgently. This study focuses on analyzing both demand and supply side response strategies to meet customer demand and reduce the impact of the shortage during supply disruptions.

According to the quantity of products that the external market can provide, the external supply scenarios were divided into sufficient-type external supply and learning-type external supply. A two-echelon perishable goods supply chain was analyzed, and three kinds of contingency strategy models for downstream retailers were investigated. First, in the sufficient external supply scenario, the optimal price and transshipment quantity to maximize retailer's profits is discussed. Second, in the scenario of learning-type external supply, this study analyzes the optimal decision in three mechanisms of the hybrid strategy and their application: price priority mechanism, quantity priority mechanism and price–quantity balance mechanism. Furthermore, the influence of penalty cost and supply on the priority orders of different mechanisms was studied.

Results show that comparing the two pure strategies (pricing strategy and transshipment strategy)it was noted that the hybrid strategy produces the best results in sufficient-type external supply scenario. In the learning-type external supply scenario, a numerical study has shown the existence of three areas in case of penalty cost and supplier's capacity, and each areas has different priority orders of the three mechanisms. Under the situation of learning external supply, the retailer's optimal strategy is affected by parameters such as penalty cost and supply volume.

The main innovation of the work lies in the following: First; the external supply situation was divided into sufficiency type and learning type, which improves the external situation faced by retailers after the outbreak of emergencies, helps retailers understand the external situation, conforms to the actual situation and has certain practical application value. Second; in the context of learning external supply, there are three coping strategies for retailers, including: Price priority mechanism, Quantity priority mechanism and Pricing and transshipment balance mechanism. This will help retailers make strategic choices, make more scientific management decisions and improve the supply chain emergency management theory. Third; the demand side response was managed through the change of external supply during supply side recovery period and supply disruption. The proposed model enables managing and analyzing supply disruption efficiently and effectively via handling uncertainty by considering all aspects of decision-making process. The proposed model can be applied in various fields such as vegetable and fruit, fresh food, etc.

This paper aims to examine the level of economic efficiency and factors that influence economic efficiency among seed potato producers in South-western Uganda.

The paper analyses the economic efficiency of 499 informal and 137 formal seed producers using primary data collected through a structured questionnaire. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the study sites and specific farmers. A one-step estimation procedure of normalized translog cost frontier and inefficiency model was employed to determine the level of economic efficiency and the influencing factors.

The results showed that mean economic efficiencies were 91.7 and 95.2% for informal and formal seed potato producers, respectively. Furthermore, results show significant differences between formal and informal seed potato producers in economic efficiency at a one percent level. Market information access, credit access, producers' capacity and experience increase the efficiency of informal while number of potato varieties, market information access and producers' experience increase economic efficiency for formal counterparts.

Most seed potato producers, especially the informal ones do not keep comprehensive records of their production and marketing activities. This required more probing as answers depended on memory recall.

Future research could explore panel data approach involving more cropping seasons with time variant economic efficiency and individual unobservable characteristics that may influence farmers' efficiency to validate the current findings.

The paper shows that there is more potential for seed potato producers to increase their economic efficiency given the available technology. This has a direct implication on the economy through increased investment in the production and promotion of high yielding seed potato varieties to meet the growing national demand for potatoes.

The paper bridges the gap in literature on economic efficiency among seed potato producers, specifically in applying the normalized translog cost frontier approach in estimating economic efficiency in the context of potato sub-sector in Uganda.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2021-0641

Sharia-compliant financial technologies (Islamic fintech) are becoming increasingly popular among Muslims and non-Muslims. As the Islamic fintech landscape continues to grow and transform, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence the acceptance or adoption of Islamic fintech services from the past literature. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate and compile factors that could influence a user to adopt Islamic fintech.

The current study adopted the systematic literature review approach using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses technique to examine research on Islamic fintech adoption. A set of inclusion criteria was applied to filter out irrelevant documents and ensure the selection of only the most relevant ones. The criteria were limited to quantitative journals published in English between 2012 and 2022, as identified in Scopus outlets.

Despite the existence of various theoretical frameworks, the technology acceptance model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 frameworks have gained prominence as the most frequently applied frameworks in examining Islamic fintech adoption. In addition, trust is the most important self-developed construct for the adoption of Islamic Fintech.

The current study does not segregate the intention, actual usage and retention, as the author is interested in understanding the overall adoption of Islamic fintech services. To obtain more specific analysis results, future research could potentially separate the three types of adoption exposure, i.e., consumer acceptance, intention and retention. Next, future studies can also expand their analysis and gain a better understanding of the research topic by exploring alternative data sources such as Web of Science, ERA or JSTOR.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing the first systematic literature review of factors influencing fintech adoption from an Islamic perspective.