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The purpose of this paper is to explore the internal interaction mechanism of marine scientific research and education, industrial structure upgrading and marine economic growth from a systematic perspective, based on which this work forecasts their future development trends.

In this study, a multivariate grey model is applied to the prediction of marine scientific research and education, industrial structure upgrading and marine economic growth. Considering the impact of the COVID-19 on marine development, this paper introduces the weakening buffer operator into MGM(1,m) and constructs the AWBO-MGM(1,m) model. To verify the validity and accuracy of the new model, this paper uses AWBO-MGM(1,m), MGM(1,m), GM(1,N), GM(1,1), back propagation neural network and linear regression models for simulation and prediction based on the data from 2010 to 2021, respectively.

From the theoretical perspective, the development of marine scientific research and education can accelerate industrial upgrading and promote marine economic growth by providing high-quality talents, promoting marine science and technology progress and reducing transaction costs; while the upgrading of marine industrial structure and marine economic growth can promote the development of marine scientific research and education by guiding social capital, enhancing talent demand and stimulating market vitality. From the empirical analysis, the AWBO-MGM(1,m) model can effectively deal with epidemic shocks and has higher fitting and prediction accuracy than the other five comparative models.

The government should pay attention to the construction of marine scientific research and education, so as to provide high-quality talents and advanced scientific research results for the high-quality development of marine economy. On the basis of using science and technology to firmly build the primary and secondary marine industries, the government should actively guide the labor, capital and other factors of production to the tertiary industry, thereby promoting the optimization and upgrading of marine industrial structure.

On the one hand, the interplay mechanism of marine scientific research and education, industrial structure upgrading and marine economic growth is analyzed from a systematic perspective; on the other hand, the enhanced AWBO-MGM(1,m) possesses higher forecasting performance and is applicable to the systemic multivariate forecasting problem in the presence of outstanding external shocks.

This study explores the role of international tour operators as the agents assuming the governance and the upgrading of the tourism global value chains (TGVCs), with a special focus on their influence on the development of technological capabilities (TCs) in the hotel industry.

The data used in this article originates from a survey carried out in 2016 on Spanish small and medium-sized hotel companies. An ordinal regression analysis is employed to test the hypotheses proposed in this research.

This study finds that tour operators exert a positive effect on the technological upgrading process in the hotel industry by stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to invest in TCs. The causal mechanisms through which these effects take place differ across the various stages of the relationship between hotel companies and tour operators.

The results have implications both for hotel management in terms of how hotels take advantage of technological upgrading to become more competitive, and for public administrations in terms of what measures can boost the development of hotel TCs in order to increase their added value.

To date, very few studies have analysed the tourism sector based on the influence on the development of TCs of SME hotels by combining GVC concepts and the resource-based view. It is also the first time that the causal mechanisms are shown to explain such influences.

In the last years the penetration of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems within small, medium and large organizations increased steadily. Organizations are forced to adapt their systems and perform ERP upgrades in order to react to rapidly changing business environments, technological enhancements and rising pressure of competition. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the critical success factors for such projects.

The paper is based on a literature review and qualitative interviews with CEOs, CIOs, ERP consultants and project managers who recently carried out ERP upgrade projects in their respective organizations.

This paper identifies 14 critical success factors for ERP upgrade projects. Amongst others, effective project management, external support, the composition of the ERP team and the usage of a multiple system landscape play a key role for the success of the ERP upgrade. Furthermore, a comparison to the critical success factors for ERP implementation projects was conducted, and even though there are many similarities between these types of projects, several differences emerged.

ERP upgrade projects have a huge impact on organizations, but their success and antecedents for it are currently under-researched.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the ‘real’ world and substantially impacted the virtual world and thus the Internet ecosystem. It has caused a significant exogenous shock that offers a wealth of natural experiments and produced new data about broadband, clouds, and the Internet in times of crisis. In this chapter, we characterise and evaluate the evolving impact of the global COVID-19 crisis on traffic patterns and loads and the impact of those on Internet performance from multiple perspectives. While we place a particular focus on deriving insights into how we can better respond to crises and better plan for the post-COVID-19 ‘new normal’, we analyse the impact on and the responses by different actors of the Internet ecosystem across different jurisdictions. With a focus on the USA and Europe, we examine the responses of both public and private actors, with the latter including content and cloud providers, content delivery networks, and Internet service providers (ISPs). This chapter makes two contributions: first, we derive lessons learned for a future post-COVID-19 world to inform non-networking spheres and policy-making; second, the insights gained assist the networking community in better planning for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intended and unintended consequences of compliance and auditing pressures in the Bangladeshi garment industry. To explore this issue the authors draw on three medium-sized suppliers. The institutional changes that followed the Rana Plaza accident in April 2013 make Bangladesh in general and the garment industry in particular an interesting and suitable research setting for standards compliance.

The study adopts a multiple case study approach. Face-to-face interviews have been conducted with the owners of three Bangladeshi garment manufacturing firms and several workers. Additionally, organisational documents and local newspaper articles had been collected wherever possible.

The results indicate that the pressure for compliance has led the case companies to prioritise the implementation of measurable standards over the socially grounded needs and priorities of workers. As a consequence certain initiatives instead of adding new social value in fact destroyed previously existing social value. Furthermore, the pressure for compliance created the necessity to find ways to cover the sizable cost of compliance. This prompted firms to pursue process upgrading through technological advancements and increased work pressures on the labour force. These initiatives led to an increased power imbalance and the exclusion of unskilled workers from the job market.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the human rights implications of compliance and auditing pressures and initiatives. Furthermore, in order to further enrich existing knowledge in the critical accounting literature, the study draws on insights from the global value chains (GVC) and international business (IB) literatures.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the human rights implications of compliance and auditing pressures and initiatives. Furthermore, in order to further enrich existing knowledge in the critical accounting literature, the study draws on insights from the GVC and IB literatures.

Changes in society, the economy and health require a response from higher education regarding the training of professionals, specifically, future teachers. In this sense, active methodologies constitute, in line with the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, a key strategic element in teacher training, given the need to educate for sustainability and social responsibility (SR). This study aims to examine innovative teaching-learning experiences based on the use of active methodologies and the interaction with sustainability and SR on the part of university students in Education.

The methodology constitutes a systematic review of the qualitative, inductive and exploratory literature, on the basis of the PRISMA declaration principles. The sample is composed of research published between 2011 and 2021 in the world’s most important scientific databases in the educational context (WoS, Scopus and Eric-ProQuest).

This study reveals the methodologies that are most commonly used in ecological literacy, their implications for the acquisition of competencies in terms of curriculum sustainability and their relationship with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and SR. Higher education must reflect and demonstrate awareness of its social mission and pedagogical effectiveness, to transform education, taking as a reference the sustainability and SR in the university student’s curriculum.

One of the main limitations of this study is the scarcity of research studies that include, jointly, the key descriptors analysed in this contribution such as teacher training, active methodologies, sustainability and SR. Another limitation to observe in this work is related to having considered as inclusion criteria solely research published in open access journals, since other research published in closed access journals is omitted.

This work demonstrates the usefulness of active methodologies in the training and professional development of future Education students in “sustainability”.

This paper aims to provide a contribution on the diffusion of Industry 4 (I4.0)-related knowledge in industrial districts (IDs). The main goal is to examine the dissemination of I4.0 knowledge, exploring the main mechanisms for its spreading and highlighting the main factors shaping such processes. Focus is on dissemination processes in IDs active in traditional industries, which could represent the “periphery” of I4.0 application context.

The methodology is qualitative. Notably, this paper presents a case study of the Pesaro ID specialized in furniture/woodworking machinery sector. A total of 18 in-depth one-to-one interviews have been conducted with relevant informants from a variety of organizations within the cluster: companies, institutions and universities.

The complexity of I4.0 requires a combination of traditional mechanisms with innovative ones within IDs characterized by the emergence of new players, activities and resources. These changes led to three main evolving patterns: the horizon of I4.0 upgrading shows blurred boundaries in terms of sectors and geographic location, the I4.0 diffusion appears fragmented in terms of initiatives and projects by both firms and institutions and the dissemination of I4.0 knowledge pushes ID firms and institutions to pursue deliberate initiatives leading to innovative forms of “collective” cooperation.

This paper contributes to both theory and practice. From the theoretical point of view, this paper contributes to the literature on innovation in IDs and clusters on two interrelated grounds. First, it provides further research on I4.0 and IDs and clusters. Second, it contributes to the stream of research on knowledge creation and diffusion in IDs and clusters, providing empirically based insights over emerging local learning processes in IDs. Moreover, relevant managerial and policy implications stem from the analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trends of global automobile industry toward energy saving and smart application. The automobile industry has its own special supply, safety and reliability system. It combined with the legislations that progressive safety driving leads to increase automobile electronic (AE) facilities and enlarges the proportion of the electronic control for vehicles. Based on matured communication and semiconductor industries in Taiwan, the government assists these hi-tech industries in entering the AE domain by clustering relevant enterprises with assembly supply chains. Flagship IC packaging and LCD panels enterprises are located in the Kaohsiung Industrial Park which possesses advantages for the clustering of AE industry.

In this paper, a systematic investigation on establishing AE industry cluster in Kaohsiung Industry Park (KIP) is presented. First, 42 electrical and electronics enterprises are site visited and interviewed for operation and management preferential demands. Second, problems encountered in enterprises’ operation are identified through expert weight method. Third, the main factors involved in the operational management are then analyzed based on five flagship enterprises in KIP. The integration of industrial–university–government resources and assistance is demonstrated. Finally, the establishment of an innovative talents cultivation model is illustrated.

The developed systematic talent program is proposed to resolve the urgent demands in recruiting talents, operational costs and new products development.

This paper satisfies needs of research enterprise management. The establishment of an innovative talents cultivation model is illustrated.

Three scenario-based experiments were conducted to explore the influence of the base option’s price format (just-at vs just-below) on tourists’ upgrade intention. The findings of this research indicated that tourists are more inclined to upgrade the option when the base option’s price is presented in a just-at condition due to the mediating role of tourists’ price perceptions of the upgrade option. This study discovered that the just-at (vs just-below) pricing strategy can lower tourists’ price perceptions of the upgrade choice. This research further explored the moderating of tourists’ mindsets. It was found the threshold-crossing effect will disappear for tourists with fixed mindsets. This study also provides practical implications for travel service providers to set up appropriate pricing strategies to attract tourists to make upgrade decisions.

Currently, China’s economy is in the critical phase of transforming economic development patterns and replacing old growth drivers with new ones. Whether it can successfully overcome the “middle-income trap” has become a significant issue attracting wide attention.

Driven by underlying digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data, the fourth industrial revolution featuring the booming digital economy has provided significant opportunities for China’s economy to “overtake” and overcome the “middle-income trap”. The transformation of economic development pattern, the optimization of industrial structure, and the change of growth drivers, brought by the deep integration of digital and real economies are the keys to leaping over the “middle-income trap”.

From the supply side, the digital economy can improve the quality and efficiency of the supply side and promote the supply-side structural reform and economic growth from the following three aspects: First, promote the quality, efficiency and diversification of the supply system; second, promote networking, opening-up and synergy in the innovation system and third, promote the socialization, modularization and flexibility of production pattern. From the demand side, the digital economy can boost the new drivers of the “troika” of economic growth consisting of consumption, exports and investment by changing the market investment direction, promoting consumption upgrade and fostering export strengths. However, once these two attributes interact with each other, especially when data is combined with capital, the most adhesive factor in the market economy, a series of new social relations will then be produced based on the technical attribute, resulting in significant adjustments in social relations, involving both positive and negative externalities.

To overcome the “middle-income trap”, it is necessary to adapt to the laws of economic evolution and promote a fundamental change in economic growth drivers; boost the high-quality development of the digital economy by strengthening the support role of data in the digital economy; and accelerate digital industrialization and industrial digitalization to realize the integration of digital and real economies.