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The purpose of this study is to examine the corporate governance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a systematic literature review.

The review was conducted by analyzing 19 published studies in the field, leading to the identification of 14 journals and 40 authors. The relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and various aspects of SMEs’ performance was analyzed. The characteristics of corporate governance were classified into five categories: board, ownership, CEO, audit and age.

The review found a direct relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and various aspects of SMEs’ performance, including innovation, internationalization, auditing and risk of failure. The study also highlights the need for future research to adopt a behavioral perspective, to shift focus from identifying responsibilities to examining governance processes and to use nonlinear models and qualitative methods to effectively analyze the interrelated nature of the phenomena under study.

The limitations of the review include the limited number of studies available for analysis, as well as the fact that most of the empirical research was based on evidence from European countries, with only a few papers focusing on other countries, such as the USA, China and Ghana.

The results of this review provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in the field of corporate governance in SMEs. The findings provide a foundational basis for further research in the area and highlight the need for future studies to adopt a behavioral perspective and use nonlinear models and qualitative methods.

This study aims to provide a precise understanding of how corporate sustainability information is used in socially responsible investing (SRI). The study is motivated by the lack of a recognised body of knowledge on this issue. This study, therefore, collates and reviews relevant studies (67 studies) to provide guidance to investors interested in SRI and identify a research agenda for academics desiring to contribute to this area.

This study conducts a systemic literature review employing recognised key words and searching the Web of Science. HistCite is utilised to ensure important cited studies are not missed from the collection. The review was conducted from two perspectives: (1) sources of sustainability information and (2) how the information is used in SRI.

The review identifies five major sources of sustainability information, including corporate reports, ESG ratings, industry affiliation, news and private communication with firms. These sources of information play different roles in the cross section of SRI strategies (i.e. negative and positive screening, active ownership and integration). This study provides guidance on how to use this information in SRI and provides recommendations for future research on how analysts interact with the information, how different informational characteristics impact implementation, ways to improve data quality, improvements to analysis methods and where data use needs to be extended into new strategies.

This review contributes to the SRI literature by inventorying studies of an important, yet omitted aspect, namely, sustainability information. This work also enriches the literature on corporate sustainability information by investigating how this information can be used for a specific purpose, namely, SRI. Given the increasing interest in SRI, this review will provide much-needed guidance for a range of practitioners, including investors and regulators.

The globalisation of supply chains has contributed to modern slavery by degrading labour standards and work practices. The inherent difficulties involved in monitoring extremely fragmented production processes also render workers in and from developing countries vulnerable to labour exploitation. This research adopts a benchmark methodology that will help examine the inherent modern slavery challenges.

This study examines how the benchmark model, including governance, risk assessment, purchasing practice, recruitment and remedy of victims, addresses supply chain modern slavery challenges. The proposed hypotheses are tested based on the reoccurring issues of modern slavery in global supply chains.

Estimations suggest that modern slavery is a growing and increasingly prominent international problem, indicating that it is the second largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise worldwide except for narcotics trafficking. These social issues in global supply chains have drawn attention to the importance of verifying, monitoring and mapping supply chains, especially in lengthy and complex supply chains. However, the advent of digital technologies and benchmarking methodologies has become one of the existing key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the effectiveness of modern slavery initiatives in supply chains.

This review provides an understanding of the current situation of global supply chains concerning the growing social issue of modern slavery. However, this includes various individual specialities relating to global supply chains, modern slavery, socially sustainable supply chain management (SCM), logistic social responsibility, corporate social responsibility and digitalisation. Furthermore, the review provided important implications for researchers examining the activities on benchmarking the effectiveness of the existing initiatives to prevent modern slavery in the supply chains.

This research offered a systematic and comprehensive literature review in analysing current studies on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) strategies and settings to determine various emphasised workplace ecological behaviour areas and contribute a precise mapping for future research.

This systematic literature review method involved 106 peer-reviewed articles published in reputable academic journals (between 2000 and the first quarter of 2021). This study was confined to a review of empirical papers derived from digital databases encompassing the terms ‘Employee green behaviour’, ‘Green behaviour at workplace’, ‘Employee ecological behaviour’, ‘Employee Pro-environmental behaviour’ and ‘Pro-environmental behaviour at workplace’ in the titles.

This study identified relevant journal articles (classified as EEB at work) from the current body of knowledge. Notably, much emphasis was identified on EEB over the past two decades. Overall, most studies employing quantitative approaches in both developed and emerging nations. Notably, ecological behaviour application garnered the most significant attention from scholars among the four focus areas in the literature review: (i) EEB concepts, models, or reviews, (ii) EEB application, (iii) EEB determinants and (iv) EEB outcomes.

Significant literature gaps indicate this field to be a relatively novel phenomenon. Thus, rigorous research on the topic proves necessary to develop a holistic understanding of the subject area.

This study expands the current body of knowledge by providing the first comprehensive systematic review on EEB themes, methods, applications, determinants, contextual focus, outcomes and recommending future research agenda.

The literature has suggested that capabilities have been used to generate performance and competitive advantage, especially in industries with higher technological dynamism in developed economies. However, knowledge of the topic still needs to be systematically analyzed in agribusiness. Thus, this article fills this gap because it systematically reviews the literature on agribusiness capabilities and performance, classifies and codifies its characteristics, and determines what is known and what gaps there are in the knowledge regarding these subjects.

A systematic literature review of agribusiness capabilities and performance was conducted based on Cronin et al. (2008) protocol. Thirty-six articles from the WoS and Scopus databases were identified and analyzed.

This article identified, classified and coded 12 capabilities agribusiness firms employ to improve performance. This article reveals several gaps regarding capabilities and performance in agribusiness, especially emphasizing commodity products, in addition to studies with fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, meat, agricultural inputs and biofuels. It was also found that higher-order capabilities are more strongly related to performance than lower-order capabilities, that the performance benefits conferred by capabilities are more evident in developing economies, and that the relationship between capabilities and performance is more robust in agribusinesses with lower levels of technological dynamism.

This paper contributes to the debate about agribusiness capabilities and performance in three aspects. First, it systematically reviews the literature on these subjects; second, it classifies and codifies agribusiness capabilities and performance characteristics; third, it provides a research agenda on the theme.

This paper explores sustainability within supply chain management and its link towards resilience through the lens of ethics. The wicked problem of sustainability impacts supply chains and society at large, and the ability of supply chains to remain viable in the future is based on the sustainability of business practices. The paper argues that a substantive proportion of sustainability mechanisms (such as the Triple Bottom Line approach and codes of conducts) can be viewed within the ethical paradigm of deontology, whereby the morality of an action is based on adherence to rules. However, there are numerous critiques of such approaches and their success in creating more sustainable practices. Therefore, the paper proposes there is a need for systems thinking approaches to be incorporated into the exploration of the link between ethics, sustainability and supply chain resilience. Using two examples of social sustainability issues in Australia – modern slavery legislation and horticultural ¹ worker exploitation – the paper demonstrates the utility of various systems thinking methodologies to explore the complexity of these issues. The paper sets out a conceptual call to arms for researchers and practitioners to apply a holistic lens towards how the morality of actions is shaped and influences supply chain sustainability practices.

This research aims to systematically review studies on significant risks for Critical Infrastructure Projects (CIPs) from selected top-tier academic journals from 2011 to 2023.

In this research, a three-step systematic literature review methodology was employed to analyse 55 selected articles on Critical Infrastructure Risks (CIRs) from well-regarded and relevant academic journals published from 2011 to 2023.

The findings highlight a growing research focus on CIRs from 2011 to 2023. A total of 128 risks were identified and grouped into ten distinct categories: construction, cultural, environmental, financial, legal, management, market, political, safety and technical risks. In addition, literature reviews combined with questionnaire surveys were more frequently used to identify CIRs than any other method. Moreover, oil and gas projects were the subjects most often explored in the reviewed papers. Furthermore, it was observed that publications from Iran, the USA and China dominated CIRs research, making significant contributions, accounting for 49.65% of the analysed articles.

This research specifically focuses on five types of CIPs (i.e. roadways, bridges, water supply systems, dams and oil and gas projects). Other CIPs like cyber-physical systems or electric power systems, were not considered in this research.

Governments and contracting firms can benefit from the findings of this study by understanding the significant risks associated with the execution of CIPs, irrespective of the nation, industry or type of project. The results of this investigation can offer construction professionals valuable insights to formulate and implement risk response plans in the early stages of a project.

As a novel literature review related to CIRs, it lays the groundwork for future research and deepens the understanding of the multi-faceted effects of these risks, as well as sets practical response strategies.

The impact of COVID-19 on the lives of people and businesses across the globe was devastating. While governments across the world had undertaken a slew of measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus within their geography, many of these measures had long and unintended consequences. The restrictions imposed by the governments on the movement of people and goods across the world brought supply chains to a grinding halt. This study identifies the cascading effects of supply chain disruptions (SCDs) on the energy sector and thereby on the security of supply of energy from a European Union perspective. Since these systems are closely integrated and the impact of COVID-19 needs to be analysed at a much broader level, this study uses a systems-thinking approach to study the effect of SCDs on energy services. The study develops a causal loop model to gain further insight into how SCDs caused by COVID-19 affected the coping capabilities of society and how critical services were affected. Furthermore, the study puts forth certain policy recommendations for both businesses and governments to prepare for and protect against a similar situation in the future.

This paper provides a systematic review of literature pertaining to the welfare impact of financial inclusion. We identify the 50 most influential publications in the field that have evolved into three distinct categories, each of which we critically review to identify the main contributions of this research area.

By conducting a state-of-the-art literature review, this paper identifies the most influential papers in the research fields on the welfare impact of financial inclusion. One caveat is that as newer publications generally have fewer citations, reviewing prior work can result in a misleading account of emerging trends and research directions. Manual assessment of publications after 2018 facilitates a discussion of important emerging research trends and their directions.

The three key research streams are identified as financial services and financial accessibility, financial capability, and financial literacy and household welfare. By assessing publications from 2018 to 2023, we also document four key emerging research trends: Fintech and digital financial inclusion, sustainability and climate change, growth, poverty, income inequality, financial stability, and Entrepreneurship. Drawing on these emerging trends, we highlight the opportunities for future research.

Keyword searches have limitations as some papers might be overlooked if they do not match the specific search criteria, despite their relation and significance to the overall topic of the welfare impact of financial inclusion. To address this issue, we have expanded this review by incorporating more literature from other databases, such as the Scopus database which may alleviate this issue.

The three key research streams contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the welfare impact of financial inclusion. The emerging trends integrate existing knowledge and leave the chance for innovative research to expand the research frontier.

This paper fulfils the systematic literature review streams in the welfare impact of financial inclusion and provides fruitful opportunities for future research.

This study aims to extend and explore patterns and trends of research in the linkage of big data and knowledge management (KM) by identifying growth in terms of numbers of papers and current and emerging themes and to propose areas of future research.

The study was conducted by systematically extracting, analysing and synthesizing the literature related to linkage between big data and KM published in top-tier journals in Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus databases by exploiting bibliometric techniques along with theory, context, characteristics, methodology (TCCM) analysis.

The study unfolds four major themes of linkage between big data and KM research, namely (1) conceptual understanding of big data as an enabler for KM, (2) big data–based models and frameworks for KM, (3) big data as a predictor variable in KM context and (4) big data applications and capabilities. It also highlights TCCM of big data and KM research through which it integrates a few previously reported themes and suggests some new themes.

This study extends advances in the previous reviews by adding a new time line, identifying new themes and helping in the understanding of complex and emerging field of linkage between big data and KM. The study outlines a holistic view of the research area and suggests future directions for flourishing in this research area.

This study highlights the role of big data in KM context resulting in enhancement of organizational performance and efficiency. A summary of existing literature and future avenues in this direction will help, guide and motivate managers to think beyond traditional data and incorporate big data into organizational knowledge infrastructure in order to get competitive advantage.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first study to go deeper into understanding of big data and KM research using bibliometric and TCCM analysis and thus adds a new theoretical perspective to existing literature.