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Due to the different institutional pressure such as those from market, regulations and competitors, companies have implemented green supply chain management (GSCM). Unfortunately, tens of GSCM practices exist. Whether all companies should implement GSCM and how to achieve both environmental and economic performance are still not clear for many companies. The purpose of this paper is to develop models that can be helpful for companies to identify right GSCM practices and implement GSCM effectively and efficiently.

Based on about 18 years of study on GSCM with four surveys in China in 2001, 2005, 2012 and 2016, as well as numerous site visits and interviews mainly in China but also in Japan, Germany and Canada, this paper explores institutional drivers as well as opportunities and challenges using theoretical analysis and case studies. GSCM is defined considering a product life cycle. A key three-step GSCM approach is theoretically developed considering opportunities and challenges through life cycle analysis (LCA) of a product and position of a company.

All companies should implement GSCM practices to avoid risks. To effectively implement GSCM practices, a company should understand the life cycle of its product and its position in the supply chain. A key three-step LCA-based approach can help companies to identify the critical GSCM practices.

A key three-step LCA-based approach for GSCM implementation is originally developed based on theoretical analysis and eight years of study.

This paper proposes a theory-based process model for the generation, articulation, sharing and application of managerial heuristics, from their origin as unspoken insight, to proverbialization, to formal or informal sharing, and to their adoption as optional guidelines or policy.

A conceptual paper is built using systematic and non-systematic review of literature. This paper employs a three-step approach to propose a process model for the emergence of managerial heuristics. Step one uses a systematic review of empirical studies on heuristics in order to map extant research on four key criteria and to obtain, by flicking through this sample in a moving-pictures style, the static stages of the process; step two adapts a knowledge management framework to yield the dynamic aspect; step three assembles these findings into a graphical process model and uses insights from literature to enrich its description and to synthesize four propositions.

The paper provides insights into how heuristics originate from experienced managers confronted with negative situations and are firstly expressed as an inequality with a threshold. Further articulation is done by proverbialization, refining and adapting. Sharing is done either in an informal way, through socialization, or in a formal way, through regular meetings. Soft adoption as guidelines is based on expert authority, while hard adoption as policy is based on hierarchical authority or on collective authority.

The findings are theory-based, and the model must be empirically refined.

Practical advice for managers on how to develop and share their portfolio of heuristics makes this paper valuable for practitioners.

This study addresses the less-researched aspect of heuristics creation, transforms static insights from literature into a dynamic process model, and, in a blended-theory approach, considers insights from a distant, but relevant literature – paremiology (the science of proverbs).

The purpose of this paper is to apply social theory to the creation of a mass-media communications intervention designed to encourage earthquake-resistant construction in Nepal.

A three-step process was employed in this study: first, a narrative literature review was completed regarding the motivation of protective action. Second, key informant elicitation interviews with 15 community members at five public schools who supported making their buildings earthquake-resistant informed the script for a documentary film. Finally, the film was reviewed with stakeholders, plus 16 community members associated with a school in need of seismic work. Sociograms were used to determine relative closeness of the study participants to the film role models.

Motivating factors identified in the literature synthesis were included in the film, which focussed on effective actions taken by role models, and avoided the use of fear-based appeals. Key informant interviews yielded role-modeling details for the film script, including triggers and obstacles faced by the community members, and outcomes of their actions. Sociogram outcomes guided film editing and increased relative screen time for those community members with whom the study participants felt greater closeness. A pretest-posttest cluster randomized trial (details reported elsewhere) showed greater gains in knowledge, perceived outcome effectiveness, and intended behaviors among intervention film viewers than control participants.

This three-step process yielded the information required by a practitioner to develop a theory-based, culturally appropriate mass-media intervention designed to motivate reduction of disaster risk.

This paper analyses emergency management in two regions of Italy – Emilia-Romagna and Veneto – in order (1) to understand whether they impact on the spread of local coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contagion and (2) evaluate which strategy works best.

A three-step method was developed consisting of (1) a regional incidence curve analysis; (2) a descriptive statistical analysis of the respective operational measures related to the COVID-19 curve stages; and (3) a dynamic Structural Equation Model.

The results show the effects of the models during the various stages of the local contagion, focussing both on the two individual regions and a comparison of the way they responded.

Three theoretical implications are highlighted: (1) Better results are not necessarily the outcome of increased expenditure; (2) The overall rigidity they both show does not work; (3) The decision to centralize was, to some extent, effective for both regions.

The article empirically tests the effectiveness of emergency management in tackling a single event. Instead of the widely-used normative approach, the authors adopted a descriptive one, which is not frequently discussed in the emergency management literature.

The development of a national model has led municipalities in the Netherlands to implement integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. To monitor how this approach is being implemented locally, an appropriate tool is required. This study presents a “Tool to monitor the local implementation of Integrated Care for Childhood Overweight and obesity” (TICCO).

A three-step study was conducted in order to adapt and refine a generic integrated care questionnaire into a tool that suits the specific characteristics and context of integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. The three consecutive steps comprised the following: a focus group session that assessed the relevance and comprehensiveness of the original integrated care instrument; a pilot questionnaire for end users that evaluated the feasibility of the preliminary tool and a pilot questionnaire that determined the feasibility and potential limitations of this adapted tool.

The adaptation process resulted in a 47-element digital tool for professionals actively involved in providing integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. The results highlighted differences pertaining to how individual respondents judged each of the elements. These variations were found across both municipalities and different domains of integrated care.

This article presents an adapted tool that seeks to both support local discussion in the interpretation of individual TICCO scores and identify potential areas for improvement in local integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity.

Using the theory, construct, method, moderator (TCMM) format, this framework-based review critically analyses the mobile financial services (MFSs) field through a detailed synthesis and analysis of a sample of mainstream empirical research published in various scientific journals within the period 2009–2020.

The authors followed a three-step structured approach suggested by Webster and Watson (2002) to search for the literature to synthesise the global perspectives on MFSs and their associated applications and systems. The literature research resulted in the identification of 115 most relevant articles.

The authors identified three major categories or domains within the MFSs comprising the entire spectrum of digital financial services. To facilitate the literature analysis, TCMM is developed and proposed as an organising framework. Moreover, the authors also developed and presented the comprehensive framework of MFS domains and explicitly identified 14 different research themes for future research in MFSs.

Prior attempts to synthesise and analyse mainstream academic research in MFSs have been scant and limited to a specific MFS domain: mobile banking or mobile payment. The authors synthesised a more extensive body of knowledge and provided a global perspective on the MFS field. Unlike the past literature reviews which followed traditional frameworks such as antecedents, decisions and outcome (ADO); TCCM; and 6 W Framework (who, when, where, how, what and why), the authors developed and proposed TCMM as organising framework.

Going beyond the usual approach of measuring port performance – focusing on the efficiency of port operations – this paper aims to look into shipping lines and other port users’ perceptions on port performance.

The paper develops a framework measuring the perceptions of port users (i.e. shipping companies, shippers, etc.) on port performance. A typology of elements that shape port users’ perceptions has been developed with an eye on capturing the peculiarities of different port markets. Based on this typology, a tool to assess users’ perspectives, and subsequently evaluate, any given port has been developed. The tool provides port authorities the flexibility they need for customized approaches. The developed evaluation mechanism has been tested on a group of European seaports, and the results are presented by this study.

The framework and its pilot application unveil the key parameters that port users take into consideration when evaluating the effectiveness component of port performance. Moreover, the importance and evaluation ratings of specific performance parameters allow for a GAP analysis of the collected data.

The paper advances scholarly and practical discussion on how of port users’ perceptions can be a valuable tool for port performance measurement.

The proposed tool can be a valuable add-on for port authorities to evaluate their performance from the port users’ point of view and take the necessary actions to improve it. Also, the tool can be used for the evaluation of a new process, infrastructure. The evaluation of port users’ perception of port performance can and must be part of a European ports observatory, as it is a set of indicators that clearly reflects the satisfaction of port users by engaging their view on port performance issues, instead of relying almost exclusively on port-generated data.

The paper develops a framework for measuring port user’s perception on port performance, which is flexible and can be applied in any port.

Shared understandings of curriculum reform within and between the levels of the educational system are suggested to be crucial for the reform to take root. The purpose of this paper is to explore variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact among state- and district-level stakeholders.

The participants (n=666) included state- and district-level stakeholders involved in a national curriculum reform in Finland. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify profiles based on participants’ perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence and the reform’s impact on school development.

Two profiles were identified: high coherence and impact, and lower consistency of the intended direction and impact. State-level stakeholders had higher odds of belonging to the high coherence and impact profile than their district-level counterparts.

The results imply that more attention needs to be paid in developing a shared and coherent understanding particularly of the intended direction of the core curriculum as well as the reform’s effects on school-level development among state- and district-level stakeholders.

The study contributes to the literature on curriculum reform by shedding light on the variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact of those responsible for a large-scale national curriculum reform process at different levels of the educational system.

The purpose of this paper is to propose how a bottom-up creation of an ambidextrous organization can be enabled. By integrating research on “contextual ambidexterity” and “individual and organizational capacity building”, an “innovation capacity building” framework is conceptualized that suggests how balance between exploration and exploitation can be maintained.

The study is conceptual. As no data are utilized, focus is on discussing the links between the two theoretical perspectives and the advantages of the proposed innovation capacity building framework.

The innovation capacity building framework discusses the influence, both positive and negative, of the local organizational context for ambidexterity, and the interactions required such as feedback between the management team and the employees so they together can build an ambidextrous working culture. A culture in which it is the individual employee that is responsible for switching between activities related to exploration and exploitation and where the management team empowers the employees to do so.

This study focuses on contextual ambidexterity and how contextual ambidexterity can be implemented as a way of working in contemporary organizations. The originality lies in the proposed framework and in the dedicated focus on “how” ambidexterity can be implemented in organizations.

Many important constructs of business and social sciences are conceptualized as composites of common factors, i.e. as second-order constructs composed of reflectively measured first-order constructs. Current approaches to model this type of second-order construct provide inconsistent estimates and lack a model test that helps assess the existence and/or usefulness of a second-order construct. The purpose of this paper is to present a novel three-stage approach to model, estimate, and test second-order constructs composed of reflectively measured first-order constructs.

The authors compare the efficacy of the proposed three-stage approach with that of the dominant extant approaches, i.e. the repeated indicator approach, the two-stage approach, and the hybrid approach by means of simulated data whose underlying population model is known. Moreover, the authors apply the three-stage approach to a real research setting in business research.

The study based on simulated data illustrates that the three-stage approach is Fisher-consistent, whereas the dominant extant approaches are not. The study based on real data shows that the three-stage approach is meaningfully applicable in typical research settings of business research. Its results can differ substantially from those of the extant approaches.

Analysts aiming at modeling composites of common factors should apply the proposed procedure in order to test the existence and/or usefulness of a second-order construct and to obtain consistent estimates.

The three-stage approach is the only consistent approach for modeling, estimating, and testing composite second-order constructs made up of reflectively measured first-order constructs.