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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that are equipped with numerous features and functionalities help to improve the profitability of construction corporations around the world through enhancing the efficiency of the functions related to cost management. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the applicability of ERP systems for cost management of building construction projects in Sri Lanka.

A qualitative technique was used in this study, which comprised two-round Delphi-based semistructured interviews. Purposive sampling was used to determine the interviewees. Content analysis was used to evaluate the collected data.

The findings of this study identified the ERP system as a strategic tool for gaining a competitive advantage for an organization while confirming 14 uses of ERP systems and 16 stages of the cost management process. Eighteen issues were finalized at the end of the interview rounds while categorizing the suitable ERP applications at each stage of the cost management process.

Even though there are numerous distinct studies conducted on cost management and ERP systems, there has been a lack of studies conducted on the synergy between these two areas that can be adapted for the building projects in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, the findings of this study can bring a new paradigm to the Sri Lankan construction sector by influencing the adaption of correct ERP systems at numerous project stages by providing a competitive edge.

Effective inventory management is crucial for SMEs due to limited resources and higher risks like cash flow, storage space, and stockouts. Hence, the aim is to explore how technology and know-how can be integrated with inventory practices and impact operational performance.

The basis of the analysis was collecting papers from a wide range of databases, which included Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. In the first phase of the process, a search string with as many as nine related keywords was used to obtain 175 papers. It further filtered them based on their titles and abstracts to retain 95 papers that were included for thorough analysis.

The study introduced innovative methods of measuring inventory practices by exploring the impact of know-how. It is the first of its kind to identify and demonstrate how technical, technological, and behavioral know-how can influence inventory management practices and ultimately impact the performance of emerging SMEs. This study stands out for its comprehensive approach, which covers traditional and modern inventory management technologies in a single study.

The study provides valuable insights into the interplay between technical, technological, and behavioral know-how in inventory management practices and their effects on the performance of emerging SMEs in Industry 5.0 in the light of RBV theory.

The RBV theory and the Industry 5.0 paradigm are used in this study to explore how developing SMEs' inventory management practices influence their performance. This study investigates the effects of traditional and modern inventory management systems on business performance. Incorporating RBV theory with the Industry 5.0 framework investigates firm-specific resources and technological advances in the current industrial revolution. This unique technique advances the literature on inventory management and has industry implications.

This study evaluated the use of Internet-mediated platforms for food supply chain among Ukrainian farmers due to the war.

The study was an online survey involving 325 Ukrainian farmers. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire.

The result of the study revealed the main effect of Internet-powered media such as social media, mobile applications and dedicated websites on food supply, F(1,308) 5.745, p = 0.004, p2 = 0.036. The result also revealed the interacting effect of supply intention (p = 0.001) and destination of supply (p = 0.001). Further analysis revealed that farmers with profit and charity intentions are likely to use dedicated websites, while those with trade-by-batter intentions are likely to use mobile applications. Also, the supply destination significantly interacted with the use of Internet-powered technologies (p = 0.001). A breakdown of the result showed that supply destinations in Ukraine are likely to be coordinated through dedicated websites, while those for neighbouring countries are likely to be coordinated through social media. Finally, variables from the unified theory of technology acceptance and use of technology, such as effort expectancy (ß = 0.412), performance expectancy (ß = 0.655) and social influence (ß = 0.182), collectively and individually predict the use of Internet-powered communication technologies for food supply among Ukrainian farmers, F(3,308)16.801, p = 0.001, R2 = 0.142.

This study explains how Internet-based media have contributed to the sustenance of agribusiness and food supply chain in challenging times like war.

Information from this study could be useful in understanding the contributing role of digital media in agribusiness and food supply during uncertainties.

Due to the importance of quality to customers, this study considers criteria of quality and profit and optimizes both in a multi-echelon cold chain of perishable agricultural products whose quality immediately begins to deteriorate after harvest. The two objectives of the proposed cold chain are to maximize profit and quality. Since postharvest quality loss in the supply chain depends on various decisions and factors, in addition to strategic decisions, the authors consider the temperature setting in refrigerated facilities and transportation vehicles due to the unfixed shelf life of the products which is related to the temperature found by Arrhenius formula.

The authors use bi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming to design a four-echelon supply chain. The authors integrate the supply chain echelons to detect the sources and factors of quality loss. The four echelons include supply, processing, storage and customer. The decisions, including facility location, assigning nodes of each echelon to corresponding nodes from the adjacent echelon, allocation of vehicles to transport the products from farms to wholesalers, processing selection, and temperature setting in refrigerated facilities, are made in an integrated way. Model verification and validation in the case study are done based on three perishable herbal plants.

The model obtains a 29% profit against a total cost of 71 and 93% of original quality of the crops is maintained, indicating a 7% quality loss. The final quality of 93% is the result of making a US$6m investment in the supply chain, including the procurement of high-quality raw materials; facility establishment; high-speed, high-capacity vehicles; location assignment; processing selection and refrigeration equipment in the storage and transportation systems, helping to maximize both the final quality of the products and the total profit.

The proposed supply chain model should help managers with modeling decisions, especially when it comes to cold chains for agricultural products. The model yields these results – optimal location-allocation decisions for the facilities to minimize distances between the network nodes, which save time and maintain the majority of the products’ original quality; choosing the most appropriate processing method, which reduces the perishability rate; providing high-capacity, high-speed vehicles in the logistics system, which minimizes transportation costs and maximizes the quality; and setting the right temperature in the refrigerated facilities, which mitigates the postharvest decay reaction rate of the products.

Comparison of the results of the present research with those of the traditional chain (obtained through experts) shows that since the designed chain increases the profit as well as the final quality, it has benefits for the main chain stakeholders, which are customers of agricultural products. This study model is expected to have a positive impact on the environment by placing strong emphasis on quality and preventing excessive waste generation and air pollution by imposing a financial penalty on extra demand production.

Since profit and quality of the final product are two important factors in all cultures and communities, the proposed supply chain model can be used in any food industry around the world. Applying the proposed model induces growth in local industries and promotes the culture of prioritizing quality in societies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research on a bi-objective four-echelon (supply, processing, storage and customer) postharvest supply chain for agricultural products including that integrates transportation logistics and considers the deterioration rate of products as a time-dependent variable at different levels of decision-making.

The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.

The aim of this study is to systematise the entrepreneurial coaching (EC) literature by understanding how the phenomenon has been investigated along four dimensions inspired by Gartner’s (1985) conceptualisation of entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial process, context, target and outcomes. In so doing, this study will provide a frame of its multifunctional role and identify relevant gaps and suggestions for future research.

We conducted a systematic literature review to collect existing works on EC. We analysed 85 selected papers with a qualitative content analysis that allowed us to highlight relevant research themes for the entrepreneurial process, context, outcomes and target.

Our results demonstrate that EC has a multifunctional role in entrepreneurship that can be summarised in five different typologies, depending on the stage of the entrepreneurial process in which it is applied, the context, the target and the outcomes.

As one of the first attempts to systematise studies on EC, this work extends previous conceptualisation of EC by detailing different typologies of this intervention, thereby contributing to reduced fragmentation and conceptual ambiguity.

The purpose of the paper is to present research trends in the food supply chain in the context of changes in food systems due to globalization, urbanization, environmental concerns, technological changes and changes in food consumption patterns in the world.

The present investigation was performed by bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer software, visualization software developed by Nees and Waltman (2020). In this work we performed co-citation, bibliographic coupling and keyword evolution analyses.

The results show that research in the food supply chain is rapidly changing and growing. By applying co-citation analysis, The authors found that the intellectual structure of the food supply chain has evolved around six clusters, namely, (a) collaboration and integration in the supply chain (b) sustainable supply chain management, (c) food supply chain management (FSCM), (d) models for decision-making in the food supply chain, (e) risk management in the supply chain and (g) quality and food logistics in the supply chain. However, based on bibliographic coupling analysis, The authors find that new or emerging research niches are moving toward food supply market access, innovation and technology, food waste management and halal FSCM. Nevertheless, the authors found that the existing research in each of the thematic clusters is not exhaustive.

The limitation of the research is that the analysis mainly relates only to the bibliometric approach and only one database, namely, Scopus. Broader inclusion of databases and deeper application of content analysis could expand the results of this research.

There are limited studies that have examined research trends in food supply chains in both developed and developing countries using bibliometric analysis. The present investigation is novel in identifying the thematic research clusters in the food supply chain, emerging issues and likely future research directions. This is important given the dynamics, consumer demand for quality food, technological changes and environmental sustainability issues in food systems.

This study aims to focus on the supply chain (SC) cost drivers of healthcare industries in the USA, as SC costs have increased 40% over the last decade. The second-most significant expense, the SC, accounts for 38% of total expenses in a typical hospital, while most other industries can operate within 10% of their operating cost. This makes healthcare centers supply-chain-sensitive organizations with limited facilities for high-quality healthcare services. As the cost drivers of healthcare SC are almost unknown to managers, their jobs become more complex.

Guided by pragmatism and positivism paradigms, a cross-sectional study has been designed using quantitative and deductive approaches. Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data were collected from health centers across the country, and secondary data were from healthcare-related databases. This study examined the attributes that explain the most significant variation in each contributing factor. With multiple regression analysis for predicting cost and Student's t-tests for the significance of contributing factors, the authors of this study examined different theories, including the market-based view and five-forces, network and transaction cost analysis.

This study revealed that supply, materials and services represent the most significant expenses in primary care. Supply-chain cost breakdown results in four critical factors: facility, inventory, information and transportation.

This study examined the data from primary and secondary care institutions. Tertiary and quaternary care systems were not included. Although tertiary and quaternary care systems represent a small portion of the healthcare system, future research should address the supply chain costs of highly specialized organizations.

This study suggests methods that can help to improve supply chain operations in healthcare organizations worldwide.

This study presents an empirically proven methodology for testing the statistical significance of the primary factors contributing to healthcare supply chain costs. The results of this study may lead to positive policy changes to improve healthcare organizations' efficiency and increase access to high-quality healthcare.