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There is a strong consensus among scholars that the international competitiveness of companies strongly depends on the support of institutions, which reduces uncertainty in transactions by giving form to economic interactions, while less attention was paid to the role of international standards within this context. This study intends to propose its contribution by deepening the role of process certifications in the competitiveness and internationalization strategies of companies, with specific reference to the wood-furniture sector.

Data were collected using a questionnaire survey distributed via computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) methodology and sent to a sample of 2,845 Italian companies which operate in the wood-furniture industry, using simple random sampling. Thanks to the survey administration, 228 companies participated to the survey.

The study shows that it is companies operating in international markets that define this tool as relevant; this underlines how certification is seen as a kind of business card for entering international markets. In this context, the role of business leadership emerges as fundamental in the practical definition of the objectives to be set by adopting a quality management systems and in the subsequent commitment to obtain them.

Up to now, the literature has taken these elements into analysis mainly considering the consumers' perspective. In sectors with a higher content of innovation, technology and design, such as the wood-furniture sector, the literature appears to be poor in terms of contributions.

The objective of this study is to investigate the barriers hindering the integration of lean manufacturing (LM) practices within the furniture industry of Bangladesh. The traditional operational paradigms in this sector have posed substantial challenges to the effective implementation of LM. In this study, the barriers of implementing LM in the furniture business are examined, aiming to provide a systematic understanding of the barriers that must be addressed for a successful transition.

The research reveals that “Fragmented Industry Structure,” “Resistance to Lean Practices” and “Inadequate Plant Layout and Maintenance”, emerged as the foremost barriers to LM implementation in the furniture industry. Additionally, “Insufficient Expert Management,” “Limited Technical Resources” and “Lack of Capital Investment” play significant roles.

The outcomes of this study provide valuable insights into the furniture industry, enabling the development of strategies for effective LM implementation. One notable challenge in lean implementation is the tendency to revert to established practices when confronted with barriers. Therefore, this transition necessitates informed guidance and leadership. In addition to addressing these internal challenges, the scope of lean implementation should be broadened.

This study represents one of the initial efforts to systematically identify and assess the barriers to LM implementation within the furniture industry of Bangladesh, contributing to the emerging body of knowledge in this area.

This article aims to analyze the strategic work of Polish entrepreneurs in the furniture industry following the political changes in 1989. The authors examined how these entrepreneurs transitioned from local craftsmen or importers into leaders of international manufacturing companies and how their strategizing contributed to the unprecedented growth of the Polish furniture sector.

The authors examined extant data, specifically biographical interviews conducted with 11 prominent leaders in the Polish furniture industry (Hryniewicki, 2015, 2018). They analyzed within a theoretical framework that integrates J.C. Spender’s theory of strategic management with Barry Johnson’s concept of polarity management. Polarity is a way of understanding and managing interdependent, opposing pairs of values or perspectives that give rise to conflict.

The analysis reveals key patterns of strategic challenges at the level of human agency, history and sense-making. The authors identified four key polarities: life and business, knowledge presence and absence, concordance and discordance, and instrumental and non-instrumental sense-making.

The polarity concept illuminates the interplay of agency and determinism in strategic decision-making, offering valuable insights for methodology and a deeper understanding of Poland’s furniture industry.

This study aims to focus on assessing the status of agribusiness enterprises in Nigeria. The specific goals were to ascertain the level of performance of different categories of agribusiness enterprises, and determine the institutional and firm-level characteristics that influence agribusiness performance.

The study is based on secondary data. These data were sourced from the World Bank business enterprise survey. The World Bank Enterprise survey employed a purposive sampling technique to select major staple agribusiness categories in Nigeria. The categories selected were those included in the World Bank's categorization of agribusiness enterprises. These categories include tobacco, food, textiles, leather, garments, paper industries and wood. The individual firms included in the survey were randomly selected from the selected agribusiness categories. In total, 721 agribusiness firms were selected. Data were analyzed with multiple linear regression at a 5% probability level.

The result of the analysis showed that small-scale agribusiness enterprises have the best performance based on an average of the five performance indicators considered in this study. The determinants of agribusiness performance showed that the credit constraint, size of enterprise, bureaucracy and corruption negatively and significantly affected the performance of agribusiness enterprises in the country, while the gender and educational status of the top manager were positively significant.

The findings imply that small agribusinesses are instrumental in the development of the agribusiness sector and by extension the economy of the nation.

This study enhances the understanding of how best to deliver improved system-level performance policy and wealth creation, especially within the agribusiness subsector.

This study aims to present the results of a comparative study on the most key reasons for the failure of sustaining activities of operational improvement (OI) methodologies from the different types of manufacturing enterprises that located in Vietnam.

This study presents survey results from 30 local manufacturing enterprises and 21 foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises located in Vietnam – a developing country. The authors utilize a combination method to collect data, including online and direct survey. The targeted interviewees selected to answer the questionnaire are manufacturing managers and top managers working in productivity, quality, engineering and other departments in respective firms. The developed questionnaire is verified by five experts to ensure the validity and soundness.

The study uncover that 21 local enterprises (70%) have not issued standard forms for OI deployment and supervision, while 17 foreign enterprises (81%) have adopted a systematic management and clearly indicators for evaluation of OI outputs. In addition, the top three reasons for OI failure are differences between local and foreign enterprises. In term of OI methodologies, most of participated enterprises implemented Lean tools and principles while only 7.8% of the participated enterprises applied Six Sigma. Three vital findings are uncovered, including, first, 30% of local enterprises standardize and supervise forms of OI.

There is a limitation in sample size, with the number of participants of 51 enterprises. Among the participants, 27% of local enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while 60% of FDI enterprises from large-sized group. This was limited to making a generated conclusion in the comparison of failure factors between two types of enterprises. This partly affects the radical comparison of failure factors between local and FDI enterprises.

To the best of the authors' view, this is the first empirical study that compares the reasons for the failure for sustaining OI between local and foreign enterprises in a developing country. The result from this study will make contributions for further research in considering OI failure factors and then enhance effectiveness of OI methodologies in manufacturing companies.

Although the significance of technological progress in economic development is well-established in theory and policy, it has remained challenging to agree upon shared priorities for strategies and policies. This paper aims to develop a model of how policymakers can develop effective and easy to communicate strategies for science, technology and economic development.

By integrating insights from economic complexity, competitiveness and foresight literature, a replicable research framework for analysing the opportunities and challenges of technological revolutions for small catching-up countries is developed. The authors highlight key lessons from piloting this framework for informing the strategy and policies for bioeconomy in Estonia towards 2030–2050.

The integration of economic complexity research with traditional foresight methods establishes a solid analytical basis for a data-driven analysis of the opportunities for industrial upgrading. The increase in the importance of regional alliances in the global economy calls for further advancement of the analytical toolbox. Integration of complexity, global value chains and export potential assessment approaches offers valuable direction for further research, as it enables discussion of the opportunities of moving towards more knowledge-intensive economic activities along with the opportunities for winning international market share.

The research merges insights from the economic complexity, competitiveness and foresight literature in a novel way and illustrates the applicability and priority-setting in a real-life setting.

This study attempts to explore the linkages between reliable big and cloud data analytics capabilities (RB&CDACs) and the comparative advantage (CA) that applies in the manufacturing sector in the countries located in North Africa (NA). These are considered developing countries through generating green product innovation (GPI) and using green process innovations (GPrLs) in their processes and functions as mediating factors, as well as the moderating role of data-driven competitive sustainability (DDCS).

To achieve the aim of this study, 346 useable surveys out of 1,601 were analyzed, and valid responses were retrieved for analysis, representing a 21.6% response rate by applying the quantitative methodology for collecting primary data. Convergent validity and discriminant validity tests were applied to structural equation modeling (SEM) in the CB-covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) program, and the data reliability was confirmed. Additionally, a multivariate analysis technique was used via CB-SEM, as hypothesized relationships were evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and then the hypotheses were tested through a structural model. Further, a bootstrapping technique was used to analyze the data. We included GPI and GPrI as mediating factors, while using DDCS as a moderated factor.

The empirical findings indicated that the proposed moderated-mediation model was accepted due to the relationships between the constructs being statistically significant. Further, the findings showed that there is a significant positive effect in the relationship between reliable BCDA capabilities and CAs as well as a mediating effect of GPI and GPrI, which is supported by the proposed formulated hypothesis. Additionally, the findings confirmed that there is a moderating effect represented by data-driven competitive advantage suitability between GPI, GPrI and CA.

One of the main limitations of this study is that an applied cross-sectional study provides a snapshot at a given moment in time. Furthermore, it used only one type of methodological approach (i.e. quantitative) rather than using mixed methods to reach more accurate data.

This study developed a theoretical model that is obtained from reliable BCDA capabilities, CA, DDCS, green innovation and GPrI. Thus, this piece of work bridges the existing research gap in the literature by testing the moderated-mediation model with a focus on the manufacturing sector that benefits from big data analytics capabilities to improve levels of GPI and competitive advantage. Finally, this study is considered a road map and gaudiness for the importance of applying these factors, which offers new valuable information and findings for managers, practitioners and decision-makers in the manufacturing sector in the NA region.

This paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by buying centers in small and medium enterprises (SME) manufacturing companies in view of recent technological changes and the virtualization of communication.

This study uses a qualitative approach with multiple case studies to portray complex realities within the buying centers in the manufacturing SME context. The authors selected five Italian companies to portray the diverse characteristics, practices and policies of relevant stakeholders before reaching saturation with the issues explored.

The authors find that interactions among buying center members are more effective with greater collaboration and exchange (as opposed to competition and a struggle for power). Virtual/hybrid relations require greater intra-group cooperation, whereas diverse backgrounds and collaborative interactions help the flexibility and performance of the buying center. Greater use of technology produces certainty and automation, but it may also cause overload and biases that can be solved with the ability to analyze and clear responsibility for decisions.

The authors studied only five Italian companies in this study. Future research in other countries with diverse cultural and socio-economic conditions and methods would help extend this research.

The findings would improve the understanding of the challenges of adopting new purchase process technologies that would help automate routine tasks, produce useful data and support decision-making.

Unlike prior studies, this study uses an exploratory design to study the evolution of buying centers in SMEs to seek deeper insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by SMEs because of the growing use of emerging technologies.

This paper aims to examine how an alternative accounting system developed by a marginalised group of women enables them to counter oppressive systems built at the intersections of gender, class and race.

The authors draw on diary notes taken over a period of 13 years in France and Senegal in the context of the first author's family interactions with a community of ten Black immigrant women. The paper relies on Black feminist perspectives, namely, Lorde's work on difference and survival to illuminate how this community of women uses the creative power of its “self-defined differences” to build its own accounting system – a tontine – and work towards its emancipation.

The authors find that to fight oppressive marginalising structures, the women develop a tontine, an autonomous, self-managed, women-made banking system providing them with cash and working on the basis of trust. This alternative accounting scheme endeavours to fulfil their “situated needs”: to build a home of their own in Senegal. The authors conceptualise the tontine as a “situated accounting” scheme built on the women's own terms, on the basis of sisterhood and opacity. This accounting system enables the women to work towards their “situated emancipation”, alleviating the burden of their marginalisation.

This paper gives visibility to vulnerable women's agentic capacities through accounting. As no single story captures the nuances and complexities of accounting, further exploration is encouraged.

This paper contributes to the counter-accounting literature that engages with vulnerable, “othered” populations, shedding light on the counter-practices of accounting within a community of ten Black precarious women. In so doing, this study problematises these counter-practices as intersectional and built on “survival skills”. The paper further outlines the emancipatory potential of alternative systems of accounting. It ends with some reflections on doing research through activist curiosity and the need to rethink academic research and knowledge in opposition to dominant epistemic standards of knowledge creation.

This study was conducted to analyse the socio-ecological problems faced by the Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary and understand its potential and challenges for developing ecotourism following Triple Bottom Line (TBL) principles. The study also benchmarked best ecotourism practices across the globe to create an ecotourism plan that would provide alternative livelihood and help in sustainable management of the area by reducing poverty, dependency on forests and biodiversity protection.

Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary was chosen because this area has several socio-ecological crises with limited livelihood options, and there is an urgent need for alternative livelihood opportunities in the form of ecotourism. The study followed an ethnographic approach through observation, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. Content and thematic analysis was conducted through Atlas Ti9.0 software for data analysis. Subsequently, benchmarking best ecotourism practices through a literature review was done to develop an ecotourism action plan.

The First finding was related to the study area divided into three themes: problems, potential for ecotourism development, and challenges for ecotourism development. The second finding was related to benchmarking best practices and suggesting an action plan.

This work studied an area not sufficiently acknowledged by academicians and policymakers concerning ecotourism development. The work also benchmarks the best practices for ecotourism and proposes a sight-specific ecotourism action plan in accordance with TBL.