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This empirical study examined links between entrepreneurial personality traits and perception of new venture opportunity in a sample of 207 respondents. Four entrepreneurial personality traits were included to predict respondents℉ perception of new venture opportunity. They are (1) achievement motivation, (2) locus of control, (3) risk propensity, and (4) proactivity.The results of multiple regression analysis show that three of the four entrepreneurial personality traits‐locus of control, risk propensity, and proactivity‐related significantly to perception of new venture opportunity in expected directions. Among the three personality traits, proactivity was found to have the strongest influence over entrepreneurial perception. No significant relationship was found between achievement motivation and perception of new venture opportunity. Among six control variables, only work experience was found to influence perception of new venture opportunity. This study explored links between entrepreneurial personalities and cognition and its results suggest that a combination of trait and cognition approaches contributes to a better understanding of entrepreneurial decision-making process. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

The volumes of international containerized trade substantially increased over the past years. In the meantime, marine container terminal (MCT) operators are facing congestion issues at their terminals because of the increasing number of large-size vessels, the lack of innovative technologies and advanced handling equipment and the inability of proper scheduling of the available resources. This study aims to propose a novel memetic algorithm with a deterministic parameter control to facilitate the berth scheduling at MCTs and minimize the total vessel service cost.

A local search heuristic, which is based on the first-come-first-served policy, is applied at the chromosomes and population initialization stage within the developed memetic algorithm (MA). The deterministic parameter control strategy is implemented for a custom mutation operator, which alters the mutation rate values based on the piecewise function throughout the evolution of the algorithm. Performance of the proposed MA is compared with that of the alternative solution algorithms widely used in the berth scheduling literature, including a MA that does not apply the deterministic parameter control strategy, typical evolutionary algorithm, simulated annealing and variable neighborhood search.

Results demonstrate that the developed MA with a deterministic parameter control can obtain superior berth schedules in terms of the total vessel service cost within a reasonable computational time. Furthermore, greater cost savings are observed for the cases with high demand and low berthing capacity at the terminal. A comprehensive analysis of the convergence patterns indicates that introduction of the custom mutation operator with a deterministic control for the mutation rate value would provide more efficient exploration and exploitation of the search space.

This study does not account for uncertainty in vessel arrivals. Furthermore, potential changes in the vessel handling times owing to terminal disruptions are not captured.

The developed solution algorithm can serve as an efficient planning tool for MCT operators and assist with efficient berth scheduling for both discrete and continuous berthing layout cases.

The majority of studies on berth scheduling rely on the stochastic search algorithms without considering the specific problem properties and applying the guided search heuristics. Unlike canonical evolutionary algorithms, the developed algorithm uses a local search heuristic for the chromosomes and population initialization and adjusts the mutation rate values based on a deterministic parameter control strategy for more efficient exploration and exploitation of the search space.

The entrepreneurʼs experience, personality, and values affect the entrepreneurʼs behaviors and decisions (Chrisman, Bauerschmidt, and Hofer 1998). Past research results show that (1) more experienced new venture founders have a greater likelihood of leading their ventures to early success than less experienced founders (Delmar and Shane 2006) and (2) founders who engage in legitimacy-seeking behaviors have a greater likelihood of leading their ventures to early success than founders who do not do so (Tornikoski and Newbert 2007). We propose that more experienced founders understand the importance of obtaining legitimacy for their ventures and therefore will engage in more legitimacy-seeking behaviors. In addition, we propose that entrepreneursʼ growth aspirations and internal locus of control are also associated with engagement in legitimacy-seeking behaviors. We test and find support for these propositions in a sample of new ventures and their founders.

This empirical study explores the profound impact of management functions on the productivity of yard cargo handling equipment within container terminals.

By closely examining crucial management aspects such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, a comprehensive managerial behavior framework was developed through focus group studies (FGS) and focal interviews. These qualitative methods were complemented by the distribution of questionnaires to practitioners in Vietnam. To validate the concept of management functions and analyze their influence on effective management practices for equipment efficiency, a structural equation model (SEM) technique was employed using partial least-squares estimation (PLS).

The findings of this study demonstrate that planning (PL), organizing (OR), and controlling (CT) significantly contribute to the productivity of yard cargo handling equipment, while leading (LD) does not exhibit a direct positive impact.

Theoretically, this study contributes by providing clarity to the definition, purpose, and value of management functions in the field of cargo handling equipment management. Furthermore, these research findings offer valuable insights to terminal operators and managers, enabling them to optimize their management strategies and enhance productivity levels, ultimately resulting in improved operational outcomes.

Performance-based contracting (PBC) plays an increasingly important role in the defense industry. This paper aims to investigate factors that influence service provider’s willingness to accept PBC-induced risks. It also shows how these risks could be managed in a military service supply chain.

The case study focused on the relationship between a service provider and a customer that acted on behalf of other users in the defense sector. The contract involved the sustainment of a military engine in a complex supply chain.

The service provider’s performance attributability appeared to have a strong impact on its willingness to take PBC-induced risks. For the parts where the service provider did not have full control over the service performance, exclusions and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) were used to manage and mitigate the risks associated with uncontrolled performance. The service provider’s willingness to accept PBC-induced risks was also affected by its ability to make accurate forecasts, the applied growth path and the length of the contract.

This case has specific characteristics, unique by time (maturity of the technical system and supply chain) and place (market). It is recommended that results are tested in other research settings.

Organizations should be aware of the factors that influence a service provider’s willingness to bear PBC-induced risks. Customers should limit PBC to those parts of a contract where risks are of an acceptable level. Also, it is recommended to follow a phased growth path when it is not possible to make accurate forecasts in a PBC context.

This study is the first to address critical issues concerning the identification and management of risks under PBC in the defense industry.

This paper presents a survey of research into interactive robotic systems for the purpose of identifying the state of the art capabilities as well as the extant gaps in this emerging field. Communication is multimodal. Multimodality is a representation of many modes chosen from rhetorical aspects for its communication potentials. The author seeks to define the available automation capabilities in communication using multimodalities that will support a proposed Interactive Robot System (IRS) as an AI mounted robotic platform to advance the speed and quality of military operational and tactical decision making.

This review will begin by presenting key developments in the robotic interaction field with the objective of identifying essential technological developments that set conditions for robotic platforms to function autonomously. After surveying the key aspects in Human Robot Interaction (HRI), Unmanned Autonomous System (UAS), visualization, Virtual Environment (VE) and prediction, the paper then proceeds to describe the gaps in the application areas that will require extension and integration to enable the prototyping of the IRS. A brief examination of other work in HRI-related fields concludes with a recapitulation of the IRS challenge that will set conditions for future success.

Using insights from a balanced cross section of sources from the government, academic, and commercial entities that contribute to HRI a multimodal IRS in military communication is introduced. Multimodal IRS (MIRS) in military communication has yet to be deployed.

Multimodal robotic interface for the MIRS is an interdisciplinary endeavour. This is not realistic that one can comprehend all expert and related knowledge and skills to design and develop such multimodal interactive robotic interface. In this brief preliminary survey, the author has discussed extant AI, robotics, NLP, CV, VDM, and VE applications that is directly related to multimodal interaction. Each mode of this multimodal communication is an active research area. Multimodal human/military robot communication is the ultimate goal of this research.

A multimodal autonomous robot in military communication using speech, images, gestures, VST and VE has yet to be deployed. Autonomous multimodal communication is expected to open wider possibilities for all armed forces. Given the density of the land domain, the army is in a position to exploit the opportunities for human–machine teaming (HMT) exposure. Naval and air forces will adopt platform specific suites for specially selected operators to integrate with and leverage this emerging technology. The possession of a flexible communications means that readily adapts to virtual training will enhance planning and mission rehearsals tremendously.

Interaction, perception, cognition and visualization based multimodal communication system is yet missing. Options to communicate, express and convey information in HMT setting with multiple options, suggestions and recommendations will certainly enhance military communication, strength, engagement, security, cognition, perception as well as the ability to act confidently for a successful mission.

The objective is to develop a multimodal autonomous interactive robot for military communications. This survey reports the state of the art, what exists and what is missing, what can be done and possibilities of extension that support the military in maintaining effective communication using multimodalities. There are some separate ongoing progresses, such as in machine-enabled speech, image recognition, tracking, visualizations for situational awareness, and virtual environments. At this time, there is no integrated approach for multimodal human robot interaction that proposes a flexible and agile communication. The report briefly introduces the research proposal about multimodal interactive robot in military communication.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of China’s potential domestic emission control area (DECA) with 0.1 per cent sulphur limit on sulphur emission reduction.

The authors calculate the fuel cost of a direct path within the DECA and a path that bypasses the DECA for ships that sail between two Chinese ports in view of the DECA. Ships adopt the path with the lower cost and the resulting sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions can be calculated. They then conduct sensitivity analysis of the SO₂ emissions with different values of the parameters related to sailing distance, fuel price and ships.

The results show that ships tend to detour to bypass the DECA when the distance between the two ports is long, the ratio of the price of low sulphur fuel and that of high sulphur fuel is high and the required time for fuel switching is long. If the time required for fuel switching is less than 12 h or even 24 h, it can be anticipated that a large number of ships will bypass the DECA, undermining the SO₂ reduction effect of the DECA.

This study points out the size and shape difference between the emission control areas in Europe and North America and China’s DECA affects ships’ path choice and SO₂ emissions.

Using the family business succession, resourcebased view of firms, familiness, and organizational clan literatures, this article develops a model based on the ability of the family business to use familiness, a specific bundle of attributes deriving from a family’s culture, as a competitive advantage for the family firm. In particular, this resource-based framework of family business shows how familiness can distinguish between family firms that succeed beyond the second generation and those that do not. Implications for future research are discussed.

This paper aims to describe an effort to provide for a robust and secure software development paradigm intended to support DevSecOps in a naval aviation enterprise (NAE) software support activity (SSA), with said paradigm supporting strong traceability and provability concerning the SSA’s output product, known as an operational flight program (OFP). Through a secure development environment (SDE), each critical software development function performed on said OFP during its development has a corresponding record represented on a blockchain.

An SDE is implemented as a virtual machine or container incorporating software development tools that are modified to support blockchain transactions. Each critical software development function, e.g. editing, compiling, linking, generates a blockchain transaction message with associated information embedded in the output of a said function that, together, can be used to prove integrity and support traceability. An attestation process is used to provide proof that the toolchain containing SDE is not subject to unauthorized modification at the time said critical function is performed.

Blockchain methods are shown to be a viable approach for supporting exhaustive traceability and strong provability of development system integrity for mission-critical software produced by an NAE SSA for NAE embedded systems software.

A blockchain-based authentication approach that could be implemented at the OFP point-of-load would provide for fine-grain authentication of all OFP software components, with each component or module having its own proof-of-integrity (including the integrity of the used development tools) over its entire development history.

Many SSAs have established control procedures for development such as check-out/check-in. This does not prove the SSA output software is secure. For one thing, a build system does not necessarily enforce procedures in a way that is determinable from the output. Furthermore, the SSA toolchain itself could be attacked. The approach described in this paper enforces security policy and embeds information into the output of every development function that can be cross-referenced to blockchain transaction records for provability and traceability that only trusted tools, free from unauthorized modifications, are used in software development. A key original concept of this approach is that it treats assigned developer time as a transferable digital currency.

The study aims to determine whether audited organizations experience differences between external audits and official controls.

A survey among 100 organic food producers was conducted to explore differences regarding the usability of external audits and official controls. The survey was conducted in 2020 using the computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) method supplemented by the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) method. Organizations processing organic farming products in Poland were chosen for the study.

Three primary benefits associated with external audits and official controls were identified, i.e. (1) enabling and initiating activities related to the improvement of the organization, (2) improving the financial performance of the organization and (3) enhancing credibility. For most organizations, the assessment of these features was at the same level for both external audits and official control. However, if these assessments differed, commercial audits were assessed at a higher level than official controls.

The study is limited to only one specific type of manufacturing organization and one European country.

The literature review shows some conceptual differences between audits and official controls, but the results of this study show that the business environment does not perceive these differences as significant. Thus, the value of the study is reflected in the conclusion that both external audits and official controls are considered useful and credible approaches to monitoring the quality within the organization, which allows us to state that external evaluation is generally seen as an opportunity to improve the performance of the organization.