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This study investigates the optimum size for manufacturing firms and the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood of achieving their optimal scale in Vietnam.

Using data from the enterprise census in 2017 and 2021, the paper first estimates the production function to identify the optimum firm size for manufacturing firms and then, applies the logit model to investigate factors associated with the optimal firm size.

The study reveals that medium-sized firms exhibit the highest level of productivity. Nevertheless, a consistent trend emerges, indicating that nearly 90% of manufacturing firms in Vietnam operated below their optimal scale in both 2017 and 2021. An analysis of the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood to achieve their optimal scale emphasizes its crucial role, especially for foreign firms, exerting an influence nearly five times greater than that of the judiciary system.

The paper's findings offer crucial policy implications, suggesting that initiatives aimed at enhancing the overall productivity of the manufacturing sector should prioritise facilitating contract arrangements to encourage firms to reach their optimal size. These insights are also valuable for other countries with comparable firm size distributions.

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between firm size and productivity as well as the role of subcontracting in firms' ability to reach their optimal scale in a country with a right-skewed distribution of firm sizes.

Despite the widespread use and application of resilience, much uncertainty about the conceptualization and operationalization in the context of tourism destinations still exists. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual elaboration on destination resilience and to introduce a model for an improved understanding of the concept.

Taking a conceptual research approach, this paper seeks to untangle the fuzziness surrounding the destination and resilience concept by providing a new interpretation that synthesizes theories and concepts from various academic disciplines. It analyses the current debate to derive theoretic baselines and conceptual elements that subsequently inform the development of a new “Destination Resilience Model”.

The contribution advances the debate by proposing three key themes for future resilience conceptualizations: (1) the value of an actor-centered and agency-based resilience perspective; (2) the importance of the dynamic nature of resilience and the (mis)use of measurement approaches; (3) the adoption of a dualistic resilience perspective distinguishing specified and general resilience. Building on these propositions, we introduce a conceptual model that innovatively links elements central to the concepts of destination and risk and combines different narratives of resilience.

The contribution advances the debate surrounding destination resilience by critically examining the conceptualization and operationalization of destination resilience within previous research and by subsequently proposing a “Destination Resilience Model” that picks up central element of the three new frontiers identified in the conceptually driven review. The innovative integration strengthens the comprehension of the resilience concept at destination level and supports building future capacities to manage immediate adverse impacts as well as novel and systemic risks.

In this paper, we give some properties of the α-connections on statistical manifolds and we study the α-conformal equivalence where we develop an expression of curvature R¯ for ∇¯ in relation to those for ∇ and ∇^.

In the first section of this paper, we prove some results about the α-connections of a statistical manifold where we give some properties of the difference tensor K and we determine a relation between the curvature tensors; this relation is a generalization of the results obtained in [1]. In the second section, we introduce the notion of α-conformal equivalence of statistical manifolds treated in [1, 3], and we construct some examples.

We give some properties of the difference tensor K and we determine a relation between the curvature tensors; this relation is a generalization of the results obtained in [1]. In the second section, we introduce the notion of α-conformal equivalence of statistical manifolds, we give the relations between curvature tensors and we construct some examples.

We give some properties of the difference tensor K and we determine a relation between the curvature tensors; this relation is a generalization of the results obtained in [1]. In the second section, we introduce the notion of α-conformal equivalence of statistical manifolds, we give the relations between curvature tensors and we construct some examples.

Organizations increasingly use inclusion initiatives to reflect a meaningful involvement of their entire workforce as part of their larger diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies. However, the conceptualization of inclusion and its impact on larger DEI efforts and the organization remains unclear, coupled with the organizations’ struggles to find ways to embrace and advance inclusion. Hence, the purpose of this study is to synthesize ways of inclusion conceptualizations and review empirical evidence related to inclusion.

The authors conducted a literature review using the method of scoping review coupled with topical cluster mapping techniques.

The authors captured three ways of inclusion conceptualizations and provided an overview of topic clusters related to inclusion and its measurement tools. The authors also proposed a path model of inclusion based on emerging empirical evidence related to inclusion in the workplace.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the pioneering efforts to provide a much-needed review of inclusion in the workplace, which provides guidance for further research and practice to fulfill the goal of inclusion for all in the current workplace.

This paper aims to answer report how mentors who onboard newcomers to a high-stress social work organization can learn about their onboarding practice by treating onboarding as a wicked problem that escapes definitive formulation and final solutions.

The authors follow an action research approach with three iterations of learning about onboarding with mentors in a Danish social work organization struggling with an employee turnover exceeding 30%.

The authors unfold the authors’ emerging sensitivity to wickedity over the iterations of learning about onboarding with the mentors. As the authors foreground the wickedity of the authors onboarding in the last iteration, three lessons learned could be derived: it warrants the mentors’ continuous inquiry; opens inquiry into the ambivalence of mentoring; and convenes responsibility for inquiry to a community of mentors.

This study of problematic onboarding to high-stress social work shows the value of fore-grounding wickedity instead of hiding it with a positive framing. This wickedity rests on situated grounding and is only transferrable to other organizations with the utmost caution.

High-stress social work organizations without the capacity to systematically sustain best practices for onboarding may, instead, increase attention to the wickedity of onboarding as a motivation for continuous inquiry by a broader community of mentors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to present an action research study of problem wickedity to motivate mentors’ inquiry into onboarding newcomers to high-stress social work.

Energy poverty is a global phenomenon, but its prevalence is enormous in most African countries, with a potential impact on quality of life. This study aims to investigate the impact of energy poverty on the shadow economy.

The study uses panel data from 45 countries in Africa over a period of 1996–2018. Using panel cointegrating regression and panel vector auto-regression model in the generalized method of moments technique.

This study provides that energy poverty deepens the size of the shadow economy in Africa. It also documents that there is a bidirectional causality between shadow economy and energy poverty. Therefore, the two variables can predict each other.

The study suggests that lack of access to clean and modern energy services contributes to the depth of the shadow economy in Africa. African authorities are advised to strengthen rural and urban electrification initiatives by providing adequate energy infrastructure so as to reduce the level of energy poverty in the region. To ensure energy sustainability delivery, the study proposes that the creation of national and local capacities would be the most effective manner to guarantee energy accessibility and affordability. Also, priorities should be given to the local capital mobilization and energy subsidies for the energy poor. Energy literacy may also contribute to the sustainability and the usage of modern energy sources in Africa.

Previous studies reveal that income inequality contributes to the large size of shadow economy in developing economies. However, none of these studies analyzed the role of energy poverty and its implications for underground economic operations. Inadequate access to modern energy sources is likely to deepen the prevalence of informality in developing nations. Based on this, this study provides fresh evidence on the implications of energy deprivation on the shadow economy in Africa using a heterogeneous panel econometric framework. The study contributes to the literature by advocating that the provision of affordable modern energy sources for rural and urban settlements, and the creation of good energy infrastructure for the firms in the formal economy would not only improve the quality of life but also important to discourage underground economic operations in developing economies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate user satisfaction with digital health solutions by identifying and prioritizing different service attributes on the basis of their impact on improving user satisfaction.

Through a literature review and interviews with health professionals and patients, 20 attributes of digital health services provided in Italy have been identified. User satisfaction with these attributes has been evaluated by adopting the Kano model’s continuous and discrete analyses.

The findings reveal the essential attributes of digital health services that meet users' expectations, identify the attributes that users appreciate or dislike having and highlight unexpected attributes that lead to a significant boost in satisfaction when provided.

This study demonstrates the efficacy of the Kano model in assessing the nonlinear correlation between user satisfaction and the quality of digital health services, thus contributing to fill a gap in the literature in this area. The main limitation of this work is the use of a non-probabilistic sampling method.

This research suggests healthcare institutions and organizations consider user preferences when designing digital health solutions to increase their satisfaction. The results indicate different effects on user satisfaction and dissatisfaction for different categories of attributes in the Italian context.

Previous works studied customer satisfaction with digital health, assuming a linear relationship with service quality, or investigated consumer adoption intentions focusing on the technological factors. This work advances available knowledge by analyzing the nonlinear relationship between digital health attributes and users’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

The aim of this article is to examine in depth the digital nomad lifestyle and its effects in the context of tourism and to create a perspective for the future by taking into account the findings of the articles in the thematic issue.

The theme question is examined through a review of the main findings and outcomes of this issue.

The digital nomad lifestyle stands out as an alternative form of tourism to traditional tourism models. Digital nomads are interested in cultural heritage and are effective in destination marketing just as social media influencers are. Gastronomic preferences and security perceptions of digital nomads play an important role in destination selection. Although digital nomads start out with a desire for independence and freedom, they want to come together with their peers in order to meet their social needs.

This article will serve as a significant resource for understanding the digital nomad lifestyle and for predicting future tourism trends.

This study examined how economic freedom and its related components, such as open markets, regulatory efficiency, rule of law and the size of government, affect bank risk behavior, focusing on the Japanese context.

The study employs a two-step GMM framework on the annual data of Japanese banks ranging from 2005 to 2020 to empirically test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we also use the ordinary least square method to ensure the robustness of our mainline findings.

The finding suggests that economic freedom increases the banks' risk-taking, thus making them fragile. The results also highlight that out of the four main subcomponents of economic freedom, regulatory efficiency and government size increase bank risk-taking, while the rule of law and open markets decrease banks' risk-taking. Additionally, we examine how the banks' specific characteristics affect the results by creating a subsample based on capitalization and liquidity ratios. Overall, the results are consistent with the baseline findings. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative proxy measures of risk.

The study's findings have several implications for regulators and policymakers. The results suggest that regulators and policymakers should reconsider their strategies for economic freedom to ensure that they promote stability in the banking system and reduce banks' risk-taking inclinations.

Although previous studies have examined the impact of economic freedom on bank stability and risk-taking, this study is the first to do so in the Japanese context, contributing to the literature by providing new insights and empirical evidence.