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The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of firms’ features on innovation performance in Industry 4.0, focusing on the concepts of breadth and depth of openness in the innovation process.

Using data gathered from 96 firms active in Industry 4.0 (I4.0) in Italy, a Poisson regression analysis is conducted to investigate the relationship between the openness of firms’ innovation processes at the level of knowledge sources and their innovation performance in I4.0.

The results highlight the relationship between the level of openness and innovative performance in I4.0. In particular, the breadth of the openness of the innovation process of enterprises is curvilinearly related to innovation in I4.0, taking an inverted U-shape.

Managers of firms operating in I4.0 should consider openness as a strategic response to the knowledge requirements and risks associated with the innovation process in complex technologies.

Through the questionnaires administered mainly to highly qualified individuals, an original and unique database has been created with information on the openness of the innovative process and the innovation performances in I4.0.

The field of broad-based employee ownership within corporations is a specific application of the foundational topic of property ownership. It is situated at the intersection of a broad range of scholarly disciplines including economics, law, finance and management. Each discipline contributes vocabulary and distinctions describing this field. That broad spectrum of disciplinary inquiry is a strength but it also lends a “ships passing in the night” quality to discussions of employee ownership. This paper attempts to unravel the narrative diversity surrounding this topic. Four meanings of ownership are introduced. Those meanings are in turn embedded within two abstract models of the corporation; the corporation as property and the corporation as social institution.

There is no experimental design The paper presents a conceptual overview and introduces a taxonomy of four meanings and two models of ownership.

Four meanings of ownership are introduced. The meanings are ownership as compensation, investment, retirement and membership. Those meanings are in turn embedded within two abstract models of the corporation; the corporation as property and the corporation as social institution.

No hypotheses are advanced. This is not a research paper. A conceptual overview that makes use of taxonomy of meanings and models is introduced to help clarify confusions abundant in the field of employee ownership. Readers may differ with the categories of meanings and models introduced in this conceptual overview.

The ambition of the paper is to describe the various meanings and models of employee ownership presently in use in both academic and applied settings. It is not necessary or desirable to assert the primacy of a single meaning or model in order to achieve progress. The analysis provided here surfaces a range of assumptions about ownership that have heretofore been implicit in both scholarship and in practice. Making those assumptions explicit should prove useful to both scholars and practitioners of employee ownership.

The concept of employee ownership enjoys a relatively broad appeal with the public. Among the academic disciplines that have trained their lights upon it, a more mixed reception prevails. Much of the academic and policy controversy derives from confusion about the nature and structure of employee ownership. This paper attempts to address that confusion by presenting a taxonomy of meanings and models that may prove useful for future research.

This study is one of the first efforts to comprehinsively map the various meanings and models of broad-based employee ownership.

This present study uses political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental (PESTLE) analysis and the strategic management theory to examine how external factors, namely the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the industrial revolution (IR) 4.0 technologies, the fuel price crisis and Sultanate of Oman Logistics Strategy (SOLS) 2040, affect the performance of container terminals in Oman.

A hybrid decision-making method that combined the analytical hierarchy process technique and Bayesian network model was used to achieve the objective of the present study.

The COVID-19 pandemic (54.60%) most significantly affected the performance of container terminals in Oman, followed by IR 4.0 technologies (19.66%), SOLS (17.00%) and fuel price crisis (8.74%). Container terminals in Oman were also found to perform “moderately,” considering the uncertainty of external factors.

This study enriches existing literature by using PESTLE analysis to assess the impact of the external business environment on firm performance in the context of the maritime industry as well as highlights how challenging external environmental factors affect the performance of container terminals in Oman.

This study contributes to developing novel study models and determining the performance level of container terminals in Oman considering integrated uncertainties and external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, IR 4.0 technologies, the SOLS 2040 and the fuel price crisis.

This article provides an overview and analysis of 50 years of European policies, actions, and challenges to align its higher education and research, as well as lessons learned from this for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The study builds on a comprehensive overview and study of policy documents and scholarly literature to identify by decade the main policies and actions and the related challenges towards a European Higher Education and Research Area.

The findings make clear the key rationales, challenges, shifts and lessons to be learned from 50-year European policies for the alignment of higher education.

Its value lies in the historical overview and analysis of current initiatives, in particular the European Universities Initiative (EUI), to provide a historical and geographical context, which might give insight for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of terrorist attacks on the volatility and returns of the stock market in Tunisia.

The employed sample comprises 1250 trading day from the Tunisian stock index (Tunindex) and stock closing prices of 64 firms listed on the Tunisian stock market (TSM) from January 2011 to October 2015. The research opts for the general autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) and exponential generalized conditional heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) models framework in addition to the event study method to further assess the effect of terrorism on the Tunisian equity market.

The baseline results document a substantive impact of terrorism on the returns and volatility of the TSM index. In more details, the findings of the event study method show negative significant effects on mean abnormal returns with different magnitudes over the events dates. The outcomes propose that terrorism profoundly altered the behavior of the stock market and must receive sufficient attention in order to protect the financial market in Tunisia.

Very few evidence is found on the financial effects of terrorism over transition to democracy cases. This paper determines the salient reaction of the stock market to terrorism during democratic transition. The findings of this study shall have relevant implications for stock market participants and policymakers.

The purpose of this study is to explore the causal relationship between smart transportation technology innovation and green transportation efficiency.

A comprehensive framework is used in this paper to assess the level of green transportation efficiency in China based on the instrumental variable – generalized method of moments model, followed by an examination of the impact of innovation in smart transportation technology on green transportation efficiency. Additionally, their non-linear relationship is explored, as are their important moderating and mediating effects.

The findings indicate that, first, the efficiency of green transportation is significantly enhanced by innovation in smart transportation technology, which means that investing in such technologies contributes to improving green transportation efficiency. Second, in areas where green transportation efficiency is initially low, smart transportation technology innovation exerts a particularly potent influence in driving green transportation efficiency, which underscores the pivotal role of such innovation in bolstering efficiency when it is lacking. Third, the relationship between smart transportation technology innovation and green transportation efficiency is moderated by information and communication technology, and the influence of smart transportation technology innovation on green transportation efficiency is realized through an increase in energy efficiency and carbon emissions efficiency.

Advancing green transportation is essential in establishing a low-carbon trajectory within the transportation sector.

Young consumers are increasingly using online reviews and celebrity influence to make purchase decisions. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the influence of online customer reviews, celebrity influencer’s attractiveness, celebrity influencer’s credibility on female millennials’ purchase intention of beauty products.

To validate the research questions and hypotheses, data were obtained from young female consumers using an electronic self-administered survey questionnaire that was close ended. A total of 203 valid responses were obtained from which data were analysed by making use of structural equation modelling Mplus and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 28.

The obtained results showed that the seven hypotheses of the study were positive. However, two hypotheses were negative, namely, celebrity influencer attractiveness did not have a significant influence on the attitude of consumers; and brand loyalty was not significantly correlating with young female consumers’ purchase intention of beauty products.

Given that millennials are known to be active users of social media and often consult online peer product reviews, marketers and practitioners of beauty industry should improve the effectiveness and usability of beauty influencers and online reviews to attract female millennial consumers.

This research contributes to understanding young female consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing beauty products, especially the combined influence of group influence (online reviews) and media influence (celebrity beauty influencers) on such attitudes.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review available state-of-the-art literature on comparative studies on Quick Commerce (Q-commerce) and E-commerce and their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The literature survey methodology is based on the funneling approach of Kitchenham (2004), where results are obtained according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. The literature review methodology used for this study covers the period from 2016 to 2022. The areas considered for the survey are operations, logistics and supply chain network design for the distribution of goods in e-business. After deciding on the criteria, a total of 140 articles were extracted from 9 journal articles that study e-commerce and environmental emissions.

The result of this study reveals that GHG emissions from both modes of shopping depend on various parameters such as speed of delivery, last-mile depot locations, logistics and vehicle efficiency, customers’ order patterns and average basket size. Furthermore, the findings also highlight the difference between Q-commerce and E-commerce supply chain networks.

This study only accounts for GHG emissions from logistics activities, but there are other sources of GHG emissions in the overall supply chain that are not taken into consideration. Supply chain/business analysts in Q-commerce companies might refer the findings from this study to measure GHG emissions from their operations.

This is the first study in the Q-commerce field that uses a structured approach to find relevant literature from the years 2016 to 2022 and focuses on GHG emission measurement.

Technological innovations provide huge opportunities to expand and revolutionize the scope of products and services offered. This is particularly true for tourism, which is undergoing significant changes due to the development of new technologies. The level of technology diffusion depends on several factors like the exchange of information among peers, and the attitude and shared perception among the contributors. The aim of the study is to explore the diffusion of technology in tourism with a specific focus on the social media discourse around new technologies. Thus, the paper investigates the level of interest in these new technologies analysing the information exchange occurring between individuals on Twitter in order to explore the influence of reciprocal networking.

To capture the attitudes expressed in the industry, the study analyses the ongoing discourse on Twitter as a proxy for the participants “interest in new technologies. Through a social network analysis of the tweets and retweets conducted over a period of nine months, the research maps the level of information exchange about the diffusion of new technologies. Moreover, the sentiment analysis provides an interesting overview of the individuals” attitudes towards the awareness or the adoption of new technologies.

Our analysis has provided several insights: (1) the information network on blockchain in tourism consists of participants who change very quickly over time (high turnover of accounts); (2) some contributors have an extremely important role in influencing the flow of information in the system (information centralization), they can have a generalist (discussing several topics) or a specialist (focusing on a specific topic) behaviour and this strategic choice influences their network's structure; (3) these central nodes also have an impact on the definition of positive and negative sentiment towards a topic (sentiment influencer).

The paper contributes to the literature on technology diffusion, by focusing on one of the preconditions of diffusion that is the shared positive attitude towards technological innovation. More specifically, we adopt a network-based approach, which is useful to explain the level of information exchange and the public discourse that can impact the shared perception and attitude towards technological innovation. The study also highlights the role of knowledge brokers in influencing this public discourse. Future studies can deepen the association between positive perception, higher levels of information exchange and increasing usage of specific technologies. Our results also suggest further exploring the opportunity to combine social media data and other sources of information to shed more light on the technological innovation diffusion processes.

This paper shows how practitioners can benefit from the analysis of information exchange about new technologies in tourism adopting a network perspective with the aim of understanding the level of influence among contributors. Moreover, the increasing interest in blockchain technology and the potential combination between social media data and other sources of information can offer promising insights.

The present study explores the level of technology diffusion through the analysis of information exchange on social media (Twitter). Furthermore, the dynamics of individual user behaviour offers a better understanding about media effects.

While previous research is focused on the users' perception towards the development of new technologies in tourism, the aim of this study is to investigate the dynamics behind the level of diffusion of information and awareness about these new technologies, which still represents an unexplored area of research.