Performance evaluation of green supply chains (GSC) is an important tool to improve their comprehensive management. Identifying critical indicators is crucial to evaluation. This study examines the critical indicators in performance evaluations of GPC and provides relevant suggestions for managers to improve GSCs’ performances. Firstly, we summarized 24 evaluation indicators from five dimensions—financial value, customer service-level, business processes, innovation and development, and the so-called green level. Secondly, the Delphi method was used to determine the formal research framework. The fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory based analytic network process (fuzzy DEMATEL-based ANP) model was applied. The weighted prominence of each indicator was calculated to identify those that were critical, and a causality diagram was constructed for them. Finally, corresponding countermeasures and implications regarding those were put forward. The research results show that the critical indicators include the return rate of net assets, the growth rate of profit, the rate of service satisfaction, market share, production flexibility, and the green consensus. Among them, the green consensus, the growth rate of profit and the rate of service satisfaction form a virtuous circle, leading to the improvement of the overall performance of GSC. Full article

This research investigated the impact of motivations on work–home enrichment experience among male Saudi academics working in universities. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT) and the conservation of resources theory (COR), the study employed a quantitative study with data collected from 460 men. The analysis revealed that intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation reinforced by material pressure were significantly and positively related to both work–home enrichment (WHE) and home–work enrichment (HWE), whereas extrinsic motivation underpinned by social pressure is significantly and negatively related to HWE only. Furthermore, the results show that introjected motivation, identified motivation, and amotivation were not related to WHE and HWE. The findings of this study highlight the motivational underpinnings of the positive work–home interaction, demonstrating that working for pleasure and material incentives brings enrichment experiences for employees and their families. Further work and home studies should be carried out to produce useful insights that have the potential to improve and sustain the well-being of individuals, their families, and their communities, organisations, and countries’ economies. Full article

Cameroon is one of the largest producers of cotton in Central Africa. Currently, Cameroon’s textile sector is facing problems regarding manufacturing that restrict the expectations of various shareholders in the sector. This study examined accurate and strategically reliable instructions for the Cameroonian textile sector by utilizing explorative and depictive techniques and properly applying the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and AHP (analytic hierarchy process) approaches to perform a pivotal analysis after several surveys of the textile sector in Cameroon. The SWOT–AHP strategy was used in the case of secondary data sources. The resulting analysis underlines the strategic challenges and enhances the textile sector’s competing capability. The weakness and opportunity (WO) strategy broadly had the greatest significance, which indicated, correspondingly, that this strategy should be prioritized for use in the Cameroonian textile sector. Governmental authorities should serve a controlling function rather than a decision-making one, thus facilitating improvements in the management of businesses. Furthermore, it suggested that efforts must be made by the government to promote workforce education and skill development, as well as update obsolete technology, which are currently the deficiencies of the textile sector. Additionally, to add value to the national economy’s capacity, Cameroon should slowly transform its cotton exports to finished textile goods within the country. To achieve this, the government, through a framework of collaboration with foreign companies, should industrialize, deregulate, and denationalize the textile industry and reduce taxes and withdrawal quotas to serve the interests of investors. Full article

Based on China’s newly established Securities Investor Services Center (CSISC), a minority shareholder protection mechanism, we investigated how the CSISC shareholder influences the ESG performance of listed companies. Using a difference-in-differences analysis for a sample of Chinese listed companies during 2013–2017, we found that the pilot reform of CSISC shareholding has a positive influence on the ESG performance of listed companies. We also found that this effect exists in large companies and in companies in non-high-polluting industries. Besides, analysts’ attention, external auditing quality, institutional shareholding, and highly-developed market intermediary and legal systems can strengthen the effect of CSISC shareholding on corporate ESG performance. Our findings inspire regulators in emerging markets to establish suitable mechanisms to protect minority shareholder rights in the long run. Full article

The authors of this study aimed to evaluate the links between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, trust, identification, and commitment to measure the impact of consumer perceptions of CSR initiatives on these three marketing outcomes (trust, identification, and commitment). A structured questionnaire was administered to 341 bank clients as part of an empirical study to examine the hypotheses. The study’s proposed model was tested in the Indian banking industry and examined the use of the structural equation modeling (SEM) method in the AMOS program. According to the findings, consumers believe that CSR initiatives significantly affect two marketing outcomes (trust and identification). The findings of this study are useful in helping policymakers at various banking institutions comprehend the major impact that CSR initiatives have on influencing consumer behavior. This study provides a greater knowledge of how consumers view CSR and how that impression may affect marketing outcomes. Full article

This study is an effort to investigate the asymmetric effects of privatization and the digital economy on renewable energy consumption. The nonlinear quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) technique is used to estimate short and long-run analysis. Findings of the nonlinear QARDL model posit that the long-run positive shock in privatization promotes renewable energy consumption by increasing renewable energy consumption, while the long-run negative shock in privatization demotes renewable energy consumption by reducing renewable energy consumption. In the short run, the positive shock of privatization does not significantly impact renewable energy consumption, while the negative shock of privatization reduces renewable energy consumption. Moreover, information and communications technology (ICT), economic development, and financial development increase renewable energy consumption in the long run; however, in the short-run only financial development helps increase renewable energy consumption. The Wald test confirms the asymmetric impact of privatization on renewable energy consumption only in the long run. Based on these results, policymakers should thus take into account both positive and negative shocks in privatization when developing policies to encourage pro-environmental behavior. Full article

We examine the impediments to rapid recovery from a supply chain disruption through rapid supply chain growth in capacity. We explore how to minimize the effects of disruptions in supply chains that could be caused by pandemics, wars, supplier down times, absenteeism, distributor bottlenecks, etc. The tools we use include reliability theory, logic, simulation, and other methodologies. Our objective is to better understand supply chain disruptions and to propose solutions to the sustainability problems currently being experienced within supply chains. The authors use models to better comprehend how to avoid supply chain structures that are easily disrupted. Included among the findings are that disruptions cause the loss of production capacity; thus, the ability to rapidly increase production capacity in the same or other parts of the supply chain becomes paramount. Furthermore, structural redundancy can help alleviate the loss of capacity coming from a disruption. One purpose of the models is to foster a basic appreciation for the different lead times and fixed costs associated with capacity expansion of the various supply chain components. There are implications for where within the supply chain additional robustness and capacity are needed. Full article

The impact of digital transformation on green innovation is widely discussed. However, existing studies mainly focus on the impact of the digital transformation of enterprises and fintech company development on environmental green innovation, while ignoring the effect of the digital transformation of commercial banks (DTCB) on corporate green innovation. Therefore, to fill the research gap, this paper explores the impact of DTCB on environmental green innovation in companies based on the data of listed companies from 2010 to 2019. This study finds that DTCB has significantly promoted enterprises’ environmental green innovation. Mechanism analysis shows that DTCB can promote green environmental innovation by increasing R&D expenditures and reducing agency costs. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that DTCB can only promote the green environmental innovation of private enterprises and enterprises with a high degree of digital transformation, but it cannot promote the green environmental innovation of state-owned enterprises and enterprises with a low degree of digital transformation. From the perspective of DTCB, this paper enriches the research on the relationship between digital finance and enterprise environmental green innovation. The government should promote the digital transformation of enterprises to utilize the green innovation effect of DTCB. Full article

This paper focuses on the study of the “greenium”, i.e., the premium on Green Bonds (GBs) vs. Traditional Bonds (TBs) whereby investors accept lower yields of GBs vs. TBs, which is caused by the important difference between them with reference to their contribution to the green transition, specifically paying attention to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on it. The conjecture of this paper is that the negative shock of rates due to the pandemic crisis has increased the greenium, as it has also increased the interest in projects of the green transition. In addition, a hypothesis is made that the risk of breaking the green promises might be higher for corporations than for governments and, hence, that the greenium would be lower for corporate GBs than for government GBs. Finally, the possibility that the post-pandemic changes of the greenium might vary depending on individual GBs’ liquidity is considered. The empirical analyses provide support for the first two hypotheses but not for the third one. Full article

The demand-responsive public transport system with multi-vehicles has the potential to efficiently meet real-time and high-volume transportation needs through effective scheduling. This paper focuses on studying the real-time vehicle scheduling problem, which involves dispatching and controlling different model vehicles uniformly based on generated vehicle number tasks at a given point in time. By considering the immediacy of real-time itinerary tasks, this paper optimizes the vehicle scheduling problem at a single time point. The objective function is to minimize the total operating cost of the system while satisfying constraints such as passenger capacity and vehicle transfer time. To achieve this, a vehicle scheduling optimization model is constructed, and a solution approach is proposed by integrating bipartite graph optimal matching theory and the Kuhn–Munkres algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparing it with a traditional greedy algorithm using the same calculation example. The results show that the optimization method has higher solution efficiency and can generate a scheduling scheme that effectively reduces operating costs, improves transportation efficiency, and optimizes the operation organization process for demand-responsive buses. Full article

Science and technology parks (STPs) are curated locations where new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and other SMEs and firms can conglomerate and promote a culture of innovation. Overall, the aim is to construct a sustainable high-value tech entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to this end we present here some recent and novel concepts derived from approaches using a data-driven statistical foundation. This paper considers studies on the organic growth of young start-up science and technology parks by authors who have used big data, econometric analyses, panel data and computer simulations. The results and concepts are derived from industrialized countries, notably Sweden and the UK, and may well be applicable to many regions and emerging economies. The findings are of interest to regional development, technology entrepreneurs considering choosing an STP to inhabit, as well as those in STP central teams, specializing in management and enterprise development, including the sustainable growth of new parks. Full article

Adequate financial management is of great importance to the health care system. In the contemporary state of affairs, health care is facing numerous limitations due to drastic costs and growing pressures to provide quality health care. In such appalling conditions, the managers of health organizations must build skills and knowledge that go beyond the comfort zone of their clinical competencies. It is necessary to develop their leadership skills. Bearing in mind the importance of financial competencies, the general aim of this paper is to determine the competencies of the managers of Serbian health institutions (private and public sector) in this area. Insufficient attention has been given to how health care organizations’ financial literacy affects their sustainability. For the purpose of this prospective research, a questionnaire was created that surveyed the managers of various health care institutions. The results of this study indicated that managers of health organizations have a relatively modest level of financial knowledge. However, they participate in financial activities to a large extent. This gap between the function they perform and the knowledge they have can potentially harm the well-being of the health care organizations they lead. Managers of organizations in the public sector showed a more active role in the development of business plans and more frequent independent decision making, while managers of organizations in the private sector gave more importance to financial control, negotiation, and internal financial reporting, for the improvement of the management process. Full article

High-quality economic development is an organic whole, involving macro, meso, and micro factors, therefore it is necessary to explore the mechanism for quality development in the construction of a modern economic system. Following the new development concept, this paper constructs a measurement system for the economic development quality of 30 provinces and cities in China by using the entropy weight and TOPSIS method. In addition, the linkage effects of factors on high-quality economic development were analyzed by using the fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method. The results show that among factors contributing to diversified forms of the high-quality regional economy, the following three stand out: scientific and technological innovation, marketization, and infrastructure construction. On this basis, three paths were proposed for quality economic development, and they are: the innovation- and market-driven mode, the synergy mode of market and innovation, and the market-led conversion mode. Full article

Sustainability gets higher on the policy agenda of many countries in terms of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Unethical tax behaviour diminishes the tax system’s sustainability, but paying taxes is necessary if we want to contribute to society. There is a deeper need to understand the factors that influence taxpayers’ perceptions, personal values and personal tax culture. Previous research by the OECD (2013, 2019) using the World Values Survey (WVS) did not provide a sufficient explanation of all the socio-economic factors associated with personal tax culture. As the behaviour of an individual is shaped by a set of values, and values can provide predictive and explanatory power in the analysis of attitudes, opinions and actions by policymakers, it is necessary for them to understand such when proposing tax morale incentives within the institutional pillar. A literature review showed that the research topics on personal tax culture present specific assumptions and gaps. To contribute to this topic, a conceptual model was developed, and the relationship between personal values (conservation/self-enhancement), measured by the widely accepted and recognised Schwartz’s circular model, and personal tax culture was analysed with the aim of formulating recommendations for policymakers. The survey conducted in Slovenia involved 202 respondents. Based on exploratory factor analysis and the performed correlation analysis, empirical research suggests that a relationship between personal values and personal tax culture as the cornerstones of an individual’s tax-compliant behaviour and their attitude towards the ethics of tax evasion is significant. The correlation between personal values and an individual’s attitude towards the tax system is insignificant. By understanding the relationships between individuals’ personal and tax culture values, policymakers can achieve a greater sustainable tax system. Full article

With the great challenges that the latest pandemic (COVID-19) has imposed on manufacturing companies, the need to overcome and cope with such situations is becoming crucial. Supply chain resilience is one of the main aspects that enables manufacturers to cope with change and uncertainty; therefore, it is essential to develop the capabilities necessary to do so. This study aimed to ensure supply chain resilience in light of the COVID-19 pandemic through prioritizing main supply chain capabilities. After surveying (30) experts in supply chain from leading manufacturing companies in Jordan, a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) analysis was conducted to prioritize main supply chain capabilities that were derived from the related literature. The results of this study showed that proactive capabilities, followed by reactive capabilities, were the most dominant capabilities that could ensure supply chain resilience, while efficiency-based capabilities were the least significant. Therefore, manufacturing companies should place their focus and emphasis on reacting to this pandemic in a more systematic manner. Full article