Special Issue "Emerging Markets’ Competitive Advantages in Sustainable Management"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yingying Zhang-Zhang
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Graduate School of International Management, International University of Japan, Niigata, Japan
Interests: emerging markets; sustainability; strategizing; innovation; culture; strategic people management
Prof. Dr. Jay Rajasekera
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for International Strategy, Tokyo International University, Saitama, Japan
Interests: digital innovations; entrepreneurship; AI; financial engineering; sustainability; optimization; global supply chains; big data; environment management information systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

While emerging markets are of increasing interest to scholars and practitioners, given their increasing economic power and rapidly expanding markets, the sustainable development in these markets are also of major concerns in the global economy. From a managerial perspective, how to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030 is not only a social responsibility, but also a strategic issue for sustaining competitive advantages by the firms in emerging markets. First, emerging markets or developing countries are the ones that have the most challenges with achieving SGDs, as there are less resources. Second, for multinationals from advanced economies that are interested in the growing market potential in emerging economies, sustainable development and management is the center of attention of today’s global business. Integrating sustainability into corporate strategy as a central value is an indispensable necessity. Third, for the aspiring multinationals from emerging economies, how to take advantage of their national competitiveness to the global context and sustain them is one of the strategic challenges in this changing and dynamic global business paradigm. Sharing historical experience of economic development from established advanced economies is also welcome.

This Special Issue aims to address these sustainable management issues in relation to emerging markets’ competitive advantages: “in, to and from”. A broadly defined perspective is called for in this Special Issue in order to outline different angles of view for the sustainable competitive advantages in international business with a special focus on emerging markets. Interdisciplinary work with non-traditional schools of thoughts is especially encouraged to bring inquiry and dialogue into the field of business, management and organization. A wide array of topics are of interest in this Special Issue, with exemplary illustrations including, but not limited to:     

  • Technological innovation and sustainable development in and from emerging markets, like digitalization, Fintech, robotics, and e-commerce
  • Transformation of business model and strategy innovation for sustainable competitive advantages in various sectors, both knowledge-intensive and non-knowledge-intensive industries
  • Green energy and corporate environmentalism strategy in the context of emerging markets
  • Healthcare industry, system and policies in emerging economies, especially within the context of COVID-19
  • Diversity and inequality reduction in relation to human resource management, like gender differences, child labor, work-life balance, stress management, reverse mentorship and talent management
  • Entrepreneurship in emerging markets and particular sectors like agriculture business
  • Effective public administration for sustainable economic development with foreign direct investment attraction and poverty improvement
  • Impact of education sector in sustainability
  • Impact of SDGs to sustainability in emerging markets    

This Special Issue attempts to extend the current knowledge on competing in emerging markets and confronting business challenges from emerging economies in the dynamic global business context, with the sustainable management of competitive advantages. Both conceptual and empirical papers are welcomed from scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. A multi-faceted and multi-perspective approach of the selected papers will enable the evolving dialogue of SDGs in management in, to and from emerging markets.

Prof. Dr. Yingying Zhang-Zhang
Prof. Dr. Jay Rajasekera
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable development
  • competitive advantages
  • SDGs
  • emerging market
  • international competitiveness
  • international cooperation
  • multinationals
  • SMEs
  • gender
  • environment
  • green energy
  • technological innovation
  • healthcare
  • public sector effectiveness
  • gender
  • diversity
  • inequality
  • entrepreneurship
  • talents
  • digital transformation
  • economic development
  • infrastructure
  • debt-management
  • risk management
  • primary and tertiary education
  • trade blocks
  • border trade
  • WTO
  • e-commerce
  • big tech
  • big data and cyber security
  • international skill management
  • immigration of skilled and non-skilled workers

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Impact of Environmental Orientation on Proactive and Reactive Environmental Strategies: Mediating Role of Business Environmental Commitment
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8361; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158361 - 27 Jul 2021
Viewed by 378
Abstract
Although they are significant contributors to environmental concerns, emerging economies provide a very different context concerning corporate environmental behavior. The study investigates the impact of environmental orientation and business environmental commitment on proactive and reactive environmental strategies by firms in an emerging economy. [...] Read more.
Although they are significant contributors to environmental concerns, emerging economies provide a very different context concerning corporate environmental behavior. The study investigates the impact of environmental orientation and business environmental commitment on proactive and reactive environmental strategies by firms in an emerging economy. Based on stakeholder perspective, organizational legitimacy concept, and natural-resource-based view, we have proposed a model where business environmental commitment is presented as an explanatory mechanism for the relationship of internal and external environmental orientation and proactive and reactive environmental strategies. A convenient sampling method was used for data collection from 152 SMEs operating in three industrial cities of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used as an analysis technique. Results revealed that internal environmental orientation has a more profound impact on proactive stance than the impact of external environmental orientation on reactive environmental strategies. Similarly, the business environmental commitment was also identified as an important mediating force. Our results draw important implications for theory and practice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Markets’ Competitive Advantages in Sustainable Management)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

1. Title: ICT-Mediated Education as Public Policy, A Pending Task in the Latin American Context

Author: Diego Cardona

Abstract: The evolution of relations in society and its production models has been accompanied by the intensive use of ICT, as a result, governments have had to adapt its actions to reduce the existing gaps as part of its fundamental role to achieve economic, political, social, and cultural equity in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment like the current one. In this context, education is a fundamental actor that requires a public policy framework that defines strategic actions to respond to the demands of society. However, an initial review via a third source review of this issue showed in the Latin American hemisphere an important space for improvement that became a central focus of attention because of the pandemic situation generated by COVID. In the above terms, a transdisciplinary group of researchers, applying a documentary review methodology, prepared a proposal for a general framework of public policy for ICT-mediated education that is expected to be useful for Latin American governments.

 

2. Title: The Impact of Sustainable Bonds Issues in Latin American Markets: The Competitive Advantages of Ecuador

Authors: Lorena Carolina Bernabe Argandona, Joaquín López Pascual, Salvador Cruz Rambaud

Abstract: Latin American market is one of the most important emerging markets in the world. The Latin American financial markets have increased their importance in the last decades. The issues of sustainable, ethics and green bonds focusing specifically on raising funding for climate and environmental projects, energy efficiency, pollution prevention, sustainable agriculture, fishery and forestry, the protection of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, clean transportation, clean water, and sustainable water management, etc, are gaining more and more prominence and importance in the emerging Latin American market. Our study focuses on the analysis of the degree of success in placing these bonds on the market and the comparison between the yields of sustainable bonds with those of traditional bonds, both in Latin America and Ecuador trying to find competitive advantages for such a specific funding.

 

3.Title: The Impact of Social Enterprises on Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Vietnam

Authors: Nghia Thi Thu Nguyen, Cheng-Tao Tang, Chun Yee Wong  

Abstract: Social enterprises (SE) that emphasize social responsibility aspects of business operation have gained their popularity in the area of development. However, it is not clear whether or not the encouragement of establishing social enterprises in emerging economies indeed leads to better development outcomes. The reasons to worry are many, including lower management capability, corruption, and the crowding-out effect of business opportunity by SE. Given these concerns, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of social enterprises on the development outcomes in the labor market. Specifically, we make use of a policy change regarding the encouragement of SE establishment in Vietnam in 2014 to examine its effect on the wage, working hours, labor force participation rate, the organizational field of work, and the likelihood of being employed among individuals. By utilizing the Vietnam Labor Force Survey in 2010 and 2017 and the social enterprise dataset, we provide robust evidence on the positive impacts of SE on the labor market outcomes. Our findings have implications for the research on sustainable management in SE and development outcomes. 

 

4. Title: A New Conceptual Framework for Inclusive and Sustainable Tourism in Emerging Market Economies

Authors: Sashrika Cooray, N. S. Cooray

Abstract: The tourism industry has been recognized as one of the global economy's key sectors, adding value to global production, creating employment opportunities, and generating foreign exchange. Despite these enormous positive impacts, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has many adverse economic, environmental, and sociocultural effects. The pandemic affected countries differently. There is a massive capital outflow from Emerging Market Economies (EMEs), more prominent than during other global shocks since 2008. Therefore, most EMEs should be cautious with their macroeconomic policies because their macroeconomic condition for maneuvers is more limited than advanced economies due to the little credibility of emerging-market currencies. The global pandemic and emerging importance of the global value chain have added new challenges, reinforcing the necessity to have a new conceptual framework for sustainable tourism to find solutions to the unprecedented problem at the global, national, regional, and local levels. The proposed comprehensive framework attempts to use four levels of analysis to understand the complex and interdependent nature of sustainable and inclusive tourism. 

 

5. Title: Do Contributions to SDGs Improve the Competitive Advantage of Emerging Countries? Correlation Analysis between Country Risk Premiums and SDG Indices

Author: Haruyoshi Ito

Abstract: As far as we know, there are a plethora of papers analyzing the correlation between CSR/SDGs/ESG and corporate value/stock prices /stock returns. However, few of them focus on how CSR/SDGs/ESG factors improve/destroy the corporate value. Additionally, few of them focus on the country's risk premium which is a factor of corporate value. This paper focuses on how the macro-level SDG indices are associated with the country risk premium and the corporate value. We show that there are significant negative correlations between the SDG indices and country risk premiums. We also find that pursuant of SDGs related activities improving overall SDG index score could reduce the country risk premium. These findings support the statement that pursuing SDGs could improve the corporate value via the reduction of discount rate e.g. competitive advantage of emerging countries.

 

6. Title: Urbanization, Upgrading of Industrial Structure and China’s Lottery Consumption—Empirical research based on provincial panel data from 2008 to 2019

Authors: Yufei Bai, Wujian Yang, Wen Zuo

Abstract: In recent years, propelling urbanization and industrial structure upgrading are critical for emerging economies to achieve favorable economic performance. As an emerging market, China has clearly stated in its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) that by 2025, the urbanization rate of China's permanent population should be increased to 65%, and at the same time, it should focus on the needs of industrial transformation and household consumption upgrading to boom the service industry. Based on provincial panel data from 2008 to 2019 in China, this paper examines the impact of urbanization and industrial structure upgrading on China’s lottery consumption with economy, population, and education putting into consideration. Turns out that both urbanization and industrial structure have a significantly positive impact on lottery consumption, and every 1% increase in both factors would lead to an increase in lottery consumption by 141.64% and 30.57%, respectively. Besides, the impact of urbanization and industrial structure on lottery consumption varies in categories and regions. As for lottery, for every 1% increase in urbanization, the sales of sports lottery and welfare lottery would increase by 119.8% and 181% respectively, and there was a significantly positive correlation between the increase in the proportion of the tertiary industry and sports lottery sales, but the correlation was not significant with welfare lottery sales. In terms of regional differences, the progress of urbanization has shown significant impact only on lottery sales in the eastern and central regions, and a positive impact on lottery sales in the three regions. The increase in the service industry’s share of GDP has different effects on lottery sales in the three regions. It has a positive impact on the eastern and central regions and negative on the western region, and only has a significant impact on lottery sales in the eastern region. Considering that during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), China’s per capita GDP and consumption levels are expected to maintain a momentum of growth, and China has made it clear that it will accelerate building a comprehensive domestic demand system, especially through the development of service industry including health, culture, sports, etc. to strengthen the supply of public benefits and basic services. It will also encourage the innovation of business formats and models, promote digital and intelligent transformation and cross-industry integration to meet consumer demand through online and offline Omni-channels. It is proposed that, on the one hand, policy shall enhance its guidance on the lottery consumption promotion and innovation on the lottery categories, rules and styles of play shall continue to foster stable consumer groups. On the other, we should firmly seize the period of strategic opportunities for the construction of digital China and its early advantages in the digital economy. Try to best combine lottery sales with big data, cloud computing, internet of things, artificial intelligence, 5G and other new technologies and new formats, while ensuring the security of national lottery data and individual lottery players’ information. Establishing national and regional intelligence lottery sites, with differentiated marketing strategy to fully tap the lottery consumption potential of different regions and different income groups, will improve the efficiency and volume of lottery sales in the digital age.

 

7. Title: Regional Innovation Input, Institutional Factors, and Regional Innovation Performance: An Empirical Analysis of China

Authors: Hemin Song, Arup Varma, Jinhua Ren, Wei Zhang, Songbai Liu
 
Abstract: Regional innovation, as internal drive promoting regional sustainable economic development, has received great attention around the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between regional innovation input and its performance under the moderating effects of institutional factors including governmental support and culture in China, where regional innovation is deemed as a key factor for sustainable economic development. The diversity of China’s regional policy and culture and its rising economic and innovative capability enhancement provides an opportunity for such an exploration. This paper adopts Schwartz’s cultural dimensions and provincial data from 2006-2018 in China to empirically examine their relationship in different Chinese regions. The results find regional innovation input has a significantly positive influence on regional innovation performance; governmental support positively moderates the relationship between regional innovation input and innovation performance; in culture values, embeddedness (vs. autonomy) negatively moderates their relationship while egalitarianism (vs. hierarchy) and mastery (vs. harmony) positively moderate their relationship. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study exploring the relationship among regional innovation input, institutional factors, and regional innovation performance in Chinese context. Specifically, the results help further the understanding of the cultural influence in China’s regional innovation performance.
 
  
8. Title: Voice for innovation: the role of cultural values and leadership behavior in an emerging market context

Authors: Abderrahman Hassi, Simon Jebsen and Sylvia Rohlfer

Abstract: The role of employee voice behavior, as a critical and proactive component of employees’ contribution to the organization, has been acknowledged widely in the management literature. However, its utility for SME´s innovation capacity and sustainability has been less explored. In this study a unique database of Moroccan SMEs is explored to examine the influence of cultural values and perceived CEO´s leadership on innovative behavior by middle managers. The study’s findings of this study have the potential to make an important contribution to the sustainability literature. First, understanding under which circumstances the ontributions of middle managers foster SME´s innovative capability is crucial for a sustainable use of the limited human resources existent in small enterprises. Secondly, utilizing a firm´s resources to foster SME´s innovation aids to the firm’s sustainable longevity which is particularly important in emerging market contexts that are generally characterized by SME dominance. 

 

9. Title: Impact of Environmental Orientation on Proactive and Reactive Environmental Strategies: Mediating role of Business Environmental Commitment

Authors: Farida Saleem; Saiqa Saddiqa Qureshi

Abstract: Emerging economies, although significant contributors to environmental concerns, provide a very different context with regard to corporate environmental behavior. The study aims at investigating the influence of environmental orientation and commitment on proactive and reactive environmental strategies by firms in an emerging economy. Based on stakeholder perspective and organizational legitimacy concept, we have proposed business environmental commitment as an explanatory mechanism for the relationship of internal and external environmental orientation and proactive and reactive environmental strategies. Data were collected from 152 SMEs operating in industrial cities of Pakistan. Results revealed that internal environmental orientation has a more profound impact on proactive stance compared to the impact of external environmental orientation on reactive environmental strategies. Similarly, business environmental commitment was also identified as an important mediating force.

 

10. Title: Do Mutual Aid Programs Enhance the Sustainability of Insurance? The Case of Xiang Hu Bao and Warikan Cancer Insurance

Author: Haruyoshi Ito

Abstract: In this paper, we examine what types of individuals are expected to purchase mutual aid programs such as Xian Hu Bao in China and Warikan Cancer Insurance in Japan. Additionally, we analyze whether such
programs improve the level of utility of individuals. Xiang Hu Bao, which was introduced by Ant Financial in China in December 2018. Warikan Cancer Insurance was introduced by justInCase in Japan. The results of our analysis show that the higher the disposable income, individuals are more likely to purchase mutual aid programs. It indicates that the increase in utility does not necessary lead to the purchase of mutual aid program. It implies that platformers or insurance companies which consider to sell mutual aid programs need to appeal not only that the premium is low but also the mechanism of mutual aid programs is efficiently effective to reduce the risks of insureds. Furthermore, from the utility analysis using the case of Warikan insurance, even if the current number of subscribers is small (about 3,000) and the pure premium loading is high (52.67%), the level of utility could increase depending on the age and gender because the expected values of insurance claims differ depending on the age and gender. Our analysis also show that there is a risk of adverse selection as the incidence rate of cancer differs depending on the age and gender even within the group in which same premium loading is set. It is necessary to set insurance claims by age and gender, and subdivide the age group for calculating the premium rate. Finally, we also find out mutual aid programs would be demanded by moderately risk-averse individuals. In other words, if the risk aversion coefficient is low, the utility is maximized by not purchasing any insurance, and if the risk aversion coefficient is high, the utility is maximized by purchasing ordinary insurance.

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