Sustainability

Can national standards, as a core component of national quality infrastructure (NQI), facilitate the sustainable development of South–South trade, or do they instead create barriers to market access? We examine this question by combining China’s industry-level national standards with highly disaggregated bilateral trade data for 52 African countries over 2002–2019. Using PPML models with country-product and country-year fixed effects, we find that Chinese national standards are associated with significantly higher imports from African countries, while no significant effect is found for China’s exports to Africa. Mechanism analysis shows that standards are associated with greater firm participation in African sourcing and higher imported-product quality. National standards are significantly positively correlated with the expansion of imported product varieties. Significant positive associations are found for resource-manufactured products and technology-manufactured products. It is also more pronounced for African countries with greater quality infrastructure capacity and for recommended, technical, and internationally aligned national standards. Aid for trade further strengthens the trade effects of standardization. These findings show that national standards can support the economic and structural sustainability of China–Africa trade by broadening market participation, improving product quality, and promoting trade diversification and structural upgrading, with these effects depending on partner-country quality infrastructure capacity and complementary trade-supporting institutions.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) represents an enabling information-management infrastructure within the broader digital transformation of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, rather than its sole or primary driver. This study examines associations among perceived BIM benefits, barriers, implementation strategies, perceived BIM-use applicability, and perceived BIM-enabled digital transformation. A quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational-explanatory design was applied using data from 73 AEC professionals in 11 Latin American countries. Exploratory factor analysis assessed the preliminary measurement structure, and partial least squares structural equation modeling evaluated the proposed associations. Perceived BIM-use applicability was operationalized through a BIM Execution Plan-oriented logic as professionals’ assessment of the relevance, feasibility, and potential usefulness of BIM-enabled information-management uses across planning, design, construction, and operation. Perceived benefits (β = 0.359, p < 0.001) and implementation strategies (β = 0.346, p < 0.001) were positively associated with perceived BIM-use applicability; whereas, perceived barriers were negatively associated (β = −0.315, p < 0.001). Perceived BIM-use applicability was positively associated with perceived BIM-enabled digital transformation (β = 0.573, p < 0.001). The findings position lifecycle-oriented BIM-use applicability as a proximal implementation assessment associated with perceived organizational outcomes, without implying that BIM is the only driver of AEC digital transformation.

This study seeks to elucidate the intricate interplay between gastronomy involvement (GI), gastronomy knowledge (GK), past gastronomy experiences (PGEs), gastronomy attractiveness (GA), destination attractiveness (DA), tourist satisfaction (TS), and the revisit intention (REI). In the context of this investigation, the research population was composed of 300 international culinary tourists who visited the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Employing the SPSS software, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to rigorously assess the construct validity, reliability, and discriminant and convergent validity of the research model. The findings of this research underscore the positive relationships that exist between the various dimensions of gastronomy, namely, involvement in gastronomy, gastronomy knowledge, and previous gastronomic experiences, as well as the perceived attractiveness of gastronomy. These findings enhance our understanding of how culinary elements affect tourists’ perceptions and experiences, highlighting the crucial role of gastronomy in destination appeal and visitor satisfaction. This research provides valuable insights for destination marketers and policymakers seeking to foster sustainability through culinary tourism initiatives.