Search Results (3,044)

The 2020 Europe Strategy was designed as a comprehensive framework to promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the European Union (EU), particularly emphasising the ‘20/20/20’ targets related to climate protection and energy policy. This study provides an ex post evaluation of the extent to which the strategy’s objectives were achieved in the member states of the EU in the period 2010–2020. The analysis is based on Eurostat data and uses Hellwig’s multidimensional comparative analysis to construct a synthetic indicator of progress. The results show that EU countries have made significant advances in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption, with Sweden and Finland identified as leaders, while Malta and Hungary lagged behind. Primary energy consumption overall decreased, although only a minority of the member states reached the planned thresholds. Progress was less evident in research and development (R&D) expenditure, where the average value of the EU remained below the 3% GDP target, and strong disparities persisted between innovation leaders and weaker performers. Improvements in higher education attainment were observed, contributing to the long-term goal of a knowledge-based economy, although labour market difficulties, especially among young people, remained unresolved. The findings suggest that, although the Strategy contributed to tangible progress in several areas, uneven achievements among member states limited its overall effectiveness. The study is limited by the reliance on aggregate statistical data and a single methodological approach. Future research should extend the analysis to longer time horizons, include qualitative assessments of national policies, and address implications for the implementation of the European Green Deal and subsequent EU development strategies. Full article

The aviation industry is responsible for approximately 2–3% of worldwide CO₂ emissions and is increasingly subjected to demands for the attainment of net-zero emissions targets by the year 2050. Traditional fossil jet fuels, which exhibit lifecycle emissions of approximately 89 kg CO₂-eq/GJ, play a substantial role in exacerbating climate change, contributing to local air pollution, and fostering energy insecurity. In contrast, Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) derived from renewable feedstocks, including biomass, municipal solid waste, algae, or through CO₂- and H₂-based power-to-liquid (PtL) represent a pivotal solution for the immediate future. SAFs generally accomplish lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions of 50–80% (≈20–30 kg CO₂-eq/GJ), possess reduced sulfur and aromatic content, and markedly diminish particulate emissions, thus alleviating both climatic and health-related repercussions. In addition to their environmental advantages, SAFs promote energy diversification, lessen reliance on unstable fossil fuel markets, and invigorate regional economies, with projections indicating the creation of up to one million green jobs by 2030. This comprehensive review synthesizes current knowledge on SAF sustainability advantages compared to conventional aviation fuels, identifying critical barriers to large-scale deployment and proposing integrated solutions that combine technological innovation, supportive policy frameworks, and international collaboration to accelerate the aviation industry’s sustainable transformation. Full article

In the context of global industrial chain decarbonization, the perpetuation of corporate green innovation has emerged as a linchpin for sustaining a competitive advantage in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Employing a panel data framework, this investigation analyzes A-share listed firms in China from 2011 to 2023. In terms of supply chain perspectives, this study utilizes fixed effects models, mediation analysis, and moderation analysis to empirically examine how downstream enterprises’ digital transformation affects the sustainability of upstream enterprises’ green innovation, while deconstructing the “capability–motivation” dual pathway underlying such sustainability. The key findings are as follows: (1) downstream digital transformation significantly strengthens upstream green innovation persistence through both capability reinforcement and motivation amplification, with a notably stronger impact on the latter; (2) mechanism tests show that capability improvement primarily arises from knowledge spillovers and enhanced supply–demand coordination efficiency, while motivation enhancement stems from intensified market competition and greater responsiveness to tax incentives; and (3) supply chain structural characteristics exert critical moderating effects. This research elucidates the operational logic and boundary conditions of supply chain digital coordination in driving green innovation persistence, contributing to theoretical frameworks while offering actionable insights for policymaking and corporate strategic optimization in sustainable supply chain management. Full article

SMEs often face challenges in optimizing their marketing strategies to achieve measurable and sustainable effectiveness in resource-constrained business environments. There is a limited knowledge how integrating the Design Thinking philosophy into AI-driven marketing strategies can generate resilient marketing results for SMEs. The purpose of this research is to explore how integrating DT philosophy can improve and sustain the effectiveness of AI-driven marketing campaigns for SMEs. The author used a qualitatively driven mixed-data case study approach to develop a comprehensive understanding integrating AI-driven marketing and DT. Data were collected through interviews, performance metrics analysis, and document review within three SMEs. The results revealed that incorporating the DT philosophy into AI-driven marketing strategies is associated with marketing effectiveness for SMEs. Additionally, SMEs adopting this integration achieve greater customer engagement and interaction. The combination of DT and AI-driven marketing observed higher improvements than traditional approaches. These results are challenged due to the potential risk of bias, and the qualitative nature may present challenges in convincing readers accustomed to definitive and statistical results. Full article

The hilly and mountainous regions of Nepal provide a suitable environment for the cultivation of large cardamom, a high-value cash crop with significant global market potential. However, climate change poses significant threats to its production and the livelihoods of farmers dependent on this crop. To cope with these challenges, adopting climate-resilient agricultural practices is essential, particularly among smallholder farmers of rural communities. However, the extent of their implementation remains largely unknown. We surveyed 158 households in Ilam and Tehrathum districts to assess the adoption intensity of climate-resilient practices among large cardamom farmers using the Ordered Probit Model. Findings revealed considerable variation in the adoption intensity of climate-resilient practices. Traditional practices like tillering, weeding, and irrigation were highly adopted, while more innovative, knowledge-intensive methods were less adopted. Education was found to have a positive influence on the high adoption intensity of climate-resilient practices. Each additional unit of year of schooling increases the probability of high adoption of practices by 3.4%. Membership in farmers’ groups increases the likelihood of high adoption by 12.9%, while labor availability and regular extension contact rises by 21.9% and 17.8%, respectively. Similarly, age shows a smaller but significant effect, increasing adoption by 0.5% at p-value = 0.08. The use of traditional practices is common; however, the uptake of scientifically recommended practices for climate resilience remains limited. Policy initiatives focusing on farmer education, promoting farmer organizations, addressing labor shortages, and strengthening extension services are important for enhancing resilience in the large cardamom sector of Nepal. Full article

Agriculture and its allied activities contribute to the primary sector in India and act as the basis for the country’s economy. Available agricultural landholdings are scattered as multiple plots across the country. Land fragmentation has led to problems achieving economies of scale and economies of scope; lower productivity, efficiency, and modernization; loss of biodiversity; and little scope for mechanization and technology. FPOs are small clusters of farmers who collaborate to enhance their bargaining strength through collective procurement, processing, and marketing efforts. To enhance the performance of FPOs at the grassroots level, the engagement of cluster-based business organizations (CBBOs) is vital. Millet FPOs are similar to voluntary farmer groups that are involved in the cultivation and promotion of millets. IIMR-promoted millet FPOs were selected purposively for the present study as they are involved in millet cultivation and farming. A total of 450 millet farmers from 15 FPOs and 3 states were randomly chosen for this action research study. The present research identified 10 key factors and collected farmers’ opinions toward member participation in millet FPOs using interpretive structural modeling. The ISM approach provided a clear understanding of how the selected factors interconnect hierarchically with each other as foundational drivers and dependent outcomes. The results from the MICMAC analysis demonstrated that foundational interventions, such as post-harvest technology availability (V2) and knowledge transfer by KVKs (V5), directly support higher-level objectives. Intermediate factors like economies of scale (V1) and market and credit linkages (V3) transform these services into operational advantages, while the outcome factors of business planning (V8), FPO branding (V7), and bargaining power (V9) emerge as dependent variables. The model demonstrates that V2 catalyzes improvements across the production, market, and institutional domains, cascading through intermediate enablers (V1, V4, V5, V6) to strengthen outcomes (V3, V7, V8, V9, V10). This hierarchy demonstrates that investing in post-harvest technology and complementary extension services is critical for building resilient millet FPOs and enhancing member participation. Full article

Sales and marketing personnel are among the most knowledgeable individuals regarding the safety of the medications they promote. No previous work has assessed pharmaceutical sales and marketing personnel’s knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP), and barriers toward pharmacovigilance (PV) in Saudi Arabia; therefore, the present study aimed to assess these aspects and to scrutinize their associations with the subjects’ baseline characteristics. A validated questionnaire comprising five sections (baseline characteristics, knowledge, attitude, practice, and barriers) was disseminated via email networks and social media platforms between 18 March and 31 May 2025. All employees working in the sales and marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies in Saudi Arabia were eligible to participate. Participants’ responses were categorized as good or poor knowledge, positive or negative attitude, good or poor practice, and challenging or non-challenging work environment, based on the cumulative score in each respective section, using a 60% cutoff. A total of 400 participants completed the survey. Of these, about one-third (37.3%) had 2–4 years of professional experience and two-thirds (63%) were employed by multinational companies. Overall, 57% and 83.5% had good knowledge and positive attitude, respectively. The work environment was considered non-challenging by 92.8% of participants, and 61% reported good practice. We noted that holding a non-pharmacy degree was a significant predictor of poor knowledge and a challenging work environment. Additionally, employment in a local company was significantly associated with poor knowledge and practice. Pharmaceutical sales and marketing personnel in Saudi Arabia demonstrated acceptable levels of KAP and reported few barriers toward PV, with an opportunity for improvement. Full article

In the digitally saturated hospitality environment, research on digital transformation remains dominated by macro-level adoption trends and user-generated content, while the potential of micro-level web-behavioural data remains largely untapped. Recent systematic reviews highlight a fragmented body of literature and note that hospitality studies seldom address first-party behavioural data or big-data analytics capabilities. To address this gap, we collected clickstream, navigation and booking-funnel data from five luxury hotels in the Mediterranean and employed big-data analytics integrated with simulation modelling—specifically fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM)—to model causal relationships among digital touchpoints, managerial actions and customer outcomes. FCM is a robust simulation tool that captures stakeholder knowledge and causal influences across complex systems. Using a case-study methodology, we show that first-party behavioural data enable real-time insights, support knowledge-based decision-making and drive digital service innovation. Across a 12-month panel, visitor volume was strongly associated with search traffic and social traffic, with the total-visitors model explaining 99.8% of variance. Our findings extend digital-transformation models by embedding micro-level behavioural data flows and simulation modelling. Practically, this study offers a replicable framework that helps managers integrate web-analytics into decision-making and customer-centric innovation. Overall, embedding micro-level web-behavioural analytics within an FCM framework yields a decision-ready, replicable pipeline that translates behavioural evidence into high-leverage managerial interventions. Full article

The UK electricity market is changing to adapt to Net Zero targets and respond to disruptions like the Russia–Ukraine war. This requires strategic planning to decide on the construction of new electricity generation plants for a resilient UK electricity grid. Such planning is based on forecasting the UK electricity demand long-term (from 1 year and beyond). In this paper, we propose a long-term predictive model by identifying the main components of the UK electricity demand, modelling each of these components, and combining them in a multiplicative manner to deliver a single long-term prediction. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to apply a multiplicative decomposition model for long-term predictions at both monthly and hourly resolutions, combining neural networks with Fourier analysis. This approach is extremely flexible and accurate, with a mean absolute percentage error of 4.16% and 8.62% in predicting the monthly and hourly electricity demand, respectively, from 2019 to 2021. Full article

Background: Despite significant technological advances, many logistics organizations in emerging markets struggle to realize the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, with reported success rates below 65% and limited theoretical understanding of the organizational capabilities. This study develops and proposes an integrated theoretical framework examining how knowledge process capabilities and dynamic capabilities interact to enable successful artificial intelligence adoption in logistics organizations within emerging market contexts. Methods: Through comprehensive literature review and theoretical synthesis, we propose a hybrid capability framework that integrates knowledge-based view perspectives with dynamic capabilities theory. Results: Theoretical analysis suggests that knowledge combination capabilities may be the strongest predictor of artificial intelligence implementation success, while dynamic reconfiguring capabilities could mediate the relationship between artificial intelligence adoption and performance outcomes. The proposed framework indicates that organizations with hybrid capability architecture may achieve superior implementation success compared to traditional approaches. Environmental uncertainty is theorized to strengthen the knowledge process capabilities—artificial intelligence adoption relationship. Conclusions: The framework suggests that successful artificial intelligence integration requires simultaneous development of knowledge-based and adaptive capabilities rather than sequential capability building. The hybrid capability framework provides theoretical guidance for managers in emerging markets, while highlighting the critical role of environmental context in shaping transformation strategies. Full article

Customer experience is central to omnichannel marketing and is increasingly the focus of research attention. However, few studies have focused on the development of excellent omnichannel customer experiences. To fill this research gap, we examined the drivers of these experiences from a customer journey design perspective. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and partial least squares multigroup analysis (PLS-MGA) were employed to analyze 775 valid omnichannel customers’ data, which were collected through an online survey. The findings suggest that the thematic cohesion, consistency, context sensitivity, and connectivity of touchpoints play an important role in improving omnichannel customer experience. Value co-creation behavior can be significantly increased by affective, cognitive, physical, relational, and symbolic experiences, but not by sensorial omnichannel customer experiences. These results not only contribute to the knowledge of omnichannel customer experiences, customer journeys, and value co-creation behavior, but also offer useful advice for omnichannel marketers. Full article

This article aims to investigate the impact of sustainable assets on dynamic portfolio optimization under varying levels of investor risk aversion, particularly during turbulent market conditions. The analysis compares the performance of two portfolio types: (i) portfolios composed of non-sustainable assets such as fossil energy commodities and conventional equity indices, and (ii) mixed portfolios that combine non-sustainable and sustainable assets, including renewable energy, green bonds, and precious metals using advanced Deep Reinforcement Learning models (including TD3 and DDPG) based on risk and transaction cost- sensitive in portfolio optimization against the traditional Mean-Variance model. Results show that incorporating clean and sustainable assets significantly enhances portfolio returns and reduces volatility across all risk aversion profiles. Moreover, the Deep Reinforcing Learning optimization models outperform classical MV optimization, and the RTC-LSTM-TD3 optimization strategy outperforms all others. The RTC-LSTM-TD3 optimization achieves an annual return of 24.18% and a Sharpe ratio of 2.91 in mixed portfolios (sustainable and non-sustainable assets) under low risk aversion (λ = 0.005), compared to a return of only 8.73% and a Sharpe ratio of 0.67 in portfolios excluding sustainable assets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that employs the DRL framework integrating risk sensitivity and transaction costs to evaluate the diversification benefits of sustainable assets. Findings offer important implications for portfolio managers to leverage the benefits of sustainable diversification, and for policymakers to encourage the integration of sustainable assets, while addressing fiduciary responsibilities. Full article

The result of accelerated development and technological progress is manifested through numerous changes in the labor market, primarily concerning the competencies of future employees. Many of those competencies have symmetrical character. The determinants that may influence the development of specific competencies are variable and dynamic, yet they share the characteristic of transcending temporal and spatial boundaries. In this paper we propose the use of a combination of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to rank 21st-century competencies that are developed independently of the formal educational process. Ability to organize and plan, appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism, and ability to solve problems appeared to be the highest-ranked competencies. The development of key competencies is symmetrical to the skills for the labor market. Also, the development of key competencies is symmetrical to the right selection of the quality of media content. The paper proves that the development of key competencies is symmetrical to the level of education of both parents. One of the key findings is that participants with higher levels of media literacy express more readiness for the contemporary labor market. Moreover, the family, particularly parents, exerts a highly significant positive influence on the development of 21st-century competencies. Parents with higher levels of education, in particular, provide a stimulating environment for learning, foster critical thinking, and encourage the exploration of diverse domains of knowledge. Full article

Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS) has long been practiced by Indigenous Peoples to care for the land, reduce wildfire risk, and maintain ecological and cultural values. In British Columbia, Yunesit’in, a member of the Tsilhqot’in Nation, has revitalized their IFS practices following the 2017 Hanceville Fire. As climate policy increasingly supports nature-based solutions, carbon credit programs are emerging as a potential funding source for IFS. This study used grounded theory with interviews to understand Yunesit’in IFS practitioners’ and community leaders’ perspectives on carbon credits. Using the concept of “cultural signatures,” we identified core values shaping community engagement in carbon markets. While most interviewees (7/10) were initially unfamiliar with carbon credits, many saw their potential to support long-term program goals after learning more. Three cultural signatures emerged from the analysis: (1) a sense of stewardship responsibility, (2) the importance of a community-grounded program, and (3) the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and land-based practices. Interviewees expressed concern that carbon credits might shift the program’s focus away from land and culture toward technical goals that exclude community participation. We conclude that building awareness about carbon and carbon credits among Indigenous Peoples, and supporting engagement processes that reflect cultural signatures in carbon frameworks, are both critical. Full article

As the global economy undergoes rapid digital transformation, cryptocurrencies have emerged as a prominent alternative class of financial assets. Their decentralized nature, pseudonymity, and lack of centralized oversight have attracted considerable interest among investors while simultaneously raising significant concerns among regulators and compliance professionals. While cryptocurrencies offer benefits such as enhanced accessibility and transactional privacy, they also pose notable risks, particularly their potential misuse in financial crimes, including money laundering. This study explores the perceived risks associated with cryptocurrencies in the context of money laundering, drawing on insights from a survey conducted among 50 financial sector professionals. A quantitative research design was employed, using a structured online questionnaire to assess participants’ awareness, investment behavior, and perceptions of the role of cryptocurrencies in illicit finance and financial system security. The results reveal a complex perspective: while 70% of respondents acknowledged the potential for cryptocurrencies to facilitate money laundering, 60% expressed support for their wider adoption. Notably, statistically significant correlations emerged between active investment in cryptocurrencies and the belief that they could enhance financial market security and reduce laundering risks. However, self-reported knowledge levels and general awareness did not show a significant relationship with perceived risk. The findings underscore the importance of a balanced approach to regulation, one that fosters innovation while mitigating illicit finance risks. The study recommends increased investment in user education, the development of blockchain analytics, the adoption of global regulatory standards and enhanced international cooperation to ensure the responsible evolution of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Full article