Search Results (256)

Against deglobalization and intensifying geopolitical conflicts, maritime bulk commodity supply chain vulnerability and resilience governance are strategic priorities for 75% of countries. To tackle rising global uncertainty, this study proposes the country-level risk identification, monitoring, and extrapolation (RIME) framework for such supply chains, which aligns with the theoretical demand for macro, end-to-end risk integration beyond the traditional firm-level focus. Based on the “supplier country–shipping route–importing country” spatiotemporal linkage, we construct the first standardized country-level vulnerability index. It overcomes the limitations of existing static and localized assessments by integrating spatiotemporal, multi-source risks across the full physical chain, thereby enabling dynamic, macro-level monitoring and supporting systematic diagnostics and trend tracking of national supply chain security. We also develop an emergent risk simulation technique to quantify the direction and intensity of compound disturbances as well as the system’s dynamic responses. Empirical validation with China’s iron ore imports shows that the index effectively captures risk evolution, while the simulations confirm that sudden disruptions amplify systemic risk. This framework fills national strategic security theoretical gaps and provides governments with dynamic monitoring, quantitative assessment, and policy forecasting tools. Full article

Sustainability in the agri-food sector has become a cornerstone of global efforts to combat climate change, ensure food security through climate-smart agriculture, and strengthen economic resilience. Sustainability reporting within agri-food systems has gained increasing regulatory significance with the introduction of mandatory frameworks such as the Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRSs). This article searches for the sustainability reports of agri-business firms listed in BIST in Turkey. Although TSRS reporting is not yet mandatory for the agribusiness sector, this study examines the first TSRS-aligned sustainability reports published by eight agri-food companies, excluding the retail sector. The analysis assesses how effectively these reports address sector-specific environmental and social challenges defined in the GRI 13 Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing Sector Standard and their alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using a structured content analysis approach, disclosure patterns were examined at both thematic and company levels. The findings indicate that TSRS-aligned reports place strong emphasis on environmental and climate-related disclosures, particularly emissions, climate adaptation and resilience, water management, and waste. In contrast, agro-ecological and land-based impacts—such as soil health, pesticide use, and ecosystem conversion—are weakly addressed. Economic disclosures are predominantly framed around climate-related financial risks and supply chain traceability, while social reporting focuses mainly on occupational health and safety, employment practices, and food safety, with limited attention to labor and equity issues across the broader value chain. Company-level results reveal marked heterogeneity, with internationally active firms demonstrating deeper alignment with GRI 13 requirements. From an SDG alignment perspective, high levels of coverage are observed across all companies for SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). By contrast, SDGs critical to agro-ecological integrity and social equity—namely SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 15 (Life on Land)—are weakly represented or entirely absent. Overall, the results suggest that while TSRS-aligned reporting enhances transparency in climate-related domains, it achieves only selective alignment with the SDG agenda. This underscores the need for a stronger integration of sector-specific sustainability priorities into mandatory sustainability reporting frameworks. Full article

This study proposes a hybrid machine learning framework that integrates structured financial indicators and unstructured textual strategy disclosures to improve firm-level management performance prediction. Using corporate business reports from South Korean listed firms, strategic text was extracted and categorized under the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework into financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth dimensions. Various machine learning and deep learning models—including k-nearest neighbors (KNNs), support vector machine (SVM), light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), convolutional neural network (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), autoencoder, and transformer—were evaluated, with results showing that the inclusion of strategic textual data significantly enhanced prediction accuracy, precision, recall, area under the curve (AUC), and F1-score. Among individual models, the transformer architecture demonstrated superior performance in extracting context-rich semantic features. A soft-voting ensemble model combining autoencoder, LSTM, and transformer achieved the best overall performance, leading in accuracy and AUC, while the best single deep learning model (transformer) obtained a marginally higher F1 score, confirming the value of hybrid learning. Furthermore, analysis revealed that customer-oriented strategy disclosures were the most predictive among BSC dimensions. These findings highlight the value of integrating financial and narrative data using advanced NLP and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to develop interpretable and robust corporate performance forecasting models. In addition, we operationalize information security narratives using a reproducible cybersecurity lexicon and derive security disclosure intensity and weight share features that are jointly evaluated with BSC-based strategic vectors. Full article

Understanding how investors maintain positions during adverse market conditions, investment grip, is increasingly important as retail participation rises and information environments diversify. While prior research identifies demographic, psychological, and economic determinants of investment grip, little is known about how information sources influence investors’ tolerance for losses. This study examines the relationship between investment information channels and investment grip among Japanese retail investors using a large-scale dataset of 161,677 respondents from the 2025 Survey on Life and Money. Investment grip is measured through a hypothetical loss scenario, and ordered probit and probit models are used to analyze associations between loss tolerance, information sources, and investor characteristics. Results show that reliance on professional information sources such as outsourced independent financial advisors, one’s own securities company, other securities firms, and external financial experts is negatively associated with investment grip. Free information sources, including mass media and personal networks, are also linked to lower loss tolerance. In contrast, reliance on social media is consistently associated with higher investment grip. Financial literacy, wealth, and age increase investment grip, whereas risk aversion, short-term outlooks, and family responsibilities reduce it. These results have implications for policy design, advisory practices, and digital and AI-enhanced investment platforms. Full article

This study examines how geographic distance to Vietnam’s centralized securities regulator—the State Securities Commission (SSC)—influences firm-level stock price crash risk. In emerging markets characterized by weak governance, corruption, and political connections, distance can erode monitoring effectiveness and heighten managerial incentives to conceal bad news. Using data on Vietnamese listed firms from 2010 to 2024, we find a robust positive association between a firm’s distance to the SSC headquarters in Hanoi and its future crash risk. The effect is stronger for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and in provinces with high corruption, but disappears in SOEs and in more transparent regions, where state-related networks provide insulation from weak formal institutions. Exploiting the 2019 Securities Law as a quasi-natural experiment, we show that the distance effect was more pronounced before the reform, suggesting that improved formal regulation can partially offset geographically induced monitoring frictions. Additional tests reveal that the effect is amplified among firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and those with higher financial leverage. Our findings provide novel evidence on the spatial dimension of regulatory enforcement in emerging markets. We highlight geographic distance as a significant but previously overlooked source of crash risk, with implications for regulators in designing risk-based supervision and for investors in pricing location-driven risks. Full article

Whether the New Energy Vehicle Promotion Policy (NEVPP) enhances supply chain resilience is pivotal to China’s green transition and global industrial security. Using data on A-share listed automobile manufacturers from 2012 to 2024, this study employs a multi-period difference-in-differences approach to identify the policy’s impact. Results show that NEVPP significantly strengthens supply chain resilience, and the findings remain robust across alternative specifications. Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy raises managerial attention, eases financing constraints, and stimulates technological innovation, thereby enhancing resilience through managerial, financial, and technological channels. Heterogeneity analysis by ownership, geography, R&D intensity, analyst coverage, and institutional ownership shows that the effect is stronger for state-owned enterprises, firms in central and western regions, low-R&D firms, those without analyst coverage, those with high analyst attention, and firms with low institutional ownership. This study provides firm-level evidence on the economic consequences of NEVPP, advances understanding of industrial policy and corporate resilience, and offers policy implications for supporting the global energy transition and safeguarding supply chain stability. Full article

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have become central to international trade, transforming how firms, industries, and governments engage in global markets. This study conducts a systematic literature review to synthesize current knowledge on the ESG–trade nexus. Using content analysis, three key thematic clusters were identified: (i) ESG in supply chains and logistics, (ii) ESG in export performance and international competitiveness, and (iii) ESG and trade within geopolitics, energy, and resource security. The synthesis reveals that ESG has evolved from a voluntary corporate initiative into a structural determinant of global competitiveness, resilience, and legitimacy. Building on these findings, the study proposes an integrative ESG–Trade framework, which conceptualizes ESG as a multidimensional governance ecosystem comprising (i) institutional and regulatory, (ii) technological and operational, and (iii) geopolitical and strategic dimensions. This framework explains how sustainability regulations, digital transformation, and global political economy dynamics co-evolve to shape trade flows and industrial upgrading. The study highlights the need for greater regulatory coherence and strategic ESG integration while offering a foundation for future interdisciplinary and empirical research on sustainable trade governance. Full article

Against the backdrop of heightened global economic uncertainty and increasingly frequent risks in agricultural supply chains, enhancing agricultural supply chain resilience has become a critical issue for safeguarding national food security and promoting high-quality agricultural development. As key actors within agricultural supply chains, the impact of financialization—defined as the shift of resources to non-core financial assets—among agricultural listed firms on supply chain resilience warrants systematic examination. Using panel data from 165 Chinese agricultural listed firms (2010–2022), this study empirically investigates the impact of corporate financialization on agricultural supply chain resilience and its underlying mechanisms. An entropy-weighted composite index based on 16 parameters is used to assess agricultural supply chain resilience. It is composed of three dimensions: resistance capability, recovery capacity, and renewal capacity. The results show that: Financialization significantly undermines supply chain resilience, with the most substantial negative effect on recovery capacity, followed by renewal capacity, and the weakest on resistance capacity. Heterogeneity analyses show more pronounced negative effects among non-state-owned enterprises, non-primary sector firms, and capital-intensive enterprises. Financing constraints and capital expenditures partially mediate the negative relationship between financialization and resilience, while profitability persistence exacerbates the crowding-out effect. These findings suggest that policymakers should strike a compromise between reducing excessive financialization and strengthening agricultural supply chains. While prudently guiding agricultural firms’ financial asset allocation, greater emphasis should be placed on developing a diverse and coordinated industrial support system, thereby diverting financial capital away from crowding out core operations and toward effectively serving the real economy, ultimately contributing to national food security and agricultural modernization. Full article

Compliant cross-border data flows face persistent challenges from fragmented regulatory regimes, inconsistent enforcement, and limited trust among stakeholders. Current approaches typically rely on centralized oversight or excessive data disclosure, both compromising regulatory interoperability and operational security. This paper introduces a trust-oriented blockchain architecture that enables secure cross-border data exchange while ensuring verifiable compliance without revealing sensitive content. The architecture decouples policy enforcement, privacy-preserving validation, and cross-jurisdiction auditability, enabling entities to share cryptographically verifiable compliance proofs rather than raw data. To capture the behavioral dynamics across heterogeneous regulatory environments, we incorporate a strategic interaction layer that models how domestic firms, foreign enterprises, and cross-border data platforms adjust decisions under varying incentive structures. These insights guide the design of an adaptive compliance verification pipeline that maintains trust equilibrium across participants. Our design records only cryptographic digests and structured compliance evidence on-chain, while off-chain components execute privacy-preserving checks using secure computation and decentralized storage. Through a case-driven evaluation, we show that the proposed architecture reduces governance friction, enhances institutional trust, and achieves interoperable compliance validation with minimal disclosure overhead. Through component-level evaluation and architectural analysis, this work establishes a technical foundation for secure, transparent, and regulation-aligned cross-border data governance. The framework provides a blueprint for future multi-party pilot deployments in operational environments. Full article

As enterprises increasingly depend on software systems, security defects such as vulnerability disclosures, exploitations, and misconfigurations have become economically relevant risk events. However, their short-term impacts on capital markets remain insufficiently understood. This study examines how different types of software security defects affect short-horizon stock market behavior. Using a multi-model event-study framework that integrates the Constant Mean Return Model (CMRM), Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), we estimate abnormal returns and trading-activity responses around security-related events. The results show that vulnerability disclosures are associated with negative abnormal returns and reduced trading activity, while exploitation events lead to larger price declines accompanied by significant increases in trading activity. Misconfiguration incidents exhibit weaker price effects but persistent turnover increases, suggesting that markets interpret them primarily as governance-related issues. Further analyses reveal that market reactions vary with technical severity, exposure scope, industry context, and firm role, and that cyber shocks propagate through both price adjustment and liquidity migration channels. Overall, the findings indicate that software security defects act as short-term information shocks in financial markets, with heterogeneous effects depending on event type. This study contributes to the literature on cybersecurity economics and provides insights for firms, investors, and policymakers in managing software-related risks. Full article

It is well known that food waste, especially perishable fruits, is one of the pressing issues worldwide, and as much as 50% of harvested fruits are wasted in developing countries as a result of poor preservation methods. Other traditional options such as plastic films or chemical preservatives are harmful to the environment and to our health. In this work, the limitations are overcome through the fabrication of an innovative camellia saponin/sodium alginate (CS/SA) composite hydrogel film that not only recycles agricultural waste but also improves fruit protection. CS/SA films were prepared by ionic crosslinking with CaCl₂ with different CS content (0–10% w/v, corresponding to 0–3.1 wt% in air-dried films). Detailed SEM, FTIR, XRD and rheological studies indicated that CS addition led to a gradual microstructural densification, stronger intermolecular interactions (involving hydrogen bonding and electrostatic complexation) and superior viscoelasticity, with the best performance at 8% CS (2.5 wt% in dried film). Mechanical tests confirmed that the stable CS/SA film showed higher tensile strength (152 kPa) and compressive strength (353 kPa) than pure SA (10 kPa) with a relatively low Young’s modulus (0.82 MPa) and high elongation at break (116.33%), which could be easily peeled off from fruit surfaces—an essential benefit of this over stiff chitosan/alginate composites. Structure: The composite film exhibited lower porosity (103.2%), reduced moisture content (94.7%), a controlled swelling ratio (800%) and improved barrier property with a water vapor permeability of 1.3 $\times {10}^{-6}$ g·m⁻¹·s⁻¹·kPa⁻¹ and an oxygen permeability of 1.9 × cm³$·\mathsf{\mu }$m·m⁻²·d⁻¹·kPa⁻¹. The 8% CS film showed very strong antioxidant activity (86% DPPH scavenging). Results of application tests on bananas and strawberries indicated that the ripening process was delayed by the CS/SA coatings, the decay rate was decreased from 99.9% (uncoated control) to 55.6% after 9 days, the weight loss was reduced to 29.3%, and the fruit’s firmness and titratable acidity were maintained. This degradable, multifunctional hydrogel film has the potential to be a sustainable measure to simultaneously mitigate food waste, valorize agricultural byproducts, and protect the environment, which could offer substantial benefit for enhancing global food security as well as fruit shelf life. Full article

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a growing role in fostering transparency, stakeholder trust, and long-term firm sustainability, particularly in emerging markets. Firms that actively engage in CSR are more likely to disclose credible financial information, which can reduce the incentive to withhold adverse news and thereby limit stock price crash risk (SPCR). This study investigates the impact of CSR on SPCR, while also examining whether this relationship varies across different stages of the firm life cycle (FLC). The analysis is based on an unbalanced panel of listed non-financial firms from the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), covering the period from 2009 to 2023. Financial data were obtained from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), while market data were collected from the PSX. Employing fixed-effects robust regression models and two crash risk proxies, negative conditional skewness (NCSKEW) and down-to-up volatility (DUVOL), the results reveal a consistent and significant negative association between CSR and SPCR. This suggests that firms with stronger CSR engagement are less prone to extreme negative stock returns. However, the moderating effect of FLC is only evident at the introduction and decline stages, indicating that the effectiveness of CSR in reducing crash risk depends on a firm’s position in its organizational life cycle. These findings contribute to the literature on CSR and financial stability in emerging markets and offer practical implications for investors, managers, and policymakers seeking to promote risk-aware, socially responsible corporate strategies. Full article

Institutional investors exert significant influence on the operations and development of financial institutions, with different categories of investors playing distinct roles. We contend that institutional investor diversity may affect systemic financial risk. This study proposes novel measures of institutional investor diversity across 84 China’s financial institutions and employs Extreme Value Theory (EVT) to estimate systemic financial risk. Based on this, we empirically examine the relationship and underlying mechanisms. Baseline regression indicates that greater institutional investor diversity plays an effective role in controlling systemic financial risk. We further find that institutional investor diversity significantly suppresses herding behavior, thereby indirectly reducing systemic risk. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced in financial institutions operating in more developed market environments, under stronger external supervision, and with higher levels of technological advancement, as well as in securities firms. These findings not only contribute to the literature on the economic impact of institutional investors but also provide valuable insights for strengthening systemic financial risk control. Full article

The global shift towards low-carbon economies underscores the critical role of new energy (NE) technologies in addressing climate change and ensuring energy security. China’s renewable energy sector serves as a prime example of this transition. However, the sector faces significant challenges, including technological fragmentation characterized by isolated R&D efforts that impede knowledge diffusion, and regional disparities that marginalize firms in inland and western regions within innovation networks. This study examines the spatiotemporal evolution of China’s new energy technological correlation networks across 208 firms (2006–2023) using social network analysis. The findings reveal a four-stage progression from fragmentation (2006–2010) to regional clustering (2011–2015), followed by core–periphery differentiation (2016–2020), culminating in multipolar synergy (2021–2023). Policy cycles are closely associated with structural shifts, with coastal hubs leveraging policy-industrial advantages whilst inland areas grow via technology diffusion. This study proposes the policy-driven effect, where subsidies anchor scale expansion, whereas phase-outs are linked to quality enhancement. Phase-adaptive strategies are recommended to transition from scale-driven to innovation-quality paradigms. Full article

In the context of Industry 4.0, industrial firms are encountering new challenges related to data management, flow traceability, security and process transparency. Blockchain, as a distributed ledger technology, offers innovative solutions to meet these challenges. This study proposes a systematic literature review (SLR) on the recent contributions of blockchain in industrial environments. A total of 20 scientific articles, published over the last ten years, were analyzed to better understand how this technology is being integrated into production processes and supply chains. The analysis identified four major areas in which blockchain is being mobilized: traceability of production processes, transparency of supply chains, integration into digital industrial systems, and its role in decision support. The results show that blockchain enables reliable, real-time monitoring of industrial operations, particularly when coupled with technologies such as IoT, smart contracts or event-driven databases. It also promotes better coordination between players, reinforces trust, and facilitates audits in complex or multi-actor environments. However, despite its potential, several limitations remain. Barriers related to scalability, implementation costs, system interoperability and the integration of manual tasks still limit its widespread adoption. Furthermore, in many cases, blockchain is treated as a secondary technology, reducing the depth of analysis available. This review offers a structured vision of the contributions and limitations of blockchain in industry while identifying future research prospects, particularly around hybrid models and concrete implementation cases. Full article