Search Results (347)

The implementation of circular solutions instead of single-use plastic requires a stronger alliance between science and the private sector, which could be achieved by means of knowledge and strategy co-creation. To investigate their benefits, this study applies common-pool resource theory in serious game design. While other serious games focused on the circular economy exist, none of them consider different modes of knowledge acquisition. To test the game’s potential, we used a convenience sample of 188 biology and geography students (researchers-to-be) from Jagiellonian University. Each of the 20 groups was divided into playing the roles of science and business actors. Two versions of the game were assessed—one with separation and one with personnel exchange. The results of the games were analyzed in relation to the structure of the shared social values as a differentiating co-factor. Science–business collaboration and environmental attitudes were evaluated using pre- and post-questionnaires. Results suggest that the successful resolution of the presented common-pool resource dilemma correlates with the introduced collaboration (p = 0.004, t value = 3.400, df = 1) and the Self-Transcendence values (p = 0.001, t value = 4.329, df = 1). We observed desirable changes in participants’ attitudes after the game (p = 0.000, χ² = 18.810, df = 1). Further investigation into gaming as a science communication tool and its long-term effects is recommended to facilitate the implementation of knowledge co-creation principles in practice. Full article

This study investigates whether the interaction between structural characteristics and fiscal mechanisms determines regional investment allocation and contributes to regional divergence in Kazakhstan. To achieve this aim, panel regression with interaction effects and cross-country benchmarking are employed for 2005–2025, and the influence of structural characteristics and fiscal mechanisms on the efficiency and spatial distribution of investment is assessed. The methodology combines panel regression with interaction effects and comparative cross-country analysis. The model includes fiscal variables (budgets, subsidies), structural indicators (industrial shares, business density), and interactions (industry x budget, agriculture x budget). Additionally, benchmarking is conducted with European countries, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Norway, using log-difference and coefficient variation. The results show that investment allocation is associated with divergence rather than convergence. The negative effects of subsidies and industrial concentration indicate the limitations of redistributive and sectoral factors. At the same time, positive interaction effects confirm that investment is effective when fiscal structural conditions are aligned. Business density acts as a sustainable driver of growth. A cross-country analysis demonstrates that countries with a more balanced structure and institutional environment achieve greater resilience and less differentiation. The results highlight the nonlinear and structurally determined nature of investment. They point to the need for policies focused on diversification, entrepreneurship development, and the alignment of fiscal instruments with regional economies. Full article

Business model adjustment is a critical capability for microenterprises operating in import-dependent industries within emerging markets, and is increasingly recognised in the sustainable business model literature as a mechanism through which firms build economic resilience under resource constraints and volatile operating conditions. This paper examines how a specialty coffee microenterprise in Almaty, Kazakhstan, has adjusted its business model to create, deliver and capture value in a non-producing, landlocked economy characterised by rapid demand growth, currency volatility and high import dependency. The study answers two research questions regarding this case using Osterwalder and Pigneur’s business model canvas as the main analytical framework: (1) How did the case company set up its business model to create, deliver, and capture value? (2) In the context of Kazakhstani specialty coffee roasting, what possibilities and challenges influenced this business model? The analysis combines secondary market data with qualitative evidence from a semi-structured interview conducted in autumn 2025 with the founder of a nine-employee microenterprise that has evolved from a mobile coffee bar into a hybrid B2B–B2C roaster, café operator and e-commerce subscription service. Although Kazakhstan is not a coffee-producing country, its retail coffee market expanded from USD 326.71 million in 2019 to an estimated USD 554.5 million in 2025, with the fresh-coffee share rising from approximately 30% to 37%. The interview account describes a business model centred on locally roasted, traceable specialty coffee delivered fresh to a young, urban customer base, supported by educational and community-building activities. As reported by the founder, the enterprise faces structural challenges including exposure to international green-coffee price spikes—such as the record nominal highs of 354.32 US cents/lb reached in February 2025—currency-related cost volatility, logistical complexity across Eurasian transit routes and constrained access to growth-stage financing. Because the evidence base is a single founder interview combined with secondary market data, the paper does not independently verify the firm’s resilience, viability or financial outcomes. The findings are presented in the form of analytical generalisations—that is, generalisations relating to theoretical conclusions drawn from this specific case, rather than from a broader set of companies—which illustrate, based on the founder’s own account, how this micro-enterprise pursued a targeted, phased adaptation of its business model rather than a radical overhaul; the study does not independently verify resulting sustainability or resilience outcomes. As this is a case study, the present analysis does not allow us to determine the extent to which this model is representative of other micro-enterprises involved in coffee production, or of other non-manufacturing sectors in developing economies; the contribution of this study is empirical and contextual rather than theoretical: it extends the scope of business model analysis to under-researched geographical and institutional contexts and lays the groundwork for future comparative studies. Full article

Research on sharing economy platforms has expanded rapidly, yet the literature remains fragmented across studies on platform business models, gig work, algorithmic management, trust, reputation systems, artificial intelligence, and data-driven value creation. This article addresses this fragmentation through a bibliometric and systematic review of 660 documents retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science covering the period from 2010 to May 2026. A PRISMA-based protocol guided identification, deduplication, screening, eligibility assessment, and final corpus construction. The analysis combined performance indicators, co-citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence mapping, country collaboration analysis, longitudinal thematic evolution, strategic diagrams, and systematic content coding using Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny 5.4.1, VOSviewer 1.6.21, and SciMAT 1.1.04. The results show a marked acceleration of the field after 2020 and identify major research clusters around algorithmic labour and platform control, algorithmic management, trust and reputation, and dynamic pricing. The systematic coding further indicates that algorithmic management, reputation systems, dynamic pricing, surveillance, matching, and AI-enabled mechanisms recur across governance and value-creation processes. The study develops an integrative framework that interprets these patterns through four connected elements: data inputs, algorithmic mechanisms, governance functions, and value outcomes. This framework provides managers and regulators with a basis for assessing transparency, accountability, participant autonomy, value distribution, and the legitimacy of platform governance. Full article

Corporate resilience has become a critical capability for firms to cope with increasing environmental uncertainties and external shocks. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the digital economy, this study examines whether digital transformation enhances corporate resilience and further investigates whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance serves as a complementary transmission mechanism in this relationship. Drawing on resource orchestration theory, this study uses panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2024 and estimates a series of firm fixed-effects models. The results indicate that digital transformation significantly enhances corporate resilience, and the findings remain robust after a series of robustness checks and endogeneity tests are conducted. Further analysis reveals that ESG performance partially mediates the relationship between digital transformation and corporate resilience, suggesting that responsible business practices complement the resilience-enhancing effect of digital transformation. The results of the heterogeneity analysis further indicate that the positive effect of digital transformation is significantly stronger for high-tech firms. In addition, firms exhibit substantial variation in the consistency between digital transformation communication and actual digital investment. Further analysis suggests that greater alignment between digital transformation communication and substantive implementation is associated with stronger resilience outcomes, providing supplementary evidence on the implementation process of digital transformation. This study contributes to the literature on digital transformation and corporate resilience by revealing the resource orchestration process through which digital transformation creates organizational value and identifying ESG performance as a complementary transmission mechanism. The findings also have practical implications for firms seeking to strengthen their resilience and achieve sustainable development in an increasingly uncertain environment. Full article

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent the majority of EU businesses and a disproportionate share of its environmental impact, yet longitudinal evidence on their resource efficiency behaviour remains scarce. This study examines whether SME adoption of resource efficiency practices increased between 2017 and 2024 and whether the size gradient changed across a period spanning several major and concurrent institutional and economic events: the European Green Deal (2019), the Circular Economy Action Plan (2020), the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic aftermath (2020–2021), the energy price shock that intensified in 2021 and was amplified by the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2022, and the early implementation phase of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (2022–2024). These events overlapped substantially in time and cannot be disentangled with the present empirical design. Using microdata from three Flash Eurobarometer waves (N = 38,165; EU27), we construct a harmonised eight-item adoption index and estimate a weighted Poisson regression with cluster-robust standard errors and wave × firm-size interactions. Adoption increased substantially: SMEs reporting no resource efficiency action fell from 10.5% to 4.2%, and renewable energy use more than doubled (+15.3 pp). More substantively, the population-level gap in resource efficiency adoption between medium-sized enterprises (50–249 employees) and microenterprises (1–9 employees) narrowed by 81%, from +0.89 practices in 2017 (out of a maximum of 8) to a statistically non-significant +0.13 and +0.17 practices in 2021 and 2024 respectively (interaction IRR ≈ 0.81–0.82, p < 0.001 in both waves), robust to nine checks. The size gradient in environmental behaviour appears not to be structural but a dynamic feature of the institutional landscape, one that narrowed substantially over a period coinciding with intensifying regulatory ambition and energy price shock—though the present repeated cross-sectional design cannot establish which mechanisms drove this compression. Full article

Digital capitalism is often described either as a clean break with the past or as a continuation of older markets. This article takes a third position: digital capitalism is a reorganisation of capitalist accumulation around platforms, data, attention and digital labour, not a departure from capitalism’s basic logic. The study uses a critical narrative review approach, drawing on Marxian value theory and recent work on platforms, datafication and surveillance. It is anchored by a curated set of publicly reported indicators from institutional and market sources, used as context rather than as a causal test. These show a platform environment that reaches most of humanity, highly concentrated advertising and cloud markets, platform labour as a global phenomenon, and a supposedly weightless economy resting on dense physical infrastructure. The article traces four contradictions: the commodification of unpaid user activity, the material basis of immaterial production, the concentration of market power, and the gap between participation and algorithmic control. The contribution is conceptual. It shows that media business models usually treated as separate, including advertising, subscriptions, creator monetisation, in-game spending and platform commissions, share one logic: user activity is captured as attention, measured as data and converted into revenue. New media therefore function as economic infrastructures for value extraction. Full article

Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent global environmental constraints and rising environmental cost pressures on businesses, artificial intelligence offers a new approach to green cost-reduction and transformation. However, due to constraints such as transformation costs, technological compatibility, and industry standards, the extent to which it can effectively reduce costs and empower businesses remains uncertain. Based on this, this paper uses panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2018 to 2024 as a sample to systematically empirically examine the impact, transmission mechanisms, boundary conditions, and spatial spillover characteristics of AI on corporate environmental cost pressures. The study finds that AI can significantly alleviate corporate environmental cost pressures, a conclusion that remains robust after multiple robustness and endogeneity tests. Moderating effects indicate that corporate willingness to engage in green governance and the regional digital regulatory environment can positively reinforce its cost-reduction effects. At the mechanism level, AI can indirectly reduce corporate environmental costs through two pathways: promoting green technological innovation and optimizing the allocation of production factors. Further research confirms that AI exhibits distinct positive spatial spillover effects, which can help regional firms achieve coordinated reductions in environmental costs. This paper enriches the theoretical framework of corporate environmental cost governance from a digital empowerment perspective, providing empirical references and practical insights for corporate green digital transformation, the refinement of government digital-green support policies, and low-carbon development in emerging economies. Full article

This study investigates the asymmetric impact of Data Elements (DE) on Corporate Environmental Performance (CEP) in China, using a sample of 310 A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2021. The results show that DE significantly enhances CEP, with stronger effects observed in State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) compared to non-SOEs. Additionally, heavily polluting firms are more responsive to DE than lightly polluting firms, indicating that DE has a stronger effect in industries with greater environmental challenges. The study also highlights regional differences, with firms located in areas with stricter environmental regulations experiencing a more substantial improvement in CEP. Mechanism analysis reveals that DE improves environmental performance through optimizing labor force structure, enhancing management efficiency, and alleviating financing constraints. These findings suggest that the impact of DE on CEP is not uniform, and firms should leverage DE more effectively, particularly in high-pollution industries, regulated regions, and state-owned enterprises, to support green development. The study provides valuable insights for policymakers and business leaders aiming to foster a green transformation in China’s economy. Full article

Background: Technological innovation in logistics (TIL), logistics capability (LC), and lean logistics (LL) are receiving wider attention in logistics and supply chain research. They are often examined in separate models and less often in relation to both business performance (BP) and market performance (MP). Their joint effects on organizational performance remain insufficiently examined in previous research. Methods: This study examined the effects of TIL, LC, and LL on BP and MP through a quantitative survey conducted among enterprises in Serbia, a transition economy with limited empirical evidence on these relationships. Data from 129 valid responses were analyzed through descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and multicollinearity diagnostics. Results: The findings show that LC has a positive and significant effect on both BP and MP. LL has a positive and significant effect on BP, while TIL has a positive and significant effect on MP. The model explains a larger share of variance in BP than in MP. Conclusions: The results support a differentiated view of logistics transformation and indicate that BP and MP should be examined as related but distinct outcome dimensions. The study integrates TIL, LC, and LL within a unified performance framework. Full article

As a booming application domain in sharing economy, the crowd logistics services (CLSs) have emerged in recent years to take advantage of under-utilized resources for generating economic value. However, unduly designed CLS system platforms may suffer substantial problems such as sensitive information exposure, excessive commission fees, and trust issues. To mitigate such problems, we propose an approach comprising four initiatives: (1) exploring the applicability of blockchain technology and its affiliated technology, smart contract, in CLSs to manifest blockchain-enabled benefits including service traceability, process transparency, system automation and disintermediation; (2) adopting blockchain and smart contract technologies to design a blockchain application system architecture (BASA) suitable for reengineering current CLSs; (3) demonstrating the blockchain-based crowd logistics services (BCLSs) system design, implementation, and deployment details; and (4) evaluating the functionality and benefit of BCLSs approach to confirm its feasibility and applicability. After presenting the system design and implementation outcomes, this study elaborates the benefits and implications of BCLS systems through four theoretical frameworks: e-Commerce Value Creation Theory (VCT), Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), Principal Agent Theory (PAT), and Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA), deriving important findings and implications. Such benefits and implications suggest that BCLSs may help CLSs (1) mitigate PAT frictions and reduce transaction costs; (2) redefine value creation and accelerate innovation diffusion; (3) eliminate platform monopolies and achieve real-time settlement; (4) implement data sovereignty and enhance privacy/security; and (5) reconfigure trust mechanisms and generate digital credit assets. The research results of this study may help the CLS industry clarify the BCLS system’s upgrade path, promote business model innovation, and enhance fair governance and social sharing. Full article

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises in emerging economies, yet the organisational mechanisms that link GenAI capability to business development outcomes remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on Dynamic Capabilities Theory and the Resource-Based View, this study examines the association between GenAI capability and business development performance (BDP) in Jordanian SMEs through the mediating role of business model innovation (BMI) and the moderating role of market sensing agility (MSA). A cross-sectional survey of owner–managers and senior decision-makers was analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicate that GenAI capability is positively associated with BDP, with BMI accounting for a meaningful share of the link, while MSA strengthens the mediated pathway such that the association is substantially more pronounced among firms with higher levels of market sensing capacity. The findings suggest that returns to GenAI investment in resource-constrained markets depend less on technological access and more on the firm’s capacity to reconfigure its business model and interpret the external environment effectively. The study contributes to the dynamic capabilities literature in emerging-market contexts and provides direction for managers and policymakers concerned with digital transformation in the SME sector. Full article

Whether information consumption guides firms back to their core businesses or instead exacerbates corporate financialization remains empirically underexplored. We use panel data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2024. We take China’s Information Consumption Pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employ a staggered difference-in-differences approach to examine the impact of information consumption on corporate financialization. The findings show that information consumption significantly promotes corporate financialization, with the precautionary motive driving financialization more strongly than the profit-seeking motive. Mechanism tests reveal that information consumption drives corporate financialization by easing financing constraints and improving investment efficiency, while internal corporate governance and external economic policy uncertainty play significant moderating roles. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the exacerbating effect of information consumption on corporate financialization is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, small-scale firms, non-high-tech industries, and regions with a low level of financial development. Further analysis shows that information consumption not only exacerbates excessive corporate financialization but also triggers peer effects in financialization. Moreover, the financialization induced by information consumption suppresses long-term corporate performance growth. These findings uncover the micro-mechanisms through which information consumption reshapes corporate capital allocation decisions, offering practical implications for refining information consumption policies and channeling financial resources back to the real economy. Full article

As digital creators increasingly operate through organized business structures rather than as individual content producers, understanding organizational characteristics associated with digital creator organizations’ performance has become an important research question. This study examines how content production scale, revenue model diversification, and workforce structure are related to the performance of digital creator organizations. Using survey data on the Korean digital creator media industry, we analyze organizational performance in terms of sales volume and sales per employee. The results indicate that content production scale and revenue model diversification are positively associated with organizational performance. The findings also indicate that workforce structure is relevant: the share of permanent employees is positively related to efficiency, whereas the share of production and development employees is negatively associated with performance. Overall, this study suggests that organizational performance in digital creator organizations is associated not only with content production itself, but also with revenue model breadth and workforce structure. This study contributes to the literature by providing an organizational perspective on performance in the creator economy and offers practical implications for the sustainable growth of digital creator organizations. Full article

Physical manufacturing and research infrastructures are essential for advanced innovation but often remain inaccessible to SMEs, start-ups, and research institutions that cannot justify ownership of capital-intensive assets. This study examines whether platform-mediated infrastructure sharing can function as a sustainable open-innovation mechanism in advanced manufacturing. Using the SCIP/SYNPRO platform developed in the SYNERGY and IDEATION projects, an exploratory case-study design combines descriptive analysis of a registry of 290 infrastructure items across 11 countries with qualitative analysis of 23 documented access requests, interaction records, and pilot reports. The results show that the Provider–Taker model facilitates observable access-enabling interactions, including infrastructure publication, request submission, provider–taker communication, negotiation, and selected documented use, although it does not measure population-wide access outcomes. Sharing potential is uneven: modular and emerging technologies, especially VR/AR infrastructures, attract higher request intensity than production-integrated assets. Users and providers favour negotiated access, flexible pricing, operator support, and contractual clarification rather than standardised rental models. Qualitative evidence shows that value is created through access to otherwise unavailable equipment, postponed investment, experimentation, technology familiarisation, student training, capability development, and new inter-organisational research links. The findings indicate that infrastructure sharing can support more resource-efficient innovation but depends on discoverability, governance, trust, and support mechanisms to scale. Full article