Search Results (797)

The global transition toward net-zero emissions has led to the restructuring of labor markets and an intensification of the demand for sustainability-competent business graduates. However, higher-education curricula lack an operationalized, job-competency-based framework, and this gap in knowledge is especially acute in emerging industrial economies that are facing pressures due to the ongoing decarbonization of the global supply chain. In this context, this study addresses two interrelated gaps in the relevant research: the lack of a structured system of criteria to assess competency in sustainability that is specifically geared toward business education, and the insufficient attention that has been paid to causal interdependencies among such criteria in previously developed frameworks. The authors apply a two-stage, hybrid multiple-criteria decision-making design based on the KSAO framework, which classifies professional competency into knowledge (K), skills (S), abilities (A), and other characteristics (O). A modified Delphi method that involved 12 academic and industry experts serving as surrogate assessors of competency requirements for business and management students was first used to consolidate 142 literature-derived items into 26 initial criteria, which were then refined into 12 core competencies in sustainability, identified through cross-domain expert consensus. Following this, fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) was applied to analyze the structure of causal influence among the retained criteria. The results identified interdisciplinary work as the primary driving competency and integrated problem-solving as the central hub with the highest prominence, with the two factors forming a bidirectional feedback dynamic that anchored the competency system. The retention of four “other” criteria (O-dimension)—ethical values, normative orientation, empathy, and adaptive resilience—confirmed that competency concerning sustainability in business education extends beyond technical knowledge into deeper dispositional attributes. These findings provide business schools in Taiwan with a structurally grounded logic of sequencing for their curricula, as well as a reference framework for curriculum design that is aligned with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Societal Impact standards. While the findings are grounded in Taiwan’s specific ESG regulatory and industrial context, only the methodological approach is offered as a reference for comparable settings; the substantive findings require cross-national verification. Full article

Consumer behavior evolves unexpectedly, and understanding new perspectives according to market trends is a key factor in identifying the most commonly recurring consumption demands. In this context, this study aimed to examine the associations among green consumption orientation, consumer ethical beliefs and green purchasing intention. Based on a quantitative and explanatory study with the participation of 411 Peruvian consumers, this study demonstrated that green consumption orientation has a direct and negative association with consumers’ ethical beliefs, while green consumption orientation has a direct and positive association with green purchasing intention. Finally, green purchasing intention has a direct and negative association with the ethical beliefs of Peruvian consumers. These findings reveal a reconfiguration of the ethical framework of Peruvian consumers, where green consumption orientation acts as a catalyst for the intention to purchase eco-friendly products, but at the same time generates tensions with traditional ethical beliefs. This phenomenon suggests that consumers are developing new value systems that prioritize environmental sustainability over conventional ethical considerations, which represents both a challenge and an opportunity for companies seeking to position themselves in the green market. Full article

Against the background of China’s “dual carbon” goals and the continued advancement of the green and low-carbon transformation of resource-based industries, resource-based enterprises urgently need to rely on green innovation to overcome development constraints characterized by high resource dependence, strong environmental pressures, and mounting transformation challenges. Patient capital, with its long-term orientation, stable support, and risk-sharing characteristics, can provide sustained financial backing and governance support for green innovation in resource-based enterprises; however, its underlying mechanism remains to be further explored. Drawing on patient capital theory, this study constructs a “capital–ESG–innovation” analytical framework to examine the impact of patient capital on green innovation in resource-based enterprises and its mechanism of action. Using Chinese A-share listed resource-based enterprises from 2014 to 2023 as the research sample, this study measures patient capital from two dimensions, namely stable equity and relational debt, and conducts empirical analysis through panel regression and multiple robustness tests. The results show that patient capital significantly promotes green innovation in resource-based enterprises, with both relational debt and stable equity playing positive roles. Mechanism tests reveal that ESG performance serves as an important mediating channel through which patient capital promotes green innovation. Further analysis indicates that the level of regional marketization strengthens the green innovation effect of patient capital, and this effect is more pronounced in large enterprises, enterprises subject to stronger media supervision, and enterprises whose executives have higher green cognition. This study enriches the literature on the relationship between patient capital and green innovation and provides empirical evidence for cultivating long-term capital and promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of resource-based enterprises. Full article

This study analyses the economic performance, sustainability, and resilience of family farming systems in São Tomé and Príncipe, using an approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data. Primary data were collected through a survey of 50 rural families from the seven districts of the country, focus group discussions, and field observations. Quantitative analysis included descriptive statistics and exploratory comparative procedures, complemented by economic evaluation, while thematic analysis examined the qualitative data. The findings reveal diversified agroforestry systems, integrating up to 33 crops and small-scale livestock production. At the individual and aggregate levels, agroforestry shows viable economic performance, with a net profit margin of 57.4%, capable of generating income and marketable surpluses. This improves rural livelihoods, strengthens resilience to climate and market shocks, and supports both subsistence and market-oriented production. Despite these strengths, structural constraints persist, including fragile value chains, limitations in access to credit and markets, low technology adoption, and climate vulnerability. Human capital, particularly education, emerges as a key factor in improving productivity and value creation. Integrated policies on access to resources and education are needed to promote diversification, multi-activity, and market integration as central strategies for increasing sustainability, food security, and risk reduction in family farming. Full article

This study examines the influence of green market orientation (GMO) and green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) on business competitiveness in increasingly demanding environmental contexts. Drawing on the literature on strategic management and sustainability, this research analyzes how environmentally oriented market and entrepreneurial capabilities contribute to strengthening firms’ competitive positioning. Using a quantitative approach, data were collected from 200 companies in the agri-food and manufacturing sectors, and the data were analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results confirm that both GMO (β = 0.534; p < 0.001) and GEO (β = 0.395; p < 0.001) have a significant influence on competitiveness, with GMO showing a stronger impact. These findings suggest that firms integrating environmental market demands and fostering innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking with an ecological focus achieve enhanced competitive performance. This study concludes that green-oriented strategic capabilities constitute key drivers of sustainable competitive advantages and represent a relevant pathway for organizational strengthening in dynamic and environmentally regulated markets. Full article

Stable interactions among electricity, carbon allowance, and fossil fuel markets are essential for sustainable energy transition, because excessive cross-market risk transmission may affect energy affordability, carbon-price credibility, and low-carbon investment signals. This study provides comparative evidence on dynamic connectedness, tail-state shock responses, and return-based complexity in representative Chinese and European benchmark markets. Using daily market data from the Wind database for November 2021–January 2026, the empirical framework combines time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR), quantile vector autoregression and quantile impulse response functions (QVAR/QIRFs), and rolling multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA). The results show that the European benchmark system has a higher absolute connectedness level than the Chinese benchmark system: the full-sample mean total connectedness index (TCI) is 18.75 in Europe and 5.63 in China, while the crisis-period mean TCIs are 25.19 and 12.12, respectively. Post-peak adjustment depends on the reversion metric used: China shows a faster initial half-life decline from the crisis peak, whereas reversion to lower region-specific connectedness thresholds depends on the selected benchmark. Natural-gas-shock QIRFs indicate stronger upper-tail persistence in Europe, whereas China is characterized mainly by short-run directional divergence; supplementary coal-, oil-, and carbon-shock checks show that response patterns are shock-source-dependent. Electricity-return multifractal spectrum width (MFW) does not show stable full-sample explanatory power for TCI, but it provides stage-dependent auxiliary diagnostic information. These findings provide a comparative diagnostic framework for monitoring cross-market systemic risk and supporting sustainability-oriented energy-market governance under low-carbon transition. Full article

At present, photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming the core of low-carbon power systems, but their large-scale integration is still limited by weather-driven intermittency, heterogeneous data, equipment failures, operational uncertainty, and life-cycle sustainability requirements. Unlike specific task reviews that only focus on photovoltaic forecasting, fault diagnosis, or general artificial intelligence applications in renewable energy, this review develops an integrated data-driven perspective for machine learning and artificial intelligence in photovoltaic power generation systems. It links data governance, feature engineering, prediction, and uncertainty quantification, fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance, energy management, market participation, and carbon-aware optimization within a framework for photovoltaic systems. This review indicates that traditional machine learning, deep learning, graph learning, reinforcement learning, generative artificial intelligence, and physics-based artificial intelligence are suitable for different photovoltaic tasks based on data structure, time range, operational constraints, and deployment maturity. The main contribution is cross-task integration, which links the output of artificial intelligence models, including scheduling, storage scheduling, maintenance planning, virtual power plant operation, and low-carbon management, with actual decision-making. The review further identified the most critical deployment barriers, such as incomplete benchmarks, weak cross-site generalization, insufficient uncertainty calibration, limited interpretability, network security risks, and computational costs. The resulting methodological approach emphasizes data management, uncertainty awareness, physical constraints, decision orientation, and sustainability-driven photovoltaic intelligence. Full article

This article analyses the transformation of the competitiveness of the European Union in the context of geopolitical fragmentation, geo-economic rivalry and the growing importance of economic security in contemporary economic governance. The article argues that the traditional efficiency-oriented understanding of competitiveness, associated primarily with productivity growth, market efficiency and trade openness, is increasingly complemented by a resilience-oriented governance framework that emphasizes strategic autonomy, technological capabilities, economic security and long-term adaptive resilience. Using a conceptually oriented qualitative research design based on interpretive analysis and analytically focused comparison, we integrate knowledge from studies of competitiveness, political economy, geo-economics and European economic governance. The research draws on academic literature primarily available in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, EU strategic documents and legislation, and selected aggregated indicators related to productivity, innovation, trade openness, technological development and sustainability. The findings show that geopolitical fragmentation, supply chain vulnerabilities, technological competition and strategic dependencies are increasingly changing the structural foundations of European competitiveness. Innovation and technological capabilities remain key determinants of long-term competitiveness, but their strategic importance is increasingly linked to resilience, technological sovereignty and economic security. The results also show that the European Union is gradually moving towards a hybrid governance model that combines market openness with strategic coordination, industrial policy and resilience-oriented adaptation. At the same time, significant asymmetries between Member States continue to limit the EU’s ability to adapt in a coordinated manner. The article contributes to current debates on competitiveness by establishing an integrated analytical framework linking competitiveness, resilience, economic security, strategic autonomy and sustainable development in the context of geo-economic transformation. Full article

By constructing a system dynamics (SD) model of how mission-oriented innovation consortia empower the development of future industries, this study reveals the internal causal structure and dynamic evolution mechanism of the system in the process of multi-actor collaborative innovation. The results show that, throughout the simulation period, innovation consortia exert a sustained positive enabling effect on the development of future industries, mainly reflected in the expansion of industrial market demand, the accumulation of core technology breakthroughs, and the increase in the added value of the future industrial chain. Value co-creation intensity, patent resource complementarity, and technological adaptability jointly constitute the key mechanisms through which innovation consortia empower future industries. These mechanisms are coupled through multiple feedback paths, thereby maintaining the continuous evolutionary momentum of the system. From a system dynamics perspective, this study characterizes the dynamic interaction process and nonlinear evolutionary features between innovation consortia and future industry development, enriches the relevant theoretical framework, and provides a dynamic simulation basis for policy design related to future industries. Full article

This study investigates the impact of green leadership on financial performance in the hospitality sector, focusing on the mediating roles of resource management and market positioning. Drawing upon the Resource-Based View and Stakeholder Theory, data were collected from 390 employees working in five-star hotels in Egypt and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4.0. The findings reveal that green leadership positively influences financial performance both directly and indirectly. Specifically, green leadership enhances resource management practices and strengthens market positioning, which in turn contribute to improved financial outcomes. The mediation analysis confirms that both resource management and market positioning serve as significant mechanisms through which green leadership translates sustainability-oriented strategies into economic benefits. These findings extend current knowledge on sustainable leadership by identifying key organizational pathways linking environmental responsibility with financial success. This study also provides practical implications for hospitality managers seeking to integrate sustainability initiatives into strategic and operational decision-making to achieve long-term competitive advantage. Full article

Digital transformation has become a critical pathway for manufacturing firms seeking to improve responsiveness, resource efficiency, and long-term sustainability. However, existing studies have paid limited attention to how digital transformation strategies generate organizational agility across different stages of sustainable manufacturing transformation. Drawing on dynamic capability theory, this study develops a stage-contingent Strategy–Ambidexterity–Agility framework and conducts a longitudinal single-case study of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) from 2011 to 2023. The findings show that organizational agility develops cumulatively through three transformation stages. In the initial stage, a lean-oriented strategy supports balanced ambidexterity and cultivates customer agility through production optimization. In the development stage, an enhancement-oriented strategy enables exploitation-dominant combined ambidexterity and builds market agility through cross-functional integration and closed-loop business logic. In the industry-leading stage, a leap-oriented strategy supports exploration-dominant combined ambidexterity and fosters value chain agility through ecosystem orchestration, intelligent operations, and circular value creation. This study contributes to the literature on digital transformation and sustainable manufacturing by showing how stage-contingent digital strategies shape ambidexterity configurations, generate layered agility capabilities, and support sustainability-oriented manufacturing outcomes. Full article

To address the key challenges of distributed generation and loads, insufficient edge computing capacity, significant data privacy risks among multiple participants, and immature market mechanisms in county-level distribution networks, this paper presents a transaction-driven two-tier distributed collaborative optimization approach for interconnected integrated energy systems. We develop a market-oriented architecture that combines upper-layer price coordination with lower-layer autonomous optimization. The overall system is decoupled using just two types of non-sensitive data—local electricity prices and regional net power—while preserving the operational independence and data privacy of all stakeholders. We further devise a Two-Stage Distributed Transactional Optimization (TSDTO) mechanism. This mechanism reformulates the intraday multi-variable collaborative optimization into a single-variable electricity price search problem, substantially reducing algorithm iterations and communication overhead. Simulations are conducted on three typical interconnected integrated energy systems in a county in northern China. The results demonstrate that the proposed method maintains main transformer power within safe limits, effectively lowers daily operating costs, and boosts the renewable energy accommodation rate. Compared with the conventional subgradient method, our algorithm offers higher computational efficiency, along with improved convergence and real-time performance. The proposed approach is capable of achieving a relatively satisfactory balance among privacy protection, low computational complexity, on-site renewable energy utilization, and rapid real-time operation. This paper provides theoretical references and guidance for the low-carbon, cost-effective, coordinated and sustainable operation of modern county-level power systems and integrated energy systems. Full article

Growing concerns regarding resource efficiency, economic uncertainty, and energy-market volatility have renewed interest in the relationship between material-use patterns and macroeconomic stability. Recent global disruptions affecting production systems and economic activity have intensified policy attention toward sustainable resource management and resilience-oriented growth strategies. Using an unbalanced panel of 30 OECD economies over the period 1995–2024, this study examines the relationship between resource productivity and economic resilience while accounting for material-use intensity and structural conditions. The empirical framework relies on second-generation panel econometric techniques that account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneous country dynamics. The findings indicate that resource productivity is positively associated with economic resilience, with a 1% increase in resource productivity corresponding to an approximately 0.18% increase in resilience. By contrast, domestic material consumption and material footprint display negative associations with resilience, suggesting that resource-intensive production and consumption patterns may be linked to lower adaptive capacity and macroeconomic stability. The short-run estimates additionally indicate the persistence of adjustment dynamics following economic disturbances. These findings highlight the relevance of resource-use efficiency for macroeconomic resilience and sustainable resource-management strategies in OECD economies. Full article

Contemporary stakeholders persist in pressuring firms toward environmental stewardship, while dynamic organizations demonstrate high-level capability and strategically respond to market evolution and align operations toward sustainability. This study aimed at investigating the connection between environmental knowledge and awareness and product/service innovation, as well as the mediating roles of knowledge process capability-application dimensions and sustainable innovation, and the moderating effects of innovation orientation. Through a questionnaire, empirical data were collected from 354 bank employees operating in western Nigeria, whose bank ranked on the list as being the most sustainable bank in Nigeria in the 2024 sustainability ranking. SPSS and SmartPLS were used for data analysis and the testing of hypotheses. The findings showed a significant positive association between environmental knowledge and awareness and product/service innovation, and additionally, knowledge process capability-application and sustainable innovation significantly mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and awareness and product/service innovation. Meanwhile, innovation orientation negatively moderates the relationship between environmental knowledge and awareness and knowledge process capability-application. However, innovation orientation did not moderate the relationship between sustainable innovation and product/service innovation. This study underscores the importance of knowledge management strategy and firm innovation orientation toward sustainability stewardship in service organizations and provides valuable theoretical insights for management scholars. An integrated dynamic capability, as well as absorptive capacity theories, underpinned this study. Full article

To address escalating natural and market risks in agriculture, integrated crop–livestock systems (ICLS) are increasingly recognized as a production mode combining resilience and sustainability. Using survey data from 372 farm households in Inner Mongolia, China, this study first constructs a directional income volatility indicator and applies the Kruskal–Wallis test together with robust tests for equality of variances to compare the short-term risk-buffering performance of specialized cropping, specialized livestock production, and ICLS. The analysis then focuses on 190 ICLS households and employs Hansen’s threshold model to identify nonlinear constraints on achieving higher income and examine potential equipment misallocation. The results show a stronger short-term risk-buffering advantage of ICLS over the two specialized modes. Livestock inventory scale exhibits a threshold effect: at a lower livestock inventory scale, livestock expansion is significantly associated with lower income, whereas beyond this threshold the marginal effect becomes significantly positive. Crop–livestock structural matching, measured by the livestock–land ratio, constrains the income effect of livestock expansion: once the ratio reaches a certain level, livestock expansion no longer shows a significant negative association with income. In addition, mismatches between machinery investment and production orientation weaken the income performance. These results imply that policy should promote ICLS in a context-specific and moderate manner, guide farmers toward better crop–livestock alignment, and expand agricultural service provision to reduce risks associated with misaligned mechanization. Full article