Social and ecological approaches in urban interfaces: A sharing economy management framework

A systematic literature review on supply chain resilience in SMEs: learnings from COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

The study aims to review state-of-art literature on supply chain resilience in SMEs in the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and provides a comprehensive view of insights gained, gaps identified and suggests potential areas of future research.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a thorough search strategy, 46 articles were found relevant for this study. Each of these articles was further reviewed, classified and analysed to highlight the development of literature in this field and identify the significant focal area of research in this domain.

Findings

The classification of studies indicates a growing number of articles in the last two years with a significant focus on multiple industries and survey-based research design. The study's findings suggest that literature on supply chain resilience in SMEs falls into four categories: supply chain resilience principle, impact of COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs, strategies for developing supply chain resilience and role of Industry 4.0 technologies in supply chain resilience. We also identified knowledge gaps and suggested directions for future research to catalyse studies at the interface of supply chain resilience, SMEs and COVID-19 pandemic.

Research limitations/implications

The generalisability of this study can be limited to a specific population of online databases and selected time periods chosen for a particular period.

Originality/value

The study provides a structured literature review on studies published between 2012 and 2022 for the use of academicians and practitioners. Findings will be of great value for SMEs to improve their resilience during the uncertain business environment.

Forecasting carbon emissions using MGM(1,m|λ,γ) model with the similar meteorological condition

Carbon emission is a common concern of the international community and effectively predicting its future trend is necessary for emission reduction planning. Considering that the change trend of carbon emissions is unstable, more attention should be paid to the correction effect of new information on the development trend. Therefore, based on the traditional MGM(1,m) model, this paper introduces the new information priority operator λ and nonlinear parameter γ to strengthen the role of new information, further constructs three comparison models of MGM(1,m|λ), MGM(1,m|γ) and MGM(1,m|λ,γ).Then we apply the new model to the carbon emission prediction of different regions (cities, countries and continents) and different trends (fluctuating, rising and declining). The results illustrate that the new model has higher prediction accuracy, and adding dynamic parameters is a scientific and practical method to improve the forecasting ability of the grey forecasting model. Finally, we analyze the current situation and future development trend of carbon emissions, and put forward reasonable suggestions.

Challenges and Benefits of Sustainable Industry 4.0 for Operations and Supply Chain Management—A Framework Headed toward the 2030 Agenda

Currently, Industry 4.0 (I4.0) represents a worldwide movement to improve the productivity and efficiency of operations and supply chain management (OSCM), which requires rethinking and changing the mindset of the way in which products are manufactured and services are used. Although the concept of I4.0 was not popularised in the ratification of the 2030 Agenda, I4.0 is a watershed in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It can serve as a platform for the alignment of the SDGs with the ongoing digital transformation. However, the challenges to the integration of I4.0 and sustainability in OSCM, and the benefits of this integration, in line with the SDGs, remain unclear. Moreover, there is a lack of a standard structure that establishes links between these challenges and benefits to strategically guide organisations on the journey towards a sustainable OSCM 4.0 (S-OSCM4.0) aligned with the SDGs. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to propose an S-OSCM4.0 framework for organisations to attain sustainability and I4.0 in OSCM, in line with the 2030 Agenda. Based on a systematic literature review, 48 articles that complied with the selection criteria were analysed using content analysis. The research findings were synthesised into taxonomies of challenges and benefits, and these categories were linked into a step-by-step framework, following an inductive approach. The proposed framework represents a novel artefact that integrates taxonomies in order to holistically achieve sustainable digitalisation for people, prosperity and planet benefits, and sheds light on the potential contributions of S-OSCM4.0 to the SDGs.

Spatiotemporal Evaluation and Driving Mechanism of Land Ecological Security in Yan’an, a Typical Hill-Gully Region of China’s Loess Plateau, from 2000 to 2018

Forest landscape restoration and ecosystem of Loess Plateau have enhanced prominently, since the policy implementation (1999) of the Grain for Green Project in China. Land ecological security (LES) performs an extremely critical function for protecting vulnerable land resources and sustaining forest ecosystem stability. Predecessors’ studies substantially concentrate on biophysical and meteorologic variables using numerous grounded methodologies, little research has been launched on systematic natural-socio-economic-ecological relationships and how these contributions and regulations for LES evaluation. Here, pressure-state-response (PSR) model was used to establish the evaluation system of LES in regional-scale, and LES was classified into five levels measured by ecological security index (S), including high (S ≥ 0.75), medium−high (0.65 ≤ S < 0.75), medium (0.55 ≤ S < 0.65), medium−low (0.45 ≤ S < 0.55), and low (S < 0.45) level, for systematically analyzing its spatiotemporal distribution characteristic and response mechanism to explanatory variables in Yan’an, northwest China, from 2000 to 2018. The results demonstrated that: (1) LES status was mainly characterized by medium−high level and medium level, and maintained profound stability. (2) zone with medium−high LES level was mainly concentrated in western and southern regions, continuously expanding to northeast regions, and possessed the largest territorial area, accounting for 37.22–46.27% of the total area in Yan’an. (3) LES was primarily susceptible to normalized differential vegetation index, vegetation coverage, and land surface temperature with their optimal impacting thresholds of 0.20–0.64, 0.20–0.55, and 11.20–13.00 °C, respectively. (4) Normalized differential vegetation index and vegetation coverage had a significant synergistic effect upon LES based on their interactive explanation rate of 31% and had significant variation consistency (positive and negative) with LES, which were powerfully suggested to signal the intensification of the regional eco-security level in the persistent eco-greening process.

Barriers and Enablers for the Integration of Industry 4.0 and Sustainability in Supply Chains of MSMEs

The integration of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and sustainability in supply chains emerged as a relevant topic and, therefore, has attracted the interest of academics and practitioners. Many barriers challenge this integration, and enablers to overcome these barriers need to be understood. Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have many difficulties to overcome these barriers and successfully implement this integration. Moreover, solutions for larger enterprises do not necessarily fit MSMEs, which reinforces the need to investigate the topic further. Within this context, the goals of this paper are: (i) to identify the main barriers and enablers to integrate I4.0 and sustainability in supply chains of MSMEs and (ii) to analyze the influence among these barriers and enablers, identifying the most prominent ones. A convergent parallel multimethod approach is adopted, first embracing a scoping review to identify main barriers, enablers, and associated categories. Then, conducting a panel of experts with 25 specialists in two rounds to refine and classify the identified barriers and enablers towards the perspective of MSMEs. Finally, two focus group discussions are added using the fuzzy logic and DEMATEL methods to obtain the inter-relationship of barriers and enablers for MSMEs. Research findings reveal eight barriers, eight enablers, and their respective cause-effect relationship, which are expected to help MSMEs managers and decision-makers better understand and implement the integration between I4.0 and sustainability in their supply chains. Results are discussed in eleven research propositions and four propositions for practitioners and policymakers.

Analysis of barriers intensity for investment in big data analytics for sustainable manufacturing operations in post-COVID-19 pandemic era

Purpose

The study presents various barriers to adopt big data analytics (BDA) for sustainable manufacturing operations (SMOs) post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemics. In this study, 17 barriers are identified through extensive literature review and experts’ opinions for investing in BDA implementation. A questionnaire-based survey is conducted to collect responses from experts. The identified barriers are grouped into three categories with the help of factor analysis. These are organizational barriers, data management barriers and human barriers. For the quantification of barriers, the graph theory matrix approach (GTMA) is applied.

Design/methodology/approach

The study presents various barriers to adopt BDA for the SMOs post-COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, 17 barriers are identified through extensive literature review and experts’ opinions for investing in BDA implementation. A questionnaire-based survey is conducted to collect responses from experts. The identified barriers are grouped into three categories with the help of factor analysis. These are organizational barriers, data management barriers and human barriers. For the quantification of barriers, the GTMA is applied.

Findings

The study identifies barriers to investment in BDA implementation. It categorizes the barriers based on factor analysis and computes the intensity for each category of a barrier for BDA investment for SMOs. It is observed that the organizational barriers have the highest intensity whereas the human barriers have the smallest intensity.

Practical implications

This study may help organizations to take strategic decisions for investing in BDA applications for achieving one of the sustainable development goals. Organizations should prioritize their efforts first to counter the barriers under the category of organizational barriers followed by barriers in data management and human barriers.

Originality/value

The novelty of this paper is that barriers to BDA investment for SMOs in the context of Indian manufacturing organizations have been analyzed. The findings of the study will assist the professionals and practitioners in formulating policies based on the actual nature and intensity of the barriers.

An Empirical Research of the Mechanism from Electric Vehicle Production to Charging Station R&D in China

Electric vehicles (EVs) are regarded as an effective method for dealing with serious environmental pollution. The Chinese government has implemented a series of incentives to accelerate the promotion of EV. However, the increasing production of EVs gives rise to a greater demand for better quality charging station. This study aimed to certify the impact of the production of EVs on charging station research and development (R&D) in China, with mediating effect methods and a panel fixed effect model. The conclusions derived from the study were: (1) Statistically, the production of EVs positively and significantly impacts charging station R&D; (2) the mediating role of investment in charging stations is verified in the relationship between the production of EVs and charging station R&D; (3) environmental tax can moderate the relationship between the production of EVs and charging station R&D. These results implicate, for the first time, that the production of EVs can enhance charging station R&D through the mediating role of charging station investments and the moderating role of environmental tax.

Spatial Disparity and Influencing Factors of Coupling Coordination Development of Economy-Environment-Tourism-Traffic: A Case Study in the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River Urban Agglomerations

In the process of rapid development of economic globalization and regional integration, the importance of urban agglomeration has become increasingly prominent. It is not only the main carrier for countries and regions to participate in international competition, but also the main place to promote regional coordination and sustainable development. Coordinated economic, environmental, tourism and traffic development is very necessary for sustainable regional development. However, the existing literature lacks research on coupling coordination of the Economy-Environment-Tourism-Traffic (EETT) system in urban agglomeration. In this study, in order to fill this gap, we establish the index system from four dimensions of economy, environment, tourism and traffic, and select the influencing factors from the natural and human perspectives to exam the spatio-temporal changes and influencing factors in the coupling coordination of the EETT system using an integrated method in the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River Urban Agglomerations (MRYRUA), China. The results indicate that the coupling coordination degree of the EETT system transitioned from the uncoordinated period to the coordinated period, while it showed an increasing trend on the whole from 1995 to 2017. The spatial agglomeration effect has been positive since 2010, while "High-High" and "Low-High" agglomeration regions were transferred from the east to the south. Land used for urban construction as a percentage of the urban area and vegetation index has a great impact on the coupling coordination degree. These results provide important guidance for the formulation of integration and coordinated development policy in the MRYRUA, and then increase China's international competitiveness by improving the contribution of urban agglomerations to GDP.

Integration of Digital Economy and Circular Economy: Current Status and Future Directions

Circular economy (CE) is a concept actively advocated by the European Union (EU), China, Japan, and the United Kingdom. At present, CE is considered to grant the most traction for companies to achieve sustainable development. However, CE is still rarely adopted by enterprises. As the backbone of the fourth industrial revolution, the digital economy (DE) is considered to have a disruptive effect. Studies have shown that digital technology has great potential in promoting the development of CE. Especially during the COVID-19 epidemic that has severely negatively affected the global economy, environment, and society, CE and DE are receiving high attention from policy makers, practitioners, and scholars around the world. However, the integration of CE and digital technology is a small and rapidly developing research field that is still in its infancy. Although there is a large amount of research in the fields of CE and DE, respectively, there are few studies that look into integrating these two fields. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the research progress and trends of the integration of CE and DE, and provide an overview for future research. This paper adopts a bibliometric research method, employs the Web of Science database as its literature source, and uses VOSviewer visual software to carry out keyword co-occurrence analysis, which focuses on publication trends, journal sources, keyword visualization, multidisciplinary areas, life cycle stages, and application fields.

A COVID-19 Pandemic Sustainable Educational Innovation Management Proposal Framework

The COVID-19 pandemic has promoted a big change in the educational sector. Suddenly, teachers, professors, and students had to migrate from presential classes to the online system without prior notice or a training course. This paper aimed to verify how the need of a rapid change to the online system in response to the impossibility of keeping the presential system due to the mandatory social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected relationships and performance of teachers, professors, and students, as well as review the technologies and procedures adopted by them to innovate and achieve sustainable education. To address the empirical side of this exploratory research, the authors of this paper sent an email questionnaire to kindergarten, elementary and high school teachers in the City of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), as well as to professors of the top 197 Brazilian universities. To address theoretical side of this exploratory research, an investigation was carried out through scientific databases. The data were analyzed with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), version 22.0, and with Microsoft Excel 2007. As a result, this paper showed that social isolation and transition to the online system greatly affected the work conditions of teachers and professors, as well as the learning process of students. Anyway, sustainable actions were taken to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, this paper proposed a framework that might support the development of new studies, filling the literature gap on the subject.

Applying Industry 4.0 technologies in the COVID–19 sustainable chains

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is 1) to investigate the effects on the crucial Industry 4.0 technological innovations that interact between the real and virtual worlds and that are applied in the sustainable supply chain process; 2) to contribute to the identification of the opportunities, the challenges and the gaps that will support the new research study developments and 3) to analyze the impact of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators of the sustainable supply chain performance in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Design/methodology/approach

This research is performed through a bibliographic review in the electronic databases of the Emerald Insight, the Scopus and the Web of Science, considering the main scientific publications on the subject.

Findings

The bibliographic search results in 526 articles, followed by two sequential filters for deleting the duplicate articles (resulting in 487 articles) and for selecting the most relevant articles (resulting in 150 articles).

Practical implications

This article identifies the opportunities and the challenges focused on the emerging Industry 4.0 theme. The opportunities can contribute to the sustainable performance of the supply chains and their territories. The Industry 4.0 can also generate challenges like the social inequalities related to the position of the man in the labor market by replacing the human workforce with the machines. Therefore, the man-machine relationship in the Industry 4.0 era is analyzed as a gap in the literature. Therefore, as a way to fill this gap, the authors of this article suggest the exploration of the research focused on the Society 5.0. Also known as “super-smart society,” this recent theme appeared in Japan in April 2016. According to Fukuda (2020), in addition to the focus on the technological development, the Society 5.0 also aims at the quality of life and the social challenge resolutions.

Originality/value

This article contributes to the analysis of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the sustainable supply chain performance. It addresses the impacts of the Industry 4.0 technologies applied to the supply chains in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it analyzes the research gaps and limitations found in the literature. The result of this study can add value and stimulate new research studies related to the application of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the supply chain sustainable performance. It can encourage the studies related to the COVID-19 impacts on the sustainable supply chains, and it can promote the research development on the relationship among the man, the machine and the labor in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Managerial Strategies for Long-Term Care Organization Professionals: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts

This paper aims to analyze the strategies that healthcare professionals have adopted during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in long-term care organizations in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil, by investigating their competencies—mainly managerial ones. To reach its goals, this paper performs empirical research and theoretical research. For the empirical research, the plans of professionals during COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care organizations are observed, and a questionnaire is applied to analyze observed data integrity. The data are analyzed through the Python and IBM SPSS Statistic programming languages, and descriptive analyses use descriptive statistic proportions, rates, minimum, maximum, mean, median, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation (CV). A non-parametric approach performs repeated measure comparisons using Wilcoxon’s test, while the McNemmar test is used to repeat the categorical variables. Statistical significance is assumed at the 5% level. For the theoretical research, a literature review is developed using scientific databases. The results show that for the searched period, the number of deaths and the number of people infected by COVID-19 in these organizations are low when compared to general statistics of Rio de Janeiro city. This paper concludes that these strategical adoptions have brought significant benefits to long-term care organizations, and it might motivate researchers to develop future studies related to long-term care organizations, helping to fill the literature gap on the subject.

Sharing Economy in Russia: Current Status, Barriers, Prospects and Role of Universities

Nowadays, information technology and the Internet are becoming a driver for a shared consumption economy (sharing economy). The paper aims to analyse the current level of use and prospects for the development of models of the sharing economy in Russia. We identify the effects of sharing consumption for the circular economy and study factors that stimulate the use of peer-to-peer models. One of the study’s tasks was to investigate the involvement of the young generation in the sharing economy, as the most promising part of the population. The study is based on the analysis of open Internet sources on the operation of sharing platforms in Russia and a survey among students at two Russian universities (RUDN University in Moscow and Kuban State University in Krasnodar) to identify the awareness of young people regarding sharing platforms. Analysis of the current state of sharing in Russia showed that the use of most types of sharing is at an initial stage. At the same time, the prospects for economic growth and population development are quite high. The article identifies several effects of digital platforms for sustainable development, the main of which are informed consumption and production. For the further growth of users of the sharing economy, the authors highlight the level of penetration of the Internet and the need for high-quality services on digital platforms. Educational organisations can also become a platform for the development of models of the sharing economy by involving students in sharing processes, as demonstrated by the survey.