Industry 4.0 and circular economy practices: A new era business strategies for environmental sustainability

Amid rising environmental concerns, Industry 4.0 and blockchain technology (BCT) are transforming circular economy (CE) practices and prevailing business models. Recognize the same; this study examines the role of blockchain technology in circular CE practices and their impact on eco-environmental performance, which influences organizational performance. The study collects data from 404 enterprises located in Chinese and Pakistani territories, involved in cross-border supply chain operations. Both countries' sample has great relevance due to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which possesses several positive fallouts in terms of technology spillovers across firms. Using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) modeling framework, this study provides three key findings. First, BCT significantly improves the circular economy practices (circular procurement, circular design, recycling, and remanufacturing). Second, CE practices help improve firms' environmental performance and stimulate their financial performance. Third, higher eco-environmental performance significantly boosts organizational performance. This study sets out the foundations for participating countries/firms that simultaneously achieve financial and sustainable goals by integrating blockchain technology in circular economy practices.     

Markets and welfare effects of food fraud

This study develops a theoretical framework of heterogeneous consumers and producers and imperfectly competitive food companies to analyse the system‐wide market and welfare effects of food fraud in the form of food adulteration and mislabelling. The results show that, while the price impacts of food fraud are product‐specific with the equilibrium prices of high‐quality and low‐quality products moving in different directions, the equilibrium quantities depend on the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. Regarding the welfare effects of food fraud, they are shown to be highly asymmetric across different consumers and producers. In addition to enabling the disaggregation of the welfare effects of food fraud, the explicit consideration of agent heterogeneity, asymmetries in the probability of fraud detection and the endogeneity of the producer quality choices also enables the derivation of a key result of this study; contrary to what is traditionally believed, both low‐quality and high‐quality producers can have economic incentives to commit fraud. The group that is more likely to cheat is determined by the social attitudes towards fraudulent behaviour, the enforcement policy parameters and the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. A comparison of the market effects of mislabelling and food adulteration reveals that, while the equilibrium quantity of the high‐quality product is higher in the presence of mislabelling, producers are more likely to mislabel than adulterate their products.     

Asymmetric Nonlinear Impact of Oil Prices and Inflation on Residential Property Prices: a Case of US,UK and Canada

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper examines the nonlinear impact of oil prices and inflation on residential prices in the US, the UK and Canada using quarterly data from...     

Global strategy gone astray: Maersk's big box boats and the world shipping industry

A.P. Moller‐Maersk Group (A.P. Moller‐Mærsk AS in Danish), commonly known as Maersk, is the world's largest global shipping conglomerate from Denmark and carries a rich history and corporate heritage in the industry. The company operates large container ships which are mostly known as “big box boats” in the industry. By using interdisciplinary literature and the shipping industry's operational routes and corporate developments, this case‐based research analyzes and discusses Maersk's internationalization and its global strategies. Although Maersk aggressively sought internationalization and company‐specific expansion, its global strategy and international expansion areas have encountered problems because of the slowdown of the global economy, de‐globalization, and the U.S.–China trade tussle. The case‐based research analyzes and discusses these issues within the areas of international business and the company's global strategies and industry‐specific competition. Analysts and industry observers believe that Maersk will continue to be a major shipping and logistics firm and will thrive in global markets. At the same time, the company will be impacted by the changing competition, regulatory forces, and new technologies in logistics and global shipping. This case study also provides future developments and growth prospects of Maersk and the shipping industry.     

A comparative study of the application of systems thinking in achieving organizational effectiveness in Malaysian and Pakistani banks

The present work is a comparative study of the banking industry of Malaysia and Pakistan. The paper aims to measure the impact of individual systems thinking on the overall organizational effectiveness. Skilled individuals are considered as an asset of the organization especially when these individuals exhibit systems thinking capabilities that helps in achieving effectiveness. The sample consisted of 368 respondents belonging to lower and middle tier levels in the banking sector of both countries. The results indicate that Malaysian banking employees are ahead of their counterparts in Pakistan while applying systems thinking. The study is significant in enhancing the understanding of the importance of systems thinking for organizational effectiveness. The study has managerial implications for the top management of banks.     

Impact of corporate performance on stock price predictions in the UAE markets: Neuro-fuzzy model

Predicting stock price remains one of the challenges for investors' investment strategies. This study helps with accurate prediction and the main factors affecting variations in stock prices. It applies an adaptive neuro-fuzzy model on 58 listed firms from both the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the Dubai Financial Market for the period 2014–2018 to estimate the predictive power of corporate performance measures and their significance. After examining four performance predictors—return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE), earning per share (EPS), and profit margin (PM)—the study finds that ROE is the most significant predictor and ROA is the least. EPS is the most influential profitability measure and PM the least.     

Measuring country image in terrorism reports: evidence from Pakistan

Since 2001, global terrorism has become one of the principal international challenges of the world. According to United Nations; on average, there were 981 terrorist attacks, triggering 2361 deaths, and wounding 2943 people per month, internationally in 2015. Pakistan stranded the third most terrorist attack country in 2015 with 1009 terrorist attacks and 1081 deaths (https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257526.htm). Terrorist attacks damage the countries tangible and intangible assets. After a terrorist attack every country tries to manage its country image through terrorism reports/news. Though, there is no logical evaluation model to measure whether the country image is effectively made through terrorism reports or not. This study undergoes with the expert respondent interviews to define the levels of elements which affect the country image in terrorism reports. By taking Pakistan as a case study and founded on Analytic Hierarchy Process techniques the country image mathematical and conceptual model for terrorism reports has been developed along with evaluation impact indexes. Thus, this study provides a significant and quantitative way to measure the country image in terrorism reports, and it will also help the future researchers to remove the biases while measuring significant country image quantitatively; which they face in qualitative research.     

The impact of civil war on foreign direct investment flows to developing countries

We investigate the impact of civil war on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries. We employ a new data-set that disaggregates FDI inflows to primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Second, we control for a richer set of economic and institutional variables that could determine FDI inflows including population, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the degree of trade openness, exchange rate variability, inflation, the governance structure of the host country using International Country Risk Guide data and its regime type using the POLITY autocracy–democracy data. We also address the reverse causality between FDI and conflict and the potential endogeneity of explanatory variables by employing dynamic system generalised method of moments (GMM) techniques in estimation. Our results indicate that primary sector FDI flows to developing countries are not significantly affected by civil war, whereas secondary and tertiary sectors FDI are more sensitive to such outbreak, potentially leading to reversals of existing FDI. Among institutional variables, government stability and control of corruption are more significant compared to regime type, law and order, and bureaucratic quality.     

Identifying Customer Loyalty Supporting Factors in the Retail Banking Context: An Empirical Examination

This article aims to identify factors which support customer loyalty, either through dedication or by imposing constraints, and subsequently empirically analyzes the relationship between identified factors and the attitudinal and behavioral component of loyalty in the context of retail banking. Data collected from a sample of 293 retail banking customers have been analyzed through structural equation modeling. The study results suggested two constraint promoting factors and one dedication promoting factor which supported loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge by empirically testing the qualitative model and coming out with empirically proven dedication-promoting and constraint-promoting loyalty supporting factors.