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The article analyzes aspects of French trade in the Levant during the eighteenth century by tracing the link between commercial exchange, institutions, and socio-cultural interaction within the system of French échelles in the Eastern Mediterranean. As the paper argues, this trade not only acquired a primary relevance within Ottoman and French economies but also created institutional and social interdependencies that prefigured nineteenth-century developments. The study discusses how economic, institutional, and social aspects are highly intertwined, each of them playing a core role in explaining the relevance of the French presence in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a two-stage auction-based local market mechanism to allocate physical storage rights (PSRs). As a market product, PSRs are provided by a storage owner and enable the local market participants (including renewable producers, consumers and prosumers) to access the storage. That is, they can book storage in the form of PSRs and dispatch it at a given time aiming to maximize their utility function. The business options we examine to evaluate the position of storage in the market range from storage owner entirely participating in day-ahead (DA) and real-time (RT) markets as an inter-temporal arbitrager, to exclusively acting as a PSR provider in DA only – this way, the storage owner is fully paid upfront in DA. Considering the context above, we propose an equilibrium model where each player optimizes its operational objective. We prove that the equilibrium model can be substituted with an equivalent optimization formulation which clears the proposed market ensuring the same desirable market properties, such as efficiency and revenue adequacy. Results suggest that the certain revenues earned by the storage owner in DA when acting as a PSR provider is equal to its expected profit as a regular market participant, mitigating however its payoff uncertainty and resulting in the same economic return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates and explores the link between the resilience of organisations, its human capital and firm performance. We base our analysis on the resource‐based view of the firm, cluster strategy, and conservation of resources theories. Our contribution is contextualised by comparing the performance of business clusters across two observational periods, namely pre‐recession (2005–2007) and recession (2008–2009) period. We identify six relevant indicators from the extant literature that capture economic dynamism, human capital, and financial viability of firms in order to capture the performance across clusters and capture resilience to the global financial crisis. We contribute by identifying organisations in business clusters that perform better due to being more resilient, particularly during challenging times. Through triangulation we find overwhelming evidence of the overarching role and importance of human capital (people) in driving more successful organisations in business clusters as they possess greater resilience during challenging times such as the recent global financial crises. We show that strong clusters not only improve regional employment and turnover growth over time, but improve resilience of regional economies to downturns through resource gain and crossover processes. We further illustrate that understanding the impact of resource reservoirs, resource passageways and crossover provides a framework for further research and intervention to promote resilience in organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big data is the fuel for powering pervasive artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aiming at promoting efficient cooperation in data market for big data, in this paper we propose a novel cooperative data purchase framework, by leveraging the power of the data user crowd and their intrinsic trustworthy collaboration relationships. For achieving efficient cooperative data purchase, we develop a comprehensive approach consisting of both data purchase group formation and selection. For the data purchase group formation, we partition the users into multiple data purchase groups for the purpose of budget pooling, by taking into account their data interest and budget levels, meanwhile respecting their underlying collaboration relationships and the maximum allowable group size for data sharing enforced by the data market platform. For the data purchase group selection, we construct a data purchase flow network formulation and devise a minimum cut based solution for selecting the proper set of data purchase groups to fully support their demands subject to the budget constraints. We extensively evaluate the performance of cooperative data purchase framework using both Erdos-Renyi and scale-free collaboration graphs. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed framework can achieve superior performance, with more than ${40}\%$ and ${100}\%$ performance gain over the case without cooperation in terms of the total received payment and the number of satisfied users, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Understanding the challenges of transition in the education of fiji. • Performance of first-year students and their entry-level challenges in a university. • The results mostly disseminate transitional educational challenges using the most critical drivers. • Transitional experience and an ability to make transitions. • Overcoming transitional challenges, language barriers, and cultural lacunas. Transition challenges (or Trans-C) are perceived as a combination of academic, institutional, socio-cultural and psychological factors which influence a student's ability to transition successfully in their first year at higher education institutions. This paper presents an exploratory study of first-year College of Business students enroled at the Fiji National University (FNU). Using a mixed method approach, the study is aimed at understanding the accounts of first-year students in transition, and that of FNU being a local academic institution mandated to support students facing difficulties. Quantitative data from an online questionnaire collected independent variables related to students' ability to transition successfully. Results showed that despite the establishment of transition hubs and other academic support services, about 30% of the total 183 respondents indicated transition difficulties in their first year. Qualitative data were collected using ' Talanoa ' method to account for students' transition experience. Talanoa or story telling is a culturally appropriate method of data collection in indigenous Pacific Island countries such as Fiji. This approach allows a rich and more open information exchange provided the researcher is embedded in local pedagogy. Several themes emerged from the analysis of the 'talanoa' transcripts such as academic support, family income, online learning, University environment, and peer influence. Although these themes were consistent with international experience, it would be asymmetrical to address student transition challenges without capturing their needs and expectations. In the final analysis, this paper supports the implementation of a student-centric model if higher education institutions (HEI) were to be successful in integrating first-year students into academic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on conferences of the first five years of the International Academy of African Business and Development (IAABD: 2000-2004) focusing specifically on the conference proceedings. The papers presented at the five conferences and published in their proceedings were reviewed and analysed in terms of functional areas covered, the research methodologies employed, as well as the geographical spread and country focus of the authors. The analysis demonstrates a number of significant achievements for IAABD and identifies a number of challenges for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diasporas are some of the determinants leading to the contemporary economic ties between host countries and countries of origin, and among the main forces contributing to the expansion of e-commerce. The aim of this paper is to explore the impact that diaspora communities have on the production and exportation of Baklava, one of the most popular desserts in Lebanon, and illustrating how immigrants are a means by which Lebanese Baklava is now being sold or sent as gifts to the countries of migration. Furthermore, this paper will investigate how the Lebanese pastry sector has tapped into the various Lebanese diaspora communities around the world by creating websites and by employing e-commerce to create a diaspora-market niche. It will also examine how this interrelationship between e-commerce and the Lebanese diaspora, has changed the way of doing business within the pastry sector, exploring its impact on taste, presentation, packaging and various other similar concerns. It will also examine the obstacles faced by the sector in terms of infrastructure cost, as well as shipping cost. Several research methods form the foundation of this paper including: surveys of the top Baklava, exporting patisseries in Lebanon, an analysis of the ecommerce approach of these patisseries, interviews with business owners, legal and ICT experts, as well as government officials regarding the laws that govern the exporting of Lebanese food products and the legal framework involved in such business. The study will contribute to the discourse on the roles that various diasporas play in the development of their countries of origin, and in the global economy as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is the most devastating pandemic that affected humanity and the world economy. This paper aimed to study the time-varying connectedness between the COVID-19 vaccination, infection rate (INFR), and the case fatality ratio (CFR) in the United States and the stock market returns. We used COVID-19 daily confirmed number of infections, deaths, and vaccinations and the daily US stock market index return. A wavelet coherence approach was used to assess the co-movement of the US stock market with the COVID-19 vaccination, INFR, and the CFR. The COVID-19 vaccination, INFR, and CFR have a positive and significant influence on S&P 500 returns at the majority of business cycle frequencies with an in-phase relation. The wavelet coherence analysis uncovers strong and significant connectedness between COVID-19 vaccination rate and S&P 500 return. From an economic perspective, the US government should continue its intervention with their vaccination strategy, as it is beneficial for fighting the pandemic. This may lead to the recovery of the stock market as well as to the whole economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food quality and human health influences contemporary life. Today more than ever, quality products to be safe in terms of food to meet the needs and innocuity became major values for all producers, processors, distributors, especially for food consumers who are becoming more aware that their health depends on the quality of the food they consume. The paper recently a case study in a Romanian company in the dairy industry and the manufacture of dairy products, and all commercial operations the object of transaction milk and milk products, a small company that combines managed but we consider traditionalism ( the products we offer to the market ) modernism ( European requirements, quick marketing, producer - client relationship etc). This paper analyzes the emergence and development aspects of the company, implementing and upgrading production technology, issues related to the introduction of quality management, promotion and sale of products, customer relations, etc. We believe that SC HELVETICA MILK SRL, the constant concern of food safety, raw material procurement stage till marketing - customer satisfaction by offering quality products and thereby ensure customer loyalty. In conclusion, we believe the company is a successful example of business succces Romanian food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender systems, a subclass of information filtering designed to predict the rating or preference of a user, are among the most successful examples of machine learning in action. Drawing inspiration from the benefits of using recommender systems for business, and their success in heightening the perceived utility of recommendations, this project was developed using Python to optimize collection recommendations and to help librarians make collection decisions using a recommender system. This paper illustrates several examples of building recommender systems using a variety of recommendation techniques to aid in the selection of monographs. It also points out possible future uses of recommender systems in libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the proliferation of conflicts of interest (COI) discourse and how the most common conceptions of COI presuppose a hierarchy of primary and secondary interests. I show that a form of professional virtue or duty is commonly employed to give the primary interest normative force. However, I argue that in the context of increasingly commercialized healthcare neither virtue nor duty can do the normative work expected of them. Furthermore, I suggest that COI discourse is symptom of rather than solution to the problems of market forces in contemporary medicine. I contend that COI, as it is commonly conceived, is an inadequate concept through which to attend to these problems. It is used as a procedural short-cut to address ethico-political problems. That is, it is an economic and policy concept expected to do significant moral and political work. Like most short-cuts, this one also leads to entanglements and winding roads that fail to reach the destination. As such, I suggest that we need a different set of ethico-political tools to address normative fluidity of medical practice in the absence on a primary interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent advances in information technologies such as global position system and mobile internet, a huge volume of spatio-textual objects have been generated from location-based services, which enable a wide range of spatial keyword queries. Recently, researchers have proposed a novel query, called Spatial Pattern Matching (SPM), which uses a pattern to capture the user's intention. It has been demonstrated to be fundamental and useful for many real applications. Despite its usefulness, the SPM problem is computationally intractable. Existing algorithms suffer from the low efficiency issue, especially on large scale datasets. To enhance the performance of SPM, in this paper we propose a novel Efficient Spatial Pattern Matching (ESPM) algorithm, which exploits the inverted linear quadtree index and computes matched node pairs and object pairs level by level in a top-down manner. In particular, it focuses on pruning unpromising nodes and node pairs at the high levels, resulting in a large number of unpromising objects and object pairs to be pruned before accessing them from disk. We experimentally evaluate the performance of ESPM on real large datasets. Our results show that ESPM is over one order of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art algorithm, and also uses much less I/O cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the current construction of a 54 metres statue of Maitreya against a 108 metres stupa in the steppe south of Ulaanbaatar, that will stand at the edge of a new 'eco-city,' Maidar City. The Grand Maitreya Project (GMP) was initiated in 2009 by H. Battulga, businessman and MP (before he was elected president of Mongolia). The project aims to be 'one of the largest Buddhist complex in the world,' and now is a 'National project for reviving traditional Buddhist education and culture.' I propose to use religious and art-historical approaches in order to document the 'birth' of a Buddhist project, with a special interest in the long process of conception, fundraising and promotional programme. Relying on recent studies on the entanglement of Buddhism, politics, culture, consumerization and tourism that gave rise to new cultual modalities, and on studies of colossal statues recently built in Asia, this article asks what the GMP tells us about modern Mongolian politics and public religious culture. What are the sources of inspiration and foreign references of the GMP? Is it a religious monument that will benefit from the tourist economy, a tourist attraction, or a unifying, nationalist symbol of 21st-century Mongolia? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces how to infer trust relationships from billion-scale networked data to benefit Alibaba E-Commerce business. To effectively leverage the network correlations between labeled and unlabeled relationships to predict trust relationships, we formalize trust into multiple types and propose a graphical model to incorporate type-based dyadic and triadic correlations, namely eTrust. We also present a fast learning algorithm in order to handle billion-scale networks. Systematically, we evaluate the proposed methods on four different genres of datasets with labeled trust relationships: Alibaba, Epinions, Ciao, and Advogato. Experimental results show that the proposed methods achieve significantly better performance than several comparison methods (+1.7-32.3% by accuracy; $p<<0.01$ p < < 0. 01 , with $t$ t -test). Most importantly, when handling the real large networked data with over 1,200,000,000 edges (Ali-large), our method achieves 2,000× speedup to infer trust relationships, comparing with the traditional graph learning algorithms. Finally, we have applied the inferred trust relationships to Alibaba E-commerce platform: Taobao, and achieved 2.75 percent improvement on gross merchandise volume (GMV). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the commercial opportunities that will endure in key sectors for the United States and Turkey in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath. These sectors include financial services and capital markets; supply chains and logistics; healthcare; digital economy; defense and aerospace; energy; travel and tourism; and women in business. While defense and security ties have traditionally led the U.S.-Turkey relationship, this piece argues that the pandemic offers the two countries mutual benefits from more robust economic and commercial cooperation in less prominent sectors such as healthcare, the digital economy, and finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the role and tasks of agricultural digitalization education. The major challenges and possibilities of agricultural digitization are inevitable. With the help of modern technology, agriculture has great benefits. This article has been based on a qualitative review of the literature to prove why digitization is necessary for agriculture, and also created a proposal for Curriculum for agriditization at BSc level. There are five suggested subjects groups: Basics of economics, Agronomy basics, Agricultural economics and entrepreneurship, Agricultural digitization and the Differentiated professional knowledge. We also suggest subjects for the knowledge groups and also propose credits to each one. We summarize the Training and Output Requirements (TOR) for the suggested course. We think that new education programmes and new approaches to extension would be also needed to accelerate the transition to digitized agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is exacerbating the loss of competences in the workforce and simultaneously young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs) are struggling to be reengaged in employment. These issues, which are deemed priorities for the European policy agenda, could be addressed by triggering active aging dimensions, valuing and exploiting older adult entrepreneurs' knowledge for enhancing youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes, through mentoring. This paper reports the results of a study based on an intergenerational learning program, carried out in 2018 in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The study was aimed at developing and testing one training on mentoring addressing 41 older adult entrepreneurs (55 and over), and two intergenerational learning trainings aiming at boosting entrepreneurial competences of 33 NEETs (aged 18–29). The impact of the program on older adult entrepreneurs and NEETs was assessed through a pre and post-evaluation using qualitative and quantitative tools. Findings at country level were treated as national case-studies and then the latter were compared by considering them as a multiple embedded case-study. Results indicated that, to different extent in the study countries, mentors learned and enhanced mentoring competences, e.g. active listening and the capability of orienting, improved well-being and self-esteem, social inclusion and active aging attitude. Moreover, NEETs acquired entrepreneurial and socio-relational competences by benefiting from the full exploitation of mentors' know-how and the trust relationship with them. Companies, trade unions, educational and voluntary organizations should cooperate to adopt intergenerational learning programs as good practices for older adults and NEETs' lifelong learning promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As 5G enters a stable phase in terms of system architecture, 3GPP Release 17 starts to investigate advanced features that would shape the evolution toward 6G. This paper provides an insightful analysis for mobile networks Beyond 5G (B5G) considering the advancements and implications introduced by the evolution of softwarization, agile control and deterministic services. It elaborates the 5G landscape, also investigating new business prospects and the emerging use cases, which will open new horizons for accelerating the market penetration of vertical services. It then overviews the key technologies that constitute the pillars for the evolution beyond 5G considering new radio paradigms, micro-service oriented core network, native IP based user plane, network analytics and the support of the low latency- high reliability transport layer. The open challenges considering both technical and business aspects are then overviewed, elaborating the footprint of softwarization, security and trust as well as distributed architectures and services toward 6G. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet technology has flourished in India keeping pace with other developing countries. In keeping pace with this advancement, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology is also spreading in India. Government of India (GOI) has realised IoT's business prospect and published draft policy on IoT in 2015. To achieve a better result, the prospective users are required to be kept aware regarding the prospect of IoT and for this, social media is expected to play a pivotal role. Social media can highlight advantages of IoT and in turn, these advantages would be made known to other potential users through Word of Month (WOM). This would bring in projection of a new business paradigm as contemplated by GOI. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors affecting actual use of IoT by the potential users of India and to develop a conceptual model. The model has been verified through survey with inputs from 208 participants identified from three metropolitan cities of India. The responses have been quantified through 5-Point Likert scale. The result shows the implication that social media and WOM almost equally influence Indians to use IoT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade agreements influence the distribution of money, goods, services and daily living conditions – the social determinants of health and health equity, which ultimately impacts differentially on health within and between countries. In order to advance health equity as a trade policy goal, greater understanding is needed of how different actors frame their interests in order to shape government priorities, thus helping to identify competing agendas across policy communities. This paper reports on a study of how policy actors framed their interests for the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. We analysed 88 submissions made by industry actors, not for profit organisations, unions, researchers and individual citizens to the Australian government during treaty negotiations. We show that policy actors' ideas of the purpose of trade agreements are shaped by competing underlying assumptions of the role of the state, market and society. We identify three primary framings: a dominant neoliberal market frame, and counter frames for the public interest and state sovereignty. Our analysis highlights the potential enabling and constraining impact of policy frames for health equity. In particular, the current dominant market framing largely excludes the social determinants of health and health equity. We argue that advocacy needs to tackle head on the underlying assumptions of market framings in order to open up space for the social. We identify successful examples of health framing for equity as well as opportunities for engagement with 'non-traditional' allies on shared issues of concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the medical cannabis industry in Canada moved from a single government producer to an open market model in 2014, this paper provides insight into how entrepreneurs from illegal medical cannabis dispensaries, as well as legal licensed producers, protect their position and reputation in this 'emerging' market. On the one hand, MCDs are illegal, niche-filling entities that have historically been 'boxed out' by the legal framework, trying to survive untouched by enforcement and supported by faithful clientele. Licensed producers (LPs), on the other hand, are new legal entities that follow a strict government regulated framework, and are essentially stepping on their illegal predecessor's territory. This project draws on 63 in-depth qualitative interviews, when medical cannabis access transitioned to an open market model. In this context, we see that rather than attempts to construct a credible shared identity for legitimacy, the emphasis is on building a distinct identity narrative in the face of market competition. The emergence of legal cannabis markets and the future of cannabis legalization in Canada presents a fruitful avenue for continuing the study of both the micro and macro processes in emerging markets, organizations, and entrepreneurial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This final report of the Lancet Commission into liver disease in the UK stresses the continuing increase in burden of liver disease from excess alcohol consumption and obesity, with high levels of hospital admissions which are worsening in deprived areas. Only with comprehensive food and alcohol strategies based on fiscal and regulatory measures (including a minimum unit price for alcohol, the alcohol duty escalator, and an extension of the sugar levy on food content) can the disease burden be curtailed. Following introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland, alcohol sales fell by 3%, with the greatest effect on heavy drinkers of low-cost alcohol products. We also discuss the major contribution of obesity and alcohol to the ten most common cancers as well as measures outlined by the departing Chief Medical Officer to combat rising levels of obesity-the highest of any country in the west. Mortality of severely ill patients with liver disease in district general hospitals is unacceptably high, indicating the need to develop a masterplan for improving hospital care. We propose a plan based around specialist hospital centres that are linked to district general hospitals by operational delivery networks. This plan has received strong backing from the British Association for Study of the Liver and British Society of Gastroenterology, but is held up at NHS England. The value of so-called day-case care bundles to reduce high hospital readmission rates with greater care in the community is described, along with examples of locally derived schemes for the early detection of disease and, in particular, schemes to allow general practitioners to refer patients directly for elastography assessment. New funding arrangements for general practitioners will be required if these proposals are to be taken up more widely around the country. Understanding of the harm to health from lifestyle causes among the general population is low, with a poor knowledge of alcohol consumption and dietary guidelines. The Lancet Commission has serious doubts about whether the initiatives described in the Prevention Green Paper, with the onus placed on the individual based on the use of information technology and the latest in behavioural science, will be effective. We call for greater coordination between official and non-official bodies that have highlighted the unacceptable disease burden from liver disease in England in order to present a single, strong voice to the higher echelons of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the issue of investment management of digital innovations in modern business. The main purpose of the research is the development of approaches to the investment management of the innovative digitalisation processes of the enterprises and justification of the economic efficiency of investment projects on innovative information technologies use in the context of their relationship with existing information solutions for enterprise management. The relevance of the research is the necessity to change the methods of doing and managing the modern business, taking into account the achievements of the Third and Fourth Industrial Revolutions, which form innovative business philosophy based on informatisation and digitalisation of manufacturing and delivery processes. The implementation of innovative digital technology in business processes requires significant costs and it raises the issue on their minimization. Systematization of literary sources and approaches for the investment management of industrial digitalisation indicates the absence of complex solutions for this problem. In this regard, based on a comparative analysis, the authors have revealed the features of business development in the conditions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and justified the need for modern information systems integration for enterprise management on the platform of business processes digitalisation. In order to create the road map of business digital innovations, it is suggested that the Theory of Constraints should be used to determine which of the operating information systems of the enterprise (Business intelligence - BI; Enterprise Resource Planning - ERP; Manufacturing Execution System - MES; Industrial Internet of Things - IIoT) is to begin the digital transformation with. The stages of the project development for the digital transformation of an enterprise are designed based on the structural approach. The economic justification for the selection of alternative digitalisation projects is based on an assessment of the labour costs for implementing two variants of digital innovation of a business entity: a complex automation project with upfront modelling and an integration automation project with the gradual implementation of a new information system. The assessment results have shown the economic benefits of implementing the integration project as it provides 1.58 times fewer labour costs and can be realized by use of universal package solutions such as Business Automaton Software (BAS). The analysis of the results of the implemented business digitalisation projects in Ukraine and the world as well as the potential of planned ones has allowed generalising the effects of their implementation and confirmed the need for further development of the mechanisms for the investment management of business digital innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the fastest-growing occupational groups in the US is expert service workers: knowledge workers who sell their expert knowledge and services on the free market. In this paper, we offer a comparative case study of how expert service workers, whom are hired for their professional evaluations, navigate the tensions of the expert service-client relation in a specific but critical way: How do they convince others that their professional recommendations are credible? Specifically, we draw on two disparate cases of expert evaluators, book reviewers and management consultants, and document two communicative patterns that these professional groups use to build the credibility of their professional recommendations: (i) transparency and (ii) distanciation. Similarities in the credibility tactics of these two sets of expert service workers from two very different worlds, the Arts and business, suggest their generalizable value. Hence, we conclude by discussing how our findings offer a general approach we call, the evaluative triangle, for studying the credibility tactics of expert claims across multiple worlds of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this research paper is to propose a newly introduced concept of Green Business Ethical Practice (GBEPs) which is a composite set of 18 practices include consisting of elements that can be grouped under the following actions: repurposing & reusing, recycling, remanufacturing, reverse logistic, emergency preparedness plan, maintenance and continuation of emergency system, philanthropy, fair dealing, child labor, essential healthcare, women rights, paternal leaves, compliance to transgender laws, carbon dioxide footprint reduction, water waste management, air pollution, dust pollution, and noise pollution. This qualitative study has been conducted on twenty-five textile firms which are recognised as 'green' by international authorities and are engaged in export of textile good. The key findings of the study reveal that adoption of GBEPs not only enhances a company's reputation at the international level in terms of its responsiveness toward environment and international society but also helps it in boosting its ecological enactment by managing its environmental obligations in an efficient manner. The study recommends to formulate a comprehensive policy and regulation package for companies trying to be green and intending to the part of global value chain. There should be a universal and composite set of codes encompassing practices of social, environmental under one umbrella like GBEP to simplify the way to become internationally active. Collective steps like awareness campaigns, social recognition workshops towards conservation of environment and human integrity should be taken in order to achieve collaborated sustainable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of Chinese enterprises' ERP investment and implementation on stock performance and financial performance and the differences between Chinese enterprises and American enterprises' ERP investment as well as the differences between the smaller firms and larger firms' ERP investment. The result indicates the performance of Chinese companies investing in ERP is better than American companies in both stock and profitability financial performance. When it comes to the different size firms, the result shows that smaller firms get more return on the stock market than larger firms after investing in ERP, while larger firms get more return on financial profitability than smaller firms. After enterprises invest in ERP, we find the increase of financial cost only in the implementation period for the full and smaller size sample, but not in the case of larger size firm sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsourced live video broadcasting services, such as Twitch and YouTube Live, are becoming increasingly popular. In such a service, viewers are allowed to perform rich interactions, such as posting comments and donating monetary virtual gifts, while watching videos. Understanding viewer interactions is essential for people to comprehend the production and consumption of the crowdsourced live video content and improve the service. However, the basic characteristics of the viewer interactions are still unknown. In this paper, we present a comprehensive measurement study of the viewer interactions on Douyu, a popular crowdsourced live video broadcasting website in China. Our measurement spans four months and contains comment posting and virtual gift donating interactions from tens of millions of viewers in hundreds of thousands of channels. Based on the measurement data, we carry out a content analysis on danmu comments and characterize the patterns of the viewer interactions. We build a suite of models for capturing the gift donating process, viewer activity, and channel popularity. We further analyze the influences of the broadcaster’s behavioral factors on a channel’s popularity and present methodologies for popularity predicting. Our measurement and analysis have important implications on the design and business policy of the crowdsourced live video broadcasting services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation on urban commercial centers' attractiveness not only benefits business strategy making and location choice, but also helps traffic management and urban planning. Traditionally, it is studied using questionnaires and field research, which are labor-intensive and time-consuming. To overcome these problems when evaluating the urban commercial centers' attractiveness, massive data analytics with datasets from taxi traffic, population, area, and road networks are adopted in this paper. Taking fifteen commercial centers at Shenzhen as a case study, a Cyber-Physical-Social System is built up to deal with these massive data for statistical analysis. An "Attractiveness Degree Model" is proposed to describe the degree to which customers desire to visit a commercial center. Then attractiveness thematic maps are drawn. Results show that YiTianJiaRiGuangChang has the highest attractiveness degree even though it has a small size and low commercial value. The attractiveness degree rankings are corroborated by annual customer satisfaction survey from Shenzhen Retail Business Association. Attractiveness thematic maps show that about 50–65% visits by taxis are within 5 km range. These results can be applied to support market analysis, urban planning, traffic management, and related areas. • Commercial center is precisely defined geographically and sociologically. • Attractiveness degree is the proposed metric to evaluate the attractiveness. • A Cyber-Physical-Social System is implemented for massive data processing. • Statistical analysis and thematic maps shed new insights into attractiveness. • Commercial centers are classified into four representative types in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the deepening of electricity market reform in China, the competition in the electricity retail market becomes increasingly intense. Electricity retailers (ERs) need to explore new business models to enhance their competitiveness in the retail market. Meanwhile, with the improvement of industrial production and people's living standards, more and more nonlinear electrical equipment have been put into use, leading to severe harmonic pollution problems. Harmonic pollution causes loss of electricity, resulting in the economic loss of customers, especially for large industrial customers. In the above contexts, this paper proposes a novel business model that incorporates harmonic control as a value-added service into electricity retail contracts for utility-owned ERs. Both utility-owned ERs and customers can benefit from the designed business model. For customers, it helps them to improve the power quality while saving the electricity cost. For ERs, it helps them to cultivate the customer loyalty and improve the customer satisfaction. A case study is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed business model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional and global geo-political and geo-strategic whirlwind changes have pushed the states to revisit and reconceptualize their role and position. Mutual politico-economic and strategic significance propel them to constitute new alliances and sign new pacts and protocols. In the contemporary world, new avenues of regional and inter-regional economic cooperation and trade have achieved the centrality at the stage of international relations. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a Sino-Pak joint initiative, has become the flagship project of inter-regional connectivity and integration. The CPEC would link the regions to promote regional and inter-regional commerce and trade cooperation and would boost the economic activities which would resultantly become helpful to seal off the vicious cycle of poverty. However, some regional and non regional states expressed their reservations over CPEC. The paper will seek whether or not CPEC can help Pakistan to overcome its energy crisis and cure the ever-ailing economy? The study will also analyze how operational CPEC would counter the Indian hegemonic designs in South Asia? The research will also frame a set of recommendations to capitalize the CPEC and counter the possible considerations to Pakistan's security and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explain why Hollywood's dominant firms are narrowing the scope of creativity in the contemporary period (1980–2015). The largest distributors have sought to prevent the art of filmmaking and its related social relations from becoming financial risks in the pursuit of profit. Major filmed entertainment, my term for the six largest distributors, must discount expected future earnings to present prices with the forward-looking logic of capitalisation; and uncertainty about where creativity in cinema is going can produce financial uncertainty about the future earning potential of new film projects. Conversely, a degree of confidence in the expected future earnings of Hollywood cinema can increase when the art of filmmaking and broader social world of mass culture are ordered by capitalist power [Nitzan, J. and Bichler, S., 2009. Capital as power: a study of order and creorder. New York: Routledge]. For the period of 1980–2015, major filmed entertainment lowered its risk relative to the period before, 1960–79. This historical process of risk reduction is the effect of major filmed entertainment making the wide-release strategy (a.k.a., saturation booking) more predictable through an aggressive implementation of the blockbuster style and the high concept standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process mining methodologies are designed to uncover underlying business processes, deviations from them, and in general, usage patterns. One of the key limitations of these methodologies is that they struggle in cases in which there is no structured process, or when a process can be performed in many ways. Learning Management Systems are a classic case of unstructured processes since each learner follows a different learning process. In this paper, we address this limitation by proposing and validating the user behavior pattern detection (UBPD) methodology which is based on detecting very short user activities and clustering them based on shared variance to construct a more meaningful behavior. We develop and validate this methodology by using two datasets of unstructured processes from different implementations of a learning management system. The first dataset uses a gamified course where users have the freedom to choose how to use the system, and the second dataset uses data from a massive online open course, where again, system usage is based on personal learning preferences. The key contribution of the methodology is its ability to discover user-specific usage patterns and cluster users based on them, even in noisy systems with no clear process. It provides great value to course designers and teachers trying to understand how learner interact with their system and sets the foundation for additional research in this class of systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on understanding the different evolutions of business' associational paths in post-Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) Chile and Uruguay, offering an explanation at the crossroads of the institutional change and international trade literatures. The argument is that the different forms in which ISI institutions were transformed during the liberalisation period facilitated a greater mobility of factors to different degrees, triggering divergent enduring associational strategies on the part of business. The proliferation of narrow-based special benefits during the ISI fuelled preferences for the formation of sector-based coalitions oriented towards rent-seeking activities. Nevertheless, while ISI regulations were displaced in Chile during the military period, Uruguay followed a gradual process of layering of new rules alongside old ones. These diverging strategies, having different effect on established inter-sectoral regulatory distortions, propitiated alternative associational paths of local business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New communication technologies have had a major impact on the newspaper press in China. They have lost readers and advertisers and have experienced economic difficulties. These have been more severe for the commercially-oriented newspapers than the official party papers. In response to the loss of advertising they have adopted three strategies. The first is internal reorganization. Editorial and business departments have been merged into sections charged with producing both newspaper content and advertising revenue and which have been set explicit revenue targets. The second has been a heavy stress on non-news gathering activities. These include trading favourable coverage for advertising and using the newspaper to develop other non-news businesses. Thirdly, journalists have been encouraged to adapt to business roles and undertake directly commercial tasks. These have included the sale of advertising space and, more indirectly, the exploitation of their professional contacts as leads for their business colleagues. These strategies have eroded, and sometimes completely removed, the firewall between the journalistic and business goals of the newspapers. Journalists are increasingly subordinated to the needs of revenue raising rather than news reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I study whether trade is affected by laws against foreign bribery, passed under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (ABC). • ABC is poorly implemented at first, yielding no real effect on trade. • Shifting trade patterns in the early years of ABC are better explained by trends in international political cooperation. • When ABC enforcement intensifies under its Phase 3 initiative, it does start to affect trade patterns. • Effects are greatest in corruption-prone destination countries and sectors. This paper studies the relationship between anti-corruption enforcement and trade, offering a novel empirical perspective on the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (ABC), in which signatory countries agreed to prosecute bribery of foreign officials. Existing literature on ABC focuses on its early years, claiming that it led OECD firms to avoid exporting to corrupt destinations, with the effect of diverting business away from developing countries. Yet these early years involved little actual enforcement, and I argue that the redirection of trade in this period owed not to the anti-bribery laws themselves, but to an underlying trend of increased political cooperation among OECD countries, as indicated by several factors including patterns in UN voting affinity. Only when enforcement of the laws intensifies, during the OECD's Phase 3 initiative, do the laws begin having real effects, diverting OECD countries' trade away from corrupt destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational sustainability is a multi-facet paradigm widely used to address perennial business challenges such as climate change, industrial waste, the economies of scale and social well-being, etc. In the last three decades, extensive research has been performed on ecological or economic sustainability, ignoring the third pillar of sustainability. Given the importance of humans and society-a center-stage of inclusive development-this paper aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis to examine the growth of organizational social sustainability (OSS) from 2000 to 2021 during MDG & SDG periods. A total of 1566 publications are analyzed using Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS) database. Citation networks, bibliographic coupling, and thematic mapping have explored influential work, intellectual structure, and research gaps. The study findings demonstrated that most publications are during the SDG period, with Sustainability as the most productive journal and the USA as the most contributing country. The top 10 active institutions are from Australia, France, and Spain. The top contributing authors are from France, but the USA is at the top in citations. Contributions are lacking from large portions of Africa. Keyword analysis showed that "social sustainability," "sustainable development," "environmental sustainability," "sustainable supply change management," "circular economy," and "social life cycle assessment" are the main topics. Keyword analysis and thematic mapping show that despite increased publications in the field of organizational social sustainability, OSS research is still far from focusing on the stakeholders' benefits, satisfaction, and subjective well-being. Moreover, quantitative assessment of OSS based on sustainability standards such as Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) and Value Reporting Foundation (VRF) standards was found scant in the given field. The present research concluded with scope and opportunity for future research in the area of OSS. • Bibliometric analysis to examine organizational social sustainability during MDG & SDG periods. • Scopus & WoS data used in R Studio & Vosviewer. • Citation networks, bibliographic coupling, and thematic mapping have explored influential work, intellectual structure. • Global Reporting Initiatives and Value Reporting Foundation standards was found scant in the given field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to financing plays an eminent role for a small enterprise sector in any economy. Research usually finds a positive size efficiency relationship, but few studies focus on sectors dominated by small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). This paper fills this gap by analyzing this relationship in the Polish industry sector, which is both successful and increasingly dominated by SMEs. It is envisaged that this study will contribute to the existing literature on small enterprise financing, with an emphasis on financial constraints in the Polish small enterprise industry sector. The paper presents only part of research. Analysis of the data will present an insight into the actual barriers for small enterprises constraints associated with debt financing arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aimed to present the role and impact of International Fund for Agriculture on the development of the rural areas of the Republic of Moldova. Till the present the rural development are on the law level. The farmers were facing significant problems in running the business and a lot of poor people still lived in rural areas. These people could potentially be employed only in Agriculture as other economic activities are less developed in the rural areas. The Rural Financial Services and Agribusiness Development Project (RFSADP) is the fifth International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) program in Moldova and became effective on July 4, 2011. The implementation of the RFSADP was divided into four main components, to address various issues identified for reducing the poverty in rural areas. Each component and subcomponent describes a certain approach to improve business development in rural areas, with focus on agriculture and to improve the quality of lives for the people in rural areas. International Fund for Agriculture Development provided funding, consultancy and organized a set of activities to target poor people in rural areas to improve their living, to increase their knowledge about the most recent technologies in agriculture and to provide practical information about how to run their business and increase output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2014, Colorado implemented the world's first seed-to-sale recreational cannabis market under a commercial model. This paper aims to provide a thick descriptive account that gives insight into the issues and complexities of Colorado's pioneering and evolving attempt to regulate the use of pesticides on commercial cannabis plantations.Methods: The paper examines multiple data sets including: (i) Colorado State Government documents; (ii) recreational cannabis regulations; (iii) mass and niche media publications (n=175); (iv) face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders, including seniors, regulators and industry executives (n=8); and (v) field notes from relevant conferences and cultivation facility tours in Denver in October, 2016.Results: Two key issues are identified. First, a public safety threat has arisen relating to application of pesticides on cannabis with intensified toxicity in concentrated products of particular concern. Second, as a pioneering jurisdiction, Colorado faces a considerable knowledge gap. To expand collective learning on this issue, for which no regulatory template and little research exists, state regulators tapped industry and other stakeholder expertise while attempting to ensure public safety goals were achieved and regulatory capture by industry was limited.Conclusion: Four years since the recreational cannabis market in Colorado was legalised, the State continues to grapple with the pesticide issue as testing regulations and cultivation standards are yet to be finalised. While more work is needed, Colorado has made significant progress in developing regulations relating to this complex matter. As governments of countries such as Canada and US states, including California, contemplate changes to recreational cannabis laws, Colorado's experience can assist regulators in other jurisdictions considering policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is the international division of Japan Tobacco Incorporated, and the world’s third largest transnational tobacco company. Founded in 1999, JTI’s rapid growth has been the result of a global business strategy that potentially serves as a model for other Asian tobacco companies. This paper analyses Japan Tobacco Incorporated’s global expansion since the 1980s in response to market opening, foreign competition, and declining share of a contracting domestic market. Key features of its global strategy include the on-going central role and investment by the Japanese government, and an expansion agenda based on mergers and acquisitions. The paper also discusses the challenges this global business strategy poses for global tobacco control and public health. This paper is part of the special issue ‘The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]