Performance evaluation framework for sustainable freight transportation systems

Sustainability in freight transportation demands for a balance among economic, environmental, and social aspects in shipping commodities throughout a supply chain. The performance evaluation of sustainable freight transportation (SFT) systems is of prime importance as it facilitates perpetual and objective assessment for advancements towards sustainability targets. In this study, we propose a comprehensive framework to assess the sustainability performance of freight transportation systems. We pinpoint critical success factors (CSFs) affecting the performance of SFT by carrying out an extensive literature review and conducting a Delphi study to seek experts’ opinions from industry as well as academia. Further, a comprehensive hierarchical framework is developed to establish inter-relationships among these CSFs followed by prioritisation of these CSFs. The application of the proposed framework is illustrated through a case example. This framework would also serve as a reference for decision-makers in selecting the most sustainable freight transportation system.     

Social media in operations and supply chain management: State-of-the-Art and research directions

Recently, industrial and academic communities in the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) field are paying increasing attention to social media. However, the value of social media in OSCM is quite unclear, and more investigations are still needed. To pave the way for directed future research, this paper systematically reviewed and synthesised 152 peer-review journal papers to identify research focus and gaps in this area, supported by an appropriate conceptual framework. The result reveals that the research interests in this area have increased dramatically within the last decade across various industries and regions. Different companies’ OSCM activities, such as sourcing and delivery, can benefit from employment of social media. This paper also indicates that future research can explore the value of social media in sourcing, delivery, product return and reverse logistics, forecasting and inventory management, and product development and production.     

Uncertain supply chain network design considering carbon footprint and social factors using two-stage approach

Sustainable development has become one of the leading global issues over the period of time. Currently, implementation of sustainability in supply chain has been continuously in center of attention due to introducing stringent legislations regarding environmental pollution by various governments and increasing stakeholders’ concerns toward social injustice. Unfortunately, literature is still scarce on studies considering all three dimensions (economical, environmental and social) of sustainability for the supply chain. An effective supply chain network design (SCND) is very important to implement sustainability in supply chain. This study proposes an uncertain SCND model that minimizes the total supply chain-oriented cost and determines the opening of plants, warehouses and flow of materials across the supply chain network by considering various carbon emissions and social factors. In this study, a new AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS-based methodology is proposed to transform qualitative social factors into quantitative social index, which is subsequently used in chance-constrained SCND model with an aim at reducing negative social impact. Further, the carbon emission of supply chain is estimated by considering a composite emission that consists of raw material, production, transportation and handling emissions. In the model, a carbon emission cap is imposed on total supply chain to reduce the carbon footprint of supply chain. To solve the proposed model, a code is developed in AMPL software using a nonlinear solver SNOPT. The applicability of the proposed model is illustrated with a numerical example. The sensitivity analysis examines the effects of reducing carbon footprint cap, negative social impacts and varying probability on the total cost of the supply chain. It is observed that a stricter carbon cap over supply chain network leads to opening of more plants across the supply chain. In addition, carbon footprint of supply chain is found to be decreased in certain extent with the reduction in negative social impacts from suppliers. The carbon footprint of the supply chain is found to be reduced with increasing certainty of material supply from the suppliers. The total supply chain cost is observed to be augmented with increasing probability.     

Urban regeneration and impact assessment for social sustainability

This paper provides a working definition of social sustainability and highlights the growing array of social sustainability assessment tools (e.g. SIA, HIA, equality impact assessment, SA). Within EIA the social dimension has been very much the ‘poor relation’. However, changes in the UK planning system, the drive for sustainable communities, and for greater public involvement in decision making are raising the profile of the social dimension. This is particularly relevant for urban regeneration projects, which are often mixed use (including housing), and with the potential for development to be shaped by community involvement. The paper includes a review of recent environmental statements (ESs) for regeneration projects in the UK, which provides findings on, for example, the inclusion of social factors in the process; scope of such factors; methodological approaches and impact assessment tools; and role of community involvement. The research raises questions about the extent to which social issues shape outcomes; it also highlights some important challenges, including the key issue of ‘integration versus disintegration’ in the scope and process of impact assessment.     

Social sustainable supplier evaluation and selection: a group decision-support approach

Organisational and managerial decisions are influenced by corporate sustainability pressures. Organisations need to consider economic, environmental and social sustainability dimensions in their decisions to become sustainable. Supply chain decisions play a distinct and critical role in organisational good and service outputs sustainability. Sustainable supplier selection influences the supply chain sustainability allowing many organisations to build competitive advantage. Within this context, the social sustainability dimension has received relatively minor investigation; with emphasis typically on economic and environmental sustainability. Neglecting social sustainability can have serious repercussions for organisational supply chains. This study proposes a social sustainability attribute decision framework to evaluate and select socially sustainable suppliers. A grey-based multi-criteria decision-support tool composed of the ‘best-worst method’ (BWM) and TODIM (TOmada de Decisão Interativa e Multicritério – in Portuguese ‘Interactive and Multicriteria Decision Making’) is introduced. A grey-BWM approach is used to determine social sustainability attribute weights, and a grey-TODIM method is utilised to rank suppliers. This process is completed in a group decision setting. A case study of an Iranian manufacturing company is used to exemplify the applicability and suitability of the proposed social sustainability decision framework. Managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are introduced after the application of the model.     

货运代理业发展现代综合物流的对策

分析了货运代理业的现状，提出货运代理业应从人才培养、完善服务网络布局、建立物流信息网络、加强供应链管理等方面发展现代综合物流。     

Antecedents of trust in using social media for E-government services: An empirical study in Pakistan

Trust is a major concern that develops citizens' willingness to use social media as a technology platform for e-government services. However, despite its importance, there is lack of prior investigation about the factors that can generate citizens' trust to use such services, particularly in a developing country like Pakistan. To address this research gap, this study aims to develop a model that identifies antecedents of citizens' trust to use social media for e-government services. A total of 615 responses were collected from Pakistani citizens having familiarity with e-government and social media services. Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) method was employed to test the proposed relationships in the model. The findings show a significant relationship of trust with citizens intention to use government social media services. Information quality, structural assurances, perceived security, perceived privacy and perceived ease of use are identified as antecedents of trust. The proposed model of this study explains 56.4% of the variance in trust. The implications, limitations and suggestions for future research have also been discussed. These findings can assist government organizations and policy makers in making decisions to increase citizens participation by facilitating their trust on social media-based services of e-government.     

Antecedents of implementation success in closed-loop supply chain: an empirical investigation

Implementation of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) has gained increased consideration in the last few years owing to an increase in environmental concerns, product returns and scarcity of natural resources. It aids in improving environmental, economic and social performances. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of CLSC critical success factors (CSFs) on performance outcomes. Firstly, CSFs and performance outcomes are extracted by conducting exploratory factor analysis using SPSS software. Then, the relationships between CLSC CSFs and performance outcomes are empirically tested by Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach, using the data collected from 138 professionals working in remanufacturing, refurbishing and recycling operations in North American manufacturing organisations. Empirical analysis demonstrates that CSFs, ‘environmental concerns’, ‘sustainable production’ and ‘product design and collection’ have a significant positive effect on environmental performance. Results also validate the significant positive effect of CSFs, ‘demand and inventory management’ and ‘raw material prices’ on economic performance. In our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the impact of CLSC CSFs on performance outcomes. The results provide managers in manufacturing organisations with insights on most important CSFs that improve performance.     

Simulation modelling for food supply chain redesign; integrated decision making on product quality,sustainability and logistics

Food supply chains are confronted with increased consumer demands on food quality and sustainability. When redesigning these chains the analysis of food quality change and environmental load of new scenarios is as important as the analysis of efficiency and responsiveness requirements. Simulation tools are often used for supporting decision-making on supply chain (re)design when logistic uncertainties are in place, building on their inherent modelling flexibility. Mostly, the underlying assumption is that product quality is not influenced by or does not influence chain design. Clearly, this is not true for food supply chains, as quality change is intrinsic to the industry. We propose a new integrated approach towards logistics, sustainability and food quality analysis, and implement the approach by introducing a new simulation environment, ALADIN?. It embeds food quality change models and sustainability indicators in discrete event simulation models. A case example illustrates the benefits of its use relating to speed and quality of integrated decision making, but also to creativity in terms of alternative solutions.     

Improving the resilience of maritime supply chains: The integration of ports and inland transporters in duopoly markets

The adverse impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 has reduced ports’ operational efficiency. In addition, ports and inland logistics providers are generally independent of each other and difficult to work together, which leads to time loss. Thus, as the core player, ports can integrate with inland logistics providers to improve the efficiency and resilience of maritime supply chains. This study examines the strategic options of two competing maritime supply chains consisting of ports and inland logistics providers. We investigate the impact of cooperation between ports and inland logistics providers and government regulation on the maritime supply chain by comparing members’ optimal pricing and overall social welfare under centralized, decentralized, and hybrid scenarios. Results indicate that the hybrid scenario is an equilibrium strategy for maritime supply chain, although this strategy is not optimal for governments seeking to improve supply chain resilience and maximize social welfare. Furthermore, observations show that through government economic intervention, both seaborne supplies can be incentivized to adopt an integrated strategy, and business and society can achieve a win–win situation.     

Antecedents and gains of user participation in social media in Taiwan

Social media provide a wide array of interactive functions which allow users to share and comment on content and personal status. While considerable work has been done on identifying factors which influence social media usage intention, few studies have empirically examined factors which cause users to share content, related group behaviors, and consequences of social media participation. This study develops an integrated model to explore these research questions. The proposed model is empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 389 social media users. Results suggest that altruism, expected reciprocal benefit and expected relationship are significant determinants of knowledge sharing intention. We-intention is determined by factors such as social norms, online self-presentation, social identity and knowledge sharing intention. Moreover, users obtain social support and social capital through social media participation. The findings may provide useful insights for social media platform managers and marketers.     

Supply chain models with corporate social responsibility

Currently, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a critical issue because more than 88% of consumers think companies should try to achieve their business goals while improving society and the environment. This paper focuses on a CSR supply chain where an Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEM’s) sales can be significantly reduced because of its oversea supplier’s social misconduct. Specifically, as in a conventional wholesale price contract the supplier determines its wholesale price and the OEM decides its order quantity, but in a CSR supply chain, the supplier can autonomously change its CSR cost once a minimum requirement is satisfied. A higher CSR cost means that the supplier invests more in its corporate social responsibility and the OEM’s sales will be less likely to be influenced by negative CSR events. The equilibrium solutions show an important dilemma – although the supplier’s profit increases in the basic CSR requirement, the supplier will always use the minimum CSR cost under the conventional wholesale price contract, which eventually leads to a low supply chain profit. Thus, we introduce two different contracts to handle this problem: the flexible quantity contract and the wholesale price incentive contract, which are, respectively, a ‘tough’ way and a ‘beneficent’ way for the OEM to solve the problem. Although the two ways cannot (always) coordinate the supply chain, we show that they both will significantly improve the supply chain performance. Our results also show that in some conditions, one strategy will dominate, whereas in different conditions the other strategy dominates.     

Government policies and attitudes to social media use among users in Turkey: The role of awareness of policies,political involvement,online trust,and party identification

Few research studies have examined the impact of government policies toward social media on individuals’ attitudes to social media use, particularly when these policies aim to denounce and control social media platforms, as was the case in Turkey in 2013–2016. A conceptual model, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 2005) [1], was proposed to investigate the mediating role of awareness of government policies, degree of political involvement, online trust, and the moderating role of party identification in predicting the attitudes to social media use. Data were collected through a survey of 653 social media users in Istanbul, Turkey (mean age = 31.76, SD = 10.96; 40 % women, 83 % Turkish ethnicity) in September 2015. Using PLS-SEM modelling, the awareness of government policies, the degree of political involvement, and the online trust were found to partially mediate the relationship between the frequency of social media use and the attitudes to social media use for the users of Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, while the moderating role of party identification was not significant in this model. The results provide additional support for the role of social context and past behaviors in predicting the attitudes and future intentions in the use of digital communication technologies.     

The mediating role of problematic social media use in the relationship between social avoidance/distress and self-esteem

The number of social media users in Bangladesh is increasing in every year. Young people – mainly college and university students – are the heavy users of it. Problematic social media use (PSMU) has received increasing research attention over the past decade. However, there are very few studies concerning PSMU in Bangladesh. The present study examined the role of PSMU in the relationship between social avoidance/distress and self-esteem. The study comprised a sample of 370 university students from the University of Chittagong (Bangladesh). Participants were administered a survey including questions regarding socio-demographics, the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS). Results showed that PSMU partially mediated the relationship between social avoidance/distress and self-esteem, while social avoidance/distress predicted the level of self-esteem. However, PSMU had a non-significant influence on the relationship between these two variables while self-esteem predicted social avoidance/distress.     

食品安全视角的食品供应链物流运行机制研究

目的 针对食品安全有效监管问题, 从供应链物流角度对我国食品及食品包装供应链物流运行机制进行研究。方法 运用供应链管理和物流管理的基本概念、 原理和研究方法, 从食品安全视角阐释食品供应链物流运行现状、 问题及其相关因素。结果 明确提出了食品供应链物流三大运行机制,即建立安全保障机制, 包括主要内容及构建食品包装安全的采购、 冷链和追溯三大核心物流系统; 建立食品供应链物流集成机制; 建立食品供应链物流企业的公共道德责任机制。结论 从食品安全视角研究食品供应链物流的运行机制问题, 建立食品包装供应链物流安全保障体系, 有助于食品及食品包装物流安全长效机制的建立。     

Revealing interfaces of supply chain resilience and sustainability: a simulation study

Dynamics of structures and processes is one of the underlying challenges in supply chain management, where multiple dimensions of economic efficiency, risk management and sustainability are interconnected. One of the substantiated issues in supply chain dynamics is resilience. Resilience has a number of intersections with supply chain sustainability. This paper aims at analysing disruption propagation in the supply chain with consideration of sustainability factors in order to design resilient supply chain structure in regard to ripple effect mitigation and sustainability increase. Ripple effect in the supply chain occurs if a disruption at a supplier cannot be localised and cascades downstream impacting supply chain performance. This simulation-based study helps to identify what sustainability factors mitigate the ripple effect in the supply chain and what sustainability factors enhance this effect. The results indicate that (i) sustainable single sourcing enhances the ripple effect; (ii) facility fortification at major employers in regions mitigates the ripple effect and enhances sustainability; and (iii) a reduction in storage facilities in the supply chain downstream of a disruption-risky facility increases sustainability but causes the ripple effect.     

Social and personal normative influences on healthcare professionals to use information technology: towards a more robust social ergonomics

Social structures and processes are increasingly acknowledged and studied within the human factors/ergonomics (HFE) discipline. At the same time, social phenomena are rarely the focus of HFE work, leaving a knowledge gap. This study directly addresses social and personal normative forces that influence technology use and performance. Social and personal normative influence to use electronic health records were investigated using semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 attending physicians at two US hospitals. Analyses used a comprehensive framework based on leading social scientific theories and revealed numerous sources of influence, including hospital administration, colleagues, patients, clinical and professional groups, government and one's self. Influence was achieved through different means and invoked different psychological processes. Findings motivate a new view of professionals’ technology use as a highly social process occurring in a social context, with implications for research, policy, design and, in general, the development of a robust social ergonomics.     

Unearthing the determinants of Blockchain adoption in supply chain management

The behavioural intention to adopt Blockchain for supply chain management (BCSCM) is studied in this paper. The research framework adopted considers how Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Condition (FC), Technology Readiness (TR), Technology Affinity (TA) and Trust (TT) can lead to the adoption of the technology. Data gathered from 157 firms is analysed using SPSS version 2 while the quality of the measurement is tested using WarpPLS. Findings revealed that FC, TR and TA have a positive influence on intention to use BCSCM and regulatory support moderates the effect of FC. This study offers valuable insights into the applicability of Blockchain technology for supply chain management.     

Boosting sustainability and financial performance: the role of supply chain controversies

In recent years, numerous scandals concerning working conditions in Asia have threatened the reputation of large companies like Wal-Mart and Inditex. Since such scandals call attention to activities harmful to sustainable development, it is very important to study the relationships between concerns for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), sustainability, and organisations’ market value. The added value of our study is, first, to explore SSCM controversies as drivers of or pressures for adopting and applying sustainability practices; and, second, to contribute to the recent but growing literature that analyses the channels through which SSCM and sustainability practices influence the firm’s value. We introduce sustainability environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices as a mediator between SSCM controversies and market value to examine whether SSCM controversies with firms’ stakeholders lead to improvements in the ESG dimensions of organisational sustainability. We also examine the relationships between the ESG dimensions and market value, measured as Tobin’s Q ratio. The results confirm both the positive relationships of SSCM controversies to the ESG dimensions two years later and a positive relationship of the dimension of governance to Tobin’s Q. We also confirm a negative and significant relationship of the social dimension to Tobin’s Q, and a non-significant relationship of the environmental dimension to Tobin’s Q.     

Social vacation: Proposition of a model to understand tourists’ usage of social media for travel planning

This study develops a theoretical model that highlights the determinants of actual social media (SM) usage for travel planning by combining theoretical frameworks from the marketing, psychology and information systems literature. The data was collected through field as well as online survey in India. An online survey questionnaire link was shared on different social media platforms and social networking sites. Besides, field visits were carried out to collect data in-person through face-to-face interviews. The final sample consists of 539 observations. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to validate the hypothesized relationships among constructs. The results suggest that technological convenience and perceived enjoyment influence the perceived ease of using SM for travel planning. In turn, perceived ease of use impacts perceived usefulness, along with media richness. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, along with trust positively influence intentions to use SM for travel planning, while perceived risk inhibits those intentions. However, trust increases perceived usefulness and mitigates perceived risk. Importantly, intentions exert a strong impact on actual use. This study contributes to the literature by presenting and validating a theory-driven framework that unveils the factors influencing actual usage of SM for travel planning. The proposed theoretical framework emphasizes the key relationships among factors and provides a research basis for development in other contexts.