Frontiers in Microbiology

PurposeOn-site industrialized construction (OIC) represents a significant innovation direction for the industrial transformation of the construction industry. However, compared to prefabricated construction (PC) technology, OIC technology has not received sufficient attention. In particular, the lack of mechanisms for the adoption of OIC technology has significantly hindered the innovation and diffusion of this technology. This paper aims to address this gap by identifying the drivers and barriers of OIC technology and exploring the logical relationships among these influencing factors.Design/methodology/approachTherefore, this study aims to analyze the factors influencing OIC technology adoption, focusing on both drivers and barriers, to promote its adoption among construction companies. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is employed to validate the significance of influencing factors, while interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is utilized to explore the interrelationships among the factors supported by PLS-SEM.FindingsThe results of PLS-SEM show that relative advantage, regulatory support, top management support, organizational readiness and market demand positively influence adoption intention, while perceived risk, complexity and cost have a negative impact. Additionally, the root driver identified by ISM analysis is labor shortage, and the root barrier is comprehension presents challenges. It is noteworthy that the root driver is derived from market demand, but the low path coefficient for market demand in PLS-SEM indicates limited direct effects. This suggests that market demand influences adoption intention by driving other mediating factors, which still require sufficient attention.Originality/valueThis study elucidates the factors and mechanisms influencing the adoption of OIC technology, supplementing the knowledge base in the domains of industrialized construction (IC) and engineering technological innovation. Additionally, it offers valuable insights for construction companies actively engaged in construction industrialization reform, facilitating the effective promotion of OIC technology.

PurposeCorporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a prominent public concern; however, within the agricultural sector, many firms demonstrate unsatisfactory performance in terms of CSR activities. Drawing upon the behavioral theory of the firm, this study aims to investigate how operational risks faced by agriculture-related firms affect its CSR practices.Design/methodology/approachUsing a data of 136 Chinese food processing firms with 909 observations from 2011 to 2021, this study constructs the fixed-effect model to analyze the relationship among operational risks, digital investment and CSR practices.FindingsThe empirical evidence shows that competition risk significantly improves CSR performance while financial risk hinders it. The results of moderation analysis further reveal that digital investment strengthens the positive effect of competition risk and the negative effect of financial risk, although the latter is not statistically significant.Originality/valueOverall, by establishing a link between operational risks and CSR practices, this study contributes to clarifying decision-making rules for food processing firms and deepening the understanding of why and when they adopt social responsibility initiatives.

PurposeDigitalization presents both opportunities and challenges for collaborative innovation within supply chains (SCs). Based on resource dependence theory (RDT), this study examines the underlying mechanisms of digitalization and innovation performance, elucidating the mediation and moderating role of interfirm IT integration and relational norms in the above relationships.Design/methodology/approachHierarchical regression analysis is used to test the model from 170 buyer–supplier dyads in China.FindingsThis study’s empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance in buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs), and interfirm IT integration partially mediates this relationship. Specifically, digitalization has an inverted U-shaped relationship with interfirm IT integration, and interfirm IT integration positively affects innovation performance. Finally, relational norms moderate this inverted U-shaped relationship, making it steeper.Originality/valueThis study embeds the impact of digitalization on innovation performance within SC relationships. By using the buyer–supplier dyad as the analysis unit, the study reveals that digitalization brings both benefits and risks to innovation performance in BSRs. Furthermore, by clarifying the role of interfirm IT integration and relational norms, the study uncovers the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions in this relationship, thereby enriching the understanding of SC digitalization.

PurposeManufacturers face many challenges in continual innovation and strategical adaptation to environmental changes. Businesses must embrace evolved management theory while implementing a robust supply chain quality management (SCQM) strategy for a sustainable supply chain (SDG12). However, there is a dearth of awareness in applying knowledge-based dynamic capability (KBDC) in SCQM. Furthermore, knowledge sharing, an important component of KBDC, has received less attention when assessing organizational innovation and strategic business performance (SBP). Hence, our study aims to identify the impact of SCQM practices on knowledge sharing, organizational innovation and SBP by applying the KBDC theory.Design/methodology/approachWe empirically tested 204 valid questionnaire responses received from Malaysian manufacturers using a deep partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis.FindingsOur study reveals that SCQM practices have a significant direct impact on knowledge sharing, organizational innovation and SBP. Furthermore, our research indicates that knowledge sharing mediates (partially complementary mediation) the association between SCQM practices and organizational innovation but not SCQM practices and SBP.Originality/valueOur study contributes to the KBDC theory by illustrating the significance of SCQM practices on knowledge sharing, organizational innovation and SBP. The study findings provide a greater understanding of the impact of SCQM practices on knowledge sharing, organizational innovation and SBP, thereby shedding light on the importance of practices related to human capital development and integration that manufacturers should consider when designing a SCQM system. The study shall assist the manufacturers in achieving a sustainable supply chain (SDG 12).

PurposeThe role of information technology governance (ITG) is crucial to enable organizational agility (OA) to leverage firm performance (FP). ITG capability helps firms optimize market and operational activities and improves corporate performance. Therefore, the paper aims to examine the relationship between ITG’s capability to emerge AO and leverage FP in developing economies.Design/methodology/approachThis research is conducted in an empirical setting comprising a quantitative cross-country survey based on a sample of 433 enterprises from Asia (AS) and Latin America (LA) regions.FindingsThe outcome of the research demonstrates the significant impact of ITG capability on OA to achieve FP. The results further indicate that ITG capability plays a vital role in the FP through operational adjustment agility than market capitalizing agility in AS than LA organizations.Practical implicationsThe empirical study demonstrates that managers must better understand how ITG capability was composed through IT strategy, IT architecture, IT infrastructure, IT business knowledge and IT management to influence OA to gain FP independently of the region.Originality/valueThe findings offer valuable insights for academics and practitioners into ITG capability, appropriate IT architecture, IT infrastructure, IT business knowledge, IT management and IT strategy to reach dynamic capability in organizational agility to enhance FP in developing economies.

PurposeThis paper investigates the spillover effect of firms’ social media engagement with investors on consumption market performance and examines the impact of balanced/imbalanced social media stakeholder engagement strategies on firms’ consumption market performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs multi-source secondary data covering 3,856 quarterly observations of 188 firms in the Chinese retail industry over six years (2015–2020). Polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology are used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe study reveals that firms’ social media engagement with investors has a positive spillover effect on consumption market performance. Additionally, the authors find that a balanced social media engagement strategy, which allocates resources evenly between consumers and investors, is more likely to optimize firm performance than an imbalanced strategy.Originality/valueThe research reveals cross-stakeholder spillover effects of social media engagement, introduces balanced/imbalanced engagement strategy concepts and extends the balanced marketing perspective to the social media context, providing guidance for firms to optimize their social media strategies.

PurposeUsing the resource-based view (RBV), our study aims to provide theoretical and empirical insights into blockchain capabilities’ (BCs) compounded and sequential effects on supply chain competitive advantages (CA).Design/methodology/approachWe combined a systematic literature review and an expert interview. Interpretive Structural Modelling and a Matrix of Cross-Impact Multiplications Applied to Classification were used to determine the relationship between the capabilities. Simple Additive Weighting assessed each capability’s relative importance and impact.FindingsWe reveal a sequential development path for BCs. Foundational capabilities, such as cybersecurity, provide immediate performance benefits, establishing a unique, valuable and inimitable resource. As firms progress to advanced capabilities, the compounded value of these capabilities generates a stronger, dynamic resource for sustained CA. Moreover, the study underscores the strategic importance of timing in adopting and developing BCs, as early adoption can secure a competitive edge difficult for later entrants to replicate.Practical implicationsOur proposed framework guides managers in incorporating blockchain technology into supply chain management (SCM) processes once it demonstrates that firms can enhance their CA by prioritizing the technical basics BC, leveraging the informational capabilities in level two and enabling effective problem-solving through level three. Our framework also shows that a learning process occurs as BCs are used and their results are explored.Originality/valueOur study extends the RBV by demonstrating BCs’ cumulative and interdependent nature in SCM. It emphasizes the synergistic interactions between these capabilities, which collectively enhance CA.

PurposeRecently, due to the practicability in several domains, generative adversarial network (GAN) has successfully been adopted in the field of natural language generation (NLG). The purpose of this paper focuses on improving the quality of text and generating sequences similar to human writing for several real applications.Design/methodology/approachA novel model, GAN2, is developed based on a GAN with dual adversarial architecture. We train the generator by an internal discriminator with a beam search technique to improve the quality of generated sequences. Then, we enhance the generator with an external discriminator to optimize and strengthen the learning process of sequence generation.FindingsThe proposed GAN2 model could be utilized in widespread applications, such as chatbots, machine translation and image description. By the proposed dual adversarial structure, we significantly improve the quality of the generated text. The average and top-1 metrics, such as NLL, BLEU and ROUGE, are used to measure the generated sentences from the GAN2 model over all baselines. Several experiments are conducted to demonstrate the performance and superiority of the proposed model compared with the state-of-the-art methods on numerous evaluation metrics.Originality/valueGenerally, reward sparsity and mode collapse are two main challenging issues when adopt GAN to real NLG applications. In this study, GAN2 exploits a dual adversarial architecture which facilitates the learning process in the early training stage for solving the problem of reward sparsity. The occurrence of mode collapse also could be reduced in the later training stage with the introduced comparative discriminator by avoiding high rewards for training in a specific mode. Furthermore, the proposed model is applied to several synthetic and real datasets to show the practicability and exhibit great generalization with all discussed metrics.

PurposeThe study aims to investigate the implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM) in the footwear industry. It focuses on identifying key factors (dimensions and corresponding sub-dimensions) that promote GSCM and examines the importance and relevance of these factors in improving sustainability and competitive advantage within the footwear manufacturing supply chain.Design/methodology/approachA literature review and expert interviews were conducted to identify the factors for GSCM in the footwear industry. The DEMATEL-based ANP (DANP) method was used to analyze the importance and interrelationships of the identified dimensions and sub-dimensions. The data were collected through questionnaires and analyzed across different levels of the supply chain to compare the significant factors affecting GSCM implementation.FindingsThe study reveals that green purchasing is the core dimension, playing a critical role in the footwear industry. Organizational and environmental management emerges as the most influential causal factors, strongly correlated with other factors. However, as to sub-dimensions, different level of supply chain members should focus on different sub-dimensions.Originality/valueThis research provides valuable insights into the key dimensions and sub-dimensions and their causal relationships in the footwear industry. It offers practical suggestions for manufacturers to prioritize organizational and environmental management as a strategic approach to maximize the benefits of GSCM.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how to select a suitable supply chain collaboration paradigm (SCCP) based on the intelligent manufacturing model (IMM) of enterprises.Design/methodology/approachGiven the fit between internal collaboration and external collaboration, we propose a model to select a suitable SCCP based on two-sided matching between SCCPs and IMMs. In this decision problem, we invited five university scholars and seven related consultants to evaluate SCCPs and IMMs based on the regret theory, which is used to obtain the perceived utility and matching results. The evaluation values are comfortably expressed through probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs). Also, we set the lowest acceptance threshold to improve the accuracy of matching results.FindingsThe findings indicate that the characteristics of IMMs can significantly influence the selection of SCCPs, and an SCCP is not suitable for all IMMs. Interestingly, the study findings suggest that the selection of SCCP is diverse and multi-optional under the constraints of IMMs.Originality/valueExisting studies have explored supply chain collaboration (SCC) in Industry 4.0 to improve supply chain performance, but less attention has been paid to the impact of the match between SCCPs and IMMs on supply chain performance. And even fewer studies have addressed how to select a suitable SCCP in different IMMs. This study provides a unique contribution to the practice of SCC and expands the understanding of supply chain management in Industry 4.0.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how the number of short videos posted and the number of influencers employed, two important strategies in short video marketing, affect consumer behavior and how price discounts moderate the effects of influencer endorsement on consumer browsing and purchasing behavior.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the literature on influencer endorsement, this study used an ordinary least square model to empirically examine the two effects of endorsement strategies in increasing product traffic and sales for consumers at a short video app, Douyin (TikTok).FindingsThe results show that the number of short video ads produces the classic inverted U-shape for traffic and sales, and both effects were strengthened under a high discount condition. Whereas the number of influencers has a positive effect on traffic but produces an inverted U-shape for sales, both effects were undermined under a high discount condition.Originality/valueThis study is the first to explore the two distinct effects (repetition effect and diffusion effect) of influencer endorsement on browsing and purchasing behavior and theorize about the moderate effects of discounts on these effects.

PurposeThis study investigates how online sellers can leverage platform-based technologies to mitigate product returns through the lens of affordance actualization theory. We conceptualize four categories of platform-based technologies and theorize how their affordances influence consumer perceptions and behaviors, leading to reduced return rates.Design/methodology/approachWe develop a research model grounded in affordance actualization theory and test our hypotheses using a unique longitudinal dataset from a leading e-commerce platform. We employ panel data analysis with seller fixed effects and conduct various robustness checks to ensure the reliability of our findings. We also examine the synergistic effects among different platform-based technologies and explore their varying impacts across product types and seller characteristics.FindingsThe strategic actualization of pricing, marketing, product presentation and customer service technology affordances significantly reduces product return rates. The return-mitigating effects are stronger for low-reputation sellers and high-price, high-complexity products, highlighting the contingent value of technology affordances in managing returns. Besides, we find evidence of synergistic effects among different platform-based technologies, particularly for complex products and less reputable sellers.Originality/valueThis study extends affordance actualization theory to the e-commerce context and uncovers the mechanisms and boundary conditions for platform-based technologies to mitigate product returns. We contribute to the literature by offering a novel theoretical perspective and granular insights into the role of technology in shaping a critical operational outcome in online retailing.

PurposeThis paper aims to study whether rural collective construction land marketization (RCCLM) affects pension industry and analyze its impact mechanism.Design/methodology/approachBased on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and social cognition theory (SCT), this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the purchase behavior of rural retirement housing with the influence of RCCLM. A mixed-methods investigation combining qualitative and quantitative study is adopted in this paper.FindingsThe research results indicate that the purchase intention of rural retirement housing has a significant positive impact on the purchase behavior. However, RCCLM has a significant negative impact on the purchase intention of rural retirement housing. A logical framework of “land system participant behavior” has been constructed from three main bodies: government, developers and elderly urban and rural residents.Practical implicationsThis paper provides suggestions for the three entities from the perspectives of macro, medium and micro-level to improve transaction system for rural collective construction land use right (TSRCCLUR), providing references for the collective construction land marketization policy and the development of the pension industry.Originality/valueThis paper deepens the study of behavior intention in planned behavior, enriches TPB model in the study of rural retirement housing security and clarifies the influence mechanism of the rural retirement housing purchase intention with the theoretical and empirical test of the model.

PurposeThe advent of a dynamic and uncertain environment has shifted organizational focus from reactive to proactive approaches to develop resilience against disruptions. Organizations can strengthen their supply chain networks through strategic changes in structure and processes. In this connection, this study explores the extant literature on supply chain resilience (SCRE) concerning soft organizational factors (leadership, organizational culture and knowledge management) to analyse recent trends in this domain and propose future research directions.Design/methodology/approachIt is a bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review of research articles from 2004 to 2024, collected from ISI Web of Science with keywords searches such as “knowledge management and supply chain resilience,” “leadership and supply chain resilience” and “organizational culture and supply chain resilience.” “VOS viewer” and “ATLAS.ti” were utilized for the co-occurrence and co-authorship analysis of the articles along with focusing on aspects such as theoretical and practical implications, the collaboration institutions and the countries involved in relation to the topic of interest.FindingsThe review shows that the development of studies on SCRE was slow from 2004 to 2015 but grew significantly from 2015 onwards and rose exponentially after 2020. Most studies were published in 2023. Results reveal the development of proactive strategies for SCRE in the recent literature by focusing on organizational factors. The study highlights exploring the contextual interplay between environmental, social and governance (ESG) and soft organizational factors for mitigation of supply chain risk and resilience in large-scale projects.Originality/valueThe COVID-19 pandemic became the precursor to highlighting the antecedents of SCRE, but the study of soft organizational drivers is still an ongoing area of research. There is a need to map the nascent literature on the link between organizational soft drivers and SCRE.

PurposeThis study adopts a capability-based view to investigate the attainment of organizational agility in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It first explores how these firms mobilize different types of operational and dynamic information technology (IT) capabilities to achieve a high level of agility through their digital transformation. In return, it also reveals opposite paths, i.e. those leading to its absence.Design/methodology/approachThe research method involves a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 65 Canadian manufacturing SMEs. Through necessity and sufficiency condition analysis procedures, this approach emphasizes the complexity of the digital transformation processes by revealing different sets (i.e. configurations) of what enable, or inhibit, organizational agility in these firms.FindingsThe findings indicate that manufacturing SMEs need to align at least one dynamic IT capability (sensing, learning, coordinating or integrating) and one operational IT capability (IT management, IT infrastructure or e-business) to be highly agile. In contrast, other findings indicate that there are suboptimal combinations of IT capabilities, which result in an absence of agility.Originality/valueThis study offers a deeper understanding of the complex interaction of IT capabilities in SMEs seeking greater agility in their business activities. Its contributions provide insights on the mobilization of a range of capabilities, both complementary and interdependent, to respond to changing conditions in their internal and external environments. These actionable findings can help various actors in the digital development of SMEs to design and implement effective IT strategies and public policies.