Sustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship最新文献

The pandemic has highlighted the fact that healthcare systems around the world are under pressure. Demographic change is leading to an increasing shortage of care workers in most countries, and the demographic challenge is only just beginning in most societies. While robots are widely used in industry, robotic support in healthcare is still limited to very specialized robots in the operating theatre. The question of what type of deployment is likely to be successful in a healthcare scenario is not only a technological or economical question but also one of technology acceptance. The answer to this question supports entrepreneurial opportunities to develop sustainable healthcare solutions.

In this paper, we analyze the acceptance of robots in elderly care from the perspective of patients, patient families, and geriatric care professionals. To understand the various positions and to identify the suitability of existing acceptance models, we applied stakeholder mapping to conduct qualitative interviews with 14 people with different knowledge backgrounds and levels of involvement in care situations, based on 9 videos showing different robots and application scenarios.

The results confirmed that existing technology acceptance models need to be extended by factors such as robot appearance. We found that the background knowledge of the respondents influences the results of the questions about e.g. safety concerns. In addition, we found that the contribution to patients' self-determination and independence is an important factor that is not included in existing technology acceptance models. Finally, the discovery of a significant discrepancy between the self-perception and the external perception of the different stakeholders regarding the acceptance of a service robot can be explained by the stakeholder positions involved in caring for the benefit of a specific patient.

These findings encourage further research, especially with the underlying assumption that technology acceptance in healthcare is not just a patient issue, but a stakeholder issue. Stakeholder mapping is a valid tool to analyze the interdependencies for the acceptance of robots. Therefore, we suggest using a tool such as stakeholder mapping to further analyze these issues.

Despite noteworthy advancement of theoretical and practical knowledge of social media eWord-of-Mouth with evidence from prior empirical research, the influences consumers’ purchase intentions of commercialised indigenous fruits products in fast moving consumer goods retailers remains unexplored in academic domain. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examining the role of social media word-of-mouth on consumers’ purchase intentions of commercialised indigenous fruits products in fast moving consumer goods retailers. It is based on a nomothetic quantitative methodology, where a survey was applied to collect responses from consumers of commercialized indigenous fruits products in selected fast moving consumer goods retailers in Marondera town, in Mashonaland East province of Zimbabwe. The structural equation modelling validated results confirm that quality, source credibility, usefulness of information and information adoption have influence on social media electronic word-of-mouth on consumers’ purchase intentions of commercialised indigenous fruits products in fast moving consumer goods retailers. In line with the current research results, complementary cross-sectional studies using the same methodology in different geographical areas in the same focus can be applied to check for relevancy, reliability and applicability. However, the current study, originally contributes to digital marketing, information communication technologies or information systems and food marketing practice and theory building. Further to this, it provides researchers with an agenda for future research directions.

The private sector must play a central role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To fulfill their duty, businesses must rely on accurate methodologies for measuring their impact on the SDGs. Since they were established, tools for evaluating companies' impact on the goals have proliferated. Over the last few years, there has been an increasing interest from academia in the evaluation of business impacts on the SDGs. The current study undertakes a systematic literature review to investigate the state-of-the-art of academic research on corporate SDG impact measurement. The review sampled 30 articles published between 2015 and 2022. Relying on qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, this study investigates the scope, purpose, main findings, and publication data of the articles of the sample, aiming to provide some structure to this novel field of research. Furthermore, this work identifies relevant gaps in the literature, providing some insights for future research.

The rabbit industry has a lot of livelihood and economic potentials. However, constraints such as inadequate production of rabbit to meet customer demand serve as hindrances to the growth of the industry. Commercialization of rabbit production will increase rabbit products which will be beneficial to both farmers and consumers. This paper examines the profitability and viability of commercialization of rabbit production among rabbit farmers in Ghana. The study used primary data collected from 200 rabbit farmers in Upper Denkyira East Municipal of Ghana using a multi-stage sampling approach. Descriptive statistics, income statement as well as discounted and undiscounted measures of project worth were the methods of analysis. The results showed that the gross margins for commercialized and non-commercialized rabbit producers were GH¢1,309.49 (US$221.95) and GH¢907.19 (US$153.76) respectively. Also, whereas the net income and return on investment for commercialized rabbit producers were GH¢689.14 (US$116.80) and 50% respectively, those of non-commercialized producers were GH¢511.07 (US$86.62) and 60% respectively. In addition, at a discount rate of 30%, the viability analysis revealed an NPV of GH¢1,456.10 (US$246.80), BCR of 1.37 and IRR of 36.53%. Finally, the results of the payback period analysis showed that it will take three (3) months to repay the initial investment. We conclude from the aforementioned results that commercialization of rabbit production is both profitable and viable. Government, investors and other stakeholders are therefore encouraged to consider investments in commercialization of rabbit production or its promotion as a way of improving livelihood and reducing poverty in especially rural communities where production inputs are relatively cheaper and poverty is endemic.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective vaccine supply chain management (SCM). As the world raced to curb the spread of the virus, the efficient distribution of vaccines became crucial to ending the pandemic. However, the challenges of distributing COVID-19 vaccines globally were exacerbated by the pandemic itself, leading to delays, shortages, and disruptions under disaster conditions. In this study, we use social media analytics to explore the impact of COVID-19 vaccine supply chain challenges from a global perspective. We collected data from two social media platforms—Twitter and the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT)—between January 2020 and November 2022. The analysis is developed leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, such as topic modelling and sentiment analysis. We found that vaccine supply chain challenges significantly impacted the ability of healthcare systems to respond to the pandemic, with significant differences between regions (such as in the case of developing countries). Our findings highlight the need for improved coordination and collaboration in vaccine SCM to ensure equitable access. In addition, this research provides valuable practical insight into using social media analytics and its potential to enhance decision-making capabilities for policymakers and industry leaders.

Social ties, as informal institutions, contribute to firms’ performance in emerging economies. Formal market-supporting institutions in emerging economies are in general less developed, social ties cultivated by entrepreneurs thus serve as substitutes for formal institutional support. However, the role of social ties as informal institutions and interactions between social ties and market-supporting institutions are yet to be fully explored. Using the sample of 428 newly listed firms on the Growth Enterprise Market of Shenzhen Stock Exchange of China between 2009 and 2016, this paper examines the interplays among the entrepreneurial founder's political ties and managerial ties, marketization, and firm's productivity, measured by firm-level total factor productivity. Our findings indicate that the entrepreneurial founder's managerial ties enhance firm productivity whilst political ties reduce productivity. We also find that marketization positively moderates the effects of the entrepreneurial founder's political and managerial ties on productivity. Our findings demonstrate the strategic importance of the informal institutions and contribute to an improved understanding of the complementary effects between social ties and marketization in an important emerging economy.

Although sharing has for a long time been a well-established principle to deal with resource shortages on a private level, the important impact of establishing sharing as business principle has only recently been highlighted by business practice as well as research. Sharing can be considered a relevant means to easily enhance resource endowment – nevertheless, making use of sharing in a business context calls for the employment of new, innovative business models. In this paper, we have a deeper look at the evolvement of carsharing business models as we present insights from a longitudinal qualitative-empirical study of six carsharing providers. We employ a process perspective to dig deeper into firm-level influence factors that are core elements of strategic renewal and drivers of subsequent business model innovation. Additionally, we show how strategic activities of the different market players are linked to each other and how this interplay affects our case firms. Our paper sheds light on the strategy renewal-business model innovation interface and contributes to strategy process literature and to business model innovation research.

Smallholder rice producers have limited demand for their locally produced rice due to the complex market outlets choice decisions challenges they become confronted with as well as their limited knowledge of appropriate entrepreneurial traits required for successful rice production and marketing. This study assessed the entrepreneurial behaviours of smallholder rice producers in Ashanti region of Ghana. Using multi-stage sampling technique, the study used primary data collected from 200 rice producers in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Entrepreneurial behavior index (EBI) and the multivariate probit model were the methods of analysis. The results showed that most rice producers have medium level of risk-taking ability, innovativeness behaviour, proactiveness behaviour, self-confidence, and decision-making ability. Also, majority of the producers consider retailers as the most appropriate market outlet among the diverse market outlet alternatives in the region. In addition, innovative behaviour, self-confidence, and decision-making ability influenced the choice of market outlet by the rice producers. The study recommends that smallholder rice producers should enhance their entrepreneurial competencies through enrollment and participation in social groups and farmer-based workshops to equip them with networking and social skills. Also, programs designed to improve the entrepreneurial skills of smallholder rice farmers should adopt a tailored approach by taking into account the fact that different farmers have different levels of entrepreneurial skills.

The rate and scope of environmental shock and stresses are now unprecedented in sub-Saharan Africa resulting into increasing intensity and unpredictability of climate change impacts in particular drought. The innovation efforts to enhance adaptive capacity of livelihoods and production systems are on increase. Innovation includes the new ways of doing things differently or improving the existing technologies. Within the agropastoral areas, existing entreprenueral innovations used and factors influencing success are unassessed. Across-sectional household survey among 426 respondents undertaken in March –June 2022, was used to collect perquisite data on innovation adoption. Principal component analysis (PCA) and multivariate probit regression models were used to characterize entreprenueral innovation to drought and its determinants among agroapstoral communities. Results showed agropastoral entrepreneurial abilities were exhibited through soil and water management and product enhancement innovation. Multivariate probit model results also revealed that having improved main house roof, access to improved water sources and memberships loan based organizations significantly increased innovation adoption while male household head, level of education, membership to agricultural based organizations and distance to crop markets significantly reduced innovation adoption. While, agropastoralists adopted many innovations it was in a reactive than proactive manner with limited entrepreneurial skills causing ambiguous effects. We recommend ample follow up research to help unearth the proceses and interlinks between innovations and entrepreneurship skills among agropastoralists.

The purpose of the study is to analyse how green reverse logistics technology impacts agricultural entrepreneurial marketing firms’ operational efficiency and sustainable competitive advantage. Systematic literature review and meta-analytical methodology was adopted to execute the current study. Reverse Logistics Model has been used for the current study as the theoretical model grounding the study as it enables a quick reaction and finding resolution for the customer return whilst regaining the highest value that is possible on each returned item. Results indicate that green reverse logistics technology has a strong influence on agricultural entrepreneurial marketing firms’ operational efficiency and sustainable competitive advantage. The study further shows existing research gaps that can be closed by future research studies. The study has limitations which may affect the generalisability of the results since they can only be applied testing the validity and reliability of the developed conceptual model. The study adds to theoretical literature development by extending knowledge on the Reverse Logistics Model theoretical modelling framework since there is paucity of research that have directly applied the same model in agricultural inputs entrepreneurial marketing firms’ operational efficiency and sustainable competitive advantage. Practically, the study enhances the need for adoption of contemporary technologies to solve the current challenges facing agricultural inputs entrepreneurial marketing firms’ sustainable operational efficiency and competitive advantage in the marginalised areas, not only in developing and emerging economies, but also dotted around the world. The study contributes to the conceptual development, theoretical and practical policy directions applicable to any agricultural inputs entrepreneurial marketing firms. A model can be tested to prove its validity and reliability in future similar studies, using alternative methodologies.