This study develops a social protection strategy to improve the independence of persons with disabilities in Medan City. A descriptive qualitative approach was used, involving interviews, focus group discussions, observation, and analysis of secondary data. The findings highlight that individuals with disabilities still face weak data collection, discrimination, limited accessibility, and inadequate public service facilities. Existing government programs remain general, temporary, and insufficiently adapted to disability-specific needs. This study proposes three social protection models: the client-system model, the target-system model, and a combined model involving persons with disabilities, social workers, and resource systems. The results present the strategic role of social workers in connecting persons with disabilities to families, institutions, public services, and community support to achieve sustainable independence.
The article evaluates the influence of the Augmented Reality (AR) on the brand trust, consumer confidence, and purchase intention in online luxury jewellery in the US. The study challenges the simplistic assumption that AR technologies automatically reduce purchase risk and improve decision-making, demonstrating that their effectiveness operates through trust and emotional mechanisms. The mixed-methods design was based on descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression to compare two brand case studies (Tiffany and Co. and Kendra Scott) and a quantitative survey (N = 264). Three of five respondents felt they had greater purchasing confidence following an AR try-on, and half had minimal purchasing opportunities without an AR try-on. Brand Trust and Purchase Intent were regressed on Ease of Use and Emotional Engagement. Bootstrapped mediation demonstrated that brand trust mediates to a small degree ease of use and purchase intention, but not emotion engagement. These results indicate that AR has the potential to enhance consumer trust and emotional involvement to online jewellery shopping. The researchers discovered that emotionally involving high-fidelity AR has the potential to increase customer trust, reduce refunds, and increase revenue.
This study analyzes the interactions among marine transport networks, carbon emissions, port investments, marine regulations, and other factors affecting the Southeast Asian blue economy, including their interplay. Drawing on sample data from 1995 to 2023, the study explores the maritime dimensions of the blue economy to argue for its role in the region’s environmental and economic development. The researcher employed the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, which better addresses endogeneity and provides more accurate estimates. The focus of this empirical study is the intersection of GDP growth, investments in infrastructure, carbon emissions inventories, cargo throughput, consumption of fossil fuels, environmental policies, and green maritime technologies. The study demonstrated a strong positive association between cargo throughput and GDP growth. This was at the expense of the strong negative association between the maritime sector's carbon emissions and the blue economy’s viability. The study showed that investments in ports with an efficient design had both positive and negative associations with transport sector efficiency and sustainability. ASEAN's efforts to harmonize environmental and maritime regulations among member states further supported the implementation of the blue economy. The study emphasizes the need for an integrated, resilient regulatory approach, green infrastructure financing, and cooperative regional governance within and beyond Southeast Asia's maritime transport systems and blue economy.
Enhancing taxpayer satisfaction plays a crucial role in customer retention and service development. Inheriting the Information Systems Success Model (ISSM), this study evaluates the impact of the model's factors on the satisfaction of taxpayers using electronic tax (e-tax) services in Quang Ninh province. Data was collected from 1,529 questionnaires completed by business presentative and 900 questionnaires answered by sole traders in Quang Ninh province. Through regression analysis, the research indicated determinants of tax payer satisfaction on the e-tax system, ranked from strongest to weakest, are information quality, system quality, and service quality.
The article evaluates the effects of key macroeconomic indicators on inflation using panel analysis. Based on data from 14 countries with varying income levels over 2000-2021, both the Fixed Effects Model and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) were applied and compared. The findings show that money supply has an insignificant effect on inflation. When monetary policy is ineffective, fiscal measures become more important. According to the GMM model, the minimum wage reduces inflation, while its version adjusted for purchasing power parity increases it. Unemployment strongly influences inflation, supporting the Phillips curve that links lower unemployment to higher inflation.
The recent technological advancements and digital transformation across industries have highlighted the significance of trust that businesses must establish with customers in an increasingly digital world. Every action we take online generates a massive quantity of data, which we can use to improve customer experience, evaluate their buying habits, offer suggestions, collect health information, and so on. This research is based on two concepts: privacy and security. The goal of this paper is to discover the factors impacting Albanian customer loyalty based on their impression of privacy and security. Research questions and hypotheses have been developed to address the purpose of this paper and investigate how digital consumers react to privacy and security issues related to loyalty. The data gathered from a survey involving 703 people were analyzed using factor analysis, analysis of the econometric model and correlation. The findings of this study are intended to contribute to the advancement of consumer perception of privacy and security in Albania, as well as their impact on consumer loyalty.
This study examined the role of strategic leadership (SL) in the Ministry of Finance and Urban Planning, focusing on how business management strategies contribute to institutional excellence and sustainability. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, a random sample of 100 employees across various departments and job levels in the ministry was surveyed. SPSS analysis revealed a strong Correlation (R=0.900) between SL and indicators of excellence and sustainability, explaining 81% of the variance (R 2 =0.810). ANOVA confirmed a statistically significant impact (F= 416.506, p<0.0001), underscoring the predictive strength of leadership in organizational performance. The results highlighted the importance of leadership in shaping strategic vision, fostering innovation, and managing change effectively. The study recommends targeted leadership development programs and adaptive governance models to enhance institutional resilience and long-term sustainability. SL was identified as essential for achieving excellence and sustainability in governmental ministries by fostering a forward-looking vision, enabling a sustainable work environment, and providing practical guidelines for comprehensive urban planning and strategic implementation.
Health efficiency is an important metric in any health delivery system since it guarantees that healthcare systems utilize the fewest resources feasible while delivering the highest quality of treatment and health outcomes. The study examined the technical efficiency of the health systems in the SADC region for the period 2010-2022. In order to identify the causes of the technical inefficiencies in the SADC countries’ health systems, the study broke down technical efficiency into pure technical and scale efficiency using the data envelopment analysis methodology. The study revealed that the average technical efficiency score was 55 percent, the average scale efficiency score was 81 percent, and the average pure technical score was 64 percent. This means that the region’s health system technical inefficiency stems mostly from management inefficiency. The conclusion is that, despite operating at the proper scale, most countries are being choked by inadequate resource management. This suggests that enhancing administrative skills and resource use are key to increasing health efficiency.
The ongoing climate changes and challenges of food security make the orientation toward long-term development in all sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, more critical than ever. This paper presents a model that evaluates the role of various factors in promoting sustainable farm development. The adopted method maximizes the explained variance in key constructs, such as cooperation, government policies, sustainable development, and training. Primary data were collected through 202 questionnaires distributed in the targeted location to test the proposed model in this research. The findings of the study indicate that the contribution of government policies and cooperation among farmers to the sustainable development is substantial, whereas the role of vocational training remained insignificant. This approach to the training role may be a consequence of a possible gap in the design of policies and procedures for farmers’ capacity building.
A well-funded health system is essential to protect people from the financial burden of sickness and allows for efficient responses to public health concerns. It increases the capacity to provide early and preventative interventions, thus being cost-effective. The study objective is to evaluate the effect of public health spending on health outcomes. Specifically, the effect of public health spending on life expectancy at birth and infant mortality. The study utilised the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model to determine the link. The study incorporates economic growth, technological advancement, foreign aid and corruption as the moderating variables. The results established that government health spending spurs health outcomes by increasing life expectancy and reducing infant mortality rates. The study established that health outcomes are positively influenced by technological advancement, economic growth and foreign aid. Corruption negatively affects health outcomes. The study recommends strong budgetary support to the health sector, anti-corruption laws and pro-growth policies.
The purpose of the study was to develop a business succession model of SMEs in the digital era. The sample group consisted of 500 SME executives. The research instrument used to collect data was a questionnaire. The statistics used were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and analyzed through multivariate statistical techniques to construct a Structural Equation Model (SEM). The findings revealed that the confirmatory factor model analysis was consistent with the empirical data with the consistency index as follows: CMIN/DF of 1.123, CFI of 0.993, SRMR of 0.029. and RMSEA of 0.016. And the business succession model of SMEs in the digital era consisted of four main components based on the standardized regression weight at statistically significant level of 0.001 as follows: knowledge management of 0.96, business transfer of 0.93, technology and innovation of 0.88, and collaboration networks of 0.87. And each key component was equally composed of six subcomponents.
This study examines the impact of digital taxation and smart fiscal technologies on Morocco's tax system. Despite numerous reforms, informality remains a significant barrier to revenue generation. Utilizing a structured questionnaire completed by micro-entrepreneurs and tax professionals, this study investigates how digital tools, institutional trust, and perceptions of fairness influence compliance intentions. Our findings indicate that digital platforms enhance usability and transparency; however, these benefits are partially contingent on trust in fiscal institutions and levels of digital literacy. Ultimately, we advocate for a comprehensive reform strategy that combines digital innovation with trust-building and inclusive governance to ensure sustainable tax compliance.
One of the important tasks in enterprises' supply chain operations today is the supply chain financing activities of sponsoring organisations (banks) to ensure the supply chain is sustainable, avoids disruptions and interruptions, and helps enterprises operate regularly and continuously. The article will analyse factors affecting the effectiveness of SCF and propose solutions for integrating digital transformation technology into SCF operations at banks, based on current SCF and digital SCF implementation at banks. The article uses a questionnaire designed on a Likert scale with 5 levels and conducts convenience sampling at 25 banks, 5 branches/banks and 5 bank officers/branches. Survey data will be synthesised, analysed and processed through the statistical analysis program SPSS 20.0, and Cronbach's Alpha testing. On that basis, the article also proposes some solutions with policy implications to support improving the effectiveness of the digital transformation of SCF operations at Vietnamese financial institutions.
This paper analyzes the economic and financial implications of climate transition risk under policy uncertainty, with a particular emphasis on the energy sector. A stochastic modeling framework is developed to capture the dynamic evolution of climate policy regimes, calibrated on NGFS transition scenarios. The model incorporates both the probability of regime shifts and their financial consequences, highlighting how regulatory adjustments respond to the accumulation of physical climate stress and transmit shocks across energy sub-sectors. By employing Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate the likelihood of different transitions and derive climate-adjusted risk indicators., including Climate Value at Risk (VaR) and Climate Expected Shortfall (ES), for both fossil fuel and renewable energy sectors. Results show a clear structural division.: Once ambitious policy regimes come into play, transition trajectories find stability, leading to a reduction in transition probabilities as climate signals are mitigated.. The fossil-based electricity sector appears as highly vulnerable to adverse financial shocks, while renewable energy sector proves relative resilience, even in extreme scenarios. These findings highlight the crucial importance of considering policy uncertainty when making strategic investment decisions and managing financial risks. The proposed framework offers a practical tool, beneficial for both investors and policymakers, to execute forward-looking stress tests and to reallocate assets in response to emerging climate commitments.
Model for long-term success, every industry, including banking, is beginning to see innovation as a key to long-term sustainability by driving system change. This research examines the traditional banking business in Indonesia. The study's overarching goal is to learn more about sustainable business models in the service sector, with a focus on banking, and how client attractiveness and the adoption of these models by banks affect one another. This research employed a mixed-methods approach with an exploratory focus, beginning with qualitative analysis (literature review, field observations, and semi-structured interviews) and concluding with quantitative analysis. The research concluded with the creation and verification of eight viable banking business models. Customers are more fond of the approaches that include "encouraging sufficiency," "adopting a management role," or "replacing with a digital process.". "Encouraging sufficiency" is one of the approaches that stands out as being at odds with present corporate practices.
Under the backdrop of the “dual carbon” goal and the normalization of ecological environment protection, green transformation is the core path for the sustainable development of enterprises. The mechanism by which green intellectual capital affects the competitive advantage of enterprises urgently needs to be explored. This paper takes 367 manufacturing enterprises, high-energy-consuming service enterprises, and green industry enterprises as samples. Based on the resource-based view and intellectual capital theory, green intellectual capital is divided into three dimensions, and green performance is decomposed into two dimensions. The research is conducted through various empirical tests. Based on the results, it can be known that the influence of different dimensions of green intellectual capital on competitive advantage is positive. Among them, the positive influence is the highest for green structural capital. Similarly, the influence of different dimensions of green intellectual capital on green environmental performance and green economic performance is also positive.The green environmental performance can also positively drive the green economic performance. Moreover, these two aspects will be interconnected, playing a chain-like bridging role between green intellectual capital and competitive advantage.
The agricultural sector is undergoing a profound structural transformation driven by global challenges and socio-economic and environmental changes. The growing need for adaptation and innovation among agricultural enterprises is reflected in increased strategic investment activities aimed at improving sustainability, resilience, and productivity. Empirical evidence shows a clear prioritisation of investments in technological innovation as a key driver of modernisation and competitiveness. In contrast, responses to other global challenges, including geopolitical instability, socio-demographic shifts, economic fluctuations, and environmental pressures, remain fragmented. The availability and structure of financial resources, such as European Union funds, national subsidies, and commercial financing, significantly influence investment behaviour and priorities. Quantitative analyses confirm statistically significant relationships between investment scale, sources, timing, and the types of global challenges addressed. These findings highlight the need for targeted policy instruments and integrated innovation ecosystems to strengthen the adaptive capacity and long-term sustainability of agricultural enterprises.
This research examines how entrepreneurial ecosystems shape the relationships among the components of the knowledge economy and the outcomes of sustainable development in Saudi Arabia. Knowledge-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities Theory, and Ecosystem Theory guide the research. Using the Partial Least Squares method of Structural Equation Modeling and survey data of 384 respondents in the Vision 2030 economic regions, ten hypotheses were tested. The findings indicate that the development of the knowledge economy (β = 0.785), government policy (β = 0.246), and investment in R&D (β = 0.563) have a direct, positive impact on economic development, whereas the development of human capital and technological advancements has no impact. The study also determined that entrepreneurial ecosystems, significantly mediate the effects of human capital (β = 0.209, p = 0.043), R&D investment (β = 0.369, p = 0.004), and government policy (β = 0.175, p = 0.080). From the study, the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems is the most important mechanism for coordinating knowledge to achieve sustainable development in transitioning economies.
This quantitative study investigates the causal effects of authentic leadership on employee performance, with positive psychological capital and work-life integration serving as mediators, in leading information and communication technology (ICT) companies in Thailand. Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 407 employees across three large ICT companies. Descriptive statistics were used to examine sample characteristics, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to validate the measurement model and test the hypothesized structural paths. The empirical findings show that authentic leadership has both direct and indirect effects on employee performance, with positive psychological capital and work-life integration acting as significant mediators. These results highlight the strategic value of authentic leadership in fostering stronger psychological resources and enabling employees to harmonize professional and personal demands more effectively. The study makes theoretical contributions by extending leadership research to the ICT sector in an emerging economy and offers practical implications for organizational leaders aiming to enhance performance, strengthen employee well-being, and build a resilient, sustainable workforce.
Owing to the widespread usage of computers and smartphones around the globe, the way in which businesses communicate with their stakeholders has changed dramatically, leading to the growth of digital marketing. With a special focus on Environmental factors of the TAM-TOE framework, this study explores the context of adoption of digital marketing in the restaurant sector. Data was collected via questionnaires from 504 restaurateurs registered with the Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA). The findings suggest that Competitive Pressure, Customer Pressure, and Regulatory Support are the factors that shape the restaurateurs’ perception of the Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness. Together, the dominant influence of these factors increases the likelihood of adoption. The result of the study provides valuable insights from an empirical and multi-dimensional perspective to both academicians and practitioners interested in understanding the digital marketing adoption patterns in the restaurant industry.
