The Primary and secondary shadow education refers to a kind of unofficial education that exists outside the traditional mainstream primary and secondary education system in China, with both commercial and educational attributes. As the primary and secondary school stage is an important key stage for further education, existing research mainly focuses on the spatial distribution of primary and secondary school basic education facilities and non-subject training, with fewer studies targeting primary and secondary school subject tutoring shadow education. With the changes in China’s education industry and the introduction of the Double Reduction Policy, there is an urgent need to conduct in-depth research on the spatial aggregation characteristics and influencing factors of Shadow Education Enterprises for primary and secondary school students. This paper takes the main urban area of Zhengzhou City as the study area, and takes primary and secondary school Shadow Education Enterprises as the research object, and applies spatial analysis methods such as kernel density, nearest-neighbor index, and geographic detector to quantitatively analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of primary and secondary school shadow education tutoring enterprises in Zhengzhou City and the factors affecting them The results show that: 1) The overall spatial pattern of primary and secondary school tutoring Shadow Education Enterprises in the main urban area of Zhengzhou City has largely formed a core-edge structural feature that spreads from the urban center to the periphery, and presents the spatial agglomeration feature of “double nuclei many times” distributed along both sides of the Beijing-Guangzhou Line. 2) The distribution of mentoring Shadow Education Enterprises in the main urban area of Zhengzhou City in relation to provincial model primary and secondary schools is significant and there is a significant difference between the distribution around secondary schools and primary schools. 3) The spatial distribution of Shadow Education Enterprises in the main urban area of Zhengzhou City is mainly influenced by factors such as the size of the school-age population, the level of commercial development, the location of school buildings and the accessibility of transport.

The business environment in the modern era is witnessing numerous Intellectual Changes, Technological developments, and increasingly Complex Situations, which has led to a need for effective Leadership in the Business Sectors. This leadership plays a role in transforming companies into giant corporations that serve as a true foundation for enhancing and improving Job Competencies (JC)., The study aimed to analyze the impact of the Soft Skills approach in Human Resources (analytical and critical thinking, decision-making and problem-solving, planning and organization, teamwork) on developing Job Competencies (productivity, technical, managerial) in Petroleum Sector Companies in Egypt. The researchers employed the descriptive-analytical method to study the phenomenon, conducting the study on stratified random samples consisting of 379 managers and a sample of 382 employees from Petroleum Sector Companies. The study utilized the SPSS and AMOS Software Programs. The study found statistically significant differences at the (0.01) level between the average scores of managers and employees regarding soft skills in human resources and job competencies, with managers scoring higher. Additionally, the study revealed a statistically significant direct causal effect at the (0.01) level of Human Resources Soft Skills on Job Competencies in Petroleum Sector Companies., Finally, a proposal was developed for enhancing Job Competencies in Petroleum Companies in Egypt based on the application of human resources Soft Skills, alongside future research directions and practical implications.

Small-scale businesses have long been recognized as an important part of economic development and integrating them with industrial parks is both recommended and necessary for long-term success. In line of this, the objective of this study was to investigate the role of IPs entrepreneurial ecosystem in boosting the capabilities of small businesses. Data were collected from 245 small manufacturing business owners via simple random sampling and analysed using multivariate regression analysis. Thus, the ability of small enterprises is positively impacted by the presence of a more robust and appropriate entrepreneurial ecosystem. Similarly, a firm’s resource capabilities are more impacted by the entrepreneurial ecosystem when there is a better link between academia and industry. Furthermore, entrepreneurial skills are found to play a mediating role between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and firms’ technological capabilities. Another finding revealed that managerial expertise significantly mediates entrepreneurial ecosystems and firms’ resource capabilities. This finding suggested that the policymakers, better to formulate policies that encourages small businesses to engage in the industrial parks which results in an inclusive firm’s performance.

The existence of residential well-being of the locals in the sense of equilibrium-state is a competitive advantage for tourism in a given destination. The rise of overtourism could jeopardize this equilibrium and ultimately the effectiveness of tourism in a vulnerable destination. The research question of the study aimed to answer: what are the spiral dynamics of the multifactorial characteristics of the sense of place that can be mapped under the influence of overtourism. Answering the question draws attention to the sense of place—which can be interpreted as a synonym for local character—of the issues of overtourism and residential well-being. Mapping the mechanism of action of the multifactorial characteristic of locality can help to identify non-supportive functions, to pinpoint the balance point for moving towards a supportive quality, and to answer the “how yes” questions at individual, local and collective levels. The answer to the research question is the result of concluding three district-specific sub-questions. The assessment of the results was based on the content analysis of 251 posts (2017–2021) in the local public Facebook group (supplemented by a questionnaire survey of local residents (2022), 30 in-depth interviews with experts and residents (2022) conducted as part of the cross-sectional research, and 10 additional in-depth interviews with residents (2024) conducted for the last sub-question. The flowchart showing the current state of the district along a negative spiral dynamic, the possibility to turn it in a positive direction, and the mind-map-like summary of local, individual and collective mitigation and solution alternatives supporting the change of direction can be considered as a novel scientific result.

This financial modelling case study describes the development of the 3-statement financial model for a large-scale transportation infrastructure business dealing with truck (and some rail) modalities. The financial modelling challenges in this area, especially for large-scale transport infrastructure operators, lie in automatically linking the operating activity volumes with the investment volumes. The aim of the paper is to address these challenges: The proposed model has an innovative retirement/reinvestment schedule that automates the estimation of the investment needs for the Business based on the designated age-cohort matrix analysis and controlling for the maximum service ceiling for trucks as well as the possibility of truck retirements due to the reduced scope of tracking operations in the future. The investment schedule thus automated has a few calibrating parameters that help match it to the current stock of trucks/rolling stock in the fleet, making it to be a flexible tool in financial modelling for diverse transport infrastructure enterprises employing truck, bus and/or rail fleets for the carriage of bulk cargo quantifiable by weight (or fare-paying passengers) on a network of set, but modifiable, routes.

Considering the role of tourism in promoting sustainable practices in destinations, this study aims to map the scientific literature on footprint calculators in the last three years (2020–2023) with a focus on the tourism context. The method adopted is a scoping review with a qualitative and exploratory approach, using the Scopus database. The originality of this research lies in the study of publications related to footprint calculators with a focus on the tourism sector. Based on the analysis carried out, the main results show that the study of footprint calculators applied to the tourism sector has had little prominence in the indexed research in the Scopus database during the specific period considered for this study. Consequently, the conclusion of the study highlights the marginality of the tourism sector in the discussion of footprint calculators in the last 3 years of scientific publications.