The food supply chain in South Africa faces significant challenges related to transparency, traceability, and consumer trust. As concerns about food safety, quality, and sustainability grow, there is an increasing need for innovative solutions to address these issues. Blockchain technology has emerged as a promising tool to enhance transparency and accountability across various industries, including the food sector. This study sought to explore the potential of blockchain technology in revolutionizing through promoting transparency that enable the achievement of sustainable food supply chain infrastructure in South Africa. The study found that blockchain technology used in food supply chain creates an immutable and decentralized ledger of transactions that has the capacity to provide real-time, end-to-end visibility of food products from farm to table. This increased transparency can help mitigate risks associated with food fraud, contamination, and inefficiencies in the supply chain. The study found that blockchain technology can be leveraged to enhance supply chain efficiency and trust among stakeholders. This technology used and/or applied in South Africa can reshape the agricultural sector by improving production and distribution processes. Its integration in the food supply chain infrastructure can equally improve data management and increase transparency between farmers and food suppliers.There is need for policy-makers and scholars in the fields of service delivery and food security to conduct more research in blockchain technology and its roles in creating a more transparent, efficient, and trustworthy food supply chain infractructure that address food supply problems in South Africa. The paper adopted a qualitative methodology to collect data, and document and content analysis techniques were used to interpret collected data.
The widespread adoption of digital technologies in tourism has transformed the data privacy landscape, necessitating stronger safeguards. This study examines the evolving research environment of digital privacy in tourism management, focusing on publication trends, collaborative networks, and social contract theory. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining bibliometric analysis, social contract theory, and qualitative content analysis. Data from 2004 to 2023 were analyzed using network visualization tools to identify key researchers and trends. The study highlights a significant increase in academic attention after 2015, reflecting the industry's growing recognition of digital privacy as crucial. Social contract theory provided a framework emphasizing transparency, consent, and accountability. The study also examined high-impact articles and the role of publishers like Elsevier and Wiley. The findings offer practical insights for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers, advocating for ongoing collaboration to address privacy challenges in tourism.
The aim of this study was to elucidate the expected moderating effect exerted by institutional owners on the intricate correlation between the characteristics of boards of directors and the issue of earnings management, as gauged by the loan loss provisions.The sample encompassed all the banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) over the period between 2010 and 2022, representing a total of 151 observations. The results derived from the examination clearly demonstrate that the institutional owners have a key impact on augmenting the monitoring tasks and responsibilities of the boards of directors across the study sample. The results revealed the fundamental role of such owners in strengthening the supervisory tasks carried out by boards of directors in Jordan. A panel data model has been used in the analysis. The results of this study show that the presence of the owner of an institution has a discernible moderating role in the banks' monitoring landscape. Indeed, their presence strengthens the monitoring tasks of the banks’ boards by underscoring the quest to restrict the EM decisions. Interestingly, the results support the monitoring proposition outlined by agency theory, which introduced CG recommendations as a deterrent tool to reduce the expectation gap between banks' owners and their representatives.
Ukrainian Human Resource (HR) practices have multiple difficulties from economic changes combined with digital transformation and workforce instability brought on by the war in 2022. The study examines Ukrainian HR practices between 2015 and 2024, focusing on the digitalization of HR systems, talent development, staff engagement, and hiring strategies. It considers the effects of organizational size and industry type. The study combined interviews with 30 HR professionals and surveyed 150 organizations from different industry groups and sizes. Our data required both quantitative statistical tests and manual content breakdown with codes. Research has shown significant differences between Information Technology (IT) and farming firms, as 89% of IT businesses have integrated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered HR tools. In comparison, only 15% of agricultural companies have adopted them. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) showed less commitment to digital transformation and European Union (EU) requirements than large enterprises, which adopted these systems at rates of 75% and 88%, respectively. Western Ukraine first established mental health initiatives during the crisis, and Eastern Ukraine moved toward decentralized administration. Digitalization assistance for small businesses, along with EU and local human resources frameworks, should form the basis of our suggestions. This research calls for flexible people management methods to boost the Ukrainian workspace’s ability to recover from shocks.
Entrepreneurial motivation has been one psychological factor that determines the success of MSMEs as it interacts with external factors. However, this has been scarcely studied in relation to women and the success of MSMEs. This study aims to analyze the effects of motivation and external factors on the success of women running MSMEs in the province of Jambi, Indonesia. A survey research methodology through the distribution of questionnaires on the motivation scale and the success of the MSMEs scale that were constructed by the authors was applied. The rating scale of the questionnaires was rated on a five-point Likert scale. A total of 325 women running MSMEs in Jambi City were given and returned the questionnaires. The results showed that motivation, which is comprised of self-confidence, risk-taking, results-orientedness, intelligence, and skills, has a significant effect on the success of MSMEs. Meanwhile, the success of MSMEs is significantly more affected by time and length of effort than loans or funds due to the decreasing trend of demand for goods and services.
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