The Agriculture Trading Platform (ATP) represents a significant innovation in the realm of agricultural trade in Malaysia. This web-based platform is designed to address the prevalent inefficiencies and lack of transparency in the current agricultural trading environment. By centralizing real-time data on agricultural production, consumption, and pricing, ATP provides a comprehensive dashboard that facilitates data-driven decision-making for all stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain. The platform employs advanced deep learning algorithms, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), to forecast market trends and consumption patterns. These predictive capabilities enable producers to optimize their market strategies, negotiate better prices, and access broader markets, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency and transparency of agricultural trading in Malaysia. The ATP’s user-friendly interface and robust analytical tools have the potential to revolutionize the agricultural sector by empowering farmers, reducing reliance on intermediaries, and fostering a more equitable trading environment.

With its inherent characteristics of decentralization, immutability, and transparency, blockchain technology presents a promising opportunity to revolutionize the South African food supply chains. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized, immutable, and secure nature, offers solutions to these challenges by improving traceability and accountability across the supply chain. This study investigates the role of blockchain technology in enhancing transparency in the food supply chain among small and medium enterprises in South Africa. SMEs form a critical part of the country's agri-food sector but face challenges such as food fraud, inefficient inventory management, and lack of transparency, which impact food safety and trust. The research adopts a mixed-method approach, utilizing the Technology-Organization-Environment framework and Institutional Theory to explain blockchain adoption among SMEs. The results demonstrate that blockchain-enabled practices, such as smart contracts, records traceability, production tracking, and distribution monitoring, significantly enhance supply chain transparency. The findings highlight blockchain's potential to increase operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder trust. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the need for regulatory support and strategic investment in blockchain solutions to promote sustainability and competitiveness in the agri-food sector.

This study aimed to examine and assess the impact of the logistics industry’s environment, entry-level graduates’ characteristics and the logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) program design on the transformation of knowledge and skills at Sohar port in the Sultanate of Oman. The study employed a pragmatic research philosophy involving a structured questionnaire. The sample size included 49 mid-managers from the logistics industry who were working at Sohar Port. The study found that entry-level graduates’ characteristics and LSCM program design positively and significantly influenced the transformation of knowledge and skills. However, the organisational environment had a negative and insignificant impact on the transformation. This study revealed several dimensions that may require further research. It is pertinent to broaden the research scope to other towns, ports, and other countries in the Gulf Council Countries (GCC) to broaden the scope and generalisability of the results. According to the study findings, several recommendations are proposed for the logistics and supply chain sector in Oman to enhance the transformation of knowledge and skills by entry-level graduates, as well as for higher education institutions (HEIs). To meet the sector requirements, HEIs may improve the current university-industry collaborations by increasing the inputs of the industry in designing and developing the LSCM program. The organisational environment must reconsider the knowledge and skills transformation by entry-level graduates in their strategic plan of resources management, which must be emphasised by the remuneration system and career paths incentive. While other studies have explored knowledge and skill transformation in the context of employee training, this study aims to fill a specific research gap by focusing on the transformation of knowledge and skills by entry-level graduates, an area which has not been extensively studied before. Furthermore, this study is unique as it examines the impact of the industry’s environment, entry-level graduates’ characteristics and the LSCM program on the transformation of knowledge and skills within the unique context of Oman. This novel approach provides an opportunity to understand the specific challenges and opportunities faced by entry-level graduates in Oman and suggests strategies for addressing them.

The economy of Pakistan has faced many challenges due to COVID-19, leading to numerous systemic failures and leaving it struggling to recover. This research aims to shed light on the specific challenges faced by Pakistani textile companies during the pandemic. Comprehensive data was collected from one hundred fifty-three textile managers in Pakistan. Upon examining the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, it has been found that the most pressing issues revolved around working capital and strategies for generating new sales. Interestingly, many of these businesses were well-prepared in the digital realm, readily embracing digital knowledge and seizing opportunities by pivoting to the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and N95 masks. This study aims to evaluate the early consequences of COVID-19 on Pakistan’s textile industry. Considering the scarcity of research on these challenges and opportunities, our work contributes to a better understanding of the hurdles the textile sector faces. Furthermore, it sets the groundwork for future research in this domain. It provides valuable insights for textile businesses, enabling them to align their strategies with the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape.