This article examines the overseas corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of Chinese international contractors (CICs). Adopting an institutional and political economy approach, a unique dataset is constructed with country-specific contents drawn from CSR-related reports and website information of 50 top CICs. This dataset provides a foundation for systematic content analysis of CICs’ overseas CSR practices, revealing that both political legitimacy-seeking and strategic competitiveness-seeking motivations drive CICs’ CSR activities abroad, characterized by the prioritization of customer and community engagement. The findings highlight the coexistence of the exogenous pressures for the national image-building purpose and the endogenous awareness of CSR strategic importance for corporate internationalization. The hybridization of political and economic rationales is presented as the defining feature of CICs’ current overseas CSR patterns, with the balance between them being determined by stakeholder type and internal business needs influenced by corporate internationalization experience.

Focusing on Shanghai Port, this in-depth study explores how government support can make port organizations more competitive. This study shall implement qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews with key industry and government leaders to break down the complicated actions taken by the government and how they have changed the operational and strategic skills of the port industry. Seven factors were found in our study to be the most crucial support factors: Financial, regulatory, infrastructure growth, talent, market, policy, and organizational support. In their ways, each of these groups undermines the ability of port businesses to compete. For instance, finance can make ports more competitive in aspects such as tax cuts, lower interest rates, innovation and R&D funds, financing programs, venture capital funds, and putting up R&D sites. Supporting regulations makes sure that there is fair competition and smooth operations. This is done by protecting intellectual property, keeping the market going smoothly, improving the business environment, and monitoring market regulations. Building new infrastructure, such as innovation and updated buildings, enables the smooth running of the port businesses and minimizes wastage of time; thus, more time is spent on production. Supporting talent, the market, and policy all work together to make the human capital, international cooperation, and strategic regulatory framework that a company needs to stay ahead in the long run. It is clear from organizational support how important collaborative networks are for making ports more competitive. These networks, for instance, can be of assistance in helping schools and businesses work together, create new technologies, and find ways for companies and colleges to study together. This study examines these support systems to determine where the government should step in and how the systems can be made better to make ports more competitive. In terms of practical contribution, this in-depth study helps policymakers and port workers plan for the future. This study shows a fair way for the government to support the port business, which changes with its needs and stays competitive in the world of trade.

With the rising global consumer demand for green and healthy food, the tea industry is facing unprecedented competitive pressure. Therefore, how to build tea enterprises with sustainable competitiveness has become a key issue facing the industry. This paper firstly reviews the concept of traceability systems and their evolution and, based on the theory of enterprise competitive advantage, explores the influence mechanism of traceability as a strategic resource on the long-term competitiveness of tea enterprises; secondly, it analyzes the multi-dimensional role of traceability on enterprise competitiveness from five aspects, namely, quality and safety control and guarantee, brand image shaping and trust construction, market dynamics response and consumer feedback, risk response and product recall, as well as technological innovation and efficiency enhancement; finally, combined with the above analysis, this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the competitiveness of tea enterprises, integrates the impact of traceability in different dimensions, and proposes a multi-level competitiveness enhancement model. Through this framework, tea enterprises can more comprehensively understand and grasp the close relationship between traceability and the long-term competitive advantage of enterprises and then make strategic adjustments according to their own actual situation so as to realize sustainable competitiveness enhancement in the future market competition.

This study examines the spatial distribution of consumption competitiveness and carrying capacity across regions, exploring their interrelationship and implications for sustainable regional development. An evaluation index system is constructed for both consumption competitiveness and carrying capacity using a range of economic, social, and environmental indicators. We apply this framework to regional data in China and analyze the resultant spatial patterns. The findings reveal significant regional disparities: areas with strong consumption competitiveness are often concentrated in economically developed regions, while high carrying capacity is notable in less populated or resource-rich areas. Notably, a mismatch emerges in some regions—high consumer demand is not always supported by adequate carrying capacity, and vice versa. These disparities highlight potential sustainability challenges and opportunities. In the discussion, we address reasons behind the spatial mismatch and propose policy implications to better align consumer market growth with regional resource and environmental capacity. The paper concludes that integrating consumption-driven growth strategies with carrying capacity considerations is essential for balanced and sustainable regional development.

Intellectual capital is one of the most crucial determinants of long-term economic development. The countries compete for highly skilled labor and talented youth. State regulatory interventions aim to, on the one hand, facilitate the retention of foreign high-productivity intellectual capital in the host country, transforming ‘educational’ and ‘scientific’ migrants into residents, and on the other hand, prevent the outflow of their own qualified workforce. The paper aims to outline the role of the nation’s higher education system in the influx and outflow of labor resources. A two-stage approach is applied: 1) maximum likelihood—to cluster the EU countries and the potential candidates to become members of EU countries based on the integrated competitiveness of their higher education systems, considering quantitative, qualitative, and internationalization aspects; 2) logit and probit models—to estimate the likelihood of net migration flow surpassing baseline cluster levels and the probability of migration intensity changes for each cluster. Empirical findings allow the identification of four country clusters. Forecasts indicate the highest likelihood of increased net migration flow in the second cluster (66.7%) and a significant likelihood in the third cluster (23.4%). However, the likelihood of such an increase is statistically insignificant for countries in the first and fourth clusters. The conclusions emphasize the need for regulatory interventions that enhance higher education quality, ensure equal access for migrants, foster population literacy, and facilitate lifelong learning. Such measures are imperative to safeguard the nation’s intellectual potential and deter labor emigration.

Today it is obvious that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is more than just a volunteer activity, it is also related to the operation of the firms and to competitive advantages. Many factors influence CSR and CSR-competitiveness relations; firm size could be the most crucial one. Originally CSR is related to large companies, although smaller firms can be active in CSR mainly in different ways with different background. Based on this idea the paper aims to explore the correlation between small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitive advantages. An interview research was conducted among thirty SMEs in a Hungarian city of Győr in 2021/22 to reveal how owner-managers interpret CSR, competitiveness and their relations. As SMEs cannot provide exact data on this topic the personal perception method was used to explore the CSR-competitiveness relation. A moderate relation was observed between CSR and competitiveness and the research revealed that different methodologies have to be applied for SMEs than large companies which results from the fact that SMEs’ CSR is less formal and lacks exact data.