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 research aims to test the effect that the implementation of green practices at a major sport tourism event, the Badminton World Championships in Huelva (Spain), has on the future intention of spectators to return to similar sport events. A total of 523 spectators who attended the event were randomly selected and self-administered in the presence of the interviewer. A confirmatory factor analysis of the model and a multi-group analysis were carried out. Sporting events have a great impact on the environment in which they are organised, mainly when they are linked to tourism, whether at an economic, social or environmental level. The results indicated that green practices indirectly influence spectators' future intentions through emotions and satisfaction, direct antecedents. In addition, green practices directly affect both image and trust, and indirectly affect satisfaction. In conclusion, green practices are a variable to be taken into account when planning the organisation of a sporting event that aims to consolidate itself in the tourism and sports services market.

Short-form content has the potential for virality and broad sharing, allowing businesses to reach large audiences in a short period of time. This type of content has transformed traditional marketing approaches, capturing the attention and curiosity of Generation Z, thereby leading to the rise of digital marketing. As Generation Z is the next generation of consumers and their purchasing power increases as they enter the workforce, marketers need to understand the factors influencing their attitudes and purchase intentions. This study aims to explore the relationship between the growing presence of short-form advertising content in corporate marketing strategies and consumer behavioral intentions. To achieve this, the sub-characteristics of short-form content were categorized into expertise, ease of use, and entertainment value, while information reliability was set as a mediating variable. Data was collected through a survey of 256 adults residing in Busan and Gyeongnam, and analyzed using SPSS 28.0. The findings of the study revealed that most sub-characteristics of short-form content advertisements positively influenced both recommendation and purchase intentions. Additionally, information reliability was identified as a significant mediating factor between short-form content and consumer behavioral intentions. These results provide important insights for corporate marketers and advertising professionals, as they offer valuable guidance on how to influence consumer purchase intentions effectively.

Recovery and resilience plan (RRP) approved by the European Commission fosters the development of lifelong learning programs to upgrade employees’ skills and knowledge for digital and green transitions. Within higher education, the field of information and communication technology (ICT) is also a priority area, so we compared the demographic variables of students enrolled in formal first-cycle higher education programs in ICT with those enrolled in lifelong ICT programs within the framework of the Advanced Computer Skills project funded by the RRP in Slovenia. The results show that formal first-cycle higher education in the field of ICT remains strongly male-dominated, whereas, among participants in lifelong learning, the percentage of females stands out. Bachelor programs in ICT are primarily enrolled by young people aged up to 24 years, while shorter university-based lifelong learning programs attract mostly older participants with higher completed formal education and from a broader range of prior educational backgrounds. Finally, when all three variables (gender, age and level of prior formal education) are considered, participants in lifelong learning are much more similar to part-time students than full-time bachelor ICT students, although the percentage of men in formal education is still predominant even in part-time studies. The research findings highlight the need for further efforts to offer lifelong learning in ICT to enable individuals to improve their employment prospects, progress in the workplace or even change their field of work.

Recent times have seen significant advancements in AI and NLP technologies, poised to revolutionize logistical decision-making across industries. This study investigates integrating ChatGPT, an advanced AI language model, into strategic, tactical, and operational logistics. Examining its applicability, benefits, and limitations, the study delves into ChatGPT's capacity for strategic logistics planning, facilitating nuanced decision-making through natural language interactions. At the tactical level, it explores ChatGPT's role in optimizing route planning and enhancing real-time decision support. The operational aspect scrutinizes ChatGPT's capabilities in micro-level logistics and emergency response. Ethical implications, encompassing data security and human-AI trust dynamics, are also analyzed. This report furnishes valuable insights for the logistics sector, emphasizing AI's potential in reshaping decision-making while underscoring the necessity for foresight, evaluation, and ethical considerations in AI integration. In this publication, it is assumed that ChatGPT is not entirely reliable for decision-making in the logistics field: at the strategic level, it can be effectively used for "brainstormin" in preparing decisions, but at the tactical and operational level, the depth of the knowledge is not sufficient to make appropriate decisions. Therefore, the answers provided by ChatGPT to the defined logistic tasks are compared with real logistic solutions. The article highlights ChatGPT's effectiveness at different levels of logistics and clarifies its potential and limitations in the logistics field.

This study aims to discover the relationship between growth sales, capital structure, and corporate governance on financial performance of energy and basic material sector public companies in Indonesia. Financial performance is observed from 2 aspects: market performance (Tobin's Q) and profitability performance (ROA). The population in this study is firms in the energy and basic material sector on Indonesia Stock Exchange. The total population is 248 firms. 39 firms were selected as samples. The data is obtained from the annual report which starts from the period 2018 to 2022. A total of the population was determined as samples by purposive sampling method. Data analysis using panel data regression. The result shows: 1) Growth Sales have a significant influence on market performance; however, it does not have a significant effect on profitability performance. 2) Capital Structure significantly influences market and profitability performance 3) Corporate governance significantly influences market and profitability performance. Suggestions for companies that must strive to increase sales, maintain good corporate governance and pay attention to the company's capital structure in a balanced manner.