An overview of multi-criteria decision-making methods in dealing with sustainable energy development issues

© 2018 by the authors. The measurement of sustainability is actively used today as one of the main preventative instruments in order to reduce the decline of the environment. Sustainable decision-making in solving energy issues can be supported and contradictory effects can be evaluated by scientific achievements of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. The main goal of this paper is to overview the application of decision-making methods in dealing with sustainable energy development issues. In this study, 105 published papers from the Web of Science Core Collection (WSCC) database are selected and reviewed, from 2004 to 2017, related to energy sustainability issues and MCDM methods. All the selected papers were categorized into 9 fields by the application area and into 10 fields by the used method. After the categorization of the scientific articles and detailed analysis, SWOT analysis of MCDM approaches in dealing with sustainable energy development issues is provided. The widespread application and use of MCDM methods confirm that MCDM methods can help decision-makers in solving energy sustainability problems and are highly popular and used in practice

The Impact of Proactive Environmental Strategy on Competitive and Sustainable Development of Organizations

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of proactive environmental strategy, competitive differentiation advantage &amp; cost-leadership competitive advantage for the competitive, sustainable development of an organization in terms of its performances, for instance, product strategy, production, process &amp; financial performances. We incorporated technological eco-innovation as a mediating factor &amp; corporate image as a moderator between exogenous &amp; endogenous variables. We have collected 798 responses from China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. For the data analyses, we employed a structural equation modeling-based multivariate approach and conditional process modeling. The novelty and significance of the undertaken study rested in multifaceted outcomes; for instance, the proactive environmental strategy, the competitive advantage of differentiation &amp; competitive advantage of cost leadership have a significant &amp; positive impact on the sustainable development of an organization in terms of its performances, for example, product strategic, production &amp; financial performances. The findings further demonstrate that technological eco-innovation as a mediating factor &amp; corporate image as a moderating factor played vital and significant influencers between exogenous and endogenous variables. Finally, the Toda- Yamamoto causality showed the two-ways directionality between exogenous &amp; endogenous variables. The outcomes have provided critical practical and societal implications for the industry and society. The companies may incorporate the environment as a cornerstone in short &amp; longterm strategies for sustainable development. On the other hand, organizations may provide an eco-friendly environment to society.</jats:p

Network topology of renewable energy sector in stock exchange

In today's global economy, the most prominent position clean energy is basically viewed as the highest-speed growing branch. Sustainable energy, perpetual climate change, and technological advancements are the reasons from which this foreground position results from. Regarding the debate of effects of pollution and the importance of the alternative fuels, the more awareness people improve, the more interested they are to invest in clean energy. This paper brings to a focus the inspection of clean energy and the way any market would analysis the influential stocks which have an effect on the other. In this regard, correlation network approach has extensively applied to explore the financial markets properties. In econophysics, technical topology network is defined for analyzing the interaction between stocks to find significant implications to optimize the portfolio. Network topology shows the physical layout of a network. It refers to the way in which per stock is located and interconnected to other stocks. This study analyse the topological properties of network on a set of 62 stocks in renewable energy companies from 30th February 2015 to 3th March 2016 to aid to the interpretation of relationships in the network structure and find influencing stocks

The role of process innovation between firm-specific capabilities and sustainable innovation in SMEs: empirical evidence from Indonesia

The importance of sustainable innovation achievement propels firms to consider the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. However, it is important to clarify that not all innovations impact sustainable development. Regardless of the limited circumstances in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), intrapreneurship, stakeholder integration, and absorptive capacity are firm-specific capabilities that could be explored as strategic intentions of management practices in the organization. This paper investigated the mediating role of process innovation in the relationship among the firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship, and stakeholder integration for sustainable innovation in SMEs. This empirical study examines the manufacturing sector of Indonesian SMEs with a sample size of 190 firms. The study found that practices of process innovation, as a mediator triggered by the firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship, and stakeholder integration affect sustainable innovation, although at low stages. Finally, implications for the theory and practice of attaining sustainable innovation in SMEs are drawn

How real oil prices and domestic financial instabilities are good for GCC countries tourism demand in Malaysia?

Malaysia, located in the heart of Southeast Asia, is a multicultural country whose ‘green’ and ‘blue’ tourism attractions have become the main tourism spot for the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) tourists. We employed the Threshold Error Correction (TECM) cointegration and the nonlinear causality estimates to capture the nexus between real energy prices and financial stability for the GCC countries’ tourism demand in Malaysia using the monthly-based dataset covering the period since 1995 till 2017. The main TECM estimate shows that real energy price fluctuations and financial instability condition in Malaysia positively boost tourists’ arrivals from the GCC countries to Malaysia. Indeed, there is evidence of an asymmetric speed of adjustment of the GCC countries’ tourism demand with 25.9% and 36.7% of positive and negative deviations, respectively. In addition, this study found a strong evidence of unidirectional nonlinear causal relations running from real energy prices to tourism demands; and also bidirectional causalities running from tourism demand to financial stability. These findings will be helpful for tourism policy makers in Malaysia while drawing a future roadmap to increase the numbers of the GCC tourists’ arrivals in future years

Corporate sustainability disclosure and market valuation in a Middle Eastern Nation: evidence from listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange: sensitive industries versus non-sensitive industries

This article has received the considerable critical attention that seeking to enhance sustainability disclosure may essentially make progress firms’ market valuation. It aims to provide the corporate sustainability disclosure level organized according to the ‘7 + 1’, seven core subjects of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26000 and the energy disclosure items, then set out to assess the effectiveness of sustainability reporting on the listed firms’ market valuation during the period 2010–2015. To achieve this objective, data were collected from a sample of 98 Iranian manufacturing and service organizations from various industry sectors at the Tehran Stock Exchange and generalized method of moments (GMM) approach was conducted for a dynamic panel data to evaluate the effect of the sustainability reporting level on the listed firms’ market valuation. As can be seen from the results, the overall extent of sustainability disclosure arranged in accordance with the low rate of sustainability reporting for listed firms in TSE. It was also found that the sensitive firms have a greater level of corporate sustainability disclosure than the other firms. Moreover, sustainability reporting has been shown to be related to market valuations in which firms activating in sensitive industries environmentally with sustainability reporting had higher market valuations than firms activating in non-sensitive industries with sustainability reporting. Our ‘7 + 1’ sustainability disclosure practice aspects all together with their basic measurement items can be applied as a checklist for assessing how well sustainability disclosure practices are performed at TSE

Financial and economic determinants of sustainable economic growth in Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa

This study analyzes financial and economic determinants of sustainable economic performance using the quantile regression for the period from 1970 to 2016 for Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. The main drivers of sustainable economic performance vary among the economies. It is driven by trade openness, government expenditure and political stability in Egypt. In South Africa, the desired threshold for financial development to impact growth is reached. Also, there is complementarity between financial development and trade openness. This proves their advancement at the domestic financial markets in the direction to sustainable economic performance. Interestingly, Nigerian economy’s sustainable growth is enhanced by capital account openness. Policies that will boast intra trade in Africa are encouraged as the AfCFTA has come to spur manufacturing activities on the continent. At the same time, emphasis should be set to improve financial and economic determinants of sustainable economic performance

Factors influencing beliefs formation towards the adoption of social commerce in SME travel agencies

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence beliefs formation towards the adoption of social commerce in SME travel agencies. Accordingly, a distal-proximal model is developed to study CEOs’ beliefs towards the usefulness of social commerce. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of travel agencies’ CEOs in Isfahan, Iran. With 180 collected data from respondents, the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling approach was taken to assess both measurement and structural models of the study. The results revealed that CEOs’ innovativeness and attitude towards IT as individual factors, and organizational resources as institutional factor were significantly explained beliefs formation of respondents towards the usefulness of social commerce. However, it was found that the influences of CEOs’ IT knowledge, subjective norms (professional peers, employees) and firm size on perceived usefulness were found insignificant. Implications of the study are further discussed

Proposed analytic framework for student relationship management based on a systematic review of CRM systems literature

Notwithstanding the research attention given to the importance and capability of the student relationship management strategy in higher education sustainability, there is no any systematic framework for implementation. This research as one of the preliminary studies has been undertaken to provide a structural framework of strategic practices for positioning this strategy at an operational level. In doing so, a methodological approach was implemented in two tiers. Firstly, a systematic review of the leading-edge literature on the customer relationship management systems was performed owing to the lack of significant research on the topic, as well as the structure and nature of the concept. Then, the principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation, which is a method of exploratory factor analysis was used to finalize the research. The findings revealed an articulated structural framework with five hypotheses, which may partially or fully be applied to narrow the major gap in the current knowledge. The measurement scale has also been developed for simplification in implementation of the application. Limitations and directions for future research were accordingly discussed

Factors influencing the Middle East tourist travelling to Malaysia: The quantile estimates

This research examines the possible impacts of global oil prices, exchange rate and tourism prices on Malaysia’s demand for the Middle East tourists’ arrivals using monthly data covering the period from 1995 to 2017. We covered the 5 major sources of Middle East tourism to Malaysia in the last 2 decades, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The estimates of the quantile regression reveal that the global oil price fluctuation has affected the Middle East tourist arrivals to Malaysia. First, we found that there is a positive quantile effect of tourism, domestic tourism prices and global oil prices with Middle East tourism demand in Malaysia throughout the estimated quantiles. Secondly, we could not find any specific influence of exchange rate and this shows that the fluctuating Malaysia’s currency is not a major issue for the Middle East tourists. Overall, this finding can be useful for policymakers while improving their future tourism planning and in attracting more tourists to visit Malaysia in the upcoming years