Thoo Ai Chin

As a key engine of corporate innovation, digital transformation permeates business management. Can digital transformation improve corporate financial flexibility by leveraging the external supply chain? Our sample comprises Chinese listed companies over the period from 2015 to 2024, employing Python 3.10 crawling to measure the degree of digital transformation and utilizing the entropy weight method to construct supply chain resilience. Using a moderated mediation model, this analysis examines how corporate innovation mediates the relationship between digital transformation and financial flexibility, and how supply chain resilience exerts a phased moderating effect along this pathway. The findings reveal the following: (1) Digital transformation has a positive effect on financial flexibility, where corporate innovation plays a mediating role. (2) The promoting effect of digital transformation on financial flexibility exhibits significant heterogeneity, varying with firm-specific micro-level characteristics and internal control quality. (3) Supply chain resilience plays a significant moderating role throughout the entire mediation path. It positively moderates the chain of “digital transformation → corporate innovation → financial flexibility”. This study provides empirical evidence on the mechanisms of digital transformation’s impact on corporate financial flexibility and offers a theoretical view for evaluating the outcomes of digital transformation from a financial perspective.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) dominate energy storage for electric vehicles (EVs) due to their high energy density, long cycle life, and low self-discharge. However, high costs, complex manufacturing, and the requirement for advanced battery management systems (BMSs) constrain their broader deployment. Therefore, extending the utility of LIBs through reuse is essential for economic and environmental sustainability. Retired EV batteries with 70–80% state-of-health (SOH) can be repurposed in battery energy storage systems (BESSs) to support power grids. Effective reuse depends on accurate and rapid assessment of SOH and state-of-safety (SOS), which relies on precise state-of-charge (SOC) detection, particularly for aged LIBs with elevated thermal and electrochemical risks. This review systematically surveys SOC, SOH, and SOS detection methods for second-life LIBs, covering model-based, data-driven, and hybrid approaches, and highlights strategies for a fast and reliable evaluation. It further examines power electronics topologies and control strategies for integrating second-life LIBs into power grids, focusing on safety, efficiency, and operational performance. Finally, it analyzes key factors within the closed-loop supply chain, particularly reverse logistics, and provides guidance on enhancing adoption and supporting the establishment of circular battery ecosystems. This review serves as a comprehensive resource for researchers, industry stakeholders, and policymakers aiming to optimize second-life utilization of traction LIBs.

In recent years, environmental sustainability has become a key concern for both consumers and businesses. While many studies have examined sustainable product purchasing, limited research has focused on green purchase intention in relation to green brand positioning and environmental concern in Malaysia. This study explores the main factors influencing green purchasing intention by analysing green brand positioning, attitudes toward green products, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and environmental concern. Data were collected through an online questionnaire using purposive sampling, targeting at least 101 respondents aged 20 or younger or 51 and older. Participants were selected based on their interest in eco-friendly products, past usage, and purchase intention. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS and SmartPLS. The findings reveal that perceived behavioural control, attitude toward green products, and subjective norms significantly influence green purchasing intention. However, green brand positioning and environmental concern were not found to have a significant effect. This research provides valuable insights for eco-friendly brands by highlighting the key drivers of consumer intention, offering guidance for converting intention into actual purchasing behaviour. The study also contributes to the growing body of knowledge on sustainable consumption, particularly within the Malaysian market context.

As global environmental issues intensify, enterprises face increasing pressure to pursue sustainable development. China’s manufacturing industry plays a critical role by significantly contributing to GDP, job creation, and export volumes globally. However, its rapid expansion, fueled by intensive resource consumption, has caused environmental degradation and increasing emissions. Consequently, China risks lagging behind other industrialized nations unless strides are made toward sustainable development. This study, grounded in the context of China’s manufacturing industry, develops a conceptual framework to examine the influence of Proactive Environmental Strategy (PES) and Environmental Collaboration (EC) on sustainability performance. PES refers to proactive environmental initiatives undertaken by enterprises to surpass basic regulatory requirements, aiming to enhance resource efficiency and minimize environmental impacts. EC focuses on collaborative efforts between enterprises and their upstream and downstream supply chain partners to jointly advance environmental management practices. The proposed framework highlights the mediating role of environmental collaboration in proactive environmental strategies to enhance corporate sustainable performance. It specifically addresses how to achieve three dimensions of sustainability performance, including environmental, economic and social aspects. This study will use quantitative methods with data collection through surveys distributed to manufacturing companies in Shaanxi province of China. Structural equation modeling will be employed to find out the relationship between variables. The contribution of this study lies in offering theoretical foundations and practical guidance for China’s manufacturing sector in adopting sustainable strategies. By identifying critical driving factors and mediating variables, it provides enterprises with pathways to achieve green transformation in complex environments. Furthermore, this framework offers a solid basis for future research and provides policymakers with actionable insights to bridge micro-level practices with macro-level sustainability goals.

Previous studies have extensively explored supplier selection criteria; however, there has been a notable scarcity of in-depth investigations into the specific criteria for selecting suppliers in the restaurant industry. Thus, this research commences with an overview of supplier selection criteria, followed by a comprehensive review of criteria employed across diverse industries. Through this review, this study identify and distill five key criteria uniquely suited for restaurants: Finance, Technology, Product Quality, Cost, and Service of Supplier. These criteria are subsequently subjected to thorough analysis. This study ultimately contributes novel insights into supplier selection within the restaurant sector, providing the industry with robust decision-making support and practical guidance.

Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia, where two-thirds of the population are Indigenous. This study aims to evaluate, through the lens of good governance principles, the current practice of the Sarawak State’s formal land governance of lands associated with Native Customary Rights (hereafter known as Native land governance). Being quantitative in nature, this study conceptualises an evaluation framework for good governance principles as applied to Native land governance. Next, this study empirically tests out the framework by adopting a multi-criteria decision-making tool known as The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). TOPSIS analysis enables the integration of perceptions between State/private groups and Indigenous groups. The output of the TOPSIS analysis is summarised in a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) format according to the TOPSIS closeness value. Unfortunately, results show that the weaknesses outnumber the strengths in Sarawak’s Native land governance. Among these issues, Indigenous respondents highlight major issues with the Sarawak land registry’s efficiency in delivering outcomes that are equitable for Indigenous land rights. This study ends with recommendations on how the state of Sarawak can move towards compliance with good governance principles in relation to lands associated with Native Customary Rights.

Considering reverse logistics’ benefit for sustainability, it has gained significant attention as a strategic decision. Additionally, a geometric expansion occurs in reverse logistics and sustainability performance. Despite this, little has been written about this evolution retrospectively. Therefore, this study aims to conceptualise and perform a systematic scientometric review of reverse logistics and sustainability performance to identify research hotspots and emerging trends and offer suggestions for future research agendas by reviewing, retrieving, and analysing 848 papers from the Scopus databases. Based on the analysis, there was a rapid rise in the number of publications within this domain, while, at the same time, increasing interdisciplinary subject research has appeared. Furthermore, scholars and institutions from China, India, and the USA were the most prolific in this research domain. Mainly, the current study underscored some pivotal research hotspots, such as assessing the reverse logistics effect on different sustainability performance dimensions and developing a reverse logistics and sustainability performance network. Moreover, emerging trends include game theory, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, the manufacturing industry of developing countries, and the circular economy. Finally, a moderator was also sought to be proposed to optimise the relationship between reverse logistics and sustainability performance due to the inconsistent link between them. Having a comprehensive overview of reverse logistics and sustainability performance over the last 24 years may help practitioners and researchers better understand global trends and directions in this field.

Consumer behaviour has been changed since year 2020 as people spending more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new normal life-style in pandemic results in the exploration of Internet usage. Retention of Internet users can be challenging with the advent of social media. Thus, the present study adopted the S-O-R model as the underpinning theory to develop a conceptual framework on building customer loyalty through social media marketing strategy. Three independent variables from social media marketing strategy were identified as environmental stimuli (S) including social media presence, social media informativeness, and social media interactivity; the mediating variable, customer satisfaction was identified as emotional reaction (O); and the dependent variable, customer loyalty, was identified as the consumers’ behavioural responses (R). A structured survey questionnaire was employed for data collection and 392 usable data were collected through online survey method from Internet and social media users in Malaysia. The quantitative data was analysed quantitatively by using descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis and mediation analysis. The results concluded that social media marketing strategy has positive impact on customer loyalty, and the social media marketing strategy-customer loyalty relationship was partially mediated by customer satisfaction. Thus, it is recommended that Internet service providers establish an effective social media marketing strategy to improve customer satisfaction in order to develop customer loyalty from Internet users.

Cutting-edge technological advancements have turned many electronic devices into waste within a short time of usage. Electronic waste (e-waste) has become a global problem. Due to the adverse impact of e-waste on the environment and human health, a regulatory system for effective collection and treatment of e-waste disposed of by the community and business sectors is in dire need. In an attempt to address the setbacks and cope with e-waste issues, this study determined factors that influence e-waste recycling intentions (ERIs) and e-waste recycling behavior (ERB) among consumers in Malaysia through the lens of an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. Via an online survey, 159 questionnaires were collected from targeted respondents in Malaysia aged 18 years and above identified using the purposive sampling method. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was deployed for data analysis. As a result, moral obligation (MO) emerged as the most significant factor toward ERI, followed by perceived convenience (PC). Next, ERI displayed a significant effect on ERB. The multi-group analysis (MGA) outcomes revealed significant group differences in education variables, signifying that the lower/middle education group was more easily influenced to perform ERB than the higher education group. Essentially, this study contributes to many aspects especially in enhancing the awareness of e-waste issues and emphasizing the broad knowledge about e-waste recycling. This study provides practical implications for the government, the policymakers and all stakeholders, including consumers, non-government agencies, collectors, retailers, and recycling facilities. The study outcomes may be considered when formulating laws and regulations to enhance e-waste recycling efforts that guarantee a sustainable ecosystem in the future.