This study was conducted to estimate the determinants as well as the efficiency of Vietnam’s footwear export to 50 trading partners by applying stochastic fronter gravity approach for the period 2001-2018. We found that Vietnam’s footwear export is positively affected by income measured by gross domestic product (GDP), border and landlock situation. The income elasticity of footwear export of Vietnam was about 1.2%. We also showed that the export efficiency of Vietnam’s footwear was not very high with the average ranges from 50.8% to 63.1%. The 10 most efficient countries were Cambodia, Panama, Slovakia, Belgium, Myanmar, Hongkong, Korea, Chile, the US and the Netherlands. We also found that 10 countries with the largest export potential were the US, China, Germany, Japan, Belgium, the UK, Netherlands, Korea, France, Canada. Regarding the determinants of export efficiency, the study provides evidence that trade freedom, financial freedom and importers’ population density positively contributed to efficiency. Our findings also support further integration of Vietnam since membership to many FTA enhances Vietnam’s footwear export efficiency. These FTAs include AFTA, Vietnam-Chile FTA, ASEAN-India FTA, ASEAN-Korean FTA, ASEAN-Japan FTA, ASEAN-China FTA, ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA. Finally, the study recommends a relevant market policy for Vietnam’s footwear export in the coming years. We have provided 4 types of markets with different levels of priorities that Vietnam’s footwear exporters should focus on. The top footwear market priority should be countries with high potential yet low efficiency such as China, Russia, Brazil, Thailand, Sweden, Singapore and Australia.

Supply chain performance has been a key element of competitive strategy to boost organizational productivity and profitability. In the United Kingdom (UK), a survey disclosed that approximately 40% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) was consumed on supply chain related activities. Because of the extensive use of gross domestic product (GDP) on supply chain, it is important to work on UK based supply chain companies and to reveal various factors to enhance supply chain performance. Therefore, the primary objective of the current study is to investigate the combine effect of audit determinants and leadership styles to enhance supply chain performance in UK based companies. Data were collected from audit department employees and other managerial employees who are closely related to supply chain activities. After analyzing the data through Smart PLS 3, it was found that audit and leadership styles played important contribution in supply chain performance. Moreover, top management and employee commitment to change maintained significant influence to enhance positive effect on audit and leadership. This study is much significant for UK supply chain companies to enhance supply chain performance.

The presence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia will contribute to the movement of the Indonesian economy, so its growth is an essential part that must be considered by the government. The goal of this study was to explore the role of innovative capabilities in improving the performance of Indonesian SMEs. A variable approach to social capital, entrepreneurial leadership, innovation ability and SME efficiency was used in this research. The research included a sample of 352 small and medium-sized enterprises in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, consisting of 19 medium-sized enterprises and 333 small enterprises out of a total population of 2887 small and medium-sized enterprises (the sampling methodology used was chance sampling and simple random sampling methods). The findings show that social capital does not explicitly have a substantial impact on the business performance of SMEs in Pekanbaru, but if it is mediated by creative capacities, social capital indirectly plays a role in improving the performance of SMEs. Entrepreneurial leadership has a big influence on SMEs.

Differential evolution (DE) is an effective and powerful approach and it has been widely used in different environments. However, the performance of DE is sensitive to the choice of control parameters. Thus, to obtain optimal performance, time-consuming parameter tuning is necessary. Backtracking Search Optimization Algorithm (BSA) is a new evolutionary algorithm (EA) for solving real-valued numerical optimization problems. An ensemble algorithm called E-BSADE is proposed which incorporates concepts from DE and BSA. The performance of E-BSADE is evaluated on several benchmark functions and is compared with basic DE, BSA and conventional DE mutation strategy. Also the performance results are compared with state of the art PSO variant.

During the past few years, there have been tremendous attempts among various companies to implement the principles of supply chain management to increase their capabilities. Reduction in supply chain cost is an important element to support competitive advantage. However, to manage the cost of supply chain, managing target and order costs is essential. Reduction in both target cost and order cost is crucial to maintain reasonable supply chain cost, which directly influences the competitive advantage. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to support competitive advantage by the help of integration between target cost and order cost. To achieve this, quantitative research technique was adopted based on a survey technique and 300 questionnaires were distributed among the managerial employees of supply chain companies in Iraq. While analyzing the data through Smart PLS 3, it was revealed that any reduction in target cost and order cost could decrease the overall supply chain cost and this helps to sustain competitive advantage. Therefore, supply chain cost plays the mediating role to enhance competitive advantage through integration of the target cost and the order cost. Finally, this study is beneficial for supply chain companies to enhance competitive advantage through reduction in supply chain cost.

This study explores the values that develop in society which are social constructs that are thought to be related to attitudes, norms, and controlling individual behavior in society and in turn can foster intentions and behavior to corrupt. This research was conducted empirically by involving 265 respondents from accountants, stakeholders, civil servants and inspectors in Central Java, Indonesia who were analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS analysis tools. The theoretical test results confirm the fraud triangle and the theory of planned behavior to study the opportunity and financial process factors and the rationalization factor which emphasizes the moral psychological aspects. In practical terms, these findings underline the need for tiered supervision in the implementation of goods and services procurement projects in the public sector, improve the quality of reporting and accounting systems, and improve individual integrity to carry out work. Also, it is necessary to increase the remuneration of employees and provide competitive pricing for the private sector involved in procurement projects to minimize intentions for corruption and corrupt behavior by improving the quality of life of the individuals involved in supervision, auditing and reporting.

The Indian cement industry has adopted various environmental protection technologies, but adoption of these new environmental technologies and development of working model could not resolve many issues related to environmental concern among Stakeholders. This paper examined the current technologies used by the cement companies and the challenges they are facing in adoption of these technologies. This research describes the effects of cement manufacturing on global warming, water, coal and other pollution emissions during cement production process and involves environmental manufacturing technologies. The study measures the challenges of introducing environmental technologies by creating a model of challenges. including challenges in perceived usability of technology, challenges in perceived utility, challenges in user engagement, and challenges in intent to use behaviour. The study examines the challenges of introducing environmental technologies into the Indian cement industry to mitigate air, water, and energy pollution and to highlight the new environmental technologies and development of the model. The data from 1540 professionals responsible for using the environmental technology were gathered and analysed with t test and regression analysis. The final outcome of the research is the model expressing the challenges in adoption of environmental technologies in India.

This paper describes a comparison of surface roughness between ceramics and cubic boron nitride (CBN7020) cutting tools when machining of AISI H11 hot work steels treated at 50 HRC. Plan is designed according to Taguchi’s L18 (21×32) orthogonal array. The response surface methodology (RSM) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to check the validity of multiple linear regression models and to determine the effects, contribution, significance and optimal machine settings of process parameters, namely, cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut on machining parameters on the Ra and Rt. The results of this research work showed that, the feed rate was found to be a dominant factor on the surface roughness, followed by the cutting speed, lastly the depth of cut. The CBN7020 cutting tool showed the better performance than that of ceramic based cutting tool. In addition, the combination of low feed rate and high cutting speed is necessary for minimizing the surface roughness.

The primary objective of the present paper is to explore the link between supply logistic integration, competitive performance, lean process and supply performance. To achieve our research objectives, we develop a unique model, which conceptualizes the said relationship. Porter’s value chain and the resource based views are used as theatrical lenses of the current study using Amos software package based on a data set of 220 Iraqi manufacturing firms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to analyze the dataset. The findings of the study show that the there was a positive relationship between supply logistics and competitive performance (operational) and supply performance and lean processes were partially mediating this relationship. The study also shows the importance of managing both internal (production processes) and external processes (logistics and supply chain) of firms’ operations in an integrated manner in which supply chain management acts through key internal processes to impact competitive performance. This is the first study, which uncovers what happens “in between” the incoming materials and the end outputs delivered by firms into the market. This “in between black box” is important in improving our understanding of how inbound supply activities are translated into outbound competitive performance outcomes.

Investors are facing doubt on the quality of earning reported. They require some indicators to detect the quality of earning reported. The use of past performance as indicators of current and future earning management is challengeable since there are contradicting results in the sign of the relationship between past performance and earning management. Another variable may moderate their relationship. Therefore, it is the purpose of this study to know if employee’s relative earning is the moderating variable in the relationship between past performance and earning management. One hundred thirty-five companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange were selected with the use of stratified random sampling. The data is analyzed using sub-group analysis followed by the Chow F test and the linear regression analysis. Earning management is the dependent variable, whereas past performance is the independent variable, and employee relative earning is the moderating variable. The null hypotheses were rejected. A significant negative association exists between past performance and earning management, while the employee relative earning was found to be the moderating variable. The effect of past performance to earning management increases as employee relative earning getting lower.