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As a response to global population growth and increasing demand for food, farmers have been complementing traditional agriculture practices with vertical farming (VF) and indoor hydroponic systems. To facilitate the growth of the VF industry, this paper aims to identify business model elements and their configurations that lead to high firm performance.

The research goals were met by conducting literature reviews coupled with a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on five business model elements, “superior” OR “strong” performance as two possible outcomes, and the top-ranked global VF growers listed in the Crunchbase Database.

From the fsQCA results, it was observed that several business model configurations lead to strong firm performance. Vertical farms growing in urban settings and having strong customer engagement platforms, coupled with a presence of business-to-business (B2B) sales channels, are more consistently associated with superior performance. These results imply that the decision configuration of location, along with customer engagement activity and sales activity are differentiating factors between good firm performance and superior firm performance in the case of vertical farms.

This paper contributes to expanding the knowledge of business model theory, business model configurations and VF management, providing specific guidelines for vertical farm owners and investors related to decision-making for higher firm performance, as well as positive environmental, social and economic impact.

The heat transport phenomenon in which energy transfers due to temperature differences is an important topic of interest for scientists in recent times. It is because of its wide range of applications in numerous domains such as electronics, heat dispersion, thermoregulation, cooling mechanism, the managing temperature in automotive mobile engines, climate engineering, magnetoresistance devices, etc. On account of such considerations, the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) entropy rate for nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄/C₂H₆O₂) and hybrid nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄+MoS₄/C₂H₆O₂) is analyzed. The Darcy–Forchheimer relation is utilized to describe the impact of a porous medium on a stretched sheet. Two nanoparticles molybdenum (MoS₄) and cobalt ferrite (CoFe₂O₄) are combined to make hybrid nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄+MoS₄/C₂H₆O₂). Heat flux corresponds to the Cattaneo–Christov model executed through heat transfer analysis. The influence of dissipation and heat absorption/generation on energy expression for nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄+MoS₄/C₂H₆O₂) and hybrid nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄+MoS₄/C₂H₆O₂) is described.

Nonlinear partial differential expressions have been exchanged into dimensionless ordinary differential expressions using relevant transformations. Newton’s built-in shooting method is employed to achieve the required results.

Concepts of fluid flow, energy transport and entropy optimization are discussed. Computational analysis of local skin friction and Nusselt number against sundry parameters for nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄/C₂H₆O₂) and hybrid nanomaterial (CoFe₂O₄+MoS₄/C₂H₆O₂) is engrossed. Larger magnetic field parameters decay fluid flow and entropy generation, while an opposite behavior is observed for temperature. Variation in magnetic field variables and volume fractions causes the resistive force to boost up. Intensification in entropy generation can be seen for higher porosity parameters, whereas a reverse trend follows for fluid flow. Heat and local Nusselt numbers rise with an increase in thermal relaxation time parameters.

No such work is yet published in the literature.