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The objective is to address financing challenges with an innovative technical approach and provide financial support to facilitate the sustainable development of characteristic tourist towns.

In this study, a novel decision model is proposed, which utilizes the CRITIC improved G1 weighting method to analyze financing factors and applies GRA to enhance the TOPSIS model under a Z-Number fuzzy environment. Finally, sensitivity analysis and comparative assessment were conducted to validate the findings and the model.

The findings indicate that equity financing is the optimal mode of financing for characteristic tourist towns, with bond financing serving as a viable alternative. Key factors influencing financing include economic benefit, social benefit and policy risk. Managers should carefully consider these factors when selecting financing methods in order to enhance efficiency and mitigate risks.

As a new business model and value creation method of cultural and tourism integration, the financing decision of a characteristic tourism town has always been the key to the overall promotion and operation. The research constructs a financing index system for characteristic tourism towns based on benefit and risk considerations, using the hot spring town in Anhui Province, China, as a case study to evaluate eight financing models.

The present findings aim to investigate the thermal behavior of water-based nanofluid flow over a rotating surface, focusing on understanding the effects of different types of nanoparticles on thermal efficiency, considering thermal radiation and variable viscosity effects. By considering four distinct nanoparticles – silicon dioxide titanium dioxide, aluminum oxide and molybdenum disulfide – the study aims to provide insights into how nanoparticle addition influences heat production, thermal boundary layer thickness and overall thermal performance.

The study employs computational methods, utilizing the BVP mid-rich algorithm for the solution procedure. The computational approach allows for a detailed investigation of the thermal behavior of nanofluid flows across a rotating surface under varying conditions.

The study concludes that adding nanoparticles in the base liquid increases heat production in the system, resulting in enhanced thermal boundary layer thickness. The comparative analysis shows that different nanoparticle types exhibit varying effects on thermal efficiency, suggesting that careful selection of nanoparticles can optimize heat transport and thermal management processes. Moreover, there's a noteworthy uptrend in the radial velocity profile concerning the stretching parameter, whereas a converse trend is observed in the thermal profile.

This study contributes original insights by comprehensively investigating the thermal behavior of water-based hybrid nanofluid flow over a rotating surface.

This chapter critically examines the unique challenges and opportunities faced by family-owned startups in emerging economies, a topic that has received limited attention in existing literature. Recognizing the high failure rate of startups, particularly in family firms, this study seeks to understand the factors contributing to their success or failure. Employing a qualitative analysis, the chapter explores various economic, legal, and cultural dimensions that influence these businesses. It provides a comparative perspective, drawing insights from various emerging economies to identify patterns and differences in the experiences of family-owned startups. The chapter aims to fill the knowledge gap by offering a comprehensive view of the success and failure dynamics in family-owned startups, with a focus on strategic, managerial, and operational aspects. This approach offers valuable insights for both academics and practitioners, aiming to guide future research and practical interventions to support the sustainability and growth of family firms in these dynamic markets.

This paper aims to illuminate the nuanced dynamics of green supply chain management (GSCM), specifically focusing on the intersections of supplier relationships, supplier governance and organizational agility. Recognizing a gap in the understanding of how these elements confluence to promote green purchasing, the paper uses a quantitative study on data collected from the Australian food industry. Advanced analysis techniques provide empirical evidence underscoring the pivotal roles these elements play, expanding on current GSCM literature within a resource-based view.

This study, based on a questionnaire sent to Australian food professionals, used higher-order reflective constructs to assess supplier relationships and governance. Data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling and Hayes PROCESS, considering factors like firm revenue and manager experience. Both the reliability of measures and mediation hypotheses were stringently validated using established guidelines.

The comprehensive study validated supplier governance's key influence on green purchasing and supplier relationships. Notably, organizational agility emerged as a crucial mediator, underscoring the interplay of these constructs. Concurrently, the reflective measurement model exhibited robust validity and reliability. Interestingly, demographic factors such as company size, revenue and managerial experience showed no discernible impact on green purchasing practices.

In the Australian food sector, supplier governance and relationships are pivotal for advancing green purchasing. This study emphasizes the value of organizational agility in amplifying these practices. Managers, when aligning with supplier relationships enhanced by communication and mutual aid, can foster robust green initiatives. Embracing these insights and the critical importance of supplier governance, managers can drive more sustainable, informed supply chain decisions in the industry.

In pursuit of understanding the relationship between supplier governance, supplier relationships and green purchasing, this research uniquely situates itself within the resource-based view (RBV) to reveal critical theoretical and practical implications. By focusing on the Australian food industry, the study spotlights the often-overlooked mediating role of organizational agility in linking supplier relationships with green purchasing efforts. In doing so, this research not only strengthens the argument for fortified supplier relationships – as a catalyst for enhancing agility and thereby green practices – but also re-contextualizes the RBV in a fresh light. This new perspective provides managers with an enriched model, emphasizing the imperative of solid supplier governance for sustainable, agile and green supply chain operations in the food domain.

The purpose of this study is to examine the linear and non-linear relationship between capital structure (CS) and firm performance (FP) and the moderating and mediating roles of agency costs in the CS-FP nexus.

This study used static and quadratic panel data regression models to examine the linear and non-linear relationships and structured equation models to analyze the mediating effect of agency costs in the CS-FP nexus of 38 listed non-financial Mauritian firms from 2009 to 2019.

Leverage has a significant negative effect on FP supporting the pecking order theory. Agency costs are significantly and positively associated with FP. There is a strong non-linear relationship between leverage and FP supporting the trade-off and agency cost theories. Agency costs are an important moderator and mediator in the CS-FP nexus. Overall, the sensitivity analyses showed that the results were robust.

Firms need to carefully consider the levels and types of debt and equity in their CS involving the use of dynamic strategies to adjust CS in response to changing economic conditions and FP. The moderating effect of agency costs may guide firms in optimizing CS and may contribute to corporate governance discussions, emphasizing the importance of aligning interests to foster sustainable business practices.

This study adds to the extant literature by providing new evidence on the non-linear relationship between leverage and FP and the moderating and mediating roles of agency costs in the CS-FP nexus in emerging capital markets, where such studies are rare.

This chapter delves into the crucial intersection of Destination Social Responsibility (DSR) and sustainable development within the context of coastal marine tourism destinations. The research objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of how DSR practices influence the trajectory of sustainable development in these unique environments. Employing a qualitative interview with key stakeholders, content analysis of policy documents and quantitative surveys of tourists, this study endeavours to attain a holistic knowledge of the intricate dynamics at play. By triangulating these methods, we aim to establish a robust foundation for comprehending the multifaceted relationship between DSR initiatives and sustainable development outcomes. The findings reveal a nuanced interplay between DSR and sustainable development indicators. Notably, the integration of socially responsible practices positively correlates with enhanced environmental conservation efforts, increased community engagement and heightened visitor satisfaction levels. This research advances our comprehension of the interdependency between DSR and sustainable development. Hence, it is important to acknowledge its limitations. The practical implications of this study are manifold. Policymakers, destination managers, as well as industry stakeholders stand to benefit from a nuanced understanding of how DSR practices can be leveraged to drive sustainable development. This chapter is responsible for the current literature by offering an extensive analysis of the interplay between DSR as well as sustainable development in coastal marine tourism destinations. By synthesising empirical findings and theoretical frameworks, this research provides a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers and industry practitioners seeking to navigate the complex landscape of responsible tourism development.

This study investigates the influence of social media marketing (SMM) functionalities on perceived destination image (DI) and its dimensions, which in turn impact residents’ support for sustainable tourism development (SSTD). The study also examines the moderated mediation effect of the residency length and resident’s income in the indirect relationship between SMM and SSTD through the DI.

The best technique found appropriate for this study was the survey approach. To gather empirical data, people who currently reside in Alexandria completed 351 questionnaires via an online survey. The questionnaire was translated into Arabic while adhering to back-translation guidelines. SPSS and AMOS software were used to analyze the collected data.

It is found that there is a direct effect of SMM and its functionalities on overall DI and its dimensions. In addition, DI mediates the relationship between SMM and SSTD. These results hold valuable insights for academicians and practitioners in the tourism industry, potentially informing SMM strategies to support tourism activities.

This research introduces a novel framework emphasizing the functionalities of the SMM as a tool for enhancing both affective and cognitive DI and supporting sustainable tourism development. It contributes to the SMM and SSTD literature by examining the links between SMM functionalities and sustainable tourism development in emerging countries such as Egypt.

The study examines the effect of natural resources (NRs) and the control of corruption, voice and accountability and regulatory quality on carbon emissions in Africa. Aside from their individual effects, the moderation effect of institutional quality is assessed.

Data from 32 African countries from 2002 to 2021 and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) regression methods were used for the investigation.

In the long term, the NRs effect is sensitive to the estimation technique employed. However, quality regulatory framework, robust corruption control and voice and accountability abate any positive effect of NRs on carbon emissions. Institutional quality can be argued to moderate the CO2-emitting potentials of resource extraction in the selected African countries.

Enhancing regulation quality, enforcing corruption control and empowering citizens towards greater participation in governance and demanding accountability are essential catalyst to effectively mitigate CO2 emissions resulting from NRs.

The moderation effect of control of corruption, voice and accountability and regulatory quality on the NR–carbon emission nexus is examined.

Traditional library book recommendation methods are mainly based on association rules and user profiles. They may help to learn about students' interest in different types of books, e.g., students majoring in science and engineering tend to pay more attention to computer books. Nevertheless, most of them still need to identify users' interests accurately. To solve the problem, the authors propose a novel embedding-driven model called InFo, which refers to users' intrinsic interests and academic preferences to provide personalized library book recommendations.

The authors analyze the characteristics and challenges in real library book recommendations and then propose a method considering feature interactions. Specifically, the authors leverage the attention unit to extract students' preferences for different categories of books from their borrowing history, after which we feed the unit into the Factorization Machine with other context-aware features to learn students' hybrid interests. The authors employ a convolution neural network to extract high-order correlations among feature maps which are obtained by the outer product between feature embeddings.

The authors evaluate the model by conducting experiments on a real-world dataset in one university. The results show that the model outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of two metrics called Recall and NDCG.

It requires a specific data size to prevent overfitting during model training, and the proposed method may face the user/item cold-start challenge.

The embedding-driven book recommendation model could be applied in real libraries to provide valuable recommendations based on readers' preferences.

The proposed method is a practical embedding-driven model that accurately captures diverse user preferences.

The study aims to add to the existing literature on food supply chains by specifically taking into the redesigning of the alignment of storage, packaging and distribution practices in the modern complex supply chain. The redesign of the food supply chain’s storage, distribution and packaging is a transformative endeavor ultimately aimed at enhancing efficiency, sustainability and reliability.

In order to identify, classify and prioritize the main challenges, this study conducted an extensive analysis of the literature and experts’ opinions in the areas of academia, information technology and the food supply chain (FSC) using combined compromise solution method (CoCoSo) and complex proportional assessment (COPRAS).

The top three classes of key indicators revealed in this study are dynamic route optimization and on-demand delivery pods (RD4), implementation of active packaging with nanotechnology (RP3) and collaborative last-mile (RD2). The findings reveal that dynamic route optimization and on-demand delivery pods (RD4) and collaborative last-mile (RD2) are maintaining a balance between collaborative delivery networks through route optimization which is a very discussable theme in recent literature.

The research provides fresh insights into how perishable food shelf life parameters and the use of distribution networks within the short supply chain can be taken into consideration when redesigning the storage, packaging and distribution system for food supply chains.