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The distinctiveness of Japanese management practices offers invaluable insights for the strategic development and operational excellence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) worldwide. Recognizing this, the purpose of this study is to explore an extensive review of the literature on Japanese SMEs. The aim is to reveal previously explored research domains and to systematically categorize the unique factors contributing to the success and challenges of SMEs. This investigation not only illuminates the peculiarities of Japanese SMEs management but also sets the stage for applying these insights globally to SMEs across diverse industries.

Using a systematic review approach, 63 studies on Japanese SMEs from 1996 to 2021 were identified and analyzed.

This analysis identified six critical themes in Japanese SME management: nuanced firm management practices; forefront innovation and technology; internationalization; supportive government policies; commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development; and vibrant entrepreneurship. The authors also spotlight challenges like navigating global competition and adapting to rapid technological changes. These insights, alongside noted methodological gaps in existing literature, suggest fertile grounds for future research and hold significant implications for SMEs globally.

The investigation of Japanese SMEs in this study highlights valuable insights for SMEs, policymakers and scholars, as it represents a rich and distinctive research phenomenon with various organizational, cultural, economic and political implications.

The relationships between transformational leadership (TL), organizational climate (OC) and project performance have been investigated by previous studies, but no review of existing studies has systematically analyzed the effects of TL and OC on project performance in the industrial revolution (IR) 5.0 era. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a systematic literature review on the effects of TL and OC on project performance in IR 5.0, and to identify mainstream research topics, research gaps and future research directions.

To do this, a total of 53 included journal articles were obtained after initially retrieving 648 documents from the Scopus database by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. It consists of four main steps, namely, identification of documents, screening, eligibility and included articles. In addition, science mapping analyses were conducted for keyword co-occurrence and document analyses, which aided in identifying the mainstream research topics, research gaps and future research directions.

The results report the annual publication trends, keywords and document analyses. Furthermore, a detailed qualitative discussion highlighted four mainstream research topics including TL in project management; the relationship between TL, OC and innovation; safety climate; and OC in project management. Moreover, this review study identified four research gaps and future research directions aligned with the mainstream research topics. They include: longitudinal investigations and multinational corporation surveys in TL; scope and longitudinal data in innovation; mono-method bias and universality of safety climate; and more comprehensive analyses of OC.

This review study would contribute to not only advancing the effects of TL and OC on project performance in IR 5.0, but also enabling project managers to understand TL or OC issues to improve project performance.

Energy security has been talked about by governments and policymakers because the global energy market is unstable and greenhouse gas emissions threaten the long-term health of the global environment. One of the most potent ways to cut CO₂ emissions is through the production and consumption of renewable energy. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the drivers that, if ambitious environmental policies are implemented, might improve energy security or prevent its deterioration.

The study uses a balanced panel data set for Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam that covers a period of 30 years (1990–2020). The pooled panel dynamic least squares is used in this study.

The findings show that renewable energy consumption is positively related to gross domestic product per capita, energy intensity per capita and renewable energy installed capacity. Wherein renewable energy use is inversely related to per capita electricity consumption, CO₂ emissions and the use of fossil fuel electricity.

There is a lack of research identifying the factors influencing energy security in the ASEAN region. Therefore, this study focuses on the drivers that influence energy security, which are explained by the proportion of renewable energy in final energy consumption. Without identifying the demand and supply sources of energy, especially electricity production based on renewable energy techniques, it is hard for policymakers to achieve the desired renewable energy-based outcome.

Latin American countries must prioritize energy efficiency and renewable energies in their energy policies. This has been debated for the past few decades. However, it is impossible to deny that energy efficiency and renewable energies have significant potential to mitigate the adverse effects of ever-increasing energy consumption induced by economic growth and the transformation of societies toward more energy-intensive models. This chapter identifies how sustainable energy policies could be considered successful in various Latin American economies through an active review and comparison of traditional energy models and their transition and respective consequences. The chapter concludes that there are national energy plans in countries in the region with a sustainable approach, and that clean energy and renewable sources have great potential. But it is also concluded that there is still a long way to go concerning legislation and legal frameworks.

This study aims to investigate the effect of spray drying temperature and maltodextrin addition on the contents of phenolics, flavonoids, anthocyanins and antioxidant activities (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl [DPPH] radical scavenging activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power and reducing power) of karonda powder.

Over the past few decades, the demands for application of natural colorants in food production have been attracting the attention of academic research and food industry. Anthocyanins, a red pigment commonly found on plants, show high potentials in the preparation of spray-dried pigment powder. This study, therefore, was conducted using full factorial design with two factors, namely, inlet temperature (150°C and 160°C) and soluble solid concentration (10, 15 and 20°Brix) with maltodextrin as carrier to produce pigment powder from karonda, an anthocyanin-rich fruit which is native to southeast Asia.

Increasing soluble solid content from 10 to 15°Brix resulted in a 42%–57% reduction in phenolic, flavonoid and anthocyanin contents. However, when increasing the amount of maltodextrin from 15 to 20°Brix, a lower reduction (approximately 11%–19%) was observed. In samples with the same °Brix, there was no significant variation in antioxidant contents and activities, especially at high maltodextrin ratios. In addition, the reducing power of samples dried at higher temperature (160°C) was higher than that of samples dried at lower temperature. Karonda spray-dried powder showed a good positive correlation (p < 0.01) between antioxidant contents and DPPH• activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, in this study, for the first time, the effect of spray drying conditions on the quality of karonda powder was investigated.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the synergy between sectoral output, energy use and CO₂ emission with other factors for a panel of South Asian economies including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The analysis is done using annual panel data from 1980–2019 using dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and Toda-Yamamoto techniques.

Empirical findings reveal the existence of a statistically significant long-run cointegrating relationship between energy use, sectoral output such as agricultural, industry and service gross domestic product (GDP), globalization, urbanization and CO₂ emission. DOLS and FMOLS result posits that in the case of the South Asian region agriculture GDP does not contribute to increasing CO₂ emission while service and industrial GDP is responsible for increasing CO₂ emission along with urban population, energy use and to some extent globalization. More remarkably, the contribution of the service GDP is greater than the other two sectoral outputs in increasing CO₂ emission with a feedback hypothesis.

As CO₂ emission is a global phenomenon with a cross-boundary effect, these empirical findings might contribute to formulating implementable energy and environmental policies to sustain growth, as well as to protect the environment in the regional context.

The study contributes to the literature by providing an empirical investigation of South Asia incorporating the contribution of sectoral output to understand the potential contribution of each sector on energy and emission. This is the first study on the South Asian context from the perspective of sectoral output, energy and emission.

The complexity of projects has become a serious issue and obstacle in their successful completion. In order to overcome these complexities, it has become imperative to identify the relevant management competencies of project managers. The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of cost, time and scope in engineering infrastructure projects due to their complexities through management competencies.

In the first phase of the study, 32 experts were interviewed through semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire. In this phase, essential elements of complexities were identified initially. This was followed by finding required dimensions of competencies to counter these complexities and to acquire improved performance. In the final stage, required levels of competencies for specific elements of complexity were identified. In the second phase, 85 “project managers” were also approached to get feedback about their recently completed public sector engineering infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

The study identified additional dimensions, i.e. honesty, enthusiasm and dedication, in the case of competencies and adverse law and order situation, political instability, land issues, energy crisis and weak authorization of project managers in the case of complexities. Leadership, management skill, communication skill, effectiveness and result orientation were identified as top quality traits required. The study concluded that there is a significant impact of management competencies and complexities on project performance.

The study contributes to a better understanding of how to improve performance in complex engineering infrastructure projects through adopting management competencies. It also empirically illustrates the relations among project management competencies, complexities and project performance. Although the research is grounded on public sector infrastructure projects, its findings may also be helpful for practices in project management of other sectors.