Lanjing Wang and Pratibha Rani
In recent years, a number of researchers have attempted to make an integration of sustainability with supply chain risk management. These studies have led to valued insights into…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, a number of researchers have attempted to make an integration of sustainability with supply chain risk management. These studies have led to valued insights into this issue, though there is still a lack of knowledge about the mechanisms by which sustainability-related issues are materialized as risks in the supply chain management.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper aims to provide a comprehensive framework to evaluate the sustainability risk in the supply chain management mechanism. To do so, a novel approach using the double normalization-based multiple aggregation (DNMA) approach under the intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) environment is extended to identify, rank and evaluate the sustainability risk factors in supply chain management.
Findings
To provide comprehensive sustainability risk factors, this study has conducted a survey using interview and literature review. In this regard, this study identified 36 sustainability risk factors in supply chain management of the manufacturing firms in five different groups of risk, including sustainable operational risk factors, economic risk factors, environmental risk factors, social risk factors, and sustainable distribution and recycling risk factors. The results of this paper found that the poor planning and scheduling was the important sustainability risk in supply chain management of the manufacturing firms, followed by the environmental accidents, production capacity risk, product design risk and exploitative hiring policies. In addition, the results of the study found that the extended approach was effective and efficient in evaluating the sustainability risk factors in supply chain management of the manufacturing firms.
Originality/value
Three aggregation methods based on the normalization techniques are discussed. A DNMA method is proposed under intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs). To propose a broad procedure for identifying and classifying sustainability risk factors (ESFs) in supply chain management. To rank the sustainability risk factor, the authors utilize a procedure for evaluating the significance degree of the sustainability risk factor in supply chain management.
Details
Keywords
Lu An, Chuanming Yu, Xia Lin, Tingyao Du, Liqin Zhou and Gang Li
The purpose of this paper is to identify salient topic categories and outline their evolution patterns and temporal trends in microblogs on a public health emergency across…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify salient topic categories and outline their evolution patterns and temporal trends in microblogs on a public health emergency across different stages. Comparisons were also examined to reveal the similarities and differences between those patterns and trends on microblog platforms of different languages and from different nations.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 459,266 microblog entries about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 on Twitter and Weibo were collected for nine months after the inception of the outbreak. Topics were detected by the latent Dirichlet allocation model and classified into several categories. The daily tweets were analyzed with the self-organizing map technique and labeled with the most salient topics. The investigated time span was divided into three stages, and the most salient topic categories were identified for each stage.
Findings
In total, 14 salient topic categories were identified in microblogs about the Ebola outbreak and were summarized as increasing, decreasing, fluctuating or ephemeral types. The topical evolution patterns of microblogs and temporal trends for topic categories vary on different microblog platforms. Twitter users were keen on the dynamics of the Ebola outbreak, such as status description, secondary events and so forth, while Weibo users focused on background knowledge of Ebola and precautions.
Originality/value
This study revealed evolution patterns and temporal trends of microblog topics on a public health emergency. The findings can help administrators of public health emergencies and microblog communities work together to better satisfy information needs and physical demands by the public when public health emergencies are in progress.