Search Results (12,121)

This study examines how tourism platform ecosystems have evolved into mechanisms supporting sustainable, resilient, and digitally transformed tourism systems amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies, and data-driven platform governance. While previous research has extensively explored smart tourism technologies and digital transformation, limited attention has been devoted to understanding how tourism platforms have evolved from digital infrastructures into ecosystem-level coordination mechanisms shaping sustainability, resilience, adaptive governance, and digitally mediated stakeholder interactions in tourism marketing. To address this gap, the study develops a longitudinal evolutionary analysis of tourism platform ecosystems by combining a bibliometric analysis of 447 Web of Science-indexed publications (2015–2026) with an exploratory discourse analysis of Booking.com corporate communications. The findings reveal a progressive transformation of tourism platforms from digital infrastructure ecosystems (2015–2019) to adaptive coordination systems (2020–2022) and, ultimately, to AI-driven intelligent ecosystem orchestrators (2023–2026). Across these stages, tourism research increasingly integrates AI-enabled personalization, conversational interaction, immersive technologies, ecosystem governance, sustainability coordination, destination resilience, predictive analytics, and customer engagement. The study proposes a longitudinal evolutionary framework explaining how tourism platforms transition toward intelligent ecosystem orchestration supporting sustainability-oriented governance, adaptive destination management, personalized visitor experiences, and long-term competitiveness. The framework advances an ecosystem intelligence perspective that extends existing digitalization and technology-adoption narratives within tourism research. Full article

Limited access to quality seed constrains vegetable productivity and food security in Uganda, where informal seed systems remain central to farmers’ access to seed but are inadequately documented and largely unregulated. This study documented vegetable seed production and management practices, identified opportunities and constraints within informal seed systems, and examined the role of community seed banks in strengthening seed security. Using a mixed-method approach, quantitative surveys and key informant interviews were conducted with seed producers, seed traders, and community seed bank leaders across Uganda. Study respondents were predominantly men, with most respondents aged ≥35 years, despite women’s and youth’s primary role in vegetable production. Respondents reported key seed management constraints of seed storage pests, low-quality seeds, inconsistent market supply and price fluctuations, limited capital, and weak regulatory oversight. Seed treatment practices primarily consisted of sun-drying and plant-based pesticides, while seed quality assessment relied largely on experience and visual inspection, using cues such as seed color, size, and cleanliness, with limited use of standardized testing. Given that most vegetable growers obtain seeds through community-based seed channels, strengthening actors’ capacity to produce and supply high-quality seed is essential for sustaining vegetable production, improving farmer incomes, and enhancing food and nutrition security. Full article

Global angel investment and venture capital are key financial drivers supporting the long-term growth of technology companies, and they play a vital role in improving the global science and technology innovation financial system and advancing green and sustainable transformation. This paper uses data on technology-sector companies listed on the A-share market from 2017 to 2025 to construct a multi-period DID model. It empirically examines the impact of angel investment and venture capital on the sustainable development of technology companies and investigates the moderating effect of ESG performance. The study finds that angel investment can significantly enhance the level of sustainable development in technology firms. Mechanism tests indicate that angel investment indirectly empowers sustainable development by attracting and introducing venture capital. The moderating effect shows that strong ESG performance positively reinforces the promotional role of angel investment and venture capital in the sustainable development of technology firms. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these enhancement and moderating effects are more pronounced in high-tech industries, private enterprises, and asset-light technology firms. These findings provide empirical evidence and policy guidance for governments worldwide to direct venture capital toward supporting science and technology enterprises, help technology firms improve their ESG governance systems, and achieve long-term sustainable operations. Full article

The surging integration of volatile renewable energy severely exacerbates power grid frequency fluctuations, yet conventional frequency regulation (FR) market clearing mechanisms fail to efficiently coordinate heterogeneous energy storage systems (ESSs) due to the complete decoupling of multi-dimensional physical performance from economic dispatch. To resolve this critical industry bottleneck, this paper proposes a novel Stackelberg game-based clearing mechanism tailored for diverse ESS participation. A bi-level optimization framework is constructed to internalize physical FR characteristics into market economics; the upper level minimizes the system operator’s total procurement costs by transforming multi-dimensional physical metrics—including dynamic response rates, time delays, and control accuracy—into endogenous performance penalty factors. Concurrently, the lower level maximizes the individual revenues of heterogeneous ESS aggregators under a Gini coefficient-based fairness constraint to mitigate profit monopolization and promote a more sustainable market ecology. To address the computational challenges of high-dimensional non-convexity, an enhanced hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Quadratic Programming (GA-QP) solver is developed to secure robust convergence to the Stackelberg equilibrium. Comprehensive simulation results confirm that the proposed Stackelberg game-based clearing mechanism enables a highly rational, quality-driven allocation of frequency regulation capacity. By dynamically linking physical performance metrics with economic benefit factors, it successfully achieves an optimal balance of interests between heterogeneous energy storage aggregators and the overarching market. Crucially, compared to conventional purely economic models, this mechanism structurally prevents absolute technology monopoly—drastically reducing the market Gini coefficient from a hazardous 0.85 to a healthy 0.32—while sustaining multi-party equity at a negligible system cost increase of only 1.64%. Ultimately, this framework offers a highly feasible and resilient solution for the efficient clearing of multi-type energy storage in modern power systems. Full article

Geopolitical uncertainty represents a growing source of systemic risk that reshapes international markets, disrupts cross-border operations, and challenges firms’ ability to sustain financial performance. This research examines the mechanisms through which geopolitical instability relates to firm financial outcomes in Southeast Asian economies by assessing the mediating roles of supply chain resilience, currency volatility, and foreign investment confidence. Based on a quantitative cross-sectional design, data were collected from 308 firms across Southeast Asian Economies and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that geopolitical risks significantly influence financial performance, with the strongest effects transmitted through financial channels. Currency volatility and foreign investment confidence emerge as critical mediators, demonstrating that exchange rate instability and investor risk perceptions substantially shape firm performance under geopolitical pressure. While supply chain resilience enhances firms’ capacity to adapt to external disruptions, its direct contribution to financial performance remains insignificant. The model explains 66.7% of the variance in financial performance, reflecting strong explanatory capability. These findings extend existing knowledge by integrating financial, operational, and institutional mechanisms to clarify how geopolitical disruptions propagate into firm-level outcomes. The results underscore the importance of financial preparedness, institutional effectiveness, governance quality, and adaptive capabilities in managing geopolitical uncertainty. Full article

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has faced sustained legitimacy stress since 2023, when peer-reviewed work found that fewer than one in six issued credits represented a real emission reduction. In parallel, tokenisation through Web3 protocols, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), and regenerative finance (ReFi) infrastructures introduced new participants interacting with incumbent registries without a shared coordination framework. Existing scholarship examines commons governance, complex system governance (CSG), and tokenised carbon markets largely in isolation; the gap addressed here is the absence of an integrated system-of-systems (SoS) governance treatment of the tokenised VCM. This study develops and empirically applies a polycentric SoS governance framework for the tokenised VCM, structured around four research questions and five foundational contributions. We treat the tokenised VCM as an SoS that is polycentric in configuration but not by design, and develop a system-of-systems engineering (SoSE) governance reading of it. We reformulate Ostrom’s eight design principles as SoS governance criteria for digital–physical hybrid commons, map each to CSG metasystem functions, and apply the framework to four cases: KlimaDAO, Toucan Protocol, Regen Network, and the post-2023 Verra reforms. Qualitative coding is complemented by on-chain and Base Carbon Tonne spot-price evidence from October 2021 to December 2025. Disclosure by an analytical intermediary acted on the SoS roughly seven weeks before formal regulatory action and was associated with about 90% of the observed bridging slowdown, interpreted descriptively rather than causally. We derive an eight-item reform agenda, six DAO–registry interface specifications, and a five-level governance maturity rubric. Full article

China is a major producer, consumer, and exporter of automobiles. As an important component of the national industrial system, the automotive industry is associated with strong economic support functions, notable industrial spillover effects, and significant technological externalities, and its core values constitute a powerful driving force in achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals. Accordingly, this paper establishes a complex network evolutionary game model that involves two types of automobile manufacturers (established and latecomer automakers) in a strategic interaction within an exogenous environment jointly shaped by the government and the consumer community. We conduct a numerical simulation analysis to explore the organic relationships between the core elements within the system and the long-term performance of the automotive industry. The main findings are as follows. First, in adopting sustainable business models (SBMs), latecomer automakers exhibit a “high-start, low-end” evolutionary trajectory, whereas established automakers follow a “low-start, high-end” convergence path. Second, regarding the characteristics of game rules, the proportion of automakers that adopt SBMs is positively correlated with a larger proportion of ESG consumer groups, stronger comprehensive production and consumption subsidy standards, a more favorable expected payoff, and stronger market advantages on the part of established automakers. Finally, regarding network-structure characteristics, the proportion of automakers that adopt SBMs is positively correlated with a moderate total number of automakers, a reasonable proportion of established automakers, and a higher edge-addition probability. Moreover, this proportion is nearly independent of the noise interference coefficient, thus indicating that the mathematical model constructed as part of this study exhibits strong anti-interference capability. Full article

Rapid urbanisation across the Global South has intensified contestation over sidewalk space, where formal planning collides with informal livelihoods. Street vending, central to the urban economy, is routinely framed as disorder and met with exclusionary interventions that overlook its socio-spatial logic. This paper asks who holds the right to the sidewalk in intermediary cities, and how planning can move from displacement toward negotiated coexistence. Using Ben Guerir, Morocco, as a case, the study integrates Space Syntax (global integration Rn, ArcGIS Pro), 60 h of behavioural mapping across 18 sessions recording 158 vendors in three daily time-bands, and a stratified perception survey (n = 120: 60 pedestrians, 30 vendors, 30 shopkeepers). Vending concentrates in the most integrated segments of the urban grid, follows pedestrian rhythms across the day, and persists despite the formal Souk Al Karama market, which remains underutilised due to its spatial isolation. The contribution is threefold: (i) extending Space Syntax and Right to the City scholarship to an under-studied intermediary-city context; (ii) showing empirically that informal vending is a spatially rational adaptation to urban accessibility, not encroachment; and (iii) translating findings into operational principles for inclusive sidewalk governance, advancing Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 11. Full article

Against the backdrop of the dual convergence of the digital economy and sustainable development strategies, digital innovation has emerged as a pivotal driver for reshaping firms’ competitive advantages and fulfilling social responsibilities. In this study, the analysis draws on a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2014 to 2023. ESG performance is measured with Hua Zheng ESG scores, digital innovation is captured via digital patent identification, and a dual-mediation framework is employed to examine internal organizational and external supply chain mechanisms, along with heterogeneity analysis. The findings indicate that digital innovation exerts a significant positive effect on ESG performance and reveal a unique dual mediating mechanism: within the internal boundary of the firm, digital innovation releases available organizational slack significantly through internal resource orchestration, and this abundant slack provides a necessary resource buffer for ESG investment; within the external network of the firm, digital innovation reduces supplier concentration significantly, thereby enhancing bargaining and supply chain discourse power, which in turn improves corporate ESG performance. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that the promoting effect of digital innovation on ESG performance is more pronounced in subsamples characterized by CEO duality, low technological intensity, and high levels of marketization. By drawing on the resource-based view and resource dependence theory respectively to explain internal and external mediating pathways, this study advances understanding of the complementary mechanisms through which digital innovation enhances ESG performance. It demonstrates how digital innovation comprehensively reshapes firm capabilities, providing valuable insights for formulating strategic ESG initiatives in the digital era. Full article

Artificial intelligence, digital payments and platform-based services are reshaping the operating conditions of Africa’s informal economy and micro-enterprise sector. While mobile money, digital marketplaces, app-mediated logistics and algorithmic scoring systems are commonly presented as instruments of financial inclusion and enterprise modernisation, their effects on informal traders remain uneven, conditional and under-governed. This systematic review synthesises recent peer-reviewed evidence on AI-mediated digitalisation pathways for informal and micro-enterprises in Africa, with particular attention to mobile money, platform payments, app-based logistics, digital credit, algorithmic management and platform governance. Following PRISMA-informed systematic review procedures, this review analyses 60 peer-reviewed, DOI-bearing articles published between April 2022 and June 2026 through a mechanism–outcome synthesis approach. The final corpus was selected through database searching, duplicate removal, title-and-abstract screening, full-text eligibility assessment, quality appraisal and mechanism–outcome coding. The findings show that digitalisation can expand market access, reduce cash-handling risks, create transaction histories, strengthen customer reach, improve operational continuity and support household resilience. However, the same digital infrastructures may also intensify livelihood vulnerability through opaque scoring, unexplained account freezes, fee shocks, exclusionary verification procedures, algorithmic ranking losses, data extraction and weak dispute-resolution mechanisms. The review therefore argues that informal enterprise digitalisation should not be understood only as a technology adoption issue, but as a socio-technical systems governance challenge. The article contributes a governance-and-risk framework linking local infrastructure, platform and payment design, AI (artificial intelligence) mediation, adoption conditions and livelihood outcomes. It further identifies minimum policy and design protections required for inclusive and resilient participation, including transparent fees, proportionate verification, human appeal channels, explainable restrictions, data-use consent, timely settlement and contingency mechanisms during digital outages or erroneous flags. The review concludes that sustainable digital inclusion for African informal micro-enterprises depends not merely on access to digital tools, but on the fairness, transparency, recoverability and accountability of the systems through which traders participate. Full article

This original empirical study examines how online discourse on fair tourism in Korea was structured and transformed during the post-pandemic tourism transition. Using unstructured online text data collected from Korean digital platforms, the study compares two periods: the pandemic continuation and early tourism recovery period (1 June 2020–31 May 2023) and the post-endemic tourism restructuring period (1 June 2023–31 May 2026). Fair tourism is conceptualized as a practical and policy-oriented discourse that connects local participation, benefit distribution, market fairness, destination governance, and tourism justice, rather than as a simple synonym for sustainable or responsible tourism. After text cleaning, morphological analysis, and keyword refinement, the top 50 core keywords for each period were analyzed using frequency analysis, degree and closeness centrality analysis, semantic network visualization, and CONCOR analysis. The results show that first-period discourse centered on regions, public policy, support projects, fair ecotourism, the social economy, resident participation, and local recovery. In contrast, second-period discourse was more strongly associated with foreign tourists, international tourism recovery, accommodation and service use, price fairness, overcharging and unfairness controversies, and sustainable destination governance. This study extends fair tourism research by revealing how fair tourism is constructed and rearticulated through digitally mediated public discourse. Full article

Lignin valorization represents a key opportunity for advancing sustainable and circular bio-based economies, yet its techno-economic feasibility remains uncertain due to feedstock variability and limited process standardization. This study aims to critically assess the current state of lignin valorization by analyzing process modelling, simulation-based techno-economic studies, and evaluating the market of major lignin-derived products. Data from the literature were used to estimate process yields, energy requirements, and economic indicators such as net present value and payback selling price across multiple conversion pathways. The analysis shows that economic performance strongly depends on both lignin type and targeted product. High-value, low-volume products such as vanillin and phenolic compounds emerge as the most economically promising despite relatively low yields, while bulk chemicals and fuels, including BTX aromatics, remain less competitive under current technological conditions. Lignin-based carbon fibers and resins exhibit significant potential in advanced materials applications, although their large-scale deployment is still constrained by high production costs and intermediate technology readiness levels. Overall, the results highlight that improved feedstock standardization, process integration, and data reliability are essential to enhance comparability and scalability. A more targeted alignment between lignin types and applications, supported by coordinated research and policy frameworks, is necessary to accelerate the transition toward commercially viable lignin-based value chains. Full article

This study provides a stakeholder-based assessment of the drivers, barriers, and strategic priorities shaping energy efficiency (EE) adoption across Egypt’s private sector, focusing on the industry, buildings, and transport sectors. Drawing on 17 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from government, industry, finance, academia, and development organizations, the study identifies the main factors influencing EE implementation. The findings show that sustainability objectives, particularly carbon reduction commitments and compliance with environmental regulations, alongside donor-funded grants and green finance instruments, are the primary drivers of EE uptake. However, progress remains constrained by institutional and financial barriers, including weak enforcement mechanisms, fragmented governance, limited policy coordination, high upfront costs, restricted access to finance, inflexible banking conditions, and the absence of a domestic EE finance market. Technical and awareness-related challenges further hinder implementation. While gender-related barriers were generally perceived as limited, the analysis revealed underlying disparities in women’s leadership and decision-making roles. Financial barriers represented the largest share across all sectors, while institutional barriers ranked second. The absence of enforcement mechanisms was the most significant individual constraint, cited by 13 out of 17 respondents, followed by limited access to finance (10 out of 17) and high upfront costs (9 out of 17). The study highlights the need for stronger regulatory frameworks, clearer institutional mandates, accessible financing mechanisms, and the integration of gender perspectives to accelerate EE adoption and support Egypt’s sustainable energy transition. Full article

Increasingly stringent regulations regarding climate policy and the sustainable development paradigm determine the transformation of contemporary multi-family housing typology, manifested by a growing share of single-aspect micro-apartments (units with exterior exposure on only one facade). This article identifies the phenomenon of the energy-efficiency paradox, wherein highly insulated buildings successfully trap winter heat but inadvertently escalate summer cooling demands. Consequently, the primary operational challenge becomes limiting excessive solar heat gains in summer, which directly translates into high cooling energy demand, rather than solely mitigating heat losses in winter. Sustainable construction requires moving beyond the narrowly defined reduction of envelope thermal transmittance towards holistic adaptation to climate change and ensuring adequate indoor environmental quality. The methodology is based on a coupled energy-economic analysis, evaluating thermal balances and their direct financial implications for end-users. The variant analysis of solar heat gains conducted for a reference 30 m² dwelling in Warsaw proves that architectural optimization should not be determined solely by short-term investment profit maximization. Effective engineering optimization in construction requires the implementation of a full building life cycle perspective. Unfavorable glazing orientation and the lack of cross-ventilation necessitate the use of energy-intensive air-conditioning systems, which directly increases the building’s carbon footprint and generates hidden operating costs (differences reaching over 145 PLN annually for heating and approximately 70 PLN for cooling). The findings highlight the necessity for a critical reevaluation of design priorities for compact apartments, integrating social justice (by reducing information asymmetry in the real estate market, where buyers are often unaware of these future cooling burdens) with long-term economic rationality and the resilience of the built environment to extreme weather events. Full article

The Brazilian Amazon is a contested frontier, shaped by destructive and conservationist forces. Most forest clearing is driven by agro-extractivism, an agrarian pathway based on raw commodity production. The socio-biodiversity economy (SBE) has emerged in response, widely regarded as a transformative agrarian pathway capable of reconciling environmental conservation and rural livelihoods. However, recent research suggests that, as socio-biodiversity products scale up, agro-extractivist dynamics can be reproduced within the SBE. We examine this tension in the cocoa frontier of the Transamazon, where cocoa is institutionally promoted as an SBE alternative. We conduct an exploratory, mixed-methods study combining a geospatial analysis of land use and land cover (LULC) change (2020–2025, random forest classification) with a qualitative analysis drawing on participatory mapping and 87 semi-structured interviews with farmers, cooperatives, buyers, and institutional actors. Using a gradient framework, we read LULC transitions and farmers’ land use practices along an agro-extractivism–SBE continuum. The cocoa frontier emerges as a hybrid geography. The landscape is predominantly stable but internally reorganizing: anthropogenic forest declines while full-sun monoculture expands over pasture, with intensification concentrated in peri-urban areas and restoration in remote ones. Land use practices form five recurring configurations, two firmly anchored at the socio-biodiversity or agro-extractivist poles and three whose alignment with the SBE depends on access to markets, knowledge, and institutions. We argue that the frontier contestation unfolds not only between distinct economies but within the cocoa economy itself, and we identify the policy areas relevant to sustaining SBE-oriented practices in the Transamazon. More broadly, this study suggests that the classification of Amazonian forest-based economies as inherent alternatives to agro-extractivism should be treated as an empirical question rather than an assumption. Full article