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The purpose of this paper is to develop a transport portfolio framework (TPF) and explore its use as a decision support tool for shippers wanting to improve their transport system in terms of reducing their carbon footprint.

The TPF has been designed on the basis relevant theoretical frameworks in logistics and thereafter tested and further developed by the use of empirical data from a case study. Quantitative methods are used to find patterns in the shipment statistics for import flows obtained from a food retailer and carriers.

The TPF highlights different avenues for decreasing the carbon footprint, by identifying the product flow characteristics that might affect modal split and load factor, and it is believed that these can help shippers’ intent on analysing the largest potential for improvement. This potential is estimated based on how the key variables, modal split and load factor, can be improved.

Shippers can use the TPF as a decision support tool in their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint by: structuring complexity, managing data and finding effective solutions.

Reducing emissions is an increasingly important priority for shippers and the TPF helps them to direct their efforts towards approaches that have a substantial impact.

The TPF provides an opportunity to match different approaches for improving the environmental performance with the potential for reducing carbon footprint in shippers’ transportation networks, by taking into account the complexity of logistics network.

The purpose of the study is to develop an in-depth understanding of how supplier–buyer relationships, particularly in operational coordination, are affected when a company introduces an environmental sustainability target (CO₂ emissions reduction) into its supply chain operations. The investigation focuses on the joint activities of the logistics function of the company (buyer) and the third-party logistics providers (3PLs) (suppliers).

This single-case study takes the perspective of a sustainability-conscious Danish company that outsources logistics services to 3PLs but maintains internal logistics as a boundary function. The value offering point/order penetration point (VOP/OPP) methodology is used.

The results showed that the introduction of sustainability led to the emergence of multiple decoupling points in both the demand and the supply chains. The logistics function therefore began to play the role of “integrator” across both the functions in the company and the organizations in the supply chain. The findings indicate the need to develop clear cross-functional and inter-organizational coordination mechanisms.

This is a single-case study in a Danish context.

The study provides rich insights into managing the implementation of sustainability in supply chain operations, and it exemplifies how the VOP/OPP tool can be applied by 3PLs to develop sustainable offerings.

The current research on sustainable supply chain management takes into account the entire supply chain. In contrast, this study focuses on the logistics function. The VOP/OPP concept is used to capture the processes used in actual practice, and both the buyer and the supplier are considered potential co-producers of value.

This paper aims to examine whether government intervention acts as a substitution mechanism for laws and institutions in affecting firms’ long-term debt financing decision and the moderating effect of firm ownership on the relationship between law and finance in Chinese capital market.

This study uses ordinary least squares with standard errors clustered at the firm level in the regressions. To address the potential endogeneity problem, the authors also use the system generalized method of moments in their estimation.

The results show that both long-term bank debt and long-term bank debt maturity structure ratios are positively related to government intervention. The results also reveal that with improvement in the legal environment, public non-state-owned firms have more access to long-term bank debt in the regions where the level of government intervention is low.

Government intervention appears to replace laws and institutions in influencing the allocation of financial resources in China.

The finding suggests the necessity of increasing the protection of both creditors and investors, and shows the importance of a free and independent judiciary system in allocating funds to private firms. The results also imply that the non-state-owned Chinese firms also benefit from the improved laws and institutions.

This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.

The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.

By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.

The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.

Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.

There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.

This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.

This study aims to explore the influence of surprise and delight on the loyalty intentions of retail banking customers in an emerging market context. This study also considers the moderating effect of trust on these relationships.

Using convenience and purposive sampling methods, data collection was secured from 350 customers in the retail banking industry who are delighted with their banks.

This study found that for delightful experiences to occur, customers need to be surprised and see value in the product/service offered by the retail bank, coupled with the expertise of employees in delivering the service.

The sample’s demographic profile was mostly skewed towards the younger generation (individuals 20–39 years of ages), meaning the results could be biased towards this group.

Retail banks need to create delightful experiences, as they are more memorable and leave a permanent mark in customers’ minds.

Limited studies have explored the relationship between delight, its antecedents and outcomes in a developing African market context, such as Botswana, hence the contribution of this study to literature.

With the emergence of the concepts of lean, agile and leagile paradigms for supply chains, organizations have little idea as to which model suits them based on the their supply chain's ability to counter risks and take on the challenges of the fast changing customer preferences. This paper aims to map supply chains on these two dimensions.

A model is proposed by which suitable supply chain strategy can be selected based on customer sensitivity and risk alleviation competency dimension. Graph theoretic approach is applied to quantify these dimensions for three case supply chains.

The proposed model was tested for three Indian SMEs clusters and suitable supply chain strategy was suggested.

It is recommended that the model be tested for those supply chains which have established themselves as lean, agile or leagile entities.

Suggested model would help organizations to select suitable supply chain strategy based on customer sensitivity and risk alleviation competency and the transition required in tune with the market requirements in which they operate. Also the areas which need improvements from the perspective of risk alleviation competency or customer sensitivity can be easily delineated.

Mapping supply chains based on quantification of customer sensitivity and risk alleviation competency dimension is a novel effort in the area of supply chain management.

Large-scale projects are the typical delivery model in the engineering and construction industry, with their very own characteristics. Even though well established, only 1 in 1,000 large-scale projects is successful (Flyvbjerg, 2011). A lack of effective supply chain risk management (SCRM) has repeatedly been identified as one of the main causes. While the SCRM body of knowledge seems increasingly well established, a lack of effective methods meeting the specific requirements of large-scale projects can be observed.

This paper presents a structured and prioritized view on the supply chain risk portfolio in this sector: first, the authors identified and categorized the key supply chain risks in the recent literature. Next, the authors surveyed large-scale project managers across multiple industries, mainly coming from the domains of supply chain management and project management. Finally, the authors provide a contextualized risk taxonomy for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects.

The identified risk portfolio deviates from generic projects significantly and shows a very high inherent risk exposure of large-scale projects. In particular, behavioral risks are identified as crucial. Additionally, a bias to considerably underestimate risks at project beginning is found.

The contextualized SCRM taxonomy offers a systematic and structured view on the key supply chain risks in EPC large-scale projects. The identified risks are considerably different in their characteristics compared to generic projects or classical SCRM approaches. The authors thus provide a new perspective on SCRM in this specific setting and complement traditional risk and project risk management techniques.

Organizations, would they be individual companies or large multi-firm networks, face a wide variety of potential risks requiring dedicated keen management. It all the better applies to supply-chains as risk, related to both physical and information flows, pervades the whole logistics network and has acquired a new and growing security dimension since 9/11. More specifically, as they are now under the permanent threat of terrorism, and because offering sufficient security levels is bound to become a necessary condition for global supply-chain membership, seaports need to adjust their risk management strategy and processes accordingly. In such a context, this paper aims at describing the project of a decision-support system, dedicated to container transit security-wise decision making and which features an expert-system architecture.

The article discusses Outward Bound's participation in the human potential movement through its incorporation of T-group practices and the reform language of experiential education in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The article reports on original research conducted using materials from Dartmouth College and other Outward Bound collections from 1957 to 1976. It follows a case study approach to illustrate themes pertaining to Outward Bound's creation and evolution in the United States, and the establishment of experiential education more broadly.

Building on prior research (Freeman, 2011; Millikan, 2006), the present article elaborates on the conditions under which Outward Bound abandoned muscular Christianity in favor of humanistic psychology. Experiential education provided both a set of practices and a reform language that helped Outward Bound expand into the educational mainstream, which also helped to extend self-expressive pedagogies into formal and nonformal settings.

The Dartmouth Outward Bound Center's tenure coincided with and reflected broader cultural changes, from the cold war motif of spiritual warfare, frontier masculinity and national service to the rise of self-expression in education. Future scholars can situate specific curricular initiatives in the context of these paradigms, particularly in outdoor education.

The article draws attention to one of the forms that the human potential movement took in education – experiential education – and the reasons for its adoption. It also reinforces emerging understandings of post-WWII American outdoor education as a product of the cold war and reflective of subsequent changes in the wider culture to a narrower focus on the self.