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This study aims to examine the blockchain landscape in supply chain management by drawing insights from academic and industry literature. It identifies the key drivers, categorizes the products involved and highlights the business values achieved by early adopters of blockchain technology within the supply chain domain. Additionally, it explores fingerprinting techniques to establish a robust connection between physical products and the blockchain ledger.

The authors combined the interpretive sensemaking systematic literature review to offer insights into how organizations interpreted their business challenges and adopted blockchain technology in their specific supply chain context; content analysis (using Leximancer automated text mining software) for concept mapping visualization, facilitating the identification of key themes, trends and relationships, and qualitative thematic analysis (NVivo) for data organization, coding and enhancing the depth and efficiency of analysis.

The findings highlight the transformative potential of blockchain technology and offer valuable insights into its implementation in optimizing supply chain operations. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of product provenance information to consumers, with blockchain technology offering certainty and increasing customer loyalty toward brands that prioritize transparency.

This research has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, there is a possibility that some relevant investigations may have been missed or omitted, which could impact the findings. In addition, the limited availability of literature on blockchain adoption in supply chains may restrict the scope of the conclusions. The evolving nature of blockchain adoption in supply chains also poses a limitation. As the technology is in its infancy, the authors expect that a rapidly emerging body of literature will provide more extensive evidence-based general conclusions in the future. Another limitation is the lack of information contrasting academic and industry research, which could have provided more balanced insights into the technology’s advancement. The authors attributed this limitation to the narrow collaborations between academia and industry in the field of blockchain for supply chain management.

Practitioners recognize the potential of blockchain in addressing industry-specific challenges, such as ensuring transparency and data provenance. Understanding the benefits achieved by early adopters can serve as a starting point for companies considering blockchain adoption. Blockchain technology can verify product origin, enable truthful certifications and comply with established standards, reinforcing trust among stakeholders and customers. Thus, implementing blockchain solutions can enhance brand reputation and consumer confidence by ensuring product authenticity and quality. Based on the results, companies can align their strategies and initiatives with their needs and expectations.

In essence, the integration of blockchain technology within supply chain provenance initiatives not only influences economic aspects but also brings substantial social impacts by reinforcing consumer trust, encouraging sustainable and ethical practices, combating product counterfeiting, empowering stakeholders and contributing to a more responsible, transparent and progressive socioeconomic environment.

This study consolidates current knowledge on blockchain’s capacity and identifies the specific drivers and business values associated with early blockchain adoption in supply chain provenance. Furthermore, it underscores the critical role of product fingerprinting techniques in supporting blockchain for supply chain provenance, facilitating more robust and efficient supply chain operations.

The recent surge in behavioral studies on the coordination mechanisms in supply chains (SCs) and advanced methods highlights the role of SC coordination (SCC) and behavioral issues associated with improving the performance of the operations. This study aims to critically review the behavioral aspect of channel coordination mechanisms.

Following a systematic literature review methodology, the authors adopt a combination of bibliometric (to reflect the current state of the field), content (using Leximancer data mining software to develop thematic maps) and theory-oriented qualitative analyzes that provide a holistic conceptual framework to unify the literature’s critical concepts.

The analysis confirms the plethora of risk-oriented publications, demonstrating that the second largest category of studies is concerned with social preferences theory. Most studies were based on experiments, followed by analytical modeling, revealing the impact of heuristics and individual preferences in SC decisions and suggesting promising managerial and theoretical avenues for future research.

The study sheds light on behavioral decision theories applied to SC coordination by categorizing the literature based on the adopted theories. The methodological contributions include using automated content analysis and validating the outcome by interviewing leading scholars conducting active research on “behavioral operations management and SC contracts.” The authors also propose several directions for future research based on the research gaps.

This chapter explores the role that social media can play to support entrepreneurs in managing complex interfirm communities. As companies increasingly operate in highly connected environments, it is important to move beyond corporate networks, and understand and build corporate social communities (CSCs) that underpin organizations.

The authors conducted 14 case studies at member firms of GS1 Australia — a not-for-profit association dedicated to the development, implementation, and promotion of information technology standards to improve supply chain management.

The gathered data illustrate a number of common challenges managers typically encounter in their supply chain operations. In response to these challenges, the authors propose distinct ways in which CSCs can leverage and transform interfirm relationships and support operational goals.

The empirical investigations were limited to the supply chain context, and Australian companies. The benefits pertinent to CSCs were only explored conceptually. Further studies should address these limitations.

We provide empirical evidence supported by theoretical insights that CSCs are powerful tools that community designers and managers can leverage to transform business-to-business (B2B) relationships.

The originality of this study resides in advancing theoretical understanding and providing practical managerial guidance on how to best deploy CSCs in a supply chain context. Additionally, we consider the role CSCs play in different stages of B2B relationships, and the reasons why most managers are hesitant to adopt CSCs.

Communication of information in the biological sciences is becoming increasingly complex as the number of users multiplies and as science becomes more and more interdisciplinary. Libraries play a major role in this communication of scientific information. This role is being threatened by increasing publication rates coupled with increasing costs and decreasing resources. Even the most illustrious science libraries are finding that their resources have decreased in real money and as a result of inflation. The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information, editions 8–20, 1962–75, graphically shows the increases in publishing rates and in price. The Bowker statistics are broken down into large categories; unfortunately biology falls between the categories of agriculture and medicine. The increases found in both medicine and agriculture are relevant for the subcategory of biology. Books published in agriculture have risen from 78 in 1960 to 196 in 1974. Books published in medicine have gone from 520 in 1960 to 2,281 in 1974. During the same time period the average price of these same books has gone from $8.54 to $18.43. The picture for the near future is no brighter. Librarians will have to be more and more selective and clever in purchasing materials that will be used by patrons.

Deafness and hearing impairments have a very interesting and ancient history. The term hearing impairments is used here to refer to any dysfunction of the hearing organ, regardless of the etiology, degree of hearing loss, and service provision implications. The history of hearing impairments can be traced back to centuries before Christ (BC). For instance, around 1000 BC a Hebrew law provided those with deafness and hearing impairments limited rights to own property and marry. Nonetheless, although this law protected people with hearing impairments from being cursed and maltreated by others, it did not grant them full participation in rituals of the temple (ASLInfo, 2010). People with hearing impairments were considered to be “subnormal” by great philosophers of that time. For instance, between 427 and 347 BC, Plato's philosophy of innate intelligence was the vogue. It claimed that all intelligence was present at birth. Therefore, all people were born with ideas and languages in their minds and required only time to demonstrate their outward sign of intelligence through speech. People with hearing impairments could not speak and were therefore considered incapable of rational thoughts and ideas. Indeed in 355 BC Aristotle was reported to have claimed that those who were born deaf would become stupid and incapable of reason. According to him, people with hearing impairments could not be educated because without the ability to hear, people could not learn. Greek which was spoken in his society was considered the perfect language and all people who did not speak Greek including people with deafness were considered Barbarians (ASLInfo, 2010).

There have been several developments during the past year that will aid biologists in their constant battle to keep up with the scientific and technical literature. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has introduced three new online services that are designed for current awareness and retrospective searches: ISI/CompuMath — access to pure and applied math literature; ISI/ISTP&B — index to scientific proceedings and books; and ISI/BIOMED — research front specialties in biomedicine.

The purpose of this two-part study is to systematically review, analyze and critically synthesize the current state of empirical research on knowledge loss induced by organizational member turnover (KLT).

A systematic literature review was conducted based on 91 empirical studies on KLT.

Part I of the study contributes to the advancement of KLT scholarship by mapping key developments in empirical research on KLT (publication trends, methodological and theoretical foci, heterogeneity of geographical, industrial and organizational contexts); encapsulating KLT antecedents associated with both voluntary and involuntary turnover; and revealing a broad scope of KLT effects at organizational and unit level.

This study has limitations related to inclusion/exclusion criteria used for creating the review sample and the “Antecedents–Phenomenon–Outcomes” logic used to synthesize the findings.

Part I of the study offers a systematic synthesis of KLT empirical research with respect to KLT antecedents, outcomes and factors affecting them.