Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of social media on awareness' socio-environmental and sustainable consumption: Consolidating lessons from the pandemic.

Many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were caused on people's health and the economy of countries in its first year, especially in emerging economies such as Brazil, were dire. Social distancing and the reduction of jobs caused impacts in many organizations, which led to the adoption of strategies allowing employees to work from home, adjusting family residences into home offices while facing reduction in industrial production and a decrease in economic activities. The pandemic also changed consumption behaviors, the use of social media (social networks), and people's socioenvironmental awareness. This research aims to evaluate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of social media, on environmental awareness, on sustainable consumption awareness and on the social responsibility awareness of different generations in Brazil one year after the beginning of the pandemic. For data analysis, the structural equation modeling method was used from a final sample of 1120 respondents. The results indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences the growing in social media usage (environmental issues and social responsibility issues) and sustainable consumption awareness. The study highlights that social media usage has the ability to positively influence environmental awareness, sustainable consumption awareness, and social responsibility awareness. The results provide a framework to analyze the consequential factors of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainability awareness and the use of social media.

Managing Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain disruptions through employee attitude: A cross-country analysis based on the transtheoretical model

In this paper, we examine the attitudinal changes and processes regarding Covid-19 guidelines through the lens of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) among 932 employees in organisations within the emerging markets of China and Qatar, and the implications for the management of operations and supply chain disruptions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression were conducted to validate our measures, confirm model fit, and verify the proposed hypotheses. Our findings reveal that attitude towards the guidelines differ between Chinese and Qatari samples, significantly stronger among the Chinese sample. The TTM dimensions explain a considerable amount of variance in attitude and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy further explains attitudinal changes. Firms should actively source and provide useful and accurate information about COVID 19, including pathological characteristics, propagation, prevention measures, and treatment. Besides, firms should promote the importance of following the guidelines, leaders should set examples, and encourage and empower employees to do so. With the right employee attitude and behavior, firms can manage pandemic-related disruptions within the organization and the supply chain.

Assessing the Connections between COVID-19 and Waste Management in Brazil

In addition to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, several countries-particularly in developing regions-faced serious additional challenges in the economic, social and environmental areas. In Brazil, one of these challenges refers to the changes in consumption caused by the lockdowns, and the environmental impacts caused by new patterns of waste generation. Against this background, this paper investigates the changes in consumption and waste generation in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a technical contribution to the topic by comparing the perception of survey respondents on the amount of household waste produced before and during the pandemic, and cross-checking these with information on current aspects of policymaking, the findings suggest that the amount of some specific types of household waste has noticeably increased, challenging even more the local waste management systems. The data instrument was validated by a pre-test, prior to deployment. According to the respondents, packaging (both plastic and paper/cardboard) was the type of waste that reported the highest increase in generation during the lockdowns, which is in line with the results of increased consumption of food delivery within this period. The results also suggest that current waste management policies make Brazil ill-equipped to deal with one of the non-intended effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely impacted Latin America's largest country.

Implications for sustainable healthcare operations in embracing telemedicine services during a pandemic.

Technological interventions in the healthcare sector, namely, telemedicine services, have helped the government and people in these extraordinarily challenging times of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We identify and group key success factors relevant to telemedicine services under 7 contextual criteria. Furthermore, we explore the causal relations among them using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. Then, by applying the Bayesian best-worst method (BWM), we compute the relative importance of these criteria. Thereafter, we rank six hospitals that have provided telemedicine services through a comparative evaluation using the VIsekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranjie (VIKOR) method. The threefold findings of our study reveal that (i) the technological criteria provide the highest causal impact, while the environmental criteria provide the least causal impact. (ii) The hierarchical model of criteria, achieved through the Bayesian BWM score, shows that the criteria weights for both technological and organizational criteria are maximum (0.205) and minimum (0.087), respectively. (iii) The evaluation of six hospitals with VIKOR based on seven criteria ranks the Himalayan hospital as first, showing that it is best in providing telemedicine services to patients. Public health policymakers could use the results of our study to devise an effective plan for patient care in crisis, like COVID-19.

Sustainability of supply chains in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) pandemic: lessons and trends

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to address the prioritisation and focus of supply chain managers subsequent to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)/severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the great lockdown of 2020.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, concepts and trends on resilient and sustainable supply chains are systematized. Main trends in sustainability of supply chains in the wake of COVID-19 are presented.FindingsGuidelines on building smarter and more resilient supply chains are provided and future tendencies, which includes the increase of a sustainable consumption perspective, are highlighted.Originality/valueThis is a conceptual article blended with a practical approach aiming to propose guidelines for managers and scholars on how to address supply chain management challenges after the coronavirus pandemic.

Manufacturing and service supply chain resilience to the COVID-19 outbreak: Lessons learned from the automobile and airline industries.

There has been an increased interest among scholars to investigate supply chain resilience (SCRes) in manufacturing and service operations during emerging situations. Grounded in the SCRes theory, this study provides insights into the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the automobile and airline supply chain. Both the short and long-term response strategies adopted by the two supply chains are assessed, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques in three distinct phases. In phase one, we use a sequential mixed-method for resilience evaluation, integrating Time-to-Recovery (TTR) and Financial Impact (FI) analysis. In phase two, we conduct an empirical survey involving 145 firms to evaluate the short-term SCRes response strategies. In the third phase, we conduct semi-structured interviews with supply chain executives both from the automobile and airline industries to understand the long-term SCRes response strategies. Our findings indicate that: (i) the automobile industry perceived that the best strategies to mitigate risks related to COVID-19, were to develop localized supply sources and use advanced industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. (ii) The airline industry on the other hand, perceived that the immediate need was to get ready for business continuity challenges posed by COVID-19, by defining their operations both at the airports and within the flights. (iii) Importantly, both the sectors perceived Big Data Analytics (BDA) to play a significant role by providing real-time information on various supply chain activities to overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19. (iv) Cooperation among supply chain stakeholders is perceived, as needed to overcome the challenges of the pandemic, and to accelerate the use of digital technologies.