Post COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management and customers' resilience, the moderate effect of corporate social responsibility

PurposeThis research aims to profoundly investigate the post-COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management (GSCM) and perceived customer resilience by studying the correlation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19, customer-centric GSCM, and the perceived customers' resilience. Moreover, to examine how the perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities moderates the relationship among the variables.Design/methodology/approachIn this study partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted on a sample of 298 managers and customers in the Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market for data analysis and hypotheses testing.FindingsPreliminary results indicate that the fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 positively affects customer-centric GSCM. Also, external CSR moderates the association between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and customer-centric GSCM. However, internal CSR does not moderate this relationship. Customer-centric GSCM has a significant positive impact on the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, it has an insignificant effect on the perceived financial resilience. Also, customer-centric GSCM has a significant mediation outcome on the relation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 and the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, this relation is insignificant regarding the perceived financial resilience.Practical implicationsManagers could develop a consistent strategy for applying CSR practices, providing clear information and focusing on their procedures to meet their customer needs during COVID-19. Governments and managers should develop a consistent strategy to apply customer-oriented green practices to achieve customers' resilience, especially during the pandemic.Originality/valueBased on the "social-cognitive,” "stakeholder” and "consumer culture” theories, this study shed light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of social responsibility, resilience and green practices back into the light, which helps in solving customers' issues and help to achieve their resilience.

Covid-19's effect on green supply chains and environmental sustainability, innovative technologies moderation

Even though the COVID-19 epidemic caused many problems for global supply chains, it also created opportunities that helped get people interested in cleaner production, sustainability, and business practices that are good for the environment again. This study seeks to examine the pandemic's opportunities for enhancing green supply chain management (GSC-management) and Sustainable environmental-performance by exploring the link between the uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic, GSC-management, and Sustainable environmental-performance and inspecting the moderating effect of novel technology adoption like big-data analysis capabilities (BDA) and blockchain technologies (BCT) on this relationship. A questionnaire of 517 managers of SMEs in Egypt was used to test and analyze hypotheses with the PLS-SEM method. The findings show that the uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic improves GSC-management significantly. Also, BDA moderates the link between the uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic and GSC-management. However, BCT does not moderate that direct link. Also, GSC-management positively affects a firm's sustainable environmental-performance. In addition, GSC-management significantly mediates the correlation between the uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic and sustainable environmental-performance. The study's findings have massive implications for how SMEs will be managed during COVID-19. Also, it contributes to the theory by using the Social cognitive theory to show how the uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic positively affects the GSC-management practices and how the dynamic capabilities theory explains the innovative technologies moderating effect of such relationship. • Uncertainty-anxiety of the pandemic improves GSC-management significantly. • BDA moderates uncertainty-anxiety and GSC-management relationship. • BDA does not moderate uncertainty-anxiety and GSC-management relationship. • GSC-management improves firms' sustainable environmental-performance. • GSC-management mediates uncertainty-anxiety and environmental-performance. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Cleaner Production is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

COVID-19's fear-uncertainty effect on green supply chain management and sustainability performances: the moderate effect of corporate social responsibility.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global supply chains, it also provided opportunities that brought the concepts of sustainability and green practices back into the light. Based on the "stakeholders" and "social cognitive" theory, our study intends to empirically explore how fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 relates positively to both green supply chain management (GSCM) and the firm's sustainability performance (economic, environmental, and social). In addition, it examines the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (internal CSR and external CSR) on the association between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and GSCM. In this study, we studied a sample of 300 manager-level employees in Egypt. We used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data and test our hypotheses. Results showed that fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 positively affect GSCM. Also, external CSR moderates the association among fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and GSCM. But it is not moderated by internal CSR. In addition, GSCM positively affects environmental and social performance. However, it has an insignificant effect on economic performance. Besides, GSCM has a significant mediation effect between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and the firm's environmental and social performance. However, this mediation relationship regarding economic performance is insignificant. Finally, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications at the end of this research.

Trust Relationship with Suppliers, Collaborative Action, and Manufacturer Resilience in the COVID-19 Crisis.

Frequent emergencies highlight the importance of corporate resilience, and relationship governance behaviors have received much attention for improving firms' resilience. This study uses structural equation modeling to test hypotheses based on trust theory and synergy theory. It investigates the impact of the behavioral operations management approach of collaborative action on manufacturers' resilience in Chinese manufacturing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental uncertainty is used as a moderating variable to explore its role between the trust relationship with suppliers and collaborative action, which are two types of relationship management behaviors. The results show that collaborative action positively affects each of the three stages of manufacturer resilience. Moreover, collaborative action mediates between the trust relationship with suppliers and the different dimensions of manufacturer resilience. Environmental uncertainty does not moderate the facilitative effect of the trust relationship with suppliers on collaborative action. This study examines the relational governance behavior of firms in the context of a particular Chinese culture to build a bridge between relational governance behavioral science and firm resilience management. This study tries to provide inspiration for managers to improve the risk management ability of manufacturing enterprises by using relationship management theory and behavioral science.

Is it an opportunity? COVID-19's effect on the green supply chains, and perceived service's quality (SERVQUAL): the moderate effect of big data analytics in the healthcare sector.

This study examines the relationship between uncertainty-fear toward COVID-19, green supply chain management (GSCM), and perceived service quality based on the five dimensions service quality model (SERVQUAL). It also tests the moderating effect of big data analytics (BDA) capabilities. Based on a sample of 300 healthcare managers and customers, we used partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the data and test our hypotheses. The empirical results show that the uncertainty-fear toward COVID-19 positively affects GSCM. Also, BDA moderates the relationship between uncertainty-fear toward COVID-19 and GSCM. GSCM positively impacts service quality (empathy, responsiveness, and assurance) but not reliability or tangible items. In addition, GSCM significantly mediates the relationship between uncertainty-fear toward COVID-19 and services' empathy, responsiveness, and assurance. However, it has an insignificant mediation effect regarding reliability and tangible-item dimensions.

The impact of relationship management on manufacturer resilience in emergencies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of two typical relationship management approaches (trust relationship with suppliers and reciprocity) on manufacturer resilience in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, this paper aims to deepen the understanding of environmental uncertainty's moderating effect on the association between the trust relationship with suppliers (TRS) and reciprocity.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling has been used to test the hypotheses on 361 Chinese manufacturing firms' managers and independent directors during the COVID-19 crisis.FindingsThe results reveal that reciprocity positively enhances three dimensions of manufacturer resilience, namely, preparedness, responsiveness and recovery capability. Reciprocity positively mediates the relationships between TRS and preparedness, responsiveness and recovery capability. Moreover, environmental uncertainty moderates the association between TRS and reciprocity.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the critical role of reciprocity, the relational governance approach, in enhancing manufacturer resilience in practice. This paper suggests that during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, managers should adopt trust and reciprocity in supplier relationship governance to strengthen the resilience of manufacturing companies and adapt effective strategies according to the environment.Originality/valueThis study is unique in developing new scales of manufacturer resilience through interviews and surveys with Chinese manufacturers and theoretical research. Based on the social capital theory and social exchange theory, this study shed light on the role of trust and reciprocity. It also bridges relational governance theory with the literature on manufacturing firm resilience literature to help manufacturers better understand the transdisciplinary links between relationship management and resilient operations in emergencies.

Fast one-pot microwave-assisted green synthesis of highly fluorescent plant-inspired S,N-self-doped carbon quantum dots as a sensitive probe for the antiviral drug nitazoxanide and hemoglobin

In this study, we report a one-pot, green, cost-efficient, and fast synthesis of plant-based sulfur and nitrogen self-co-doped carbon quantum dots (S,N-CQDs). By four-minutes microwave treatment of onion and cabbage juices as renewable, cheap, and green carbon sources and self-passivation agents, blue emissive S,N-CQDs have been synthesized (λex/λem of 340/418 nm) with a fluorescence quantum yield of 15.2%. A full characterization of the natural biomass-derived quantum dots proved the self-doping with nitrogen and sulfur. The S,N-CQDs showed high efficiency as a fluorescence probe for sensitive determination of nitazoxanide (NTZ), that recently found wide applicability as repurposed drug for COVID-19, over the concentration range of 0.25–50.0 μM with LOD of 0.07 μM. The nanoprobe has been successfully applied for NTZ determination in pharmaceutical samples with excellent % recovery of 98.14 ± 0.42. Furthermore, the S,N-CQDs proved excellent performance as a sensitive fluorescence nanoprobe for determination of hemoglobin (Hb) over the concentration range of 36.3–907.5 nM with a minimum detectability of 10.3 nM. The probe has been applied for the determination of Hb in blood samples showing excellent agreement with the results documented by a medical laboratory. The greenness of the developed probe has been positively investigated by different greenness metrics and software. The green character of the proposed analytical methods originates from the synthesis of S,N-CQDs from sustainable, widely available, and cheap plants via low energy/low cost microwave-assisted technique. Omission of organic solvents and harsh chemicals beside dependence on mix-and-read analytical approach corroborate the method greenness. The obtained results demonstrated the substantial potential of the synthesized green, safe, cheap, and sustainable S,N-CQDs for pharmaceutical and biological applications.

Post COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management and customers' resilience;the moderate effect of corporate social responsibility

Purpose This research aims to profoundly investigate the post-COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management (GSCM) and perceived customer resilience by studying the correlation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19, customer-centric GSCM, and the perceived customers' resilience. Moreover, to examine how the perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities moderates the relationship among the variables. Design/methodology/approach In this study partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted on a sample of 298 managers and customers in the Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market for data analysis and hypotheses testing. Findings Preliminary results indicate that the fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 positively affects customer-centric GSCM. Also, external CSR moderates the association between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and customer-centric GSCM. However, internal CSR does not moderate this relationship. Customer-centric GSCM has a significant positive impact on the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, it has an insignificant effect on the perceived financial resilience. Also, customer-centric GSCM has a significant mediation outcome on the relation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 and the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, this relation is insignificant regarding the perceived financial resilience. Practical implications Managers could develop a consistent strategy for applying CSR practices, providing clear information and focusing on their procedures to meet their customer needs during COVID-19. Governments and managers should develop a consistent strategy to apply customer-oriented green practices to achieve customers' resilience, especially during the pandemic. Originality/value Based on the "social-cognitive," "stakeholder" and "consumer culture" theories, this study shed light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of social responsibility, resilience and green practices back into the light, which helps in solving customers' issues and help to achieve their resilience.

Determinants of Obtaining COVID-19 Vaccination among Health Care Workers with Access to Free COVID-19 Vaccination: A Cross-Sectional Study.

INTRODUCTION: Despite global efforts to contain the illness, COVID-19 continues to have severe health, life, and economic repercussions; thus, maintaining vaccine development is mandatory. Different directions concerning COVID-19 vaccines have emerged as a result of the vaccine's unpredictability. AIMS: To study the determinants of the attitudes of healthcare workers (HCWs) to receiving or refusing to receive the vaccine. METHODS: The current study adopted an interviewed questionnaire between June and August 2021. A total of 341 HCWs currently working at Assiut University hospitals offered to receive the vaccine were included. RESULTS: Only half of the HCWs (42%) accepted the COVID-19 vaccine. The most common reason that motivated the HCWs was being more susceptible than others to infection (71.8%). On other hand, the common reasons for refusing included: previously contracted the virus (64.8%); did not have time (58.8%); warned by a doctor not to take it (53.8%). Nearly one-third of nonaccepting HCWs depended on television, the Internet, and friends who refused the vaccine for information (p < 0.05). In the final multivariate regression model, there were six significant predictors: sex, job category, chronic disease, being vaccinated for influenza, and using Assiut University hospital staff and the Ministry of Health as sources of information (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Misinformation and negative conceptions are still barriers against achieving the desired rate of vaccination, especially for vulnerable groups such as HCWs.

Thoracic surgery in Egypt.

General thoracic surgery operations in Egypt are performed mainly by cardiothoracic surgeons and less oftenly by dedicated thoracic surgeons and general surgeons. This is mainly due to the relatively small number of thoracic surgeons in relation to population as only 210 cardiothoracic surgery specialists and 458 consultants are registered with the Egyptian Medical Syndicate (EMS) in a country with a population of more than 100 million people. Thoracic surgeons in Egypt are faced with a number of burdens, including the need to propagate the service to advanced technology infront of the obstacle of limited resources. Other burdens include higher incidence of TB, trauma and foreign body inhalation related to cultural backgrounds. More centres now are major video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) providing centres and others are specialized in more complex surgeries like complicated airway procedures and radical surgery for mesothelioma. As part of the international community, the COVID-19 pandemic has put more burdens on the thoracic surgery service as most centres have reduced their elective surgery workload to less than half of usual. Interestingly, the pandemic has allowed a self-referral screening programme with widespread Computed Tomography (CT) chest being performed among the population allowing thoracic surgeons to operate more on early stage lung cancer. The academic challenges for thoracic surgeons are even more with need for developing national databases. Nevertheless, thoracic surgeons in Egypt are optimistic regarding the future. The rising interest among the younger population will push training programs to meet the interests of enthusiastic junior surgeons. While the ancient history of thoracic surgery in Egypt seems to be extraordinary, the future perspectives promise to be more rewarding.

The ISO 26000's labor environmental issues during COVID-19: does corporate social responsibility help? Evidence from the Egyptian small and medium enterprises.

Based on both the "stakeholder" and "cognitive" theories, this study shed light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability back into the light, which helps in solving the labor environmental issues. Our research aims to profoundly investigate the correlation between CSR and labor environmental issues based on the International Organization for Standardization's standard 26,000 (ISO 26000) during COVID-19 and to also examine how CSR practices help solve labor environmental issues in the Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted, for data analysis and hypotheses testing, on a sample of 307 manager-level employees in the Egyptian SMEs. Results indicate that CSR positively impacts labor practices dimensions (employment relationships, human development and training, social dialog, and health and safety at work). However, CSR has an insignificant effect on social protection and work conditions. This study is scientifically valuable since it helps better understand the pandemic's effects on environmental labor issues in the Egyptian SMEs and shows how CSR helps solve those issues. Also, it discussed the theoretical contributions and practical implications and showed the limitations and future research for this study area.

Post-COVID-19 functional status: Relation to age, smoking, hospitalization, and previous comorbidities.

RATIONAL: Recently, a new "Post-COVID-19 Functional Status (PCFS) scale" is recommended in the current COVID-19 pandemic. It is proposed that it could be used to display direct retrieval and the functional sequelae of COVID-19. AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of the study was to assess the PCFS and to evaluate if age, gender, smoking, hospitalization, and comorbidities have any effect on functional limitations in recovered COVID-19 patients. METHODS: A total of 444 registered confirmed COVID-19 patients were included. They were interviewed in our follow-up clinics and filled an Arabic translated PCFS scale as well as their demographic and clinical data. RESULTS: Eighty percent of COVID-19 recovered cases have diverse degrees of functional restrictions ranging from negligible (63.1%), slight (14.4%), moderate (2%), to severe (0.5%) based on PCFS. Furthermore, there was a substantial variance between the score of PCFS with age (P = 0.003), gender (P = 0.014), the duration since the onset of the symptoms of COVID-19 (P < 0.001), need for oxygen supplementation (P < 0.001), need for intensive care unit (ICU) admittance (P = 0.003), previous periodic influenza vaccination (P < 0.001), smoking status (P < 0.001), and finally, the presence of any comorbid disorder (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Most of the COVID-19 recovered cases have diverse degrees of functional restrictions ranging from negligible to severe based on PCFS. These restrictions were affected by age, gender, periodic influenza vaccination, smoking, duration since symptoms onset, need for oxygen or ICU admittance, and finally the presence of coexisting comorbidity.

Complicated sinusitis with sphenopalatine artery thrombosis in a COVID-19 patient: a case report.

COVID-19 has been a mystery against healthcare professionals. We herein report a rare presentation of complicated sinusitis with pre-septal cellulitis and hard palatal necrosis in a COVID-19 patient. A 52-year-old male was admitted to the hospital with typical COVID manifestations where he had two successive COVID-19 positive swabs. During his admission, he developed symptoms of right orbital complications of sinusitis along with both clinical and radiological evidence of ipsilateral hard palatal necrosis. Imaging confirmed a diagnosis of right pan-sinusitis complicated with right pre-septal infection and hard palatal bony defect on the same side. Our case focuses on the possible association between these manifestations and the known thromboembolic complications of COVID-19. Ongoing management of such complicated rare cases should be through multidisciplinary team.