An examination of the relationship between industry structure, debt and multilateral environmental agreements and environmental performance.

The United Nations established the Sustainable Development Goals as targets to be achieved by 2030. As part of this initiative, countries worldwide are making efforts to improve on their environmental performance. This study uses environmental performance data for 180 countries provided by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy to assess the impact of certain important variables on environmental performance. Among other things, it finds that industry structure and commitment to multinational environmental agreements positively impact how well a country performs environmentally. The same was not found to be true for country debt. The paper also created clusters of countries for environmental performance over a period of about 20 years. The study's results have several policy implications for governments as well as international bodies that seek to promote environmental improvement around the world.

Impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry: A supply chain resilience perspective.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have significant negative impact on people around the globe. In this paper, a mixed-methods approach is used to study the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry and its associated supply chain -- with specific emphasis on the Accommodation and Food Services sector. Using available data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, among other things, comparison is made between its impact and that of the global financial crises in 2008-2009. One finding is that the impact on unemployment levels exceeds those of 2008-2009 and also exceeds those from some comparative industry sectors such as Manufacturing and Hospitals. Furthermore, the developed conceptual framework on resilience provides better understanding on how companies can operate successfully during a pandemic. The results of the study have implications for hospitality managers and for governments that are providing financial aid to businesses affected by a catastrophe or pandemic.

Assessment of the effect of location and financial variables on environmental management performance for industrial goods supply chains.

The paper uses data on environmental (management) performance (EP) of industrial goods companies in 14 countries to assess the impact of 3 variables on EP: companies' headquarters location, global spread (GS) & financial performance (FP). No prior study has addressed these questions for the industrial goods sector, a crucial sector in most economies. Hierarchical regression and other methods are used to test pertinent hypotheses. Among other things, the paper finds that EP differ based on regional location of the companies' headquarters. Consistent with prior research for some industries, FP and GS show no impact on EP. An auxiliary finding is that manufacturing firms outperform service firms environmentally. These results have several practical implications. For example, industrial goods companies headquartered outside Europe can learn environmental best practices in Europe, and endeavor to implement them throughout their global operations. Also, firms need not excel financially to excel environmentally. Such firms may focus on environmental excellence, knowing that investments in environmental programs would ultimately pay off. This work bridges the International Management and Sustainability Literatures, provides some guidance to managers about EP improvement and adds to our understanding of EP. It will stimulate related research in the Production and Operations Management and Environmental Management fields.