The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed our daily life, especially in the food industry. This study aims to examine the sustainable factors that influence the reuse intention in China’s online-to-offline (O2O) food delivery industry, using “Meituan Waimai” app users as the objects of investigation. Meituan had great success in the initial stage of business due to the rapid urbanization of the major Chinese cities, and thus it is planning to enter the second and third level of cities in China. However, this may not be sustainable because beginner’s luck does not hold unless it is supported by sustainable governance. To evaluate the online and offline governance of O2O business, we used five service quality factors (convenience, safety, economy, accuracy, and speed) in a structural equation model. Customer satisfaction and reuse intention are used as mediating and dependent variables, respectively. The main findings are as follows. First, among the service characteristics, economy and speed factors did not perfectly mediate satisfaction, implying that the initial stage of success may not be sustainable. O2O service providers in China should put more effort into customizing economic incentives as well as making an appropriate impression regarding the delivery speed. Second, satisfaction is fully supported by other factors, implying that O2O service providers should take into account feedback from the people in the market and consumers.

There is a rapid increase in inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries such as India. Some researchers argue that FDI has a positive impact on sustainable development in terms of environmental efficiency and brings innovative green technology to the host country. In contrast, others claim that FDI brings considerable pollution to the host country, and their motive is only to yield profit. To address this issue, this paper analyzes environmental efficiency between FDI and domestic firms in India for seven years between 2012 and 2018. The research aims to evaluate the performance of FDI firms in terms of environmental efficiency in India after implementing certain policy regulations, nationally and globally. In this analysis, we use the non-radial metafrontier Malmquist CO₂ performance index (NMMCPI) with three decomposition indices: efficiency change index, best practice gap index, and technological gap change index. Our empirical results indicate that domestic firms have performed well in terms of better catch-up and innovation performance. On the other hand, FDI firms only demonstrated higher technology leadership performance, indicating weaker catch-up performance and weaker innovation performance. From the results, we proposed that policymakers should harmonize between the FDI promotion and regulation in its sustainable performance because global companies are not sensitive to the local regulations, and not very proactive in implementing the global standard of eco-friendliness.

In terms of economic development and feeding the world’s populations, the importance of the agricultural sector is well known. However, agriculture and its related sectors are also known for contributing more than one-quarter of the world’s GHG emissions. To address this issue, we evaluate the performance of agriculture and its related firms in India from 2013 to 2019 with its environmental efficiency under the paradigm shift promoted by the National Agroforestry Policy in 2014. To evaluate the feasibility of this paradigm shift in agricultural policy, the non-radial slack-based measure (SBM) is utilized in the first stage, and Tobit regressions are used to assess the determinants of efficiency (or sources of inefficiency) measures at the second stage. The results from non-radial SBM show that Indian agricultural firms (foreign direct investment, private, and public) show huge potential with 32.2% on average to enhance their performance if they move toward the frontier of the production possibility curve. This suggests that Indian policymakers should regulate much stronger regulations for firms, especially for the use of agricultural inputs such as energy (fertilizers), with performance-oriented financial measures for sustainable agriculture. To determine the strategic variables for these firms to enhance their performance, Tobit regressions showed that fertilizers use (−3.350%) appears to have the highest negative impact on environmental efficiency. On the other hand, credit access (2.710%) has the highest positive impact on environmental efficiency, implying that policymakers should provide subsidies to firms in the form of soft loans (or credit access) for the purchase of high-quality fertilizers and to adopt energy-saving equipment/technology to minimize the use of chemical fertilizers in India.

Many developing countries have been experiencing the problems of urbanization, particularly regarding carbon emission and polluted air emission mitigation. Is it possible to simultaneously achieve these two different clean and green economic strategies? This study analyzes this paradoxical issue of air pollution in terms of PM_2.5 efficiency. To evaluate the performance of regulatory policies on air pollution and to find out the governance factors, this paper adopts the stepwise approach. In the first stage, we evaluate the cross-sectional PM_2.5 efficiency of 16 Korean municipalities for the period between 2012 and 2017 and determine whether this performance is sustainable using the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI). We concluded that most local governments lack sustainable governance on regulation policies for clean air. Using the Tobit model in the second stage, this study showed that regional economic development (GRDP) and an patent for clean air technology innovation are the most important strategic factors that promote sustainability in regulation policy performance.