In the wake of the current socio-economic crisis, discovering an effective strategy for managing uncertainty and successful reallocation of resources became key to ensuring sustainable economic performance. More recent evidence pointed to the entrepreneurial leadership style as an effective means for engaging employees in a more proactive pursuit of organizational goals. This article introduces a novel approach to sustainable economic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic considering entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial bricolage, and job insecurity. The empirical study was performed on a sample of 410 employees from Croatian organizations working in different industries during the COVID outbreak. The study results reveal that entrepreneurial leadership positively impacts sustainable economic performance but does not lead to decreased job insecurity. Expectedly, job insecurity was found to have a negative effect on sustainable economic performance. The results confirmed a positive influence of entrepreneurial bricolage on sustainable economic performance, which is in line with existing literature. However, the moderating effect of entrepreneurial bricolage on the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and job insecurity was not significant. The findings suggest that companies can sustain their performance or even thrive under entrepreneurial leadership. The study lays the groundwork for further investigation on how entrepreneurial leaders can influence followers’ creative self-efficacy to decrease job uncertainty and prevent fear-induced hindrances, such as organizational deviance and turnover intention in the context of the pandemic.

The government as a policy maker wishing to promote remanufacturing and proper disposal of hazardous old products which are harmful to environment has taken many actions, ranging from carbon regulation and financial incentives such as trade-in subsidy. However, carbon tax can result in loss of profit for firms to some degree, so the government has to give other subsidy to balance the profits and carbon emission. Thus, this article investigates two subsidy mechanisms: remanufacturing subsidy or tax rebate. The optimal pricing and production decision under these policies are examined. Our results show that carbon tax has a great impact on pricing strategies. Trade-in subsidy can encourage customers to replace their existing products with new and remanufactured products. Both remanufacture subsidy and tax rebate are beneficial to manufacturer and can further promote remanufacturing development.

The constantly increasing CO₂ emissions are threatening the environment tremendously. Facing the pressure of environmental activists and public opinion, businesses and governments are taking action to reduce carbon emissions. Among these endeavors, carbon tax and subsidy policies proposed by governments are widely adopted. Remanufacturing is believed to save manufacturing costs and reduce carbon emissions from the process of enterprise operation, and it is increasingly being accepted by enterprises. However, different consumers’ willingness to pay for remanufactured products and the durability of new products will also affect consumers’ willingness to buy remanufactured products. Therefore, considering the discrepancy between consumer willingness to pay and product durability, we established the trade-old-for-remanufactured (TOR) model for a scenario of carbon tax and government subsidies. Through the analysis of the model, we obtained the optimal pricing and production decisions of manufacturers (remanufacturers) in the case of carbon tax and government subsidies. Our results show that, when there is no carbon tax constraint, the increase in consumer willingness to pay and the adjustment in product durability can stimulate consumers to participate in TOR projects and augment enterprises’ profits. However, it can also lead to a carbon rebound that increases corporate carbon emissions. When there is a carbon tax constraint, the introduction of carbon tax contributes to a reduction in carbon emissions, while enterprises tend to lose profits. In order to achieve a “win-win” between corporate profits and carbon emissions, we considered government subsidy policies. Our numerical examples illustrate that appropriate carbon tax and government subsidies can curb carbon emissions and also increase profits for enterprises.

Global warming has become a growing concern for countries around the world. Currently, the direct way to solve this issue is to curb carbon emissions. Governments and enterprises should assume the social responsibility to conserve the environment. Under the background of carbon emission constraint, this article investigates the optimal decisions of closed-loop supply chains in the context of social responsibility, explores the impacts of constraints of carbon emissions and corporate social responsibility on recycling and remanufacturing decisions, and introduces the model of maximizing social welfare for further comparison and analysis. The results show that the coefficient of remanufacturing and emission reduction and the coefficient of government reward and punishment are inversely proportional to recycling rates and the total carbon emissions. Governments should formulate rational carbon emission caps for enterprises with different coefficients of remanufacturing and emission reduction. Additionally, corporate social responsibility has a positive effect on recycling rates, and a rise in its strength can lead to a fall in carbon emissions per unit product. In terms of product recycling and profit sources, the model of maximizing social welfare is superior to that of maximizing the manufacturer’s total profits, which provides new managerial insights for decision-makers.

Supply chain management is described as a business strategy that provides operative management of financial, material, and other information flows to ensure harmonization in distributed organizational structures. The predefined aim of this study was to describe the effects of green supply chain management practices on competitive strategic alliances using automobile firms in China. The study aimed to demonstrate different factors that aid strategic alliances, which automobile firms must acknowledge to improve their performance. Fifty automobile firms were used as the study population. The respondents were senior managers of five active areas in each automobile firm. There were a total of 420 respondents, among whom 320 respondents were selected by the convenience sampling method. The study was quantitative, while the data source was primary; the data were obtained using a closed-ended questionnaire as the major instrument for data collection. This closed-ended questionnaire was sent to the intended respondents via email and WeChat simultaneously. Five active areas were included, and Cronbach’s alpha values were measured for each area. The values obtained ranged from 0.8 to 0.9, revealing the data’s consistency and reliability. The primary data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics for demographic data and inferential structural equation modeling (SEM) for multivariate data. Considering the outcomes of the research analysis, it was concluded that forming competitive strategic alliances in firms to manage green supply chains could bring several benefits.