In this Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), sustainable development for business firms depends on maintaining sustained performance and environmental sustainability to a great extent. The current study discovers the impact of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices on business performance and the environmental sustainability of a developing country, Bangladesh. Cost and profit are the two important indicators of business performance. On the other hand, environmental sustainability is expressed by waste disposal, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emission. Primary data were collected through the distribution of web links and direct interaction with the participants of different firms practicing GSCM practices in Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Hypotheses were formulated and evaluated accordingly. This study found that the impact of implementation of GSCM practices differs with respect to cost, profit, waste disposal, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emission. GSCM practices have a statistically significant impact on cost, waste disposal, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emission. The impact of GSCM practices on profit was statistically insignificant. It was found that lack of IT implementation, high cost of waste disposal, uncertainty and competition in the market, resistance to change, and lack of top management support are the major barriers to implement GSCM practices in Bangladesh.

This paper aims to develop some specific theoretical themes, which could be useful for HR personnel in adopting and implementing blockchain technology in the HR department. Total 126 published documents during the time interval 2016–2021 from the Scopus and Web of Science databases were explored to classify the relevant 25 records using the PRISMA flow diagram. Complete bibliometric information has been synthesised concerning titles, abstracts, and keywords of each of those 25 publications. VOSviewer was used to generate term co-occurrence network maps based on assembled bibliometric information. Four thematic clusters were evolved from the network maps and based on the thematic clusters; two theoretical themes were developed through associations. Two theoretical themes, i.e., Employee-Systems Interaction (ESI) and Blockchain Framework (BcF) for HR, were identified to become the prime movers for adopting and implementing blockchain in the domain of HRM. Later, for justifying the two theoretical themes and testing the robustness of the results, we reported the key terms thoroughly and critically going through the 25 publications. ESI and BcF for HR will add tremendous theoretical contributions to the existing body of knowledge in the fields of blockchain and strategic HRM. Directions for future research have been mentioned.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a key role in today’s business environment. ICTs also give small firms a competitive advantage in the new economy. However, little empirical research has addressed the issues of use, impact and adoption of ICTs in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), especially in rural areas of developing countries. The objective of this study is to identify the impact of ICTs and the factors that influence the adoption of ICTs in SMEs located in rural areas of Bangladesh. This article follows a qualitative and quantitative research approach based on a case study and structured questionnaires. The regression analysis showed that awareness of benefits, government support, top management support, and financial support are important determinants of the adoption of ICTs in rural SMEs in Bangladesh. This article also highlights the limitations that SMEs have in using ICTs and makes recommendations on how to overcome them.

Considering the fact that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is widely recognized for its positive impact on environmental performance, little research exists on its effect on the relationship between Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) and an Organization’s Environmental Performance (OEP). This study investigates how CSR affects GHRM and the OEP, along with its moderating effect. Data was collected from the Malaysian manufacturing industry and subsequently analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results revealed that GHRM and CSR positively and significantly affect the OEP. The study also revealed that CSR strengthens the existing relationship between GHRM and the OEP. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing literature by providing new scholarly evidence on the moderating effect of CSR on the GHRM-OEP nexus. The findings provide policymakers and the management of the manufacturing industry in Malaysia with fresh insights into the formulation of effective policies to promote CSR and GHRM practices within organizations.

Online learning has been extensively conducted to continue the academic activities in the universities transversely the realm during the pandemic instigated by COVID-19. Like other countries’ universities across the world, universities in a developing country such as Bangladesh are going through the online learning phenomenon. However, the current virtual platform of learning implies enormous challenges for undergraduates to participate in the online learning process due to numerous barriers. Thus, the current paper intends to examine barriers that intensify unwillingness to online education at the university level in the context of Bangladesh. Based on the underpinning theories of TAM3 and UTAUT, this study identified four major barriers such as financial, insufficient institutional support, technological, and individual. Furthermore, gender is considered as moderating variable in the model. To inspect such barriers along with the moderating variable, this study employs the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique to estimate the measurement and structural model parameters and to generate the coexisting bootstrap assessments. The bootstrapping procedure has been initiated to test the statistical significance of the model parameter estimations. The findings confirm that technological, and insufficient institutional support barriers are statistically significant whereas the other two barriers have been revealed as non-significant to intensify learners’ reluctance to the online study. Furthermore, current findings also ratify no significant effect of gender as a moderating variable. Finally, this study augments specific policy implications for diverse stakeholders in current settings.