This study’s aim is investigating the impacts of the determinants of knowledge management on organisational sustainability. It investigates the differences in performance among ISO 9001 certified and non-certified firms. The study uses data collected from 156 employees of various private firms in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It uses the partial least squares method to test the hypothesised model and the independent samples t-test toelaborate on the differences between ISO 9001 certified and non-certified firms. The results show that knowledge storage plays a key role in knowledge generation, sharing, and utilisation. It is also observed that knowledge management has a significant impact on organisational sustainability. Firms in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq fail to generate management knowledge due to their weak document storage capacities. This paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of their weak document storage capacities and makes some suggestions for improving this situation.

During the fourth industrial revolution, based on information and communication technology (ICT), service-led growth has been an increasingly important development area. This paper focuses on service-led growth as an innovative business model in the circular economy and offers the ‘product as service model’. A business model needs to be flexibly adjustable for changes in the market in response to changes in technology, the economy, and the environment. For firms facing increasing scarcity of resources, the right business model for using resources is becoming crucial for their growth. In a circular economy, a new method of business modelling is essential. This paper introduces the ‘product as a service model’ using a conceptualized and case study methodology. We illustrate this innovative circular business model through product servitization at the Hyundai Automotive Enterprise in Korea. This business model can be effective because of emerging new ‘smart connected products’ such as the ‘internet of things’ and ‘fifth generation’ network technologies. Cost, convenience, and the circular economy for firms, consumers, and the environment are critical factors in this new business model.

Electricity consumption will comprise an increasing share of global energy demand during the next two decades. In recent years, the increasing prices of fossil fuels and concerns about the environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions have renewed the interest in the development of alternative energy resources. In particular, the Fukushima Daiichi accident was a turning point in the call for alternative energy sources. Renewable energy is now considered a more desirable source of fuel than nuclear power due to the absence of risk and disasters. Considering that the major component of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, there is a global concern about reducing carbon emissions. In this regard, different policies could be applied to reducing carbon emissions, such as enhancing renewable energy deployment and encouraging technological innovations. Two main solutions may be implemented to reduce CO2 emissions and overcome the problem of climate change: replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources as much as possible and enhancing energy efficiency. In this paper, we discuss alternative technologies for enhancing renewable energy deployment and energy use efficiency.

This paper investigates the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and its causal relationships with economic growth and openness by using time series data (1971-2006) from China (an emerging market), Korea (a newly industrialized country), and Japan (a developed country). The sample countries span a whole range of development stages from industrialized to newly industrialized and emerging market economies. The environmental consequences according to openness and economic growth do not show uniform results across the countries. Depending on the national characteristics, the estimated EKC show different temporal patterns. China shows an N-shaped curve while Japan has a U-shaped curve. Such dissimilarities are also found in the relationship between CO2 emissions and openness. In the case of Korea and Japan it represents an inverted U-shaped curve, while China shows a U-shaped curve. We also analyze the dynamic relationships between the variables by adopting a vector auto regression or a vector error correction model. These models through the impulse response functions allow for analysis of the causal variable's influence on the dynamic response of emission variables and it adopts a variance decomposition to explain the magnitude of the forecast error variance determined by the shocks to each of the causal variables over time. Results show evidence of large heterogeneity among the countries and variables impacts.