PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine organizational and environmental (competition, capital scarcity and organization of labor) factors that affect firms' innovation activities within the supply chain.Design/methodology/approachThis study empirically examines the factors that affect firms' innovation activities using firm-level data from the last round of Business Environment Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS). The analysis covers major supply chain functions: production, delivery and support systems.FindingsThe study shows that drivers of innovation vary with the type of innovation activity; as such, innovation efforts across supply chain functions should prioritize strategic resources that will create competitive advantages. Our results also reveal that sustainability efforts in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region should prioritize labor market reforms over capital market reforms.Originality/valueCurrent research on innovation and supply chain issues does not explicitly analyze innovations that occur in different sustainable supply chain functions, and empirical studies that focus on the determinants of innovations in the supply chain network are very limited. The data used in this study cover 30 economies in EECA, many of which are low- and middle-income countries, and thus contribute to the implementation of sustainable practices in developing countries.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how corruption affects the prevalence of product and process innovation by firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses firm-level data from the 2012–2016 Business Environment Enterprise Performance Surveys and utilizes a conditional mixed process model to address endogeneity concerns, taking bribery as a measure of corruption.FindingsThe study shows that measures of bribery are positively and robustly associated with innovation but mainly for firms reporting many competitors. The results are stronger for firms reporting more obstacles. Both findings support the inference that bribes facilitate innovation by allowing firms to evade regulatory obstacles.Originality/valueThe current research on corruption's effect on innovation restricts the association to be uniform across the sample, but this study shows that the impact depends on the degree of competition faced by a firm. In addition, the data used in this study cover 30 economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and thus contributes to determining the effects of anticorruption practices in emerging countries.

Background: This study addresses an important field within HIV research, the impact of socioeconomic factors on the healthcare costs of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). We aimed to understand how different socioeconomic factors could create diverse healthcare costs for PLHIV in Turkey. The questionnaire collected socioeconomic data. The cost data for the same patients was taken from the electronic database Probel Hospital Information Management System (PHIMS) for the same period. The PHIMS data include costs for medication (highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART), laboratory, pathology, radiology, polyclinic, examination and consultation, hospitalisation, surgery and intervention, blood and blood products, supplies and other costs. Data were analysed using STATA 14.2 to estimate the generalised linear model (GLM). Results: The findings of our GLM indicate that age, gender, marital and parental status, time since diagnosis, employment, wealth status, illicit drug use and CD4 cell count are the factors significantly related to the healthcare cost of patients. We found that compared with people who have AIDS (CD4 cells < 200 cells/mm 3 ), people who have a normal range of CD4 cells (≥ 500 cells/mm 3 ) have $1046 less in expenditures on average. Compared to younger people (19-39 years), older people (≥ 55) have $1934 higher expenditures on average. Costs are $644 higher on average for married people and $401 higher on average for people who have children. Healthcare costs are $518 and $651 higher on average for patients who are addicted to drugs and who use psychiatric drug(s), respectively. Compared to people who were recently diagnosed with HIV, people who were diagnosed ≥10 years ago have $743 lower expenditures on average. Conclusion: Our results suggest that in addition to immunological status, socioeconomic factors play a substantial role in the healthcare costs of PLHIV. The key factors influencing the healthcare costs of PLHIV are also critical for public policy makers, healthcare workers, health ministries and employment community programs.

In literature, the implications of resource constraints for innovation outcomes are conflicting. A broad body of empirical research focuses on the negative impacts of such constraints, most of which use data from advanced economies. However, recently some scholars argue that in emerging economies, innovation occurs in spite of and even because of the poor investment environment. Using firm-level data from South Asia, which provides a good natural example for such poor investment environment, and where innovation tigers like India continue to thrive, we investigate whether internal barriers such as lack of human capital and financial capital are indeed barriers for firms in the region. Our findings for India provide empirical support for the literature on resource-constrained innovation, while results for Pakistan support earlier contributions within the conventional innovation literature. For Bangladesh, however, neither human nor financial resources but firm-characteristics such as size and foreign ownership promote innovation more. Findings are validated across sub-samples of small and medium-sized enterprises and non-exporters, which are more likely to face such constraints.

The aim of the study is to explore whether logistics performance affects firms' innovation decisions. Using Turkey Regional Enterprise Survey conducted between August 2015 and June 2016, we measure logistics performance by transportation costs. We consider several aspects of innovation including process innovation, product innovation, organizational innovation and investments in Research & Development. We also analyze whether the impact of transportation costs on innovation activities varies across industries or regions. Our findings indicate that the impact of transportation costs on R&D activities is highest for firms in the construction sector, whereas for innovation outputs, the impact is greatest for the wholesale & retail sector. Moreover, our results also reveal three regions where transportation costs matter the most for innovation are Ankara, Bursa-Bilecik-Eskisehir and finally Diyarbakir-Sanliurfa.