Purpose Consumers, governments and regulatory agencies are concerned about the social and environmental aspect that pushes firms to move towards the circular economy. The transformation of the existing linear model into a circular model depends on several circular economy practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and analyse the critical factors that are responsible for the adoption of circular practices. Design/methodology/approach In total, 15 critical factors are identified through the literature review and 12 are finalised with the grey Delphi method. Further, these critical factors are prioritised using the weighted aggregated sum/product assessment (WASPAS) method. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to test the robustness of the ranking of critical factors obtained from WASPAS. Findings The finding of this study show that “top management participation,” “market for recovered products” and “circular economy oriented R&D activities promotion” are the most significant factors for circular practice adoption. These factors need to address on the highest priority by the stakeholders. Research limitations/implications This study is beneficial for the managers to formulate their strategies for the adoption of circular practices. The prioritisation of critical factors supports the managers and professionals to optimise their effort and resources to adopt the circular practice. Originality/value This study explores and analyses the critical factor for circular economy practice adoption in the supply chain in the context of emerging economies.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has revolutionised the operations, technologies, logistics and supply chain. To align with Industry 4.0, the conventional logistics processes need to upgrade into the digital environment. This transformation of conventional logistics into digital logistics (logistics 4.0) is possible through exploring several critical success factors that are responsible for the adoption of logistics 4.0. Therefore, this study analyses the critical success factors of logistics 4.0. In order to do this, a comprehensive literature review is conducted for the identification of the critical success factors of logistics 4.0. After that, a focus group discussion with the experts is conducted and ten critical success factors are finalised. These critical success factors are interrelated, and this interrelationship is explored through the DEMATEL approach. This method also categorised the critical success factors into cause-and-effect groups. Six factors belong to the cause group, and the remaining four belong to the effect group. This analysis also recognised the most influential and influenced factor amongst all identified critical success factors that will help the practitioners to optimal utilisation of the resources. The ‘top management commitment and support’, ‘aligning the initiatives of logistic 4.0 with organizational strategy’ and ‘technological infrastructure’ are the most influential critical success factors. The finding of the study is expected to support the scholars and practitioners by putting their effort strategically on the influencing critical success factors. This study will also facilitate the managers that are willing to move towards logistics 4.0 in the Industry 4.0 environment.

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability—for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples.

The Food Supply Chain (FSC) can be made more efficient, resilient, and transparent by implementing industry 4.0 technologies. In this context, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) become a panacea for several FSC problems. As a result of FSC complexity and their specific needs, the adoption of Blockchain integrated IoT (B-IoT) in FSC is challenging, and further investigation is required. Therefore, this study aims to explore the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the adoption B-IoT in FSC. To achieve this objective, a literature review is conducted to identify the CSFs of B-IoT adoption and then a grey Delphi is conducted on finalised CSFs. Ten CSFs finalised that faceplate for the adoption of B-IoT in FSC. Further, these CSFs were analysed through a grey Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to determine the importance and causal relationships among them. A grey DEMATEL analysis also categorised these factors into influencing and influenced groups. The findings showed that “top management support”, “knowledge management”, “technology hardware readiness”, “skilled personnel”, and “high investment” were the influencing factors that needed to be addressed for the effective adoption of B-IoT. The FSC partners could benefit from the findings of this study by focusing on high-priority CSFs. The causal relationship among CSFs also helps the managers achieve optimal utilisation of resources. Further, this study encourages the FSC stakeholders to adopt the B-IoT in their supply chain to improve their performance.

Economic Geography is a sub-branch of geography that deals with issues such as the location, place, economic activities, human activities, and how these factors are interlinked to help understand the distribution of organizations and activities. This field can be further broken down to evaluate the factors on an individual level. Space or location analysis is where local growth models are treated as an economic resource that provides a strategic advantage for the firms located in them. Therefore, it is trivial to emphasize the importance of location for economic activity; however, only recently, it has been given due considerations by economic theory.  The purpose of this study is to evaluate how the physical dimensions of Uzbekistan have improved the economy in recent times compared to the Soviet era and to investigate the central place theory about Mahallas. The methodology utilized for this paper was country-specific research and existing studies on space and location analysis.  The paper also focuses on evaluating the renowned Central Place theory by Walter Christaller and its application using Uzbekistan as a case.  This is a conceptual paper; therefore, literature review and recommendations based on previous studies will be the prime methodology.  The findings based on extensive research confirm that there has been incremental growth in space and location analysis.  It was also found that Uzbekistan has successfully utilized its space and territories for economic development.  Also, the Central Place theory was applied in an interesting manner to Mahallas in Uzbekistan.  Finally, the paper also highlights the importance of technological advancement and transportation to the success of economic development.  This study follows a conceptual approach. Therefore, the limitation is to utilize the theories conducted by other researchers and apply them to Uzbekistan.  Another practical limitation is that the researchers should have extensive knowledge about the country-specific in this case, Uzbekistan.  Future studies can be done on conducting quantitative research using some of the empirical models from economic geography.  This research paper contributes to the existing body of research on locational analysis and regional studies as well as economic development.  There has been limited research conducted on economic development of Uzbekistan; a growing economy post-soviet era, and therefore, it is important to evaluate the significant contribution.