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- Exploring circular economy in the hospitality industryPublication . Julião, Jorge; Gaspar, Marcelo; Tjahjono, Benny; Rocha, SaraThis paper explores the role of Circular Economy (CE) in the hospitality industry, namely in hotels and restaurants. Today’s hospitality consumers have become more ecologically conscious than ever before, and the demand for eco-friendly products and services has grown. This has imposed many hospitality companies into the adoption of Green Practices (GP) and Circular Economy (CE) principles. In particular, CE has been gaining popularity among governments and academia. However, current research shows that CE principles are being mainly discussed and applied in production and manufacturing. The application of CE principles into services, particularly in the hospitality industry, seem to receive little attention. The paper presents the CE concept and discusses it from the perspectives of both companies and consumers and debates the adoption of green practices by the hospitality industry. Our findings indicated that the consumer awareness of sustainable issues has a direct impact on companies’ adoption of CE and GP practices. The paper also identifies that green practices are gaining increased attention in the hospitality industry, and that a wide variety of green practices are already being adopted. However, the role of CE in hospitality industry appears to be uncovered by current research and obscured in green practices. The paper, therefore, identifies a research gap and calls for further investigation in the application of CE in the hospitality industry.
- Exploring the sustainability dimension to position Portuguese Beiras region endogenous resources as green products in the global marketPublication . Julião, Jorge Manuel Soares; Gaspar, Marcelo Rudolfo Calvete; Tjahjono, BennyRegional endogenous products are commonly perceived by consumers as cultural commodities. In a global market, where culturally differentiated products are difficult to shift due to the lack of awareness of their associated benefits, regional endogenous products are less appealing to consumers than mass-branded goods. As a consequence, regional products are mainly acquired by local consumers, narrowing the potential market to those who are mainly interested in regionally differentiated goods. A paradigm change related to endogenous resource products must be developed to widespread their market to a global scale, promoting a larger consumer-base and consequently enhancing local dynamics and competitive positioning of the regional ecosystems where such goods are produced. The purpose of this study is to explore the sustainability characteristics of endogenous products associated to the Portuguese Beiras Region and their role as a differentiation claim to a global mass-market. In-depth interviews were conducted with local Academia researchers and decision makers in order to explore the benefits of leveraging the sustainability dimension of local produced goods and forecast their effect on a global mass-market. Preliminary findings allowed inferring about the significance of the proposed green claim, but a gap was identified regarding the lack of information to customers regarding the associated distinctive attributes. Further research is needed to assess the remaining multiple-helix actors of the local ecosystem on identifying and developing the most promising strategies to effectively promote local endogenous produce to a global market.
- Impacts of industry 4.0 on operations management: challenges for operations strategyPublication . Gaspar, Marcelo; Julião, JorgeThe digital transformation of business positively contributes to the creation of new opportunities and challenges for Operations Management. New technologies have made it possible for managers to access, store and process large amounts of data, collected from different complementary sources, both internal and externally to processes. Nonetheless, even though such data availability may be of great contribution for management at the operational level, its potential for value creation at the operations strategy level remains unclear. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of recent trends and features related to the digital transformation in the operations management field, namely to further understand how such digital transformation is going to impact the operations strategy definition.
- Organizational strategies induced by the fourth industrial revolution: workforce awareness and realignmentPublication . Gaspar, Marcelo; Julião, Jorge; Cruz, MarianaOn the midst of this new Industrial Revolution, a disruptive change of technological, economic and social systems is expected to take place in a near future. In this context, significant changes are forecast to impact the employment landscape over the coming years. New challenges and new opportunities will arise in this digital landscape, demanding from future workforce the ability to adapt and grow in such ground-breaking environments. The objective of this research is to understand the main people-focused factors related to the shaping of the fourth industrial revolution, as well as to assess Portuguese local workforce awareness and realignment towards the Industry 4.0 paradigm.
- Food plastic packaging transition towards circular bioeconomy: a systematic review of literaturePublication . Beltran, Macarena; Tjahjono, Benny; Bogush, Anna; Julião, Jorge; Teixeira, Evandro L. S.Advancement in packaging technology has played an essential role in reducing food waste and losses; however, most of this technology relies mostly on the use of plastics. Thus, there is an imminent need to think seriously about the transition towards a circular bioeconomy of innovative biobased materials with biodegradability potentials. This paper examines the driving forces behind the changes in food plastic packaging regimes and specifically seeks to understand how sociotechnical configurations may influence niches to transition to a circular bioeconomy, particularly biobased biodegradable plastic materials. By employing a systematic review of the literature, we find that coordination with other back-end socio-technical systems that provide valorization of packaging waste is crucial to enable the transition. The literature indicates that one possible transition path is that the biobased biodegradable materials serve as “carriers of food waste”. The paper contributes to the discussion on the dynamics of food packaging in the transition to a bioeconomy viewed through the lenses of a socio-technical system (niche-regime-landscape), which continues to reinforce future actions, leading to better management of packaging end-of-life.