Purpose
This paper aims to empirically investigate the role of market-based transformative service initiatives (TSIs) during the refugee crisis and shed light on how such TSIs increase inclusion of refugees in service systems by using market forces while creating broader benefits for service organizations themselves.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the case of the World Food Program’s (WFP) Dalili smartphone application targeting Syrian refugees in the context of Lebanon. A mixed-methods approach, including in-depth interviews with the retail managers of the local supermarkets and statistical cross- and intra-regional analysis on the retailing mix elements of the local supermarkets was adopted for the empirical investigation.
Findings
The results show that the WFP’s Dalili TSI increases service inclusion of refugees by facilitating their access to the essential food services easier and at affordable prices and helps them integrate into the host community. Furthermore, such market-based TSIs were shown to have broader benefits for other stakeholders in the food retail ecosystem including retailers and nonrefugee shoppers as they are successful in improving the retailing management standards of the participating supermarkets by decreasing the average retail price of the merchandise, increasing their variety and assortment, increasing promotional offers and improving the customer service level.
Research limitations/implications
This research fills the gap in the literature for empirical investigation on the impact mechanism of market-based TSIs on service inclusion and well-being of refugees. In contrast to the majority of TSIs studied in the literature that are designed by governments or nonprofit organizations in the areas such as higher education, health care and humanitarian aids, this study focuses on the case of TSIs developed by supranational organizations using market forces in the food retail ecosystem. Furthermore, the findings suggest that TSIs could also benefit the service organizations that offer such initiatives.
Practical implications
The findings of this paper have implications for service organizations and policymakers and their ability to design effective market-based TSIs during the refugee crisis.
Originality/value
The studied case in the context of TSIs in the food retail ecosystem and the empirical approach used are academically novel. Moreover, focusing on the refugee crisis in the Middle East region is rather understudied in the service research literature.
Global warming affected by human activities causes changes in the regime of rivers. Rivers are one of the most vital sources that supply fresh water. Therefore, management, planning, and proper use of rivers will be crucial for future climate change conditions. This study investigated the monitoring of hydrological drought in a future period to examine the impact of climate change on the discharging flow of the Zard River basin in Iran. Zard River is an important supplier of fresh and agricultural water in a vast area of Khuzestan province in Iran. A continuous rainfall-runoff model based on Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) algorithm was applied to simulate the discharge flow under 10 scenarios (obtained from LARS-WG.6 software) of future climate change. Then, the Stream-flow Drought Index (SDI) and the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) were calculated for each climate change scenario for the future period (2041–2060). The results of the meteorological drought assessment showed that near normal and moderate droughts had higher proportions among other drought conditions. Moreover, the hydrological drought assessment showed the occurrence of two new droughts (severe and extreme) conditions for the future period (2041–2060) that has never happened in the past (1997–2016).
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