Purpose“Metaverse” has become a buzzword in the Chinese stock market. However, it remains unclear whether a firm's metaverse-related announcements will elicit positive stock market reactions. Whether and how stakeholder reactions are influenced by a firm's metaverse-related readiness also needs to be further explored. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.Design/methodology/approachThe authors derived a set of factors based on readiness theory and business ecosystem literature and extend them into the context of the metaverse. The authors used a sample of 642 Chinese listed firms in 2021 to investigate the hypotheses through the event study.FindingsThe study’s findings show that metaverse coverage induces a positive stock market reaction, but it is subject to three moderating effects. The authors introduce the novel concepts of IT readiness, ecosystem readiness and digital infrastructure readiness as the moderators. Stakeholders perceive metaverse announcements as overhyped, and stock prices do not fluctuate significantly after a metaverse announcement when the listed firms are not ready to embrace the metaverse.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first that introduces the event study method into the metaverse research, and it reveals that different levels of readiness influence stakeholders' evaluations and reactions to corporate metaverse coverage. This provides empirical evidence on metaverse development in China from the stock market's perspective.

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Industrial pollution and over-exploitation of natural resources adversely affect the environment and are also a serious threat to society and economy development. At present, climate change, destruction of the ozone layer, water shortage, and sharp reduction of biodiversity have also become widespread environmental problems. Therefore, people have started to explore how to solve the environmental pollution problems in the process of economic development from corporate environmental management. In addition to corporate environmental management, we also focus on the study of sustainable operation. Improving operational efficiency can also effectively reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable development. This special issue of Ecological Chemistry and Engineering S (ECE S) collects 10 articles focusing on challenges and issues in corporate environmental management and sustainable operation, aiming to share and discuss the latest advances and future trends of theories and applications in academia, promote innovation in rural economic development models, improve the ecological environment, and bring practical insights and experiences to industry developers.

PurposeThis paper explores how Industry 4.0 facilitates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets to gain and maintain organizational legitimacy from the government and market and capture value from circular economy (CE) adoption in their businesses.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct an in-depth, multistakeholder case study in an SME in China’s hazardous waste recycling and re-utilization industry and apply a qualitative analysis.FindingsThe findings show that Industry 4.0 could facilitate SMEs to gain organizational legitimacy through two mechanisms, namely conforming and transcending. Conforming results in baseline-level outcomes to obtain legitimacy while transcending leads to ecosystem value-cocreation, which goes beyond government expectations and reinforces SMEs' legitimacy.Originality/valueThe authors validated the enabling role of Industry 4.0 in CE adoption in SMEs and have generated legitimation processes and strategies that facilitate SMEs to capture value from CE adoption.

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