Extending social responsibility to small and medium-sized suppliers in supply chains: A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Buying firms’ sales and reputation will be greatly damaged by any non-responsible behaviors on the part of suppliers, especially when those suppliers, like small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have restricted resources and capabilities. To eradicate these risks, a growing number of buying firms have introduced socially responsible supplier development (SRSD). SRSD, including monitoring and evaluating suppliers, can provide them with incentives and assistance. Based on configuration theory and contingency theory, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is adopted in this study to examine how SRSD practices adopted by buying firms, supply chain partnership, and market turbulence affect the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of their SME suppliers. We find that, as core factors, supplier monitoring, supplier assistance, and supply chain partnership can work together with peripheral conditions to achieve superior CSR performance. In addition, even at different levels of market turbulence, superior CSR performance can be realized through different causal configurations.     

Enabling supercapacitors to compete for ancillary services: An important step towards 100 % renewable energy

While wind and solar generation has increased dramatically over the past decade, there has been a much larger increase in gas generation (eia, 2019). This is driven in part by low gas prices but also in part by how electricity markets are organized. The intermittent nature of wind and solar generation increases the need for more flexible and reliable generation; a role gas plants fill well. However, current market structures and rules unfairly tip the balance in their favor compared to energy storage systems. They have created market barriers restrictive enough to prevent market participation of a technology key to a 100 % renewable grid: supercapacitors. Adjusting markets to remove the market barriers to supercapacitor and other energy storage systems will allow for increased renewable penetration while simultaneously improving grid performance and reducing costs.     

Influence of market orientation on performance: the moderating roles of customer participation breadth and depth in new product development

ABSTRACT

With a greater number of B2B firms integrating customers into the new product development (NPD) process, how to utilize customer involvement in NPD is an important decision because it may be a double-edged sword carrying both bright and dark sides. Utilizing a sample of 193 B2B firms across various industries, we validate previous research that suggests market orientation positively influences NPD performance and subsequently examine how this relationship may either be enhanced or diminished contingent upon how customers are utilized in the NPD process. The results show that the market orientation–NPD performance relationship is enhanced by having customers participate in a greater number of activities throughout NPD (customer participation breadth) and diminished when customers are involved at deeper levels (customer participation depth). This research suggests that the exact involvement of customers is a critical decision and has clear implications for the dialogues about customer involvement and management of customer relationships.     

Offshoring and backshoring of surface finishing from the perspective of the Nordic countries

Backshoring of production to Western Europe has become an increasingly important trend after decades of offshoring. The subject is introduced by a general discussion followed by a specific analysis of the Nordic surface finishing industry. The main finding is that production quality is the main driver for backshoring of surface finishing.     

The short- and long-run efficiency of energy,precious metals,and base metals markets: Evidence from the exponential smooth transition autoregressive models

The aim of this paper is to investigate the long and short-run relationship between spot and futures prices of the energy, precious metals, and base metals markets. We analyze daily data from January 1985 to February 2019. The empirical findings based on the cointegration test, which follows a nonlinear process, suggest that the spot prices of energy and metals assets have long-run relationships with their futures prices. Nonparametric Granger causality test results also indicate bi-directional causality among futures and spot prices. These findings indicate that the energy and metals markets are informationally efficient in the sense of Fama (1970).     

Defining strategies to improve success of technology transfer efforts: An integrated tool for risk assessment

Science Based Innovation relies on effective Technology Transfer efforts. Defining strategies that increase high-technology projects success in the market is a necessary and challenging activity. This comprises elements like market uncertainty and the need for timely decision making within an environment of limited resources (economic, time, human, among others). In this context, Technology Intelligence (TI) generates useful knowledge to reduce risk and improve decision making. This work provides a tool to identify and qualitatively measure different risks; highlighted by previous TI activities. Such risks, their level and mitigation alternatives are also discussed. Furthermore, we create a simple, yet useful tool to calculate a risk score for technology projects at early stages of development. This tool was developed in a Technology Transfer Office to foster the development of entrepreneurial ventures.     

Quo Vadis public television? Market position of selected Western European countries

The liberalization of television markets and the emergence of commercial channels has changed the position of public television, bringing an end to monopolies. Public television now competes for audiences with private television. In this paper, the authors analyze the changes to the market position of public television in Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom (UK), and Italy between 1995 and 2019. In this 25-year period, all of these countries have had a liberalized TV market. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which public television competes with commercial television, assessing the consequences of this on market power. This analysis allows us to detect similarities and dissimilarities between public television and television markets in large Western European countries. The results show the decline of the market share of public television in all countries, except Germany. Furthermore, public television has remained market leading in all countries, with the exception of Spain. One of the ways to compete with commercial television is to start new public channels and acquire a large audience.     

Barriers to energy efficiency in shipping: A triangulated approach to investigate the principal agent problem

Energy efficiency is a key policy strategy to meet some of the challenges being faced today and to plan for a sustainable future. Numerous empirical studies in various sectors suggest that there are cost-effective measures that are available but not always implemented due to existence of barriers to energy efficiency. Several cost-effective energy efficient options (technologies for new and existing ships and operations) have also been identified for improving energy efficiency of ships. This paper is one of the first to empirically investigate barriers to energy efficiency in the shipping industry using a novel framework and multidisciplinary methods to gauge implementation of cost-effective measures, perception on barriers and observations of barriers. It draws on findings of a survey conducted of shipping companies, content analysis of shipping contracts and analysis of energy efficiency data. Initial results from these methods suggest the existence of the principal agent problem and other market failures and barriers that have also been suggested in other sectors and industries. Given this finding, policies to improve implementation of energy efficiency in shipping need to be carefully considered to improve their efficacy and avoid unintended consequences.     

国内ABS装置及产品分析

作者从生产工艺技术、产品结构、市场应用、产品性能、装置产能产量等方面,对比分析了国内主要ABS生产厂家的技术实力及市场地位。介绍了中国石油吉林石化公司通过引进技术扩建ABS装置,产能达到58万t/a,产品结构逐渐丰富完善,既发挥了原有0215A牌号的品牌优势,又从产能和产品种类方面提高了企业竞争力。目前吉林石化公司ABS产品综合能力已经达到国内第3的水平。     

双环戊二烯的现状及应用

随着国内碳五分离技术的日益成熟,不饱和聚酯树脂和石油树脂行业的迅速发展。环戊二烯/双环戊二烯(CPD/DCPD)资源的利用日益引起工业界的重视,给DCPD产业的发展带来了新的契机。介绍了双环戊二烯的应用情况,并对目前的生产现状和市场情况作了简要的分析。