The effects of environmental focus and program timing on green marketing performance and the moderating role of resource commitment

Should firms adopt sustainable marketing policy and develop green products? Most popular press says yes, but industry remains slow to act upon such initiatives. Drawing upon recent research in the Industrial Marketing Management Sustainability Special Issue, this research investigates the impact of green initiatives on firm performance and how the related commitment of resources impacts the effectiveness of those initiatives. The goal of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of green marketing on firm performance, in terms of financial performance, market performance, and service quality. Further, resource commitment is examined as a possible boundary condition of these relationships. Using multi-source data, the findings suggest that the commitment of proper resources is critical to the success of any green initiative. This study also supports the notion that being the first firm in an industry to initiate a green program provides few tangible benefits. More importantly, even firms with an environmental focus neglect to realize superior performance unless the specific strategy is matched with consistent support from top management.     

浅谈绿色环保面料在服装中的应用

随着我国对环境保护的重视和消费者环保意识的提高,人们的生活开始追求健康、自然。绿色环保面料已经开始像绿色食品一样,成为消费者关注的焦点。绿色环保面料穿着舒适,对人体无害,相对其他面料有着明显的优势。服装企业家和设计师们越来越意识到在服装市场激烈的竞争中,已经进入了以面料取胜的年代。一些知名的服装公司也因为大胆采用、开发新型环保面料,而在当今如火如荼的服装竞争中占据了主要市场。     

中国工业绿色转型研究

目前,中国已进入产业转型升级的重要战略机遇期。面对应对气候变化的国际压力和日益加大的资源环境约束,中国工业迫切需要加快绿色转型。工业是中国经济的主体产业,工业绿色转型势必会对经济社会发展产生重大影响。一方面,在推动工业向绿色、低碳化转型过程中,需要付出一定的成本和代价;另一方面,实现工业绿色转型也将产生显著的效益。总体而言,工业绿色转型的效益远高于成本,这将成为中国工业绿色转型的根本动力。中国工业绿色转型需要加快机制创新。应充分借鉴国际经验,以政府战略法规为支撑,市场化推进,鼓励产业界积极响应、企业自主行动和公众广泛参与,建立涵盖环境规制、节能减排机制、绿色技术研发和产业化应用机制、国际协调机制的综合性、开放式绿色转型机制创新体系,并在技术、资金、交易机制、国际合作等方面不断丰富绿色转型的政策措施。     

Achievements and challenges of innovation co-production support initiatives in the Australian and Dutch dairy sectors: A comparative study

Policymakers and innovation scholars share an increasing interest in how to operationalize innovation support given the increasing number and range of stakeholders engaged in co-producing innovation. Using comparative case study analysis, this article examines support initiatives for dairy sector innovation in The Netherlands and Australia, addressing common challenges such as environmental issues, cattle health, new technology, and human resources. To this end, a review was conducted of documented information and articles published on the initiatives. The qualitative analysis focused on how the co-production process was supported and the achievements and challenges associated with each case. Across both countries and between different initiatives, the main achievements were found to be the generation of very different ideas addressing dairy sector challenges and attempting to bridge public and private sector interests. The main challenges included maintaining effort and momentum for high ambition targets and the potential for duplication as stakeholders became enrolled in different initiatives sponsored by different organizations in an increasingly devolved institutional setting. Furthermore, without strong institutional support for innovation co-production processes, individual actors were less able to operate effectively in innovation co-production roles. It is concluded that dairy sector innovation policies should address institutional constraints (e.g. provision of leadership and rewards for involvement in co-production processes), recognize that facilitation of innovation co-production needs to be adequately resourced, enhance support for initiative coordination to avoid duplication of effort, and take into account the specific institutional setting of countries and sectors to guide the design of innovation co-production support initiatives.     

Valuing Real Capital Investments Using The Least-Squares Monte Carlo Method

The recently developed least-squares Monte Carlo (LSM) method provides a simple and efficient technique for valuing American-type options. The proposed method is applicable to the cases of compound real options, like the other numerical techniques such as finite difference and lattice methods, with the additional advantage to handle easily the cases of multiple uncertain state variables with different and complex stochastic processes. With this advantage, the LSM method is not only efficient for valuing multi-factor American options, but it can also be extended for valuing complex real investments having many embedded real options and involving multiple uncertain state variables. This article examines the applicability of the LSM method in valuing real capital investments. Two valuation examples have been provided to test the efficiency of the proposed method in both the valuation and the decision-making processes.     

A multi-criteria game theory and real-options model for irreversible ICT investment decisions

The information and communication technology (ICT) industry is one of the most capital intensive among the high-technology industries. ICT business analysis, especially after the industry deregulation, has become a difficult task. Traditional quantitative cost–benefit analysis concerning investment decisions is by no means sufficient for capturing the complexity of the problem in its entirety. This work combines quantitative and qualitative analyses for modeling competitive interactions between players in the ICT business field. The proposed decision analysis model combines real options, game theory, and analytic hierarchy process for analyzing ICT business alternatives under the threat of competition. The proposed model is applied to a real broadband technology business case, showing how it can be formulated and solved.     

基于主成分分析的我国新型城镇化质量评价

城镇化是现代化的必由之路,我国的城镇化进程在取得巨大成就的同时出现了严重的城镇化质量问题。本研究从新型城镇化的内涵出发,构建新型城镇化质量评价指标体系,采用主成分分析法对全国30个省市的城镇化发展质量进行综合评价。结果显示：我国30个省市间城镇化质量差异十分显著,高于城镇化速度体现的差异。从东中西部区域来衡量城镇化质量高低,可以看出,东部＞中部＞西部。从城镇化速度与城镇化质量的协调度来分析,可以看出我国城镇化可以划分为4种类型：“高——高”型,“高——低”型,“低——低”型,“低——高”型,文章最后针对不同类型的城镇化提出相应的政策建议。     

基于低碳生态背景下纺织服装业的发展趋势

在当今社会形势下,低碳环保已经成为未来经济发展的趋势。在此形势下纺织服装业的发展也正面临极大的挑战,人们对服装的要求越来越高,企业的竞争也越来越激烈。低碳生态经济模式对中国纺织服装业提出了新的要求,是纺织服装产品由量向质的转变的一个新的发展模式。     

The rationality of emotions: A hybrid process model of decision-making under uncertainty

Decision-making continues to be a vital area of research on organizations, particularly in Asia. After years of research under the cognitive approach, there has been an upsurge of scholarly attention connecting decision-making to emotion. Nonetheless, competing accounts of the role played by emotion in decision-making have created a conundrum as to whether emotion is rational or irrational and whether it should even be considered along with other cognitive aspects of the decision-making process. In response, we derive a hybrid process decision-making model to integrate the effects from cognition and emotions varying with the levels of uncertainty. In proposing this model, we seek to differentiate the rationality of emotions from the instrumental, functional, and expressive mechanisms in decision-making. In particular, we proffer that affective construal legitimates the rational account of emotions under high uncertain situation. Finally, we draw some key implications and recommendations for organizational research in the Asian region.     

中国制造业最优环境规制强度的选择——基于绿色全要素生产率的视角

按照污染排放强度,本文将中国28个制造业部门分为重度污染产业、中度污染产业和轻度污染产业三大类,在测算1999—2009年三大产业部门环境规制强度和绿色全要素生产率的基础上,利用面板数据模型对环境规制与绿色全要素生产率的关系进行检验,力图从促进生产率的角度找出不同产业最优环境规制强度的拐点。研究结果表明:重度污染产业当前环境规制强度相对合理,能够促进产业绿色全要素生产率提高、技术创新和效率改进;中度污染产业环境规制强度较弱,环境规制与绿色全要素生产率、技术创新和技术效率的关系呈"U"型,相对于生产率和技术创新而言技术效率可以更早地突破"U"型拐点;轻度污染产业环境规制强度与三者的关系也呈"U"型,相对于生产率和技术效率而言,技术创新能够更早突破"U"型拐点。在制定适当的环境规制强度同时,政府应推进环境规制政策从控制型向激励型转变,诱导企业进行技术创新,实现环境和经济发展的双赢。     

The Value of Going Green in the Hotel Industry: Evidence from Beijing

Based on several unique datasets in Beijing, this article investigates the value of going green in the hotel industry by combining the traditional hedonic pricing model with the state‐of‐the‐art content analysis of online reviews. The results indicate that the rate of complaints about the indoor environmental quality of green hotels is roughly 19% lower than that for nongreen hotels. Hedonic regression analysis concludes that green hotels enjoy a significant room rate premium of 6.5% without reducing occupancy rates, mainly due to improved indoor environmental quality. Recognizing the presence of such cobenefits is likely to induce hoteliers to embrace green practices.     

丝路带西北段区域金融供给与绿色产业发展匹配问题研究

近年来由于环境问题带来的压力，绿色产业的发展越来越受到政府和人民大众的重视。绿色产业在发展的过程中面临各种资金问题，需要金融增加供给并改善供给结构来支持绿色产业的发展。本文探讨了金融供给与绿色产业发展的理论渊源，并选取丝路带西北段区域为研究样本，首先用基尼系数匹配法测算各指标的基尼系数值从而找出该区域金融供给与绿色产业发展匹配中存在的问题，接着运用熵权TOPSI匹配法计算二者匹配度与理想解之间的贴近度，最后得出陕西贴近度最高，金融供给与绿色产业发展匹配度最好的结论，并根据实证结果提出了相应的对策建议。     

Integrating Multiple Stakeholder Issues in New Product Development: An Exploration

Addressing the interests of a wide set of stakeholders is important because it may have positive effects on financial performance. At the same time, however, it is also very complex because managers may face conflicting stakeholder issues, much more so than organizations that listen to only one stakeholder. Little is known about how multiple stakeholder issues are dealt with in the context of new product development (NPD). The objective of this study is to delineate the elements of stakeholder integration in the context of NPD. A combination of insights from stakeholder theory and market information processing serves as a theoretical perspective to guide the empirical exploration in this study. The authors take the development of green (ecological) products as an empirical context for their qualitative multiple case study. Specifically, they selected four case studies with different expected levels of stakeholder integration, based on literature about green NPD. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with key informants, collecting documents, and obtaining artifacts. In total, 28 informants from various domains were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were coded using qualitative analysis software. The results show that a distinction needs to be made between market and nonmarket stakeholders, and that not all organizations are equally capable of identifying issues that are important to both categories of stakeholders. Organizations that identify issues that are relevant to both market stakeholders and nonmarket stakeholders are more likely to face tensions between stakeholder issues in NPD. Organizations manage these tensions using several, sometimes redundant, coordination mechanisms and using multiple prioritization principles in conjunction. Based on the results, the authors conceptualize stakeholder integration capability in an NPD context as the combination of stakeholder issue identification techniques, coordination mechanisms, and prioritization principles. They propose that stakeholder integration capability is the result of a learning process. Moreover, they propose that proactivity of environmental management and environmental impact of the industry help to explain why stakeholder issue identification techniques are developed, and that the identification of more stakeholder issues leads organizations to develop coordination mechanisms and prioritization principles. Finally, the authors propose that stakeholder integration capability leads to competitive advantage through organizational identification by stakeholders. The study implies that integrating multiple stakeholder issues is not just a matter of feeding additional information into NPD processes, but of changing the nature of these NPD processes.     

Environmental sustainability in fashion supply chains: An exploratory case based research

In recent years, both researchers and practitioners have devoted attention to environmental sustainability issues in the fashion industry, but, despite the topic's relevance, a structured analysis of the problem is missing.This paper presents the results of exploratory case-based research aimed at identifying three factors: the drivers that push companies to adopt “green” practices, the different practices that can be used to improve environmental sustainability, and the environmental KPIs measured by fashion companies. Results include a comparison of two approaches pursued by established international companies with green-positioned brands with the efforts of small firms that have adopted alternative supply chain models.     

The impact of forecasting on companies’ performance: Analysis in a multivariate setting

Over the years, practitioners and researchers have devoted their attention to forecasting techniques and methods that can be adopted to improve companies’ performance. However, forecasting techniques alone are not enough since companies should also consider several other issues associated with forecasting process management, e.g. how companies collect and use information on the market, or how the forecast is used in different decision-making processes. It is also important to understand the existence of interaction effects between these different forecasting variables, as they could determine a positive additional synergistic effect on companies’ performance. This paper aims to investigate what relevant forecasting variables should be considered to improve companies’ performance, and whether some forecasting variables can interact and influence performance with a synergistic effect. Analyses are conducted by means of data collected by the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG). Data from a sample of 343 manufacturing companies in 6 different countries demonstrate that when companies intend to improve cost and delivery performances, they should devote their attention to all the different forecasting variables. In addition, the results found reveal the existence of positive interaction effects between the collection and use of information on the market and the other forecasting variables, as well as the existence of a negative interaction effect between the adoption of forecasting techniques and the use of forecasts in several decision-making processes. These results have important implications for managers as they provide guidance on how to lever on the different forecasting variables to maximize companies’ performance.     

民办高校BOT项目建设风险模糊评价研究

民办高校BOT项目建设存在若干风险,如何准确评价其风险,对高校是否兴建该类项目的决策过程十分重要。论文首先建立了民办高校BOT项目风险评价指标体系,然后创新性地将不确定性层次分析法与多层次模糊评价法相结合,构建了民办高校BOT项目的风险评价模型。最后以某民办高校BOT项目为例介绍了该方法的应用。     

基于层次分析和灰色模糊评价法的企业财务危机预警度研究

本文定量化分析了企业财务危机的严重程度.在建立危机预警指标体系的基础上,运用层次分析法确定各指标的相对重要性的权系数,并通过一致性检验.再在确定指标评判准则的基础上,建立灰色模糊评价模型,决策过程同时考虑了不确定性和灰色性,使得结论更加符合实际.     

Developing Sustainable New Products in the Textile and Upholstered Furniture Industries: Role of External Integrative Capabilities

Environmental sustainability has become one of the key issues for strategy, marketing, and innovation. In particular, significant attention is being paid by companies, customers, media, and regulators to development and consumption of green products. It is argued that through the efficient use of resources, low carbon impacts, and risks to the environment, green products can be essential to help society toward the environmental sustainability targets. The number of green product introductions is rapidly increasing, as demonstrated by the growing number of companies obtaining eco‐labels or third party certifications for their environmentally friendly products. Hundreds of companies representing most of the industries, such as Intel, SC Johnson, Clorox, Wal‐Mart, and Hewlett–Packard, have recently introduced new green products, underlining the need to develop products that create both economic and environmental values for the firm and customers. A review of the literature shows that academic research on green product development has grown in interest. However, to date, only a few empirical studies have addressed the challenge of integrating environmental issues into new product development (NPD). Previous empirical works have mainly focused on a set of activities for the green product development process at the project level. After years of paying no or marginal attention to environmental sustainability issues, most of the companies now generally realize that it would require knowledge and competencies to develop green products on a regular basis. These knowledge and competencies can be varied, such as R&D, environmental know‐how, clean technology/manufacturing process, building knowledge on measuring environmental performance of products, etc., that may be developed internally or can be integrated through external networks. Adopting a resource‐based view of the firm, this article aims at (1) investigating the role of capabilities useful for companies to integrate knowledge and competencies from outside of the firm on green product development in terms of both manufacturing process and product design and (2) understanding whether green product development opens new product, market, and technology opportunities, as well as leads to better financial performance of NPD programs. To this end, a survey was conducted in two Italian manufacturing industries in which environmental issues are becoming increasingly important, namely textiles and upholstered furniture. A questionnaire was sent to 700 firms, and 102 useable questionnaires were returned. Results show that (1) companies engage in developing external integrative capabilities through the creation of collaborative networks with actors along the supply chain, the acquisition of technical know‐how, and the creation of external knowledge links with actors outside the supply chain; (2) external knowledge links play a key role in the integration of environmental sustainability issues into the manufacturing process, whereas capabilities such as the acquisition of technical know‐how and the creation of collaborative networks prove to be more important for integrating environmental issues into product design; and (3) the integration of environmental sustainability issues into NPD programs in terms of product design leads to the creation of new opportunities for firms, such as opening new markets, technologies, and product arenas, though not necessarily leading to improved financial performance of the NPD programs.     

A framework of E-SCM multi-agent systems in the fashion industry

The fashion industry's supply chain is full of uncertainty and unpredictability. Thus, building an intelligent system to effectively capture the requirements of customers and help manage the supply chain is very important. Typical quick response (QR) systems have been broadly used in the fashion industry to serve as a way of maintaining an efficient supply chain management (SCM). The original functions of a QR system cannot, however, completely overcome the challenge of quickly satisfying the requirements of customers with effective customer relationship and quality of service. In this paper, we have integrated the typical management information system (MIS) development procedure with that of an e-fashion SCM multi-agent system. Some related research and reports from different countries have been thoroughly surveyed in order to find possible IT and non-IT methods for use in the SCM of fashion retailers. This paper thus provides an electronic fashion SCM system by adopting the techniques of the Semantic Web and multiple agents. The proposed system can integrate different information technologies to make its behavior more intelligent and to catch more useful information from customers. Its implementation also considers some practical issues in the fashion retailing SCM.     

金融集聚、产业结构与环境污染——基于中国省域空间计量分析

本文利用2007～2014年中国省域面板数据，基于Arcgis、Geoda和Matlab软件平台，建立空间面板数据模型，实证分析了金融集聚、产业结构对不同环境污染物的差异影响，并讨论了技术进步、环境治理投资、对外开放度、经济增长水平对环境污染的影响。结果表明，3种污染物存在明显的空间自相关；银行业集聚和证券业集聚对环境污染没有显著影响，保险业集聚对于不同环境污染物具有差异影响；第二产业发展和调整促进了二氧化硫排放的增加、工业废水和工业粉尘的减少；不同控制变量对不同环境污染物具有差异影响。因此，环境治理需要考虑区域间的协同效应，加大银行业和证券业环保投资支持力度，加快经济增长方式转 变，改善引进外资结构和环境治理投资结构，重点推进控制工业粉尘排放的技术创新。