Representations of technology in the “Technical Stories” for children of Otto Witt, early 20th century Swedish technology educator

Children’s fiction in school libraries have played and still play a role in mediating representations of technology and attitudes towards technology to schoolchildren. In early 20th century Sweden, elementary education, including textbooks and literature that were used in teaching, accounted for the main mediation of technological knowledge to schoolchildren. An investigation of children’s literature for schools is therefore important in order to understand what was considered worth knowing about technology at the time. The aim of this article is therefore to analyse the representations of technology and attitudes towards technology that were mediated through two children’s fiction books in Swedish elementary school libraries in the 1910s. We have limited the analysis of empirical material to the books Technical Stories for Young and Old (Tekniska sagor för stora och små, 1914) and Technical Stories of the War for Young and Old (Krigets tekniska sagor för stora och små, 1915) by the Swedish inventor, author and technology educator Otto Witt. Gauging Witt’s influence on the schoolchildren and educators of his time is very difficult, but in this first English-language article on his “technical stories” one can conclude that he was in many ways unique and probably fairly well-read in the schools of early 20th century Sweden and onward. He was also a particularly perceptive forerunner of today’s technology and science educators in his use of anthropomorphism as an educational tool.     

Trade liberalization,consumption shifting and pollution: Evidence from Mexico's used vehicle imports

This paper develops a model of used vehicle trade between the United States and Mexico, countries with different environmental regulations regarding vehicle emissions. We demonstrate that the United States, with its strict environmental regulations, has a motive to export used vehicles to Mexico, which impacts air pollution emissions from vehicle driving in Mexico. Using unique data on the import and registration of vehicles in Mexico after NAFTA, we find that Mexico's used vehicle imports reduce pollution emissions generated from vehicle driving mainly because of the technique effect, that is, model–age‐comparable vehicles imported from the United States emit less than those originally operated in Mexico.     

Unobserved selection heterogeneity and the gender wage gap

Selection correction methods usually make assumptions about selection itself. In the case of gender wage gap estimation, those assumptions are especially tenuous because of high female nonparticipation and because selection could be different in different parts of the labor market. This paper proposes an estimator for the wage gap that allows for arbitrary and unobserved heterogeneity in selection. It applies to the subpopulation of “always employed” women, which is similar to men in labor force characteristics. Using CPS data from 1976 to 2005, I show that the gap has narrowed substantially from a ?0.521 to a ?0.263 log wage point differential for this population.     

Stakeholder engagement through empowerment: The case of coffee farmers

While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.     

La medición del capital intelectual y su impacto en el rendimiento financiero en empresas del sector industrial en México

Currently knowledge is considered an essential resource to contribute to the creation and generation of competitive advantage in organizations. The human factor as an intangible resource of a company has become a main value generator, and even though both knowledge management and intellectual capital are intangibles that can be measured in the financial reports of companies, their position as main value generators is not reflected in financial information. In Mexico, industrial sector companies need to promote the creation of intellectual added value based on its own abilities, which reside on their intellectual capital. The value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC?), with its components, is a tool that contributes to achieving this goal, and helps to identify the positive impact on key factors such as financial profitability, market capitalization and level of share value.     

Green supply chains and the missing link between environmental information and practice

Within the field of green supply chain management (GSCM), an interest in supply chain cooperation to create sustainable competitive advantage, i.e. the collaborative paradigm, has made researchers turn their attention to information related aspects of the supply chain. This study contributes to an understanding of a suboptimal use of environmental information, which is critical for all collaborative efforts aiming at sustainable competitive advantage. The aim of this article is to describe the use of environmental information at different stages of the Swedish food supply chain. The results from this case study of the Swedish food supply chain indicate that environmental information is perceived and used differently by purchasers in the supply chain depending on where (in the supply chain) they are situated in relation to other chain actors. The main contribution of this study is the suggestion of a stage‐dependent connection between perceived environmental cost and perceived environmentally informed consumer demand, which are barriers to GSCM practice discussed in recent GSCM literature. The missing link between information sharing and (environmental) performance of supply chains is explained as distance to end‐consumer in terms of supply chain stages. Implications for GSCM practice and theory are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

La formación en el trabajo en Europa. Determinantes y rendimiento salarial

Los autores analizan los determinantes de la participación de los trabajadores en actividades formativas y los efectos de éstas sobre los salarios. A partir de datos de seis países del Panel de Hogares de la Unión Europea del período 19952001, construyen cuatro tipos de indicadores de formación. Sus estimaciones con mínimos cuadrados ordinarios indican que las actividades formativas generan unos rendimientos salariales notables en casi todos los países analizados. Sin embargo, los rendimientos no son estadísticamente distintos de cero cuando repiten las estimaciones con modelos de efectos fijos. Por tanto, las ganancias salariales debidas a la formación podrían estar siendo sobrestimadas al no tenerse en cuenta adecuadamente otros factores.