Design for the environment: An ontology-based knowledge management model for green product development

Through appropriate operations and policies, such as green processes and product development process (PDP), companies can respond to environmental sustainability. To remain competitive, one such approach, Design for X (DFX), involves considering different environment and sustainable strategies through different factors Xs. With regard to the availability of different DFX techniques that consider environmental issues, the decision as to which approach needs to be adopted remains absent. This paper aims at presenting an overview from 1980 to 2020 of the developed research, applications, and DFX techniques for assessing green issues. Selected DFX techniques are linked with strategies used in organizations. Following a literature analysis, a collaborative knowledge-based framework that addresses the design concepts needed to assess environmental, safety, and health concerns in the development of green products is proposed. Furthermore, as a pillar for considering the Semantic Web and an evolving approach linked with natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI), an ontology-based knowledge management model for green assessment is developed for the representation, acquisition, organization, and capitalization of knowledge in a computer interpretable manner. The findings are useful for both managers and practitioners as they provide a coherent domain ontology that can help them manage knowledge, improve teamwork, and make decisions in a collaborative green PDP. Besides, an understanding of the essential design considerations that are required to implement environmental, safety, and health issues, as well as competencies used in the PDP is presented. Key barriers, managerial and strategic implications, and mitigation actions are also identified in this paper.     

Analysing the roadblocks of circular economy adoption in the automobile sector: Reducing waste and environmental perspectives

The automobile industry is one of the most rapidly growing sectors in our society. The increase in demand for vehicles drives the growth of the automobile sector worldwide. Fabrication of vehicles consumes an enormous amount of water, energy and resources, thereby increasing carbon emissions. Nonbiodegradable and manufacturing waste after the end of life usage results in a significant contribution to incineration, landfills, air acidification and water eutrophication. The adoption of circular economy (CE) initiatives can play a significant role in dealing with increasing waste and environmental pollution. The main goal of CE is to recycle and reuse materials to reduce waste and also to minimise environmental impacts. This article strongly supports the adoption of CE in the Indian automobile industry. For the successful adoption of CE in the Indian automobile sector, first, it is important to analyse roadblocks to the adoption. Twenty potential roadblocks towards the adoption of CE have been identified from a literature review and in consultation with experts in the field. To capture the vagueness of the data and to carry out a robust analysis, a Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method with Fuzzy theory is employed. The results reveal that roadblock ‘lacking ability to deliver high-quality remanufactured products’ is ranked first among all considered roadblocks. This study will help the Indian automobile industry, decision makers, research practitioners and government officials develop effective strategies for adopting CE in Indian automobile companies. A sensitivity analysis has been conducted to validate the stability of results.     

Do Disruptive Visions Pay Off? The Impact of Disruptive Entrepreneurial Visions on Venture Funding

Entrepreneurs often articulate a vision for their venture that purports to fundamentally change, disturb, or re‐order the ways in which organizations, markets, and ecosystems operate. We call these visions disruptivevisions. Neglected in both the disruption and the impression management literature, disruptive visions are widespread in business practice. We integrate real options and impression management theories to hypothesize that articulating a disruptive vision increases the likelihood of the venture receiving funding but reduces the amount of funding obtained. A novel dataset of Israeli start‐ups shows that a standard deviation increase in disruptive vision communication increases the odds of receiving a first round of funding by 22 per cent, but reduces amounts of funds received by 24 per cent. A randomized online experiment corroborates these findings and further demonstrates that the expectation of extraordinary returns is the key mechanism driving investors’ sensemaking.     

The effect of spatial variables on the economic and environmental performance of bioenergy production chains

The aim of this paper is to understand the impacts of spatial variables on the performance of bioenergy production chains (BPCs). Even though the strong debates continue on the use of first generation biomass for bioenergy production, many countries continue to utilize it as an alternative energy source. Several studies have been carried out on biomass transformation efficiency, on environmental impacts of using crop in biofuel production, and on its negative effects on increasing food prices. However, less attention has been paid to the role played by the spatial variables on the performance measures of BPCs.In this paper, we analyse how three spatial variables, i.e. cultivation area size, land dispersion, and accessibility to cultivation areas, can affect the performance of energy-balanced BPC, which produces its own electric and thermal energy demand. The chain is represented as a network of processes, where all inputs and outputs are geographically referred and analysed in a theoretical case example. We propose an enterprise input-output (EIO) model, which can be used as an accounting tool to compute the main materials and energy flows-related costs and as a planning tool to evaluate the chain performance in different scenarios. Finally, the proposed model is applied to an actual case study, to investigate the opportunity to establish a sunflower-based BPC in Apulia region (Italy) and to assess its performance.Results show that higher land dispersion degree and less area accessibility levels reduce the economic and environmental performance of the BPCs. The construction of the energy-balanced chain reduces the negative environmental impacts caused by fossil energy use in the processes of the BPC. Managerial implications can also be obtained from actual case study about the biodiesel plant location decisions.     

Non-cooperative solutions for estate division problems

In an estate division problem an estate has to be divided among several players whose total entitlement to the estate exceeds its size. This paper extends the non-cooperative approach through a claim game, as initiated by O?Neill (1982), by allowing players to put multiple claims on the same part of the estate, and by considering the case where individual entitlements may exceed the estate. A full characterization of the set of Nash equilibria of the claim game is obtained both for restricted estate division problems, where individual entitlements do not exceed the estate, and for the general case. Variations on the claim game are considered, which result in proportional division in equilibrium.     

Planning and implementing effective service guarantee programs

This article highlights different types of service guarantees, explains the benefits of service guarantees to consumers and service providers, examines why service guarantees are so rarely used, and describes the characteristics of effective service guarantee programs. We seek to motivate additional service providers into offering service guarantees (when appropriate), to improve the effectiveness of service guarantee programs, and to spur additional research that can reduce the gap between academic research and industry practices relating to service guarantees. Properly planned, implemented, and controlled service guarantees can benefit service providers by serving as a signal of quality to customers, focusing on consumer expectations, developing specific performance standards, providing reliable data on service failures, determining weak points in the service-delivery process, and regaining customers who would otherwise be lost. Despite these benefits, service guarantees are not commonly used by service providers for a variety of reasons. We study and evaluate these impediments as well as describe characteristics of effective service guarantee programs from both the consumer's and service provider's perspectives.     

The impact of human capital on the early success of necessity versus opportunity-based entrepreneurs

This paper examines whether founders’ backgrounds influence new firm survival in the early years after startup, focusing, in particular, on the impact of unemployment-driven entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs who left their previous employment to found a new firm, both general and specific human capital play a key role in enhancing early survival chances. However, various forms of human capital have little effect on early survival of unemployment-driven entrepreneurs, who rely mostly on previous entrepreneurial experience to persevere. Results suggest that pre-entry capabilities play an important role in the early success of opportunity-based entrepreneurs, but have little influence on the early success of necessity-based ones.     

Migrant Networks: Empirical Implications for the Italian Bilateral Trade

A significant number of empirical studies, focusing on different countries, have found a positive link between migration and trade. This paper studies the relationship between emigration, immigration and trade using Italian data. The sample regards 51 foreign trading partners and spans from 1990 to 2005. The results suggest that networks of Italian emigrants in foreign countries boost bilateral trade. The effects of immigrants are weak on exports and negative on imports. Results do not change when cultural and institutional dissimilarities between countries are considered.     

Retailing and the period leading up to the Great Recession: a model and a 25-year financial ratio analysis of US retailing

Today, more than ever, retailers need to analyze the key solvency (liquidity) and efficiency financial ratio measures that affect how well their firms perform and to engage in long-term activities that will lead to improved results. Clearly, the recent ‘Great Recession’ has had a significant negative impact on retailers worldwide. Yet, an important question remains largely answered: Was the retail industry a major contributor to the events leading up to the economic crisis or was it an affected bystander shaken by the recession? This paper addresses the question for US retailing, the largest retail economy in the world. Although there has been considerable research on some aspects of the performance of the industry and individual firms, no prior studies exist that comprehensively examine the financial ratio performance of the totality of US retailing over time. Here, the financial performance of US retailers in 54 different sectors is analyzed for the 1982–2007 period using a model and data derived from Dun & Bradstreet's annual Industry Norms & Key Business Ratios. Results show that for many financial measures – such as the current ratio, liabilities to net worth, return on sales (profit margin), return on assets, financial leverage, and return on net worth – US retailing's financial performance has been in a steady decline for decades. The model introduced here is largely validated.     

Failing firms and successful entrepreneurs: serial entrepreneurship as a temporal portfolio

Entrepreneurial performance is almost always confounded with firm performance. In this paper we argue for an instrumental view of the firm by formally showing that entrepreneurs can amplify their expected success rates by designing their careers as temporal portfolios that exploit contagion processes embedded in serial entrepreneurship. The advantages to holding concurrent portfolios that exploit heterogeneity are well known. The same advantages may be achieved in the serial context through contagion. Our model exploits an observation due to William Feller on the near equivalence of the two, statistically speaking. It also leads to empirically plausible implications about the size distribution of firms in the economy and illustrates the relevance of considering firms and entrepreneurs as distinct loci of analysis.