Advantages of the social stamp for the biodiesel producer companies： The BSBIOS and OLEOPLAN cases

Biofuel has become an alternative source of energy in response to the change of the world＇s energy matrix. In Brazil, biodiesel has a highlighted status because it is obtained from different raw materials including animal or vegetable origins. In this context, trying to stimulate the social inclusion and the regional development, the federal government has been allowing some tax benefits through the Social Fuel Stamp （SCS） to the producer companies of biodiesel, since the purchasing of the raw material is from small farmers. Taking this into account, this article aims at the identification of the advantages perceived between the BSBIOS and the OLEOPLAN-two producer companies of biodiesel, located, respectively, in Rio Grande do Sul, in relation to the use of the social fuel stamp. In this case study, classified as a qualitative and of exploratory style, the data collection was done through the observation of informal conversations, visits in the companies named above, through interviews made with a pre-determined guide that allowed the application of the subject analysis technical. The analysis of the results is organized through the profile of these companies and by the identification of the advantages provided by the social fuel stamp. The results of this study show that the companies consider the social fuel stamp as fundamental and that it provides four advantages： the access to better financial conditions through the BNDES and other financial institutions; the right to compete in auctions for the biodiesel purchasing by the Petroleum National Agency, Natural Gas and Biofuel （ANP）; the exemption of taxes; and, the use of the logo of the stamp showing the social role of the company that does not represent a differentiated factor concerning the marketing strategy.     

What type of cooperation with suppliers and customers leads to superior performance?

This research evaluates cooperation with key suppliers and customers, correlating cooperation to financial performance. Four cooperative behaviors represent cooperation as a multidimensional concept and the research explores the effect of each of these different dimensions of cooperation on performance. Results show that not all cooperative behaviors have similar and positive impacts on performance. Flexibility has no significant effect while shared problem solving has a negative effect. The other two cooperative behaviors, information exchange and restraint in the use of power, have positive impacts on performance. Results also indicate that cooperation with customers affects mostly firm growth while cooperation with suppliers affects firm profitability. Based on a survey of 124 packaging manufacturers, the analysis uses CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) to validate the measurement of constructs and multiple regressions to analyze the relationships between the cooperative behaviors and financial performance.     

Nonverbal cues in computer‐mediated communication,and the effect of chronemics on relational communication

Computer‐mediated communication (CMC) has been described as lacking nonverbal cues, which affects the nature of interpersonal interaction via the medium. Yet much CMC conveys nonverbal cues in terms of chronemics, or time‐related messages. Different uses of time signals in electronic mail were hypothesized to affect interpersonal perceptions of CMC senders and respondents. An experiment altered the time stamps in replicated e‐mail messages in order to assess two time variations: (a) the time of day a message was sent and (b) the time lag until a reply was received. Results revealed significant interactions among these variables, and the task‐orientation or socioemotional orientation of the verbal messages, which affected perceptions of communicators’ intimacy/liking or dominance/submissiveness. Findings extend recent theories regarding social attributions and the adaptation of social cues in CMC behavior.     

Green capital and social reproduction within families practising voluntary simplicity in the US

In this paper, we examine how parents in the US who practise voluntary simplicity enact family and social reproduction. Two key findings emerged. First, adult simplifiers in our study typically grew up within families that practised voluntary simplicity or frugality and transmit these consumption patterns to their own children. Second, simplifiers often struggle with other family members, friends and society over issues related to the tensions that emerge as they seek to simplify their lives while at the same time raising children who will not be ‘shunned’ by a mainstream, consumption-focused society. We conclude that parents who voluntarily simplify are able to maintain their social class status through redefining what it means to be middle class through the creation and utilization of ‘green capital’.     

Inference about parameters in empirical linear Bayes estimation problems

Abstract

It is shown how one may construct tests and confidence regions for the unknown structural parameters in empirical linear Bayes estimation problems. The case of the collateral units having varying “designs” (i.e. regressor and covariance matrices) may be treated under the assumption that the design variables independently follow a common statistical law. The results are of an asymptotic nature.     

Zur numerischen Integration

Abstract

Untersuchungen über das Restglied der sogenannten Cotesischen Formeln zur numerischen Integration sind vielfach angestellt worden, vor allem von Maclaurin, Gauss, Markoff, Peano und Steffensen. Maclaurin¹ betrachtet nur Sonderfälle und stützt sich dabei auf die Euler-Maclaurinsche Summenformel. Dieses Verfahren bedeutet jedoch einen Umweg und gestaltet sich, wenn es einwandfrei durchgeführt werden soll, ausserordentlich umständlich und weitschweifig. Die von Gauss² al1gewandte Methode, welche z. B. von Encke³ weiter ausgebaut worden ist und sich in vielen Lehrbüchern findet, ist streng und systematisch, sagt aber dem modernen mathematischen Empfinden nicht mehr recht zu. Denn bei ihr wird vorausgesetzt, dass sich die zu integrierel1de Funktion durch eine im abgeschlossenen Integrationsintervall konvergente Potenzreihe darstellen lässt, was keineswegs der Fall zu sein braucht und nicht im Wesen der Sache liegt. – Markoff⁴ zieht die Cauchysche¹ Form des Restgliedes der Waring-Lagrangeschen Interpolationsformel heran, berücksichtigt aber nUT Sonderfälle. Bei Peano² tritt das Restglied der Cotesischen Formeln in der Gestalt eines uneigentlichen Integrals mit einem Unstetigkeitsfaktor auf. Wirklich befriedigend hinsichtlich Einfachheit und Strenge erscheint erst die von Steffensen³ gegebene Behandlung des Problems, bei welcher das Restglied mit Hilfe einer höheren Ableitung ausgedrückt wird.     

Risk invariant linear estimation

Abstract

We show how to construct risk invariant (equalizer) linear estimators in credibility models, when the variance components are unknown but constrained by linear equations. Risk invariant linear estimators will often be minimax and admissible. They are useful in situations with unidentifiable variance components, but may also be used when reliable estimates of the variance components are not available.     

Post local forms of repair: The (extended) situation of virtualised technical support

We address the seemingly implausible project of moving the technical support of complex organisational technologies online. We say ‘implausible’ because from the point of view of micro-sociological analysis and the influential work of Orr (1996) there is a consensus that the diagnosis and resolution of technical failures is an intrinsically ‘localised affair’ (i.e., rooted within a specific place and time). Notwithstanding this view, technology producers have been pushing in the recent period to develop online forms of support. Today, and particularly in the area of organisational software, many technical failures are now repaired at a distance. How is this possible given the consensus amongst sociologists? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a major software producer we show how repair work has been recast and inserted in a new geographical and temporal regime. This has implications for how sociologists of technology conceptualise the nature and practice of technical failure but also the time and situation in which it occurs. We attempt to refocus understandings of technical problems from a preoccupation with their rootedness onto how they are lifted out of local contexts and passed around globally distributed offices in search of requisite specialist expertise. Importantly, whilst virtualisation appears a seemingly effective means to resolve failures it also has negative consequences. Whereas in more traditional types of technical support place-based social relations are seen to bear the burden of controlling and regulating support, in online forms other means have to be found. Our conceptual aim is to move away from a view of repair revolving exclusively around the situation conceived of as a ‘small place’. Rather, since support work is increasingly ‘stretched out’ across a global network of labs connected up by technologies, it now takes place across an extended situation. We work up this notion first to highlight how aspects once seen as central to localist forms of analysis are no longer the only organising features as technical work moves online and second to demonstrate the various ways in which the locales for this work are now mediated by technology.     

V. Wrischaftsordnung und soziale Verfassung

Ohne Zusammenfassung