Costs of Adopting a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point System: Case Study of a Chinese Poultry Processing Firm

Implementation of a hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) system by a Chinese poultry processing company required significant initial investments and greater monthly operation costs, including measures needed to meet prerequisite standard sanitary operating practices. HACCP benefits perceived by managers were diverse and difficult to ascertain—access to export markets seems to be the chief benefit. Large-scale, export-oriented plants appear to be able to bear the costs of HACCP implementation, but costs may be a greater barrier for smaller Chinese companies serving the domestic market.     

The quantitative strategic planning matrix: a new marketing tool

Originally introduced in a 1986 Long Range Planning article, the Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) has become widely used in strategic management but is only rarely used in marketing strategy. This paper reveals how and why the QSPM should be commonly used in marketing strategy to assess the relativeness attractiveness of alternative strategies being considered. An example QSPM is developed in this paper for a firm considering two alternative marketing strategies: (1) Increase Advertising Expenditures by 50% vs. (2) Lower Menu Prices 10%. The QSPM process is exemplified and limitations are discussed herein. The primary contribution of this paper was to reveal how and why the QSPM can be useful, both theoretically and practically, in a devising an effective marketing strategy.     

Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

Adequate flow of appropriate information to farmers is vital for accelerating the uptake of modern agricultural technologies and improving access to markets, all of which are important for the transformation of African economies. Yet there is limited evidence regarding how information should be disseminated to farmers to achieve the needed impact. Should ICT-based approaches be used together with traditional methods, or should they be used alone? We used cluster quasi-random and randomized experiments involving 140 villages in southern Mali to study three chains of causality: does farmer training increase knowledge? Does knowledge lead to change in behavior? Do the different actions generate varying economic outcomes? We show that the role of farmer training in the uptake of extension advice may be overstated in some settings; that procrastination and inattention are more binding constraints to recommendation adherence than information per se; and that such constraints could be mitigated by timely voice SMS reminders. Although timely reminders nudged farmers to take-up recommendations, leading to meaningful improvements in some intermediate outcomes, these impacts were not large enough to generate improvements in output, prices and profits in the short term. These findings must be interpreted within the context of imperfect compliance with experimental protocols, which pose threats to both the internal and external validity of some of the impact estimates.     

The use of the Pareto shape parameter as a leading indicator of process safety performance

Metrics addressing process safety incident performance typically focus on frequency and severity statistics. Often, these lagging metrics are not overly sensitive to actual performance, making trending and forecasting difficult. This article presents the results from a statistical study of a large incident dataset where changes in the Pareto shape parameter were observed as a function of time. This approach has been found to give far better insight into process safety performance than traditional incident metrics and readily relates back to concepts such as the “incident triangle” and “layers of protection.” Through the application of this approach, trends within process safety incident performance have been observed earlier, and more accurate forecasting has allowed for the identification of anomalies. In turn, these critical observations have allowed for the better structuring and targeting of process safety programs. Although incident data are generally considered as a lagging indicator, this approach has clearly reduced the lag time associated with this type of data and has given valuable insight into the current status of process safety performance. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009