Direct intervention or indirect support? The effects of cooperative control measures on farmers’ implementation of quality and safety standards

In recent years, labor-intensive agricultural products from developing countries have exhibited inferior performance in international trade due to quality and safety incidents, among which pesticide residue is a major issue. Aiming to improve food quality and safety in the context of cooperatives, we introduced three categories of control measures: outcome control, process control and social control. Based on the Pre-Harvest Interval Standard (PHIS), we selected three indices, farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance to PHIS and relative distance to PHIS, to evaluate appropriateness of pesticides use, reduction of pesticide residue and safety improvements of agricultural products. By using random sampling survey data, we empirically analyzed the marginal effects of control measures and their combinations on food quality and safety standards. The empirical results show that implementing process control, namely, unified production standards or supply of unified agricultural inputs, can comprehensively improve farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance and relative distance to PHIS respectively by 34.9%, 3.2 days and 46.0% on average. While the effects of outcome control (safety inspection) and social control (bonus-penalty incentive or training) are restricted to other measures. Therefore, we suggest cooperatives should take farmers’ features, implementation conditions and the effects of control measures into consideration in order to make a sustainable management plan for improving food quality and safety and enhancing competitiveness in international markets.     

The process of entrepreneurial action at the base of the pyramid in developing countries: a case of vegetable farmers in Benin

The assumption that entrepreneurship is a critical factor in expanding employment, creating wealth and contributing to poverty alleviation at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in developing countries has led to the development of many initiatives to strengthen the entrepreneurial activities of poor people. Despite the fact that entrepreneurship is seen as a strategy in combatting poverty, the process that leads to entrepreneurial action in a BoP context is still unclear. In this paper, we illustrate the possibilities a multi-layered perspective offers to understand the complexity of entrepreneurship in poverty settings. Based on five focus group discussions and 36 in-depth interviews with vegetable farmers in Benin, we examined the entrepreneurship of poor people. We learned that entrepreneurial action is the nexus of individual and exogenous factors in complex relationships. Based on this, we elaborate on the characteristics of the process model of entrepreneurial action. We provide a process-based view of entrepreneurship at the BoP, suggesting a need for consistency between individual, behavioural strategies and contextual elements. We discuss the implications of our findings for BoP practice and provide a framing perspective that we hope will encourage a greater focus on the complexity of entrepreneurship phenomenon.     

The benefits and implementation of performance transparency: The why and how of letting your customers ‘see through’ your business

While some organizations swear by the benefits of transparency and are eager to learn and implement transparency practices, many managers are still reluctant or even afraid to use them. Our research reveals that only a few innovative companies have taken steps to leverage a potentially useful form of transparency: the provision of accessible and objective information to customers (e.g., sharing unbiased benchmark data, publishing unfiltered customer comments, or providing candid product reviews that may praise but also criticize the company’s products). Our study also shows that many companies remain wary and view greater calls for transparency as a challenge to be managed rather than an opportunity to be traded upon. This is partly due to limited research into the performance benefits of giving customers access to objective information, and lack of practical guidelines on how to actually implement it. This article addresses these shortcomings. First, we investigate whether performance transparency leads to customer outcomes that can be profitable for an organization and, second, we analyze the characteristics of successful transparency initiatives in a wide range of industries. Our research shows that customers exhibit more trust and are willing to pay a premium to deal with transparent businesses. Also, it uncovers seven effective strategies to leverage transparency. This article provides convincing empirical evidence for the benefits of performance transparency and the ways in which management may implement it successfully.     

Innovation and public procurement: Terminology,concepts, and applications

The growing awareness of public procurement as an innovation policy tool has recently sparked the interest of both policy makers and researchers. While an increasing number of studies is being published every year, an overview of the field is missing. Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers are often using ambiguous wording and have not yet reached consensus on the terminology and concepts involved. This state of affairs leads to research fragmentation and lack of knowledge convergence. For the purpose of contributing to knowledge synthesis and consolidation, this article provides a structured review of the literature on innovation in public procurement. From categorizing publications based on innovation drivers, concepts, and research approaches, the emerging structure of the field is described and synthesized into a framework of innovation in public procurement. The proposed framework differentiates between literature streams on (1) innovations in the public procurement process, (2) innovation of public services by means of procurement, and (3) the use of public procurement as a tool for demand-side innovation policy-making. For each of these streams of literature, different focus areas as well as research gaps and opportunities for future research are identified. Based on analysis of existing research, the proposed framework provides an overview of state-of-the-art knowledge, a unified terminology, and a holistic understanding of innovation in public procurement. The framework is both a point of departure for future research and a source of knowledge for practitioners.     

Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) participation the pathway to foster meaningful work and helping behavior for millennials?

This study examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) participation affects organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through meaningful work. This work is significant for three reasons: the joint examination of CSR, meaningful work, and OCB is novel; the comparative effects of CSR perception versus CSR participation have not been examined previously; and this is the first examination of such relationships for different generations of employees. Data from 245 employees of four-star hotels were analyzed using a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach and multigroup analysis (MGA). Results reveal that CSR participation has a strong influence over work-related outcomes. The strongest effect of CSR participation on helping behavior is in Generation Y whereas CSR perception has a strong indirect effect on helping behavior through meaningful work in Generation X. These findings offer managerial implications to hotel managers on how best to manage generational differences in predicting helping behavior at workplace.     

海南城乡居民消费水平差异性分析和预测

从1985-2018年海南城乡居民收入、消费数据出发，分别建立消费关于收入、消费差距关于收入差距的自回归模型，结果表明农村居民当期消费更易受近期收入和消费水平的影响，具有不稳定性。再利用GM(1,1)模型预测城乡居民收入差距，结合自回归模型，完成未来10年海南城乡消费差距的预测：收入差距和消费差距将呈直线递增趋势，收入差距的增幅高于消费差距增幅。缩小海南城乡居民消费差距的根本途径在于缩小收入差距，应因地制宜，切实提高农民收入水平。     

A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW FOR GREEN PRODUCT TERM: FROM DEFINITION TO EVALUATION

Nowadays, interest in corporate environmental strategies shifts from cleaner processes to the holistic nature of green products. The relevant literature argues that firms have the opportunity to pioneer through green product innovation, allowing them to differentiate and thus gain competitive advantage. Environmental burden of products during their entire life cycle is undeniable. Due to the weakness of the existing literature that inadequately addresses a commonly accepted green product definition, as well as the thereby caused inconclusive academic empirical results on firms' competitiveness, there are many cases of businesses greenwashing behavior. The overall contribution of this exploratory paper, on determining and evaluating the degree of greenness of a product, is twofold; first, starting with a systematic literature review, authors further contribute by proposing an integrative definition that addresses the so far existing terminological gap. Next, after reviewing the existing environmental assessment tools, authors based on the developed definition and in accordance to its dynamic dimension contribute to the existing methodology, as the paper reveals issues that need to be considered in the evaluation of green products.     

Going abroad to play: Motivations,challenges, and support of sports expatriates

Professional athletes moving abroad for their career is a novel phenomenon in international human resource management (IHRM). This exploratory article charts the motivations of sports expatriates to move abroad to play, as well as adjustment challenges and sources of support. A survey was conducted with 77 professional athletes in 10 different sports. The main motivations to move abroad were interest to experience life abroad, followed by the search for new challenges. In terms of challenges, different coaching style and communication issues were most often mentioned. Support was mainly informal, through team mates rather than professional providers. Our article contributes to the literature because it is one of the first studies focusing on sports expatriates from an international HR perspective. Our study provides information on a vulnerable group of expatriates; they are young in age and under extreme performance pressure. Sports expatriates need all the support they can get, and yet, little professional support is offered.     

A spatial autoregressive stochastic frontier model for panel data incorporating a model of technical inefficiency

By integrating Battese and Coelli’s (1995) model and the spatial autoregressive model (SAR), a spatial autoregressive stochastic frontier model for panel data is developed. The main feature of this frontier model is a spatial lag term of explained variables and the joint structure of a production possibility frontier with a model of technical inefficiency. The model addresses both spatial dependence and heteroskedastic technical inefficiency. This study applies maximum likelihood methods considering the endogenous spatial lag term. The proposed model nests several existing models. Further, an empirical analysis using data on the Japanese manufacturing industry is conducted and the existing models are tested against the proposed model, which is found to be statistically supported. The findings suggest that estimates in the existing spatial and non-spatial models may exhibit bias because of lack of determinants of technical inefficiency, as well as a spatial lag. This bias also affects the technical efficiency score and its ranking.