Drawing care: the illustrated journal’s “path to place”

ABSTRACT

Naturalists argue that the greatest threat to the natural world may be our “extinction of experience” with it. We know that place matters, but what can work to restore care between people and place? In this article, I will argue that illustrated journals can reinvigorate our experience with the world. By including text and image, science and art, illustrated journals incorporate different ways of knowing. Drawing draws us into the world as we pay attention to easily missed details. Writing complements drawing by providing a space for synthesizing or imagining about the observed. Like any skilled practice, journaling transforms our understanding of the world. My illustrated field journals began when I sensed that care for today’s world demanded more tools than what my training as an ecologist, alone, could offer. Illustrated journaling can begin with a few simple drawing and writing exercises – several of which I will describe in this article. As an immersive practice in place, the process of illustrated journals matters more than the product. Page by page, illustrated journals recognize the interpretive encounters so foundational to worldmaking and, in doing so, cultivate the deep attention to, and experience of, the world that is our first step toward care.     

延迟退休年龄下隔代抚育与劳动参与的抉择*——基于工资收入随机性假定的研究

隔代抚育会对延迟退休年龄政策在促进劳动力供给上产生挤出效应。为了对此进行验证，本文在工资收入随机性的假定及延迟退休5年的情景下，模拟了面临孙辈照护需求的女性临近退休者提前退休所产生的福利变化。进一步，本文采用CHIP和CHARLS的微观调查数据，对不同群组的收入增长率和收入风险进行了估计，继而分析了当面临孙辈照护需求时这些收入特征对退休决策者制度退休和退休后劳动参与抉择产生的影响。总体上，在延迟退休年龄政策下，隔代抚育将对女性劳动力供给产生挤出效应。当面临孙辈照护需求时，女性临近退休者的制度退休抉择主要受自身收入增长率和收入风险的影响，收入增长率越低，或收入风险越高，她们提前退休的意愿就越强烈；制度退休后的劳动参与则更多地受子女收入增长率的影响，子女收入增长率越高，劳动参与的概率越低。     

Preference for a career in retailing: a question of personality

Drawing on previous findings from the field of brand personality research and employer branding, this paper aims to explore the symbolic attributes of the retail industry image in South Africa and to identify those personality traits that distinguish preferred industries from the retail industry. The research provides a contemporary overview of the current image of the retail industry in South Africa from the perspective of young university students and allows retailers to strengthen their joint communication effort accordingly. Therefore, a quantitative survey study with 1426 participants from five South African universities was conducted. Participants assessed personality characteristics of the retail industry as well as their most preferred industry. The main results suggest that retail and non-retail students hold different personality perceptions of the retail industry and that prior retail involvement accounts for this difference to some extent. Moreover, the analysis shows that retailing performs significantly worse on those personality attributes that are of major importance for future job seekers. Additionally, the study identifies those attributes that exert a strong effect on students’ preferences for the retail industry. The findings provide useful communication themes for educational institutions, retail companies, and industry associations in order to foster positive personality perceptions associated with the retail industry.     

Problematizing socioemotional wealth in family firms: a systems-theoretical reframing

The concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW) seeks to present an independent paradigmatic basis for family-firm research, and in doing so aims to establish a sound basis for the scientific legitimacy of family-firm research. Establishing that legitimacy requires scholars to demonstrate that SEW is based on coherent assumptions on several theoretical levels. This paper uses the problematization methodology to challenge the coherence of the theoretical assumptions underpinning SEW and to advance theory development. The results of this problematization show that SEW is built on a theoretical level close to the object of research (in-house assumptions), but that more deeply-rooted theoretical levels (e.g. paradigmatic assumptions) are not sufficiently elaborated. Moreover, the original conceptualization is based on a positivist-mechanistic view, which hinders SEW reflecting the complex reality of family firms. Based on the results of this problematization, new systems theory is applied to reframe SEW’s theoretical grounding. Thereby the main contribution of the paper is a critical reflection on the theoretical underpinnings of SEW (in particular root-metaphor and paradigmatic assumptions), serving as the basis for advancing a coherent theoretical understanding of this important concept in family business research.     

Effects of scale economies and production seasonality on optimal hub locations: the case of regional fresh produce aggregation

Interest in supporting local and regional food systems is rising and food hubs have attracted considerable attention among Federal, State, and local policymakers. This study explores the problem of endogenous hub location in fresh produce value chains in the Northeastern United States. To overcome limitations in the literature, we incorporate the effects of economies of scale and production seasonality into our models. Three experimental models are designed to examine the effects of alternatively applying yearly, quarterly, and monthly data on model solutions. We explicitly assess how interactions of scale economies and seasonality influence the structure and spatial attributes of an optimal regional produce aggregation hub system. The three models generate marketed different solutions and in many respects they lead to different conclusions about developing local/regional supply chains. The monthly model allows for production seasonality and actual hub operation cycle frequency and thus leads to more efficient hub solution with rich policy implications.     

Persistence of Price–Cost Margin and Technical Efficiency in the Indonesian Food and Beverage Industry

Abstract

This research investigates the persistence of price–cost margin (PCM) and technical efficiency (TE) of firms and the relation between these two factors in 44 subsectors of the Indonesian food and beverage industry in the period 1980–2014. Data envelopment analysis with a bootstrapping approach is applied to estimate TE. An autoregressive model, accounting for endogeneity, is applied to estimate the persistence coefficients of PCM and TE. A cross-sectional regression model is also applied to estimate the relation between the persistence of the PCM and the persistence of TE. The results show that for these food and beverage firms, high PCM and low TE persist. Furthermore, the persistence of PCM negatively affects the persistence of TE in the industry.     

政府研发补贴促进企业创新了吗

政府补贴能否促进企业创新一直存在争议。与以往从资源视角探讨政府补贴与企业创新关系的研究不同，基于信号理论视角，以2012—2016年沪深A股非金融类上市公司为研究样本，通过剔除非研发补贴的噪音并控制样本自选择偏误，实证检验中国转型经济背景下，政府研发补贴对企业创新的微观政策效应，以及企业层面制度因素（产权性质）和区域层面制度因素（制度环境）对该效应的调节作用。研究发现，政府研发补贴释放的积极信号能够帮助企业获取外部创新资源，有效促进企业创新；相比于国有企业，政府研发补贴对非国有企业创新的激励效应更强；制度环境越好，政府研发补贴对企业创新的激励效应越强。研究理论丰富了科技创新政策有效性和信号理论相关研究。同时，研究发现，政府应继续加大对企业创新活动的补贴额度，不断深化所有制改革，为企业创新营造良好的外部制度环境；另外，企业还应充分发挥政府研发补贴信号的杠杆效应，拓宽外部创新资源获取渠道。     

高技术企业多元化战略对创新持续性的影响——动态能力的调节作用

基于资源基础理论和持续创新内生机制，利用435家高技术企业2010—2018年面板数据，对多元化战略对高技术企业创新持续性的影响进行探究。结果表明，产品多元化与创新持续性呈正U型关系，技术多元化对创新持续性具有正向促进作用，产品多元化与技术多元化协同效应对创新持续性具有负向影响；动态能力强化了产品多元化与创新持续性之间的正U型关系，并正向调节技术多元化与创新持续性之间的关系。在动态能力调节作用下，高技术企业产品多元化与技术多元化协同效应对创新持续性具有正向影响。     

Large agricultural investments in Kenya’s Nanyuki Area: Inventory and analysis of business models

Many experts agree that more agricultural investment is needed in the global South to improve local food security and reduce poverty. However, there is a lack of consensus about the types of investment needed to achieve these goals. This paper contributes to the literature on large agricultural investments and corresponding business models by inventorying and analysing such investments in Kenya’s Nanyuki area. We identify four clusters of business models that differ primarily by type of production and other distinct determinants, namely: demand from markets; access to land; land tenure regime and colonial history; actors involved; biophysical context; labour availability; and governance of the value chain via private standards. The study results shed light on the factors that help or hinder implementation of large agricultural investments and shape their impacts in the context of African land use systems. The way land is accessed represents one of the most-decisive factors determining the risks and opportunities associated with such projects. We find that most investments in the Nanyuki area occur on land bought or leased from private owners.     

Optimal privatization policy with asymmetry among private firms

We revisit the relationship between the optimal privatization policy and market competition indexes such as the Hirschman–Herfindahl index. It is affected by the number of the firms and asymmetry among the sizes of the firms; the smaller the number of firms and the more asymmetry among firms, the higher the market concentration index. The literature on mixed oligopolies suggested that the optimal degree of privatization increases with the number of private firms, and thus, decreases with the market competition index, assuming that all private firms are homogeneous. We investigate how asymmetry among private firms affects the optimal degree of privatization. We propose the simplest and natural model formulation to discuss asymmetry among private firms. We find that the optimal degree of privatization is either nonmonotone or monotonically increasing, and thus never monotonically decreasing, in asymmetry among private firms.