Systemic circular business model application at the company,supply chain and society levels—A view into circular economy native and adopter companies

This study contributes to the conceptualization of a sustainable circular business model (CBM), the application of the circular economy (CE) by companies. The study utilized a three-level framework adapted from the CE literature with company (micro), supply chain (meso) and society (macro) levels. This multiple-case study in the textile industry included two types of companies operating in the CE: companies founded on the sustainable principles of a CE (natives) and companies transitioning to a CE from the linear economy (adopters). The findings show that the adopters emphasized long-term economic sustainability on a company level and implemented CE elements to varying degrees on all three levels. The natives pursued business decisions from environmental and social sustainability standpoints, and the three levels were integral in their systemic approach to a CE. The study highlights two key claims: established operational structures and economic volition hindered adopters in their systemic CE implementation, and an integral part of the CBM for natives was a proactive approach towards the society level.     

Factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making in O2O business model: Evidence from consumers' overall evaluation

Online-to-offline (O2O) has become a rapidly growing e-commerce model worldwide, but the factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making have not been examined well. After exploring the working mechanism of the O2O model, we extract eleven indexes of consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model with Crawlzilla and R techniques. Social network analysis (SNA) is adopted to build social networks reflecting consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model. Based on the modified social network and the extracted subgraph, this study (N = 768) reveals consumers' overall evaluation behavior patterns in the O2O model by calculating network density, central potential, edge betweenness. The results show that shoppers overall evaluate the eleven indexes, especially perceived product quality, online product price, promotion intensity, business reputation, and product brand, which reflects the significant associations between the indexes. Among all the eleven evaluation indexes, perceived product quality, online product price, and business reputation dominate consumers’ decision-making behavior. When making purchase decisions, consumers not only overall consider online product price, perceived product quality, and business reputation but also balance perceived product quality, business reputation, and promotion intensity. Finally, we make some suggestions on marketing strategy for e-commerce companies.     

南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量评价与提升路径

文章构建了由31项指标组成的新型城镇化综合发展质量评价指标体系,运用AHP层次分析法和熵值法,选择19个国家级新区中2018年经济总量排名前十的新区进行定量对比分析,并结合民生幸福建设群众满意度问卷调查分析,对南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量进行综合评价。研究表明:(1)南京江北新区新型城镇化整体发展处于中上游水平,与发达新区相比存在一定差距,产业结构亟需优化;(2)发展增长方式、资源利用率、环境保护类指标明显落后;(3)科教文卫、居民生活等指标具有比较优势。文章最后提出新型城镇化提升路径为加快生态环境和公共服务建设,积极提升科教和生态示范效应,做大做强主导产业,促进城乡特色均衡发展和推进以人为核心的新型城镇化。     

Ideological taboos,entry barriers,and FDI attraction: Evidence from China

Developing and transitional countries often impose a wide variety of entry barriers on foreign direct investments (FDIs). One important reason behind these entry barriers is ideological taboos. However, do these taboos actually affect the inflow of FDIs? With the help of China’s “cultural system reform,” this study uses a panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China for 1994–2017 and the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the effect of the cultural system reform on regional FDI. We found that the cultural system reform remarkably promoted the inflow of FDIs by deregulating institutions and removing entry barriers, and the attraction of FDI has slowly increased along with the deepening of the reform. Our conclusions still hold after performing several robustness tests, thereby highlighting ideologies as important barriers to the inflow of FDIs into less developed countries.     

对于新会计制度下如何加强事业单位财务管理的剖析

财务管理是事业单位财务活动当中非常关键的环节,其有效性为事业单位的财产安全提供了保障。但是,随着新会计制度的出台和实施,事业单位的财务管理中存在的问题和不足逐渐暴露出来,这些问题严重阻碍了事业单位的持续发展。为了保障事业单位在新会计制度下实现长期健康发展,有必要就其财务管理当中存在的问题进行深入讨论,并提出可行的解决方案。     

无人机遥感系统的研究进展与应用前景

对于无人机遥感来说,融合了无人机技术与遥感技术。在无人机遥感技术应用的过程中,涵盖了诸多不同类型的先进技术,比如,无人机驾驶飞行技术、通讯技术、遥感传感器技术等,存在着显著的智能化、自动化等不同方面的特征,能够迅速得到相关资源,并且系统掌握国土、环境等不同方面的信息,然后加以实时化处理,通过建模与科学分析,能够制定出无人机遥感技术运用的具体策略,凸显出其良好的功效。本文针对无人机遥感系统的研究进展进行了详细地分析,同时说明了无人机遥感系统的应用前景,进而对有关研究人员形成一定的启发。     

System of crop intensification for more productive,resource-conserving,climate-resilient,and sustainable agriculture: experience with diverse crops in varying agroecologies

With continually increasing demand for food accompanied by the constraints of climate change and the availability and quality of soil and water, the world’s farmers are challenged to produce more food per hectare with less water, and with fewer agrochemical inputs if possible. The ideas and methods of the system of rice intensification which is improving irrigated rice production are now being extended/adapted to many other crops: wheat, maize, finger millet, sugarcane, tef, mustard, legumes, vegetables, and even spices. Promoting better root growth and enhancing the soil’s fertility with organic materials are being found effective means for raising the yields of many crop plants with less water, less fertilizer, reduced seeds, fewer agrochemicals, and greater climate resilience. In this article, we review what is becoming known about various farmer-centred innovations for agroecological crop management that can contribute to agricultural sustainability. These changes represent the emerging system of crop intensification, which is being increasingly applied in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. More research will be needed to verify the efficacy and impact of these innovations and to clarify their conditions and limits. But as no negative effects for human or environmental health have been identified, making these agronomic options more widely known should prompt more investigation and, to the extent justified by results, utilization of these methodologies.     

How Fast are Semiconductor Prices Falling?

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for the U.S. suggests that semiconductor prices have barely been falling in recent years, a dramatic contrast to the rapid declines reported from the mid‐1980s to the early 2000s. This slowdown in the rate of decline is puzzling in light of evidence that the performance of microprocessor units (MPUs) has continued to improve at a rapid pace. Over the course of the 2000s, the MPU prices posted by Intel, the dominant producer of MPUs, became much stickier over the chips' life cycle. As a result of this change, we argue that the matched‐model methodology used in the PPI for MPUs likely started to be biased after the early 2000s and that hedonic indexes can provide a more accurate measure of price change since then. MPU prices fell rapidly through 2004 on every price measure we present, with the PPI declining at an even quicker pace than the hedonic indexes. However, from 2004 to 2009, our preferred hedonic index fell faster than the PPI, and from 2009 to 2013 the gap widened further, with our preferred index falling at an average annual rate of 42 percent, while the PPI declined at only a 6 percent rate. Given that MPUs currently represent about half of U.S. shipments of semiconductors, this difference has important implications for gauging the rate of innovation in the semiconductor sector.     

Drivers of innovation in groundwater governance. The links between the social and the ecological systems

Global groundwater overexploitation positions groundwater governance as a critical issue for improving sustainable water management. Evidence of aquifer recovery after overexploitation is scattered, as is the research on the drivers behind recovery. The Fuencaliente Aquifer in Spain faced a tragedy of the commons situation, but after an innovative governance arrangement was implemented, the aquifer is gradually recovering. In this research, we identify the drivers that made possible the emergence and acceptance of such an arrangement using the social-ecological system framework. We identified external drivers such as market incentives and limited enforcement capacity of the water authority as the main factors that led to groundwater depletion, but we also found that these same drivers, under a new regulatory framework that reinforced monitoring and sanctioning capacities, are the basis for the effective recovery of the aquifer. Internal drivers such as the socioeconomic attributes of the users, their limited collective action and the power differences between traditional and commercial farmers are also critical in explaining the acceptance of the new governance arrangement. Even if these drivers are context-specific, we identified innovations that might be transferable and contribute to the literature on good practices in groundwater governance and management.     

Research on a diagnostic system of rural vitalization based on development elements in China

In 2017, the Chinese government implemented a national strategy of "Rural Vitalization" that sought to realize full-scale rural vitalization. However, is it possible to achieve vitalization for all the villages in China? How should their development potential be determined? This paper identified and analyzed the "element-composite" messages of rural development based on 99 exemplary sites of “Beautiful Villages” in China. Combined with the projection pursuit classification method, a diagnostic system of rural vitalization was established; then, Dehua County was taken as a case study for an in-depth analysis. Based on national data analysis, the final results indicated that livelihood resources (LR), agglomeration effects (AE), location and transportation (LT), cultural/natural landscapes (CN), and economic circumstance (EC) are essential elements for successful rural development. Additionally, EC was the only exogenous element, while the remaining elements were endogenous. Furthermore, the villages with better EC presented urbanization rates of 38∼82 % and Engel coefficients of 29∼41 % in their counties; exemplary sites lacking LR, CN, LT, and AE account for 13.13 %, 19.19 %, 26.26 %, and 60.61 % respectively, so the indispensability of these elements decreases progressively in sequence. Only 2 % of villages rely on single element for success, therefore, the composite pattern of development element was also critical; 10 out of 16 types were found to successfully facilitate village development, among which, the type of R-a-L-C (32.32 %) and R-A-L-C (15.15 %) were considered as the greatest potential patterns for vitalization. Finally, by means of the diagnostic system, the ratio of representative villages for high-low potential in Dehua County is evenly split; then, development paths, and land use policies that match with paths were proposed, on the basis of development potential and “element-composite” condition of themselves.