Investigating the gap between citizens' sustainability attitudes and food purchasing behaviour: empirical evidence from Brazilian pork consumers

Consumers worldwide are increasingly concerned with sustainable production and consumption. Recently, a comprehensive study ranked 17 countries in regard to their environmentally friendly behaviour among consumers. Brazil was one of the top countries in the list. Yet, several studies highlight significant differences between consumers' intentions to consume ethically, and their actual purchase behaviour: the so‐called ‘Attitude‐Behaviour Gap’. In developing countries, few studies have been conducted on this issue. The objective of this study is therefore to investigate the gap between citizens' sustainability‐related attitudes and food purchasing behaviour using empirical data from Brazil. To this end, Brazilian citizens' attitudes towards pig production systems were mapped through conjoint analysis and their coexistence with relevant pork product‐related purchasing behaviour of consumers was investigated through cluster analysis. The conjoint experiment was carried out with empirical data collected from 475 respondents surveyed in the South and Center‐West regions of Brazil. The results of the conjoint analysis were used for a subsequent cluster analysis in order to identify clusters of Brazilian citizens with diversified attitudes towards pig production systems, using socio‐demographics, attitudes towards sustainability‐related themes that are expected to influence the way they evaluate pig production systems, and consumption frequency of various pork products as clusters' background information. Three clusters were identified as ‘indifferent’, ‘environmental conscious’ and ‘sustainability‐oriented’ citizens. Although attitudes towards environment and nature had indeed an influence on citizens' specific attitudes towards pig farming at the cluster level, the relationship between ‘citizenship’ and consumption behaviour was found to be weak. This finding is similar to previous research conducted with European consumers: what people (in their role of citizens) think about pig production systems does not appear to significantly influence their pork consumption choices. Improvements in the integrated management of this chain would better meet consumers' sustainability‐related expectations towards pig production systems.     

A marginal analysis guided technology evaluation and selection

Making decisions on strategic investments, such as early stage manufacturing technology (MT), is a complicated task. Early stage technologies are usually costly, and surrounded by uncertainty. The potential benefits are often hard to quantify prior to implementation. Thus, how could managers make good decisions in a high-risk, technically complex business when the information they need to make those decisions comes largely from the project champions who are competing against one another for resources? Traditionally, in this problem domain, decisions are made based upon gut-feeling and past experience, sometimes with the support of some multi-criteria decision-support tools. The criteria evaluation process is very subjective and relies heavily on managers’ experience, knowledge, as well as intuition. Thus, the evaluation approach is often not effectively carried out as there is lack of visibility and traceability in the decision making process. The impact of this scenario is that managers are not confident that resources are being optimised and applied to a mixed portfolio of projects to maximise benefits. This paper proposes a marginal analysis directed branch and bound approach for evaluating and selecting early stage manufacturing technology (MT) projects. A case study is used to demonstrate the application of the proposed approach. Implications of the proposed approach to practitioners and academia are discussed and future research outlined.     

城市住宅价格与宏观经济变量的关系分析——基于VAR模型的实证研究

通过分析选取住宅价格指数(HPI)、国内生产总值增长率(GDP)、1-3年期银行贷款利率(IR)作为内生变量,滞后两期的广义货币供应量(M2)作为外生变量,建立了向量自回归模型。并在此基础上,运用协整分析、脉冲响应函数、方差分解和格兰杰因果检验等研究方法对住宅价格指数与宏观经济变量之间的动态相关关系进行了研究。研究结果表明,我国的住宅价格与所选用的宏观经济变量之间存在一定交互响应作用,并就此提出了相关建议。     

监理人员绩效考核的信度与效度分析

监理企业作为一种有偿性技术服务行业,其向市场提供服务的价值载体-一监理人员对监理项目的成败及企业口碑、品牌的打造都有着重要的意义.建立一套完善的监理人员绩效考核体系,并有效地贯彻执行该体系已成为很多监理企业的迫切诉求.基于对监理人员进行绩效考核的重要性和考核过程中大量不确定因素的存在,对监理人员绩效考核的信度和效度验证分析方法进行了研究,提出了离散程度分析和评价主体一致、有效性分析的信度检验方法,以及兼顾绩效考核内容与结构两方面的效度分析方法.该研究成果因其简单、实用且可操作性强的特点,将对监理企业的人事管理工作具有很强的指导意义.     

An empirical analysis of supply chain risk management in the German automotive industry

The purpose of this paper is the empirical analysis of supply chain risk management practices. The analysis is based on a survey with 67 manufacturing plants conducted in the German automotive industry. After investigating the vulnerability of supply chains in general and examining key drivers of supply chain risks, the paper identifies supply chain risks by analyzing their likelihood to occur and their potential impact on the supply chain. The results are visualized in the probability-impact-matrix distinguishing between internal and external supply chain risks. Furthermore, instruments for dealing with supply chain risks are investigated. Therefore, the impact of supply chain risk management on performance is tested. In order to distinguish between companies with a high degree of supply chain risk management and those with no or only limited implementation the plants are grouped by means of a cluster analysis based on factors reflecting the instruments of supply chain risk management. In particular, groups are created representing two different approaches to deal with supply chain risks, i.e. reactive and preventive supply chain risk management. The clusters are investigated concerning differences in terms of performance criteria. The analyses reveal that companies with a high implementation degree show a better supply chain performance. Furthermore, the results show that the group using reactive supply chain risk management has higher average value in terms of disruptions resilience or the reduction of the bullwhip effect, whereas the group pursuing preventive supply chain risk management has better values concerning flexibility or safety stocks.     

Assessing the regional digital divide across the European Union-27

Despite the efforts devoted to the analysis of the digital divide over the last years, the regional evidence on this issue is still scarce. Within this context, the goals of this paper are twofold: (1) measuring the digital divide across the regions of the 27 Member States and within each country and (2) explaining the observed regional disparities. The analysis leads to identify Dutch regions as the Top-10 in ICT, while Greece and Bulgaria occupy the Bottom-10. Therefore, results show that the regional digital divide reflects to some extent the income gap. However, regional policy seems to be having some positive implications for technology adoption. In particular, the rural-versus-urban dimension of the digital gap appears to be less important than it is usually claimed to. Likewise, some evidence is found of the role of cultural and institutional factors in ICT adoption, an issue that has not been previously analyzed at the regional level.     

Identifying risk issues and research advancements in supply chain risk management

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the research development in supply chain risk management (SCRM), which has shown an increasing global attention in recent years. Literature survey and citation/co-citation analysis are used to fulfil the research task. Literature survey has undertaken a thorough search of articles on selected journals relevant to supply chain operations management. Meanwhile, citation/co-citation analysis uses Web of Sciences database to disclose SCRM development between 1995 and 2009. Both the approaches show similar trends of rising publications over the past 15 years. This review has piloted us to identify and classify the potential risk associated with different flows, namely material, cash and information flows. Consequently, we identify some research gaps. Even though there is a pressing need and awareness of SCRM from industrial aspect, quantitative models in the field are relatively lacking and information flow risk has received less attention. It is also interesting to observe the evolutions and advancements of SCRM discipline. One finding is that the intellectual structure of the field made statistically significant increase during 2000-2005 and evolved from passively reacting to vague general issues of disruptions towards more proactively managing supply chain risk from system perspectives.     

川渝地区输气管道第三方破坏故障树分析

第三方破坏是引起输气管道失效的主要因素之一,直接影响输气管道的可靠性和使用寿命。针对川渝地区引起输气管道第三方破坏的各个因素进行系统分析,建立了以第三方破坏致使输气管道失效为顶事件的输气管道第三方破坏故障树。通过对输气管道第三方破坏故障树的分析,得到了故障树的各阶最小割集和引起川渝地区输气管道第三方破坏的主要因素,并提出了相应措施以预防输气管道遭到第三方破坏。     

因子分析法在不同所有制工业企业经济发展评价中的应用

基于《中国统计年鉴》(2010)的数据,采用因子分析法对中国31个省市的国有、私营、外商投资工业企业经济发展情况予以统计排序,并进行了区域内部和区域之间的比较研究。分析结果显示,区域内部国有、私营、外商投资工业企业经济的发展存在不协调性;各地区工业企业经济的发展存在不均衡性,国有、私营和外商投资工业企业的经济发展水平符合中国区域经济东强西弱的总体特征;东、中、西部国有、私营和外商投资工业企业经济发展呈现出各自的特征。