How to innovate business models for a circular bio-economy?

Shifting from a linear to a circular bio-economy requires new business models. The objective was getting insights into the uncharted research field of business model innovation for a circular and sustainable bio-economy within the agrifood sector. Eight European cases valorising agricultural waste and by-products by closing loops or cascading were studied regarding their innovation drivers and elements, via interviews, on-site visits and secondary data. In this domain, the findings highlight that business model innovations are depending on the (i) macro-environmental institutional-legal conditions and market trends, (ii) driven by internal economic, environmental and/or social objectives, but especially strongly linked to (iii) other actors often from different sectors seeking synergies and (iv) value co-creation via combined organisational and technological innovations. Business models for a circular bio-economy thus depend on various action levels and need radical combined organisational and technological innovations for a most efficient usage of agricultural waste and by-products. This also means new business configurations instead of linear innovation strategies currently still being dominant due to economic viability.     

Union Mergers; Some Questions Raised by a “Disorderly Breakup”

This essay discusses the 2004 merger between UNITE, a clothing workers’ union, and HERE, the hotel and restaurant workers union. Many labor scholars and union proponents believed that this merger would revive a dormant US labor movement and lead to great success in union organizing. Although much was expected, there was very little accomplished by this merger. While union mergers can either be amalgamations or absorptions, the UNITE-HERE merger took the former form. Although successful amalgamations usually occur when the two unions share a common jurisdiction, additional problems occur when the unions are dissimilar in size and type of members. The UNITE-HERE merger displayed none of these three above-mentioned characteristics. This essay also discusses issues of the centralization/decentralization of union mergers, the negotiation and promotion of such combinations, local union and national union mergers while concluding with a discussion of whether union mergers are an appropriate strategy for dealing with a struggling US labor movement early in the twenty-first century.     

Just laid off,but still a “good citizen?” only if the process is fair

Recent United States Congress legislation (the WARN Act of 1988) mandates that organizations must provide at least 60 days notice before a layoff of 50 or more employees can be instituted. As a consequence, individuals who are notified of their layoff often remain in their jobs for a significant period of time-and managers hope that these people will be good organizational citizens during thisremaining time. This article identifies different psychological factors that could explain why individuals would remain good citizens, even after notification of their impending termination. In a survey of 147 skilled employees who received notification of their layoffs, we found that the perceived fairness of the layoff process was the primary factor influencing their citizenship behavior. Additional analyses suggested that the perceived adequacy of the explanation of the layoffs, and whether the layoff victims were treated with respect and dignity, were the primary factors influencing the perceived fairness of the layoff process. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Visible Homelessness in a “Liveable City”: Municipal Responses to Homelessness in Melbourne

Despite considerable national and urban prosperity, significant numbers of Australians are homeless. How local governments engage with homelessness has significant implications for the homeless population. In recent years, municipal strategies have inclined towards the maintenance of public order at the cost of the rights of homeless individuals. In this article, we investigate the approach to homelessness proposed by the City of Melbourne in 2017, which centered on the expansion of powers to remove individuals and the confiscation of possessions, testing the council’s claims as to the impact of visible homelessness upon local businesses and upon other users of public spaces.     

Evaluation of the convergence between “self-reporters” and “proxies” in a disability questionnaire by means of behaviour coding method

Household surveys often require including proxy reporters to obtain information about other household members who cannot be interviewed. The participation of proxies can undermine survey data quality due to the fact that proxies must respond to questions thinking about other people. The objectives of the present study were to analyze the behaviour of proxy reporters and evaluate the convergence between the answers given by proxies and self-reporters by means of behaviour coding. This improves the evaluation of convergence, since only adequate (i.e., interpretable) answers given by both types of informant are taken into account. Responses to a disability questionnaire employed by an official statistical institute were analyzed. The questionnaire includes 11 questions about different limitations related to everyday activities. 16 self-reporter and 16 proxies formed 16 couples whose members lived together and supported a direct family relation. The results show a high percentage (52%) of convergence between both types of informant, although fluctuating across the questions and the couples. Proxies showed relatively more adequate behaviour during the interaction than self-reporters. From this we conclude that proxies can be considered at least as good informants as self-reporters from an interviewer-respondent interaction perspective. Future research should address the impact of proxy responses on survey validity.     

500t/a“二聚酸”

至简介“二聚酸”是利用廉价植物油如棉籽油、米糠油、豆油和精炼植物油的油脚等中的不饱和脂肪酸,经缩会反应而成的二聚体。它是生产聚四胶树脂的主要基础原料,还能广泛用于有机合成、涂料、润滑剂、增塑剂、油墨粘合剂、防腐剂、表面活性剂等化工生产中。它的衍生物是石油制品优良添加剂,具有增调、防腐蚀。防冻凝、稳定粘度等作用。国内随着聚酸胶树脂生产的增加,对“二聚酸”需求量亦逐年增加,目前大部分尚依赖进口。用该技术生产的“二聚酸”质量已达到国外同类产品的技术指标,完全可以替代进口产品。2接产条件（l）厂房750m’（…     

Comments on “Pareto weights as wedges in two-country models” by D. Backus,C. Coleman,A. Ferriere and S. Lyon

Backus, Coleman, Ferriere and Lyon study how the formulations of preferences and shocks affect the behavior of macroeconomic and financial aggregates in a simple endowment economy with no frictions. Their exercise could be considered as a first step of a rich research program that can further our understanding of international business cycles. After discussing the fundamental propagation mechanisms in standard international business cycle models, I put their contribution in a broader context. I conclude with a summary of possible research questions to be explored in future work.     

“Think entrepreneur - think male”: a task and relationship scale to measure gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship

Building on the think manager – think male paradigm, this study tested the psychometric properties of an “Entrepreneurial Task and Relationship” (ETR) scale to assess gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship. The sample was composed of 1056 non-entrepreneurs and 178 entrepreneurs. Non-entrepreneurs rated the characteristics of: 1) a successful entrepreneur (n = 348); 2) a successful female entrepreneur (n = 360); and 3) a successful male entrepreneur (n = 348). Entrepreneurs rated to what extent they ascribe themselves entrepreneurial characteristics. Results revealed psychometric adequacy of a two-dimensional 13-item ETR scale to be invariant across different study conditions, non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, as well as male and female participants. As with management, entrepreneurship is perceived as strongly associated with task orientation. The think entrepreneur – think male paradigm applies to entrepreneurship, highlighting the need for more awareness of gender stereotypes in that context. Implications of our study can be derived on entrepreneurship education and towards policy makers and media to promote a non-stereotyped image of entrepreneurship and foster this career option, particularly among women.

     

The “probability of a fit choice”

This paper attempts to model elections by incorporating voter judgments about candidate and leader competence. The proposed model can be linked to Madison’s understanding of the nature of the choice of Chief Magistrate (Madison, James Madison: writings. The Library of America, New York, 1999 [1787]) and Condorcet’s work on the so-called “Jury Theorem” (Condorcet 1994 [1785]). Electoral models use the notion of a Nash Equilibrium. This notion generally depends on a fixed point argument. For deterministic electoral models, there will typically be no equilibrium. Instead we introduce the idea of a preference field, $H,$ for the society. A condition called half-openess of $H$ is sufficient to guarantee existence of a local direction gradient, $d,$ Even when $d$ is not well-defined we can use the idea of the heart for the society. This is an attractor of the set of social moves that can occur. As an application, a stochastic model of elections is considered, and applied to the 2008 presidential election in the United States. In such a stochastic model the electoral origin will satisfy the first order condition for a local Nash equilibrium. We then show how to compute the Hessian of each candidate’s vote share function, and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence to the electoral origin, suggesting that there will be a social direction gradient. The origin maximizes aggregrate voter utility and can be interpreted as a fit choice for the polity.