Transferia: solving local pain or bringing global gain?

ABSTRACT

The sustainability of container transferia, a specific type of intermodal terminals located in the vicinity of ports, is analysed in an external cost evaluation. This concept enables transporting large amounts of containers from a port to a transferium, outside the most congested area, by high-frequency barge or rail transport. From this point onwards, the transport is executed by truck or intermodal. The paper presents a case study of maritime-based container transport in Belgium. A geographic information systems-based model compares transport alternatives, regarding their societal impact. The findings suggest that when trucks perform the hinterland transport to transferia instead of direct truck transport to the port, the production of external costs decreases in the port area, but remains stable in the hinterland. However, when intermodal chains can replace these truck services to the transferia, external costs remain limited in the port area, but also decrease in the hinterland in most cases.     

Online Education in a Pandemic: Stress Test or Fortuitous Disruption?

This study explores higher education and the ways in which the shutdown caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic have accelerated the evolution of online education. This movement from face‐to‐face (F2F) education to a virtual environment was forced and unplanned. It can be viewed as a stress test for digital teaching and learning in the higher education system. The study addresses course conversions and the progress of online education in response to the current crisis.     

黎瑞刚:All in or NOT?

黎瑞刚这次的职务变动再次成为大家关注的焦点。近日,上海市人民政府发布了关于上海文化广播影视集团有限公司人事任免通知,免去黎瑞刚总裁职务,任命王建军为上海文化广播影视集团有限公司总裁。消息一出,众人哗然。黎瑞刚对此表示,他的职务调整是实至名归。黎瑞刚曾任上海文广新闻传媒集团总裁、上海第一财经传媒有限公司董事长。2002年10月,出任上海文广新闻传媒集团(SMG)总裁后,他一手主导了SMG的体制内改革,被媒体认为是体制内最像企业家的台长,在熟悉他的     

Peddling in the Antebellum Economy: Precursor of Mass-Marketing or a Start in Life?

Abstract . This article examines the effect of peddling upon industrialization and economic development and the evolution of institutional arrangements in marketing in the Antebellum period. After 1840 peddling in America was undertaken, to an increasing extent, by newly arrived immigrants from Germany who displaced the traditional “Yankees” from the trade. The relationship between peddling and the development of entrepreneurship is explored, along with the special opportunities that peddling provided for economic and occupational mobility in the American milieu. The frequency with which individuals who started careers as peddlers rose to prominence in the fields of merchandising and finance points to the importance of the “schooling” function of this institution for newly arrived immigrants in American folkways, business practices, and commercial possibilities.     

Health care: a leader or a follower? Reducing disposable waste

We clearly have the means to examine and reduce the amounts and types of disposable medical waste that health care institutions are creating. Although there may be special circumstances that prevent specific hospitals, or specific departments within a hospital, from converting to alternative products, much improvement can still be made. There are several strong examples of hospitals across the United States with programs that have drastically cut the amount of waste they are generating. They have eliminated disposable cups and eating utensils from the cafeterias, shifted to reusable underpads and surgical linens, and established recycling programs for paper and cardboard. These few cases are not enough. We cannot be lulled into believing that these exceptional efforts on the part of a few institutions are all that is needed. We should remember that if Mother Nature had intended for us to pat ourselves on the back, our hinges would be different. What is needed is a clear statement from the health care industry of its responsibility to society with regard to managing its waste. Leadership begins with action. If the health care industry does not take steps to regulate its disposable waste, the government undoubtedly will. We do not need to wait for our supervisors or administrators to fashion credos for us. All staff members know there are numerous ways that they can affect the amount of waste produced at their hospitals. They can also begin to affect the attitudes of those working around them. The consequences of inaction are simply too great. As fictional as half-empty grocery stores may have sounded at the beginning of this article, the problems that we face with waste disposal are certainly as grim. If we wait for our state and federal governments to solve the problems, it may be too late; and if it is too late, the solutions that they develop will certainly be extreme. We have the technology and the ability to cut dramatically the amount of disposable waste that health care generates. In practically every case, the lower-waste options also save the institution money. It is time that we honestly challenged our need for today's convenience at the expense of tomorrow's quality of life.     

Growth in a Cross-section of Cities: Location,Increasing Returns or Random Growth?

Abstract

This article analyses empirically the main existing theories on income and population city growth: increasing returns to scale, locational fundamentals and random growth. To do this we consider a large database of urban, climatological and macroeconomic data from 1,173 US cities observed in 1990 and 2000. The econometric model is robust to the presence of spatial effects. Our analysis shows the existence of increasing returns and two distinct equilibria in per-capita income and population growth. We also find important differences in the structure of productive activity, unemployment rates and geographical location between cities in low-income and high-income regimes.     

Do firms choose overcapacity or undercapacity in a vertical structure?

This study investigates capacity choice in a vertical structure in which each downstream firm makes its capacity decision, then a monopolistic upstream firm proposes the input price or two-part tariff contract. Finally, each downstream firm chooses its output (or price). Contrary to the conventional wisdom that both firms hold excess capacity in an Cournot competition, we find that each downstream firm always chooses undercapacity regardless of both the nature of goods and the competition modes. Second, we also show that capacity efficiency is higher under Cournot competition than under Bertrand competition. Third, even though there are double marginalization distortion and rent-extracting effect, we can achieve the monopoly equilibrium of the vertically integrated firm though two-part tariff contract.     

Entrepreneurship research in China: internationalization or contextualization?

Entrepreneurship is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Given the global scope of this attention, this article compares entrepreneurship research in China with that in the USA and Europe. Based on publications in Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases over the past 10 years, we use bibliometric method to analyse entrepreneurship research in different regions. Our analysis shows that, on the one hand, entrepreneurship research in China has much in common with such research in the USA and Europe. In addition to borrowing ideas from Western researchers, Chinese entrepreneurship researchers study similar themes and use similar theoretical foundations. On the other hand, Chinese contextual environment helps preserve the uniqueness of its entrepreneurship research. Researchers deal with several context-specific topics such as guanxi, i.e. networks of interpersonal relationships, and its influence on entrepreneurship. We further discuss ways for Chinese researchers to explore the distinct context and contribute to the global literature.     

The integration–differentiation puzzle: a resource-capability perspective in international human resource management

This paper is concerned with the management of the human resource agenda in international business. It begins by examining the critical question of how to balance the organizational need for co-ordination and control (integration) at the centre and the increasing pressures for sensitivity and flexibility (differentiation) at the subsidiary or unit level. A resource-capability (RC) view is then offered to re-examine the integration–differentiation (IN–DI) debate, proposing how firms might resolve some of the dilemmas inherent in IN–Dl decisions by cultivating their stock of knowledge and expertise. This perspective also enables us to assess the underlying paradigmatic foundation upon which strategic decisions in international human resource management are based.     

Populism in South America: Democratic Panacea or Pitfall?

Populism has become a buzz word in recent years, used widely by journalists, political pundits, and academics. Much of the discussion presents the global phenomenon as a recent one. However, one version or another has existed in South America for nearly a century. In this article, I put forth a political strategic definition of populism that includes an actor's political style, relationship with followers, political organization, and political history. Using this conceptualization, I score several presidential candidates’ campaign behavior during recent elections, between the years 2011 and 2015. I also consider the democratic consequences of two of the continents’ most visible and longest‐serving populists, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. I examine the change over time in both countrie's political systems regarding the respect for civil liberties and political rights, changes in citizens’ attitudes towards the democratic quality of their respective countries, and the variation in socioeconomic inequality. I conclude with an assessment of each populist's democratic consequence and discuss potential for future research.     

The New Competition in Broadcasting: Trick or Treat?

The broadcasting reforms of the 1990s attempted to combine increased competition with the preservation of the public service ideal. The reforms were called into question when it became clear that the production quality was being undermined by poor information flows and excessive transaction costs. For competition in broadcasting to flourish, closer attention needs to be paid tothe institutional preconditions of effective contracting.     

Local monotonicity of power: Axiom or just a property?

This paper discusses whether Local Monotonicity (LM) should be regarded as a property of the power distribution of a specific voting game under consideration, indicated by a power measure, or as a characteristic of power per se. The latter would require reasonable power measures to satisfy a corresponding LM axiom. The former suggests that measures which do not allow for a violation of LM fail to account for dimensions of power which can cause nonmonotonicity in voting weight. Only if a measure is able to indicate nonmonotonicity, it can help design voting games for which power turns out to be monotonic. The argument is discussed in the light of recent extensions of traditional power indices.