Evaluation of land-use and transport network effects on cyclists' route choices in the Copenhagen Region in value-of-distance space

Growing interest in sustainable transportation systems has driven decision-makers toward policies and investments aimed at promoting cycling, but little to no effort has been made toward incorporating bicycle transport in transport planning models. This study contributes toward this direction by estimating a bicycle route choice model in value-of-distance space from a large sample of 3384 cycling trips that were traced with GPS devices in the Copenhagen Region. The novelty of this study lies in (i) observing cyclists' behavior in a cycling-oriented country, (ii) exploiting rich data about the cycling environment, (iii) estimating the model in value-of-distance rather than preference space, and (iv) not focusing only on preferences for traditional variables (e.g., distance, turns, hilliness, intersections, motorized road characteristics), but also on perceptions and preferences for bicycle facilities (e.g., bicycle lanes, bicycle paths, bicycle traces) and land-use designations (e.g., residential, industrial, sports, scenic areas). The findings from the model show that: (i) cyclists exhibit heterogeneous preferences for avoiding right and left turns, cycling the wrong way, using roundabouts and bridges, and cycling alongside residential and scenic areas; (ii) cyclists dislike cycling on unpaved and hilly surfaces and alongside larger roads; (iii) cyclists have clear perceptions about different types of bicycle facilities, with a preference for bicycle lanes and segregated paths; (iv) cyclists have clear perceptions about land-use designations, with a preference for cycling alongside sports and scenic areas; (v) time-of-day and air temperature contribute to the perceptions of cyclists and their preferences for bicycle facilities and land-use designations.     

Does Green Public Procurement lead to Life Cycle Costing (LCC) adoption?

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is rarely used in public procurement and public institutions have yet to fully understand its potential value for sustainable procurement. The new European Directive on Public Procurement is, however, designed to position LCC as central to sustainable sourcing. Although previous studies have identified positive correlations between Green Public Procurement Policies (GPP) and LCC, it is still unclear how public institutions can further adopt LCC practices by leveraging their experience of green sourcing. In this study an organizational learning theoretical perspective is taken to investigate the circumstances under which public administrations’ experience of GPP – considered as a way of integrating the dimension of environmental sustainability into the sourcing process – stimulates their LCC learning and capabilities – considered as a way to include the sustainability economic dimension. The goal is to understand if the adoption of GPP can stimulate the internalisation of LCC in public tenders. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted using a sample of 120 public administrations located in different countries. The results show that experience of GPP stimulates the internalisation of LCC at a public level, but only under specific conditions. The study contributes to the Sustainable Supply Management literature, being one of the first studies in the field adopting an organizational learning theoretical lens to review the role of experience as significant opportunity to develop capabilities. It also contributes to the organizational learning theory, by confirming that experience can aid learning but only in specific environmental contexts.     

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

Organizational studies have widely debated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Some papers have dealt with managerial satisfaction and businesses' performance adopting agency theory to interpret the results. However, no studies have yet considered the relationship between the satisfaction levels of an environmental manager and corporate environmental performance. This paper thus analyses the role played by the environmental manager's satisfaction in enhancing corporate environmental performance and reputation. The paper uses data from a survey of 412 Eco Management and Audit Scheme registered organizations. The results show a positive relationship between managerial satisfaction and environmental performance, whereas no such positive relationship was found when considering eco‐innovation performance. In addition, the environmental manager's satisfaction has a positive and indirect influence on the corporate environmental reputation. These results contribute to the literature on agency theory and aim to extend the debate between job satisfaction and job performance to the sustainable business field.     

Algorithmic Pricing What Implications for Competition Policy?

Review of Industrial Organization - Pricing decisions are increasingly in the “hands” of artificial algorithms. Scholars and competition authorities have voiced concerns that those...     

How Do Strengths and Weaknesses in Corporate Social Performance Across Different Stakeholder Domains Affect Company Performance?

The existing research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has largely focused on the positive aspect of corporate social performance (CSP) and company performance (CP) and ignored the relationship between actions that would qualify as negative CSP (or weakness in CSP) towards a stakeholder group and company performance. Using data from the KLD collected over a three‐year period, this study examines the relationship between both CSP weaknesses and strengths and CP across individual stakeholder domains. Results of the study suggest that strengths in CSP related to primary stakeholder domains are associated with superior company performance. However, this relationship is tenuous, at best, in the case of the secondary stakeholder domain. As for weaknesses in CSP, the results suggest that if a firm performs poorly in meeting the expectations of one or more stakeholders it is penalized in the form of poor performance. This finding generally holds true for both primary and secondary stakeholders. Implications of these findings for public policy and businesses planning to address social issues are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Defining the Content of Sustainability Reports in Nonprofit Organizations: Do Stakeholders Really Matter?

The aim of the article is to investigate the role of stakeholder engagement and participation in nonprofit organizations’ sustainability reporting, according to the literature on third sector and stakeholder theory. To verify the levels of involvement, the authors conducted an empirical survey, using content analysis, on a sample of 54 sustainability reports of nonprofit organizations included in the Global Reporting Initiative database as of September 1, 2012. In order to strengthen the results obtained from the content analysis, the authors shared their findings with the organizations of the sample. The survey showed that there were some criticisms regarding stakeholder participation in the targeted research field. These are considered in the conclusions. Questions for the future included whether stakeholder engagement is moving from being simply a way to consult and influence stakeholders to being an effective instrument for involving them in nonprofit organizations’ reporting and decision-making processes, through mutual commitment.