Analysis of individual private forestry in northern Spain according to economic factors related to management

In addition to being motivated by profit, the management decisions taken by non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners involve other considerations beyond timber, such as non-timber goods and services, as well as factors that affect the level of timber output from the land. Ensuring and improving forest profitability to make NIPF management viable is one of the main challenges faced by this type of landowner. This study empirically explores and assesses management by NIPF owners, through analysing attributes of forest economics (investment in holdings, expenditure on planting and silviculture, public subsidies, along with timber and non-timber incomes). With the aim of predicting outcomes, a multiple regression model was also constructed to investigate and quantify the relationship between socioeconomic and holding factors, and the planting activities carried out by NIPF owners. For this, 103 resident forest landowners in a forest region in northern Spain were interviewed in person, during March 2004, about their commitment to and involvement in land management during the period 1999–2003. The results mainly revealed that attractive forest returns and favourable market conditions for timber production are significant factors for investment in and development of forestry, with personal and family conditions also being important factors in explaining the type of land management carried out. In particular, the multiple linear regression model for forest planting activity correctly explained 84.5% of the variability observed in the study population, indicating that both the investments in and the incomes from forestry play an important role in the activity, as does the size of the holding. The findings may be of interest in promoting public measures related to timber markets and economic incentives for forest management, which will allow landowners to develop economically viable practices, as well as enabling fulfilment of social and environmental demands for sustainable forestry and rural development.     

The Great Forgotten Issue: Vindicating Ethics in the European Qualifications Framework (EQF)

Various international authorities have insisted on the importance of ethical learning in higher education for would-be professionals, including students of Business Administration. As the process of creating the European Higher Education Area gathers pace, first steps have been taken to explicitly incorporate ethics in the common European Qualifications Framework (EQF). However, the authors of this study show how in the course of the EQF development process, the consideration given to ethical qualifications has been curtailed and subjected to serious limitations. In this article, the authors review the historical development and the main elements of the EQF. Then, they analyze the gradual elimination of ethics within the EQF. Finally, they highlight the implications of this gradual elimination and propose avenues for further research. Manuel Guillén is Senior Lecturer in Management, at the University of Valencia (Spain). Prof. Guillén earned his PhD in Management with a specialization in ethics and strategic management integration. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota (USA), at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, and guest Visiting Student at IESE Business School doctoral program, in Barcelona. He has presented some of his research at the top conferences in the field and has published in business ethics and management journals. Since 1997 he has taught Business Ethics courses in different business schools, institutions, and companies. Joan Fontrodona is an Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Academic Director of the Center for Business in Society at IESE Business School. He is member of the Academic Board of EABIS, Chairman of EBEN-Spain, and Member of the Executive Committee of ASEPAM, the Spanish Local Network of the Global Compact. He has published several books and papers on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, philosophy, and management. Alfredo Rodríguez-Sedano holds a PhD in Philosophy and a PhD in Business Administration. He is Professor of Sociology at the Education Department of the University of Navarre (Spain). He is also Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of the West (El Salvador). He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Andes (Chile) and Regular Professor at the Catholic University of Sacred Conception (Chile). He has published 16 books, 12 book chapters, and 15 articles on different subjects in the fields of management, philosophy, and education.     

Managing complexity： A problem of chaos in fisheries policy

This work intends to present chaos theory （and dynamical systems such as the theories of complexity）, in terms of interpretation of ecological phenomena. The chaos theory applied in the context of ecological systems, especially in the context of fisheries has allowed the recognition of the relevance of this kind of theories to explain fishing phenomena and fisheries policies. It has permitted new advances in the study of marine systems, contributing to the preservation of fish stocks. This paper deals with the way how to manage fisheries taking chaos in account of the problem.     

Toward a product-based typology for nature-based tourism: a conceptual framework

The traditional view of nature-based tourists as a relatively homogeneous group has been questioned, and several scholars have suggested various segmentation typologies. This paper discusses market and industry changes and notes key trends, as Fordist tourist products have been replaced by post-Fordist and neo-Fordist products, with both McDonaldization and McDisneyization developments. A range of visitor-based typologies are reviewed, and the conflict between capturing the diversity of today's nature-based tourists while offering management bodies simple tools to segment visitors, identify core groups and improve their marketing is noted. In an attempt to overcome this conflict, the paper presents a conceptual framework which focuses on nature-based tourism products instead of tourist types, therefore incorporating aspects of both the demand and supply sides of the nature-based tourism industry market. A two-dimensional matrix is suggested, linking four basic travel motivations (nature conservation, nature experience, sports/adventure and hedonistic) to four different types of tourist products (independent, à la carte, customized and standardized), giving a total typology of 16 different types. The matrix should help protected area managers to better understand tourist needs, suggest management measures and help to create more sustainable forms of tourism. Empirical testing is suggested as a next step.     

Learning from private and public observations of othersʼ actions

We study the diffusion of dispersed private information in a large economy, where agents learn from the actions of others through two channels: a public channel, such as equilibrium market prices, and a private channel, for example local interactions. We show that, when agents learn only from the public channel, an initial release of public information increases agents? total knowledge at all times and increases welfare. When a private learning channel is present, this result is reversed: more initial public information reduces agents asymptotic knowledge by an amount in order of $\log (t)$ units of precision. When agents are sufficiently patient, this reduces welfare.     

Regulatory design and incentives for renewable energy

Increasing electric power production from renewable energy sources is currently one of the major objectives of energy policy. The intermittent nature of renewables, such as wind and solar, necessarily imposes complex trade-offs for regulatory objectives, such as resource adequacy (and system reliability) versus reductions in green house gas emissions. We develop a highly stylized model of investments in order to derive insights regarding the workings of regulatory incentives for increased renewable energy. We first show that incentives are indeed needed when there are significant economies of scale in the form of “learning by doing” or alternatively, when there is excess capacity in conventional technology due to legacy investments. We analyze two different regulatory schemes (feed-in tariffs and renewable portafolio standards) aimed at increasing investment in renewable capacity. We show that neither scheme is capable of inducing the socially optimal level of investment in renewable capacity. A single feed-in tariff fails to induce optimal investment as a feed-in tariff exceeding marginal costs of conventional technology incentivizes over-development of the most attractive sites which preempts investment in less attractive, yet socially valuable sites. A renewable portfolio standard that promotes increased investment in renewable technology induces under-investment in the conventional technology. These results suggest that a “clinical” regulatory design, that is, one that promotes the right amount of renewable capacity without affecting conventional capacity is a challenging proposition.     

Networks of queues with infinite servers in each node applied to the management of a two echelons repair system

After a report of results about infinite servers queues, essentially on its busy period, a model is built, using networks of queues with infinite servers in each node, to study a two echelons repair system for example of a fleet of aircraft, shipping or trucks. The customers are the failures, and their service time is the time that goes from the instant at which they occur till they are completely repaired. The failing repairs occur in a base or in a remote station. The whole failures detected in the base are repaired there. Some of the failures detected in the station are repaired there and the others in the base. The results referred above allow the determination of a two echelons repair system performance measures. In this application, models of Carrillo （1991） and Ferreira （1996） are considered, improved and completed. The theory is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Capabilities and competitive tactics influences on performance: Implications of the moment of entry

This article examines the implications that the moment of market entry has for the effect of capabilities and competitive tactics on firm performance, using a sample of 253 companies from the information and communications technology industry. The results show that technical capabilities and low cost orientation are learning factors in the firms' performance, regardless of the moment of entry into the market. The study shows how the two perspectives of competitive strategy and resource-based view complement each other to incorporate different competitive factors in a coherent model for the study of entry timing. The study takes the sustainability model of competitive advantage further, by demonstrating that certain capabilities and competitive tactics can allow pioneers and early followers to achieve and maintain superior performance in a dynamic, hostile and with high level of imitation industry. This study also shows that the availability of a combination of marketing capabilities and low cost orientation will allow late followers' firms to take advantage of early entrants' mistakes.     

Multidimensional Competition and Corporate Disclosure

In this paper, we argue that the influence product market competition exerts on disclosure is defined by the combined effect of the incentives and disincentives to disclose raised by the multiple competition dimensions. We distinguish between firm‐ and industry‐level competition measures, and we hypothesize that the former raises agency and proprietary costs, whereas the latter creates incentives to disclose either to fulfil the owners’ need for information to monitor managers or to deter the entrance of new competitors in the industry. Our research design allows for non‐monotonic relationships between competition and disclosure as well as for interactions between competition dimensions. Using a sample of US manufacturing companies, we gather evidence that is consistent with our hypotheses. First, we find an inverted U‐shape relationship between corporate disclosure and a firm's abnormal profitability, which is suggestive of firms being reluctant to disclose when they are underperforming (outperforming) their rivals because of the fear of unveiling agency conflicts (raising proprietary costs). Second, we observe a U‐shape relationship between corporate disclosure and industry profitability, although this U design evolves to approximate a rising function as the protection provided by entry barriers increases.