MarketBusting: strategies for exceptional business growth

If company leaders were granted a single wish, it would surely be for a reliable way to create new growth businesses. Business practitioners'overwhelming interest in this subject prompted the authors to conduct a three-year study of organizational growth--specifically, to find out which growth strategies were most successful. They discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that even companies in mature industries found rich new sources of growth when they reconfigured their unit of business (what they bill customers for) or their key metrics (how they measure success). In this article, the authors outline these and other moves companies can make to redefine their profit drivers and realize low-risk growth. They offer plenty of real-world examples. For instance: CHANGING YOUR UNIT OF BUSINESS: Once a conventional printing house, Madden Communications not only prints promotional materials for customers but also manages the distribution and installation of those materials on-site. Its revenues grew from dollars 1o million in 1990 to dollars 133 million in 2004, in an industry that many had come to regard as hopelessly mature. IMPROVING YOUR KEY METRICS-PARTICULARLY PRODUCTIVITY: Lamons Gasket, with dollars 80 million in revenues, built a Web site that radically improved its customers' ability to find, order, and pay for goods. The firm's market share rose along with its customer retention rate. The authors also suggest ways to identify your unit of business and associated key metrics and recognize the obstacles to changing them; review the key customer segments you serve; assess the need for new capabilities and the potential for internal resistance to change; and communicate to internal and external constituencies the changes you wish to make in your unit of business or key metrics.     

Labor Inspections in the Developing World: Stylized Facts from the Enterprise Survey

This paper empirically explores the incidence of labor inspections across registered firms in 72 developing countries. Results show that larger firms are more likely to be inspected than smaller firms. Interestingly, inspections are less likely to occur among firms with a larger share of low‐skilled workers, and that operate in industries with more tax evasion. We explore the heterogeneity of these findings across income and geographic groups, and conclude by briefly discussing the consistency of the stylized facts with competing theories of inspection agencies’ behavior.     

Analysis of three-way non-symmetrical association of food concepts in cross-cultural marketing

Quality & Quantity - This paper analyses the non-symmetrical association among some key-words in a food context, given the European countries and gender of participants to a survey. The aim is...     

Behavioural factors in young people's fruit consumption

This study aims to find out the determinant factors affecting fruit consumption behaviour in Portuguese young people, based on the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model, and determine if this model explains differences according to gender, age and rural/urban environments. This research is innovative because it tests the HAPA model with young people, and because it adds social support to the HAPA model as an extra predictor of young people's behaviour. To gather the data, a questionnaire survey was applied in two public schools, one in a rural area and the other in a city. The survey was answered by 266 Portuguese young people, aged 15–21 years, from the 10th to the 12th grades. Authorization for the survey was given in advance, from the Ministry of Education, schools and parents, after which the survey was performed. Before applying the questionnaire, two pre‐tests were carried out, each with ten participants and with similar characteristics to the population studied. This study analyses action self‐efficacy, outcome expectancies, action planning, risk perception, intention, maintenance self‐efficacy and social support variables. The result was obtained through a two‐step process, by determining the measurement and structural model, using Smart PLS 2.0. The results show that young females have more factors determining fruit consumption, with greater social support for action self‐efficacy, greater maintenance self‐efficacy through action self‐efficacy, and greater perception of risk regarding fruit consumption. In terms of age, young people over 16 years present greater outcome expectations for the intention, greater perception of risk and action self‐efficacy for fruit consumption. The multi‐group analysis referring to differences between young people living in rural or urban environments did not show proof of the model giving a better explanation of one situation or the other. It can be concluded that the HAPA model is appropriate to the investigation of behaviour factors that influence young people's fruit consumption. The results also indicate that in the scope of the behaviour analysed the proposed model gives a better explanation for females and for those over 16 years.     

Fundamental ratios as predictors of ESG scores: a machine learning approach

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Sustainable and responsible finance incorporates Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into business decisions and investment strategies. In...     

Determinants of the income velocity of money in Portugal: 1891–1998

This paper performs a long-run time series analysis of the behaviour of the income velocity of money in Portugal between 1891 and 1998 by assessing the importance of both macroeconomic and institutional factors and looking for particularities in the Portuguese case. We estimate two cointegration vectors for the income velocity of money, macroeconomic variables and institutional variables. It is apparent that one of these vectors reflects the relationship between income velocity and macroeconomic variables, while the other reflects the relationship between income velocity and institutional variables. Moreover, a regression analysis reveals that the usual U-shaped pattern is displayed with a relatively late inflection point located around 1970, which is consistent with the Spanish case. It is further noted that this is a feature of countries with a late economic and institutional development process.     

Closed-loop supply chains: a guide to theory and practice

During the last decades, attention to the environment has grown substantially. A remarkable and significant trend has been the recognition of the strategic importance of reverse logistics and closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) as a consequence of the Directive on Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment. In this paper, we analyse the transformation from an ‘open-loop supply chain’ to a ‘closed-loop supply chain’. Our aim is to guide the reader through the main aspects of both theory and practice in CLSCs: starting from the existing literature, we adopt a broader approach and define the guidelines for managers to follow in the supply chain decision process. Assuming a producer responsibility perspective, we pay a special attention to some of the most important sustainable strategic decisions that a company has to face in order to implement and effectively manage the CLSC: (i) location–allocation, (ii) returns collection, (iii) inventory control of returns, (iv) returns grading and (v) performance management of CLSC. We describe each typology of problems, their mathematical formulations and the implications through both an environment and business perspective. We highlight the managerial implication and then underline the limits of the current literature, and define future directions for research to explore.     

European Pension Funds and Sustainable Development: Trade‐Offs between Finance and Responsibility

Pension funds try to account for sustainable development in their operations. This mainly translates in responsible investing. We investigate how this interacts with the financial objectives. We use a survey of more than 250 pension funds based in 15 European countries. Multinomial logistic regression is used to find out how pension funds trade off sustainable development and financial objectives. Our findings suggest that pension funds that have not included responsibility in their strategy and investments have a clear priority regarding their financial performance. Pension funds who integrate sustainable development in their strategy can bring balance between finance and responsibility. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment