Environmental entrepreneurship as a multi‐component and dynamic construct: Duality of goals,environmental agency,and environmental value creation

Environmental entrepreneurship (EE) is a scholarly field that has gained traction in recent years under the premise that it might represent a solution to pressing environmental grand challenges. Despite substantial advances in recent decades, the field still lacks consensus on the conceptualization of EE. The lack of a settled and unified notion of EE hinders the progress of the field because it challenges EE’s legitimacy, hampers theoretical development, creates measurement, and empirical problems. In this study, we aim to provide an integrative theoretical conceptualization of EE that can help build bridges between fragmented views of the phenomenon. First, we perform a systematic literature review to identify existing definitions of EE, and second, we follow an inductive approach to analyze them. Drawing on past definitions, we propose EE as a multi‐component and dynamic construct that consists of three interrelated core components: duality of goals, environmental agency, and environmental value creation. This conceptualization of EE might help connect the fragmented literature and build internal coherence, and it could be instrumental to further developing the current theoretical approaches that inform the phenomenon.     

Value‐Chains in the Andes: Upgrading for Ecuador's Blackberry Producers

We apply a value chain approach to examine how blackberry producers in Ecuador can improve production and marketing practices to obtain more favorable prices. Results show that general upgrading actions are associated with improved producer prices, and specific activities, such as seeking information from reputable sources can lead to substantial welfare improvements. The paper goes beyond most value chain studies which treat participation in a ‘modern’ value chain as a discrete state. Ecuador's blackberry industry is evolving incrementally with no clearly discernible ‘modern’ market chains. Instead, producers incrementally make improvements in multiple dimensions. Relatively low‐cost practices, many of which do not imply substantial risk or investment, are associated with price improvements. Obstacles to participation in incremental value chain upgrading activities are not insurmountable. In particular, scale of production is not a limiting factor: small‐scale producers are not precluded from adopting improved practices and they do not suffer in terms of price received.     

Localised Estimates of Dynamics of Multi‐dimensional Disadvantage: An Application of the Small Area Estimation Technique Using Australian Survey and Census Data

Deep and persistent disadvantage is an important, but statistically rare, phenomenon in the population, and sample sizes are usually not large enough to provide reliable estimates for disaggregated analysis. Survey samples are typically designed to produce estimates of population characteristics of planned areas. The sample sizes are calculated so that the survey estimator for each of the planned areas is of a desired level of precision. However, in many instances, estimators are required for areas of the population for which the survey providing the data was unplanned. Then, for areas with small sample sizes, direct estimation of population characteristics based only on the data available from the particular area tends to be unreliable. This has led to the development of a class of indirect estimators that make use of information from related areas through modelling. A model is used to link similar areas to enhance the estimation of unplanned areas; in other words, they borrow strength from the other areas. Doing so improves the precision of estimated characteristics in the small area, especially in areas with smaller sample sizes. Social science researchers have increasingly employed small area estimation to provide localised estimates of population characteristics from surveys. We explore how to extend this approach within the context of deep and persistent disadvantage in Australia. We find that because of the unique circumstances of the Australian population distribution, direct estimates of disadvantage have substantial variation, but by applying small area estimation, there are significant improvements in precision of estimates.     

Segregation in Friendship Networks

We analyze a network‐formation model where agents belong to different communities. Both individual benefits and costs depend on direct as well as indirect connections. Benefits of an indirect connection decrease with distance in the network, while the cost of a link depends on the type of agents involved. Two agents from the same community always face a low linking cost, while the cost of forming a relationship between two agents from different communities diminishes with the rate of exposure of each of them to the other community. We find that socialization among the same type of agent can be weak even if the cost of maintaining links within one's own type is very low. Our model also suggests that policies aimed at reducing segregation are socially desirable only if they reduce the within‐community cost differential by a sufficiently large amount.     

A Comparison of Value Elicitation Question Formats in Multiple-Good Contingent Valuation

This paper provides a convergent validity test of two types of multinomial choice questions vis-a-vis a dichotomous choice question by formally testing whether these stated preference elicitation question formats provide comparable welfare estimates. In particular, a dichotomous choice question, a traditional multinomial choice question, and a modified multinomial choice question suggested by Carson and Groves （2007） were applied in split samples to assess the influence of the informational and incentive properties on the respondents＇ annual willingness to accept compensation for adopting costly conservation practices in agriculture that benefit the environment. Our findings suggest that the two multinomial choice question formats elicit a similar mean willingness to accept distributions, but they are both different from a standarddichotomous choice question. Further, the willingness to accept distributions derived from the multinomial choice question formats are more dispersed than those from the dichotomous choice question.     

Work-related suicide in Victoria, Australia: a broad perspective

While unintentional work-related injury is increasingly recognised as important and preventable, population studies of the full range of work related suicides have received less attention. The objective of this study is to investigate the epidemiology of work-related suicide in Victoria, July 2000-December 2007. The study draws on a database of all work-related deaths reported to the Victorian Coroner, inclusive of broadly defined work-relatedness. Inclusion criteria for work-related suicide were at least one of: suicide means was work related, work stressors were identified in police reports to the Coroners or the Coroner's finding, the suicide method involved another person's work (e.g. rail suicide, heavy vehicle) or the suicide location was a workplace. Cases still open for investigation were excluded. Of 642 work-related suicides, 55% had an association with work stressors; 32% jumped or lay in front of a train or heavy vehicle; 7% involved a work location and 6% involved work agents. Work stressor cases identified included business difficulties, recent or previous work injury, unemployment/redundancy or conflict with supervisors/colleagues (including workplace bullying). Work-related suicide is a substantial problem, for which few detailed population wide studies are available. Further research is required to understand the contribution of work stressors and effective interventions.     

Fiber deployment in Spain

Next generation access networks will be critical for future economic growth and access to these infrastructures will have major consequences for territorial and social cohesion. This paper examines the economic and competition determinants that serve as incentives for operators to invest in fiber-to-the-home technology. We draw on a dataset comprising 6603 Spanish municipalities with access to broadband services to examine the incumbent’s (Telefónica) deployment of fiber in the period 2010–2013. We show that local loop unbundling competition had a strong positive impact on Telefónica’s fiber deployment, while bitstream competition had a negative effect. Moreover, the incumbent was more likely to invest in municipalities with a large presence of cable operators. We also consider how the municipalities’ sociodemographic characteristics affected the operator’s deployment decision. While market size and population density had a positive effect on investment, the level of unemployment and the percentage of elderly population had a negative impact.     

Consumer Awareness of Palm Oil as an Ingredient in Food and Non-Food Products

Vegetable oil crop production has increased faster than other food or industrial crops in recent years. Palm oil which is widely grown in tropical areas has become the most internationally produced and traded oil with a detrimental effect on the natural environment and the sustainability of producing communities. The general perception of the industry conveys a negative image to consumers. To better understand the extent consumers’ perception of palm oil products would inform stakeholders in the sector 25 one-to-one interviews using the means-end laddering technique (Olson and Reynolds, 2001) were carried out to elicit attributes which led to the establishing of value perceptions of products containing palm oil. Pal production practices have elicited negative Environmental Concern Values regarding the availability of resources for future generations. Environmental consciousness seems to be an important attribute marketers should take into account when both developing and promoting products. However, consumers’ perception of palm oil as a product ingredient was regarded as minimal. Palm oil was perceived as being a more natural product whose naturalness could be exploited regarding ‘physical wellbeing’ values leading to helping consumers achieve a health life and higher self-stem.