From greening to sustaining: Transformational challenges for the firm – a case study of pollution abatement from tanneries in Kasur,Pakistan

This case study of tanneries in Kasur presents an account of industrial transformation of an agrarian society in a developing country, Pakistan, with its effects, efforts to rehabilitate and the difficulties faced in abatement of pollution. The research attempts to respond to the question of the social and economic cost of achieving pollution abatement in Kasur and develop a viable model. The research methods adopted include reviews of secondary data, personal interview and sample survey of tanneries in the study area. The results reveal how people have grappled with the problem of pollution abatement from the tanneries in Kasur and in creating decisive awareness at the local, national and international levels. The transformation of the city from a commercial centre to a semi-industrial tanning centre has led to a loss of 30% cultivable area due to contamination. It is reported that crop yield has dropped by 50% over the past 10 years. The total loss of agricultural income is estimated to be $450 thousand US per annum. The environmental impact of tanneries is highly pronounced in the urban areas around the leather tanning industrial units. Strong protest by the affected population has to some extent forced industrialists to rehabilitate the environment. NGO and the Government are also contributing to this effort. The case study of Kasur presents an example of the community's efforts to mobilize its local, financial and political resources to overcome the environmental hazards, with the associated problems and dilemmas.     

Bioelectricity in Malaysia: economic feasibility,environmental and deforestation implications

We investigate the economic feasibility of bioelectricity production from biomass in Malaysia and its impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and storage, agricultural prices, agricultural employment and deforestation. For this purpose, we develop a partial equilibrium model that projects agricultural prices, production, imports, exports, domestic consumption and land use in 5‐year increments between 2015 and 2065. Our results show that by 2030 biomass‐generated electricity can supply 36.5 per cent of the electricity generated in Malaysia, 16 times more than the 2016 electricity supply from biomass. Increased bioelectricity production from biomass will significantly reduce GHG emissions and will help Malaysia meet its commitment in the Paris Agreement to mitigate GHG emission by 45 per cent before 2030. Our modelling shows that biomass‐generated electricity creates a derived demand for waste biomass that expands the area of oil palm plantations. The expansion lowers agricultural prices, boosts agricultural employment and leads to some deforestation as landowners clear rainforest to plant oil palm trees. Nonetheless, the deforestation does not increase GHG emissions since GHG gains from bioelectricity significantly exceed GHG losses from deforestation.     

Inference for the two-parameter bathtub-shaped distribution based on record data

Here we consider the record data from the two-parameter of bathtub-shaped distribution. First, we develop simplified forms for the single moments, variances and covariance of records. These distributional properties are quite useful in obtaining the best linear unbiased estimators of the location and scale parameters which can be included in the model. The estimation of the unknown shape parameters and prediction of the future unobserved records based on some observed ones are discussed. Frequentist and Bayesian analyses are adopted for conducting the estimation and prediction problems. The likelihood method, moment based method, bootstrap methods as well as the Bayesian sampling techniques are applied for the inference problems. The point predictors and credible intervals of future record values based on an informative set of records can be developed. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to compare the so developed methods and one real data set is analyzed for illustrative purposes.     

The public R&D and productivity growth in Australia's broadacre agriculture: is there a link?

This paper investigates the dynamic relationships between research and development (R&D) expenditure and productivity growth in Australian broadacre agriculture using aggregate time series data for the period 1953 to 2009. The results show a cointegrating relationship between R&D and productivity growth and a unidirectional causality from R&D to TFP (total factor productivity) growth in Australian broadacre agriculture. Using the dynamic properties of the model, data from beyond the sample period are analysed by employing the variance decomposition and the impulse response function. The findings reveal that R&D can be readily linked to the variation in productivity growth beyond the sample period. Furthermore, the forecasting results indicate that a significant out‐of‐sample relationship exists between public R&D and productivity in broadacre agriculture.     

Neo-pluralism as a theoretical framework for understanding HRM in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper discusses the 'social' nature of employment management problems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). 'Applied' Western HRM is largely based on unitarist conceptions of organizational reality. Where conceptions suggest a 'stakeholder' perspective, they tend to follow orthodox formulations of pluralism. In that regard, notions of 'stakeholding' refer to the divergent internal organizational interests (mainly economic) of labour and management. In the SSA context, however, the broader social and moral issues of the wider community have a decisive influence on the employment relationship. And internal employment relations structures, such as trade unions, do not constitute the main representative channels for employee grievances. Consequently, established Western employment frames of reference do not represent suitable theoretical frameworks for analysing all the relevant social factors that influence the SSA employment relationship. This paper proposes a modified version of Ackers' (2002) 'neo-pluralist' theoretical framework as the basis for understanding and resolving some of issues involved in HRM in SSA. From this analysis, it proposes a model of HRM that attempts to institutionalize some elements of the 'African social system' into formal HRM policies and strategies.     

Preferential trade agreements and manufactured goods exports: does it matter whom you PTA with?

This article explores two questions. First, do preferential trade agreements (PTAs) affect manufactured goods exports of developing countries? Second, does it matter for developing countries whom they sign the PTAs with? We find that the answer to both questions is yes. Using bilateral manufactured goods exports data from 28 developing countries during 1978–2005; we find that South–South PTAs have a significantly positive effect on manufactured goods exports. In contrast, no such effect is detected in the case of South–North PTAs. We confirmed the robustness of these findings to estimation methodology, sample selection, time period, zero trade flows and multilateral trade resistance.     

On uniform convergence of undiscounted optimal programs in the Mitra–Wan forestry model: The strictly concave case

In this paper, we show that the 1986 Mitra–Wan result establishing asymptotic convergence of maximal programs to the unique golden-rule forest in the case of undiscounted, strictly concave felicity functions can be strengthened, in the same setting, to the  uniform  asymptotic convergence of  optimal  programs to the unique golden-rule forest. We work with a notationally reformulated version of the model that may have independent interest.     

Enterprise systems’ life cycle in pursuit of resilient smart factory for emerging aircraft industry: a synthesis of Critical Success Factors’(CSFs), theory,knowledge gaps,and implications

The research aims to investigate business value critical success factors (CSFs) of enterprise systems (ES) through their life cycle in pursuit of resilient smart factory for emerging aircraft industry. This article provides an extensive literature analysis of past 22 years based on conscientious criteria of authors: (i) who have published strategic content relevant to CSFs, (ii) received more than 300 citations and (iii) concurrently published two or more papers relevant to ES CSFs. The most cited strategic CSFs were termed as classical CSFs. The 22 CSFs were identified, validated and synthesised for better understanding of success across life cycle by aircraft industry experts. The top 10 empirically verified CSFs have numerous differences with past generic classical CSFs. This article canvases real insights of two distinct views: process and variance approaches of the ES CSFs. The process approach, which is a neglected research area, facilitates the researchers for identification of ES life cycle process coupled with a view of resource deployment when it is needed the most. While the variance approach facilitates practitioners and researchers in finding out which resource (CSF) is relatively more important. The significant findings for ES life cycle can help the practitioners and researchers to make rational decisions throughout the ES life cycle.     

Optimum allocation in Bayesian stratified two-phase sampling when there arem-attributes

The problem of optimally allocating a sample amongk-strata at the second phase of a two-phase sampling procedure when the sampling is for proportion has been discussed byNewbold [1971] and then by the author [Khan, 1972].This paper deals with optimum allocation of the sample amongk-strata at the second phase of a two-phase sampling procedure, when the sampling is form-attributes. The problem is to estimate the proportion of each attribute in the population. Here (m–1) dimensional Dirichlet distribution is taken as the prior distribution.