Stakeholder management in sustainable supply chains: A case study of the bioenergy industry

Engaging with stakeholders and managing their issues when striving for a sustainable supply chain (SC) is a significant challenge. Although most studies on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) consider stakeholder management necessary, little is known about related stakeholder management practices in SSCM. Thus, this paper seeks to enrich the theoretical debate on stakeholder management practices in SSCM through a case study approach to bioenergy SCs in Chile. Based on 28 interviews with SC actors and representatives from the surrounding stakeholder environment, the deductive–inductive analysis reveals that stakeholder management combines different practices to discuss stakeholder concerns, address them, and evaluate the process at the SC's external and internal levels. We propose structuring these practices based on two dimensions: “practices to address stakeholder requirements” and “practices whereby stakeholders are integrated.” The analysis' results indicate that although two-way communication with stakeholders can be seen as the core of stakeholder management, a certain willingness to learn and transform SC design is a prerequisite for true orientation toward stakeholder management in SSCM. Additionally, linkage development and local anchoring are practices used to obtain further legitimacy at the external level. Building on these findings, this study can guide practitioners in engaging with stakeholders and managing their issues across the SC.     

Environmental Innovations in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Supporting and accelerating the adoption and diffusion of environmental innovations amongst small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is a major challenge to environmental policy makers. Research suggests that whilst SMEs possess high flexibility, their innovative capacity may be limited to incremental changes within their existing technology system and network. Twenty case studies examining the innovation adoption process in SMEs in four sectors and in five countries within the ENVIS project (commissioned by the EU) revealed great variety in factors driving this process. Findings indicate that this variation can be attributed to the character of the environmental innovation, the specific business opportunity, the regulatory setting and pressure experienced by the sector. Based on these findings an analytical framework is suggested, whereby the environmental innovative capability of SMEs is conceived as the result of an interplay between the competencies, the network relations and the strategic orientation of the company (the 'dynamic triangle'). This indicates that policy to support SME's adoption of environmental innovations has to take an integrated form, i.e. addressing and developing competence, networks and strategic orientation of SMEs simultaneously whilst remaining systemic and context sensitive.     

The generality/specificity issue in consumer innovativeness research

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of personality in shaping consumer innovativeness by testing a model of the hierarchical relationships between a global (broad or abstract) personality trait, its domain-specific manifestation in a consumer context, and overt consumer behavior. A survey of 465 adult consumers measured global innovativeness, domain-specific innovativeness for two product categories (clothing and electronics) and self-reported purchase of new clothing and electronic items. Three hypotheses were tested. First, global innovativeness is more highly correlated with domain-specific innovativeness than it is with the purchase of new items. Second, domain-specific innovativeness is more highly correlated with the purchase of new items than is global innovativeness. Finally, the association between global innovativeness and new product purchase is mediated by domain-specific innovativeness. All three hypotheses were supported for both product categories.     

Expectations,substitution, and scrapping in a putty-clay model

The paper presents a framework for analyzing the effect of changing expectations about future prices on a firm's choice of technique, and on its anticipated scrapping of capital equipment. Assuming a putty-clay technology, particular attention is paid to the way in which the scrapping age depends on the degree of ex ante input substitution. Numerical illustrations — based on data for Norwegian manufacturing for the years 1964–1983, an ex ante technology represented by a Generalized Leontief cost function in materials, energy, labor, and capital, and an ARMA representation of the price expectation mechanism — are presented. The results indicate that the price changes in this period may have had a substantial impact on planned scrapping, and on the chosen production techniques.     

CONSUMPTION GROWTH ACCOUNTING

The methodology in this paper combines an input–output structural decomposition approach with the supply-side perspective of mainstream growth accounting. In explaining the intertemporal change in consumption per worker, three sets of effects are distinguished. First, contributions due to several types of technological changes are considered. Second, effects caused by changes in international trade are discerned. Third, composition effects that reflect structural shifts in demand (including changes in tastes) are quantified. As an empirical illustration, we analyze the developments in the U.K. between 1979 and 1990.     

Corporate Cash Holdings and Acquisitions

We find that acquirers’ announcement returns decline with their cash holdings, but only when at least part of the payment is in the form of stock. We further find evidence that acquirers that use stock payment are overvalued, especially when they have excess cash that they could have used instead. Collectively, our results suggest that investors interpret announcements of stock acquisitions as a signal that the acquirers’ equity is overvalued and that high cash holdings intensify this signal. However, our results are inconsistent with the common belief that cash holdings induce value‐destroying acquisitions.     

Beyond Dutch disease

How does the deterioration of rule of law in Russia in recent years affect its ability to move away from an export pattern dominated by natural resources? We investigate this question using three datasets for Russia's bilateral trade relations for goods, services and investment at disaggregated level with its partner countries over the world. Our empirical analysis shows that the deterioration of the rule of law in Russia since 2003 has affected the long‐run trade performance of Russia in sophisticated and technology‐intensive manufactured goods, as well as its inward investments with advanced economies. It is precisely this type of trade that Russia should nurture to diversify away from hydrocarbons export dependence. Our statistical analysis also shows that Russia remains to a large extent an outlier within the multilateral trading system. It exports disproportionately less to partner countries which are or had become members of the WTO over our period of analysis. Russia's trade appears to have been negatively affected by the accession of these countries to the WTO. Russia itself finally acceded to the WTO in July 2012 amidst signs of a modest improvement of its rule‐of‐law indicators.     

The economic effects of the 1920 eight-hour working day reform in Sweden

In 1920, the working day in Swedish manufacturing and services was cut from 10 to 8 hours without wages being cut correspondingly. Since workers demanded and got the same daily wage working 8 hours as they had with 10, real hourly wages increased dramatically; they were about 50% higher in 1921–1922 than they had been in 1919. This is the largest wage push in Swedish history, and this paper studies the consequences for profits, investments, capital intensity and unemployment. In traded manufacturing employers responded by increasing capital intensity and did not compensate for rising wages by raising prices, which led to a combination of jobless growth and low profit rates in the 1920s. Firms in non-traded manufacturing and services could raise prices and conserve profitability to a higher degree. In total, the effects of the reform were pro-labour. We discuss the implications for our understanding of interwar wages and employment, the literature on the decrease in inequality found in most industrial countries around 1920 and the rise of the ‘Swedish model’ in the 1920s and 1930s.