Investor sentiment and energy futures predictability: Evidence from Feasible Quasi Generalized Least Squares

Contributing to the budding literature on how emotional and sentimental actions impact the performance of financial markets, this study examines the predictability of energy futures prices with investors’ sentiments. In particular, we examine which of the three (neutral, bear and bull) investors’ sentiments offer accurate forecast information on four energy futures prices. Using the predictability test proposed by Westerlund and Narayan (2015), we discover that all the forms of investors’ sentiments are significant predictors of the movements in energy futures prices. However, the bear sentiments outshine other variants in the forecast of crude oil futures prices, while the bull sentiments provide the most accurate forecast information for the remaining energy futures prices, namely heating oil, gasoline and natural gas. We also find this evidence consistent even when asymmetries are considered in the predictability models. Among other implications of these findings, investors in energy futures and portfolio managers are expected to consider often emotional perceptions in their portfolio constructions and the predictability of future gains.     

Organizational sustainability identity: Constructing oneself as sustainable

In the literature, organizational sustainability identity tends to be treated as something that is ‘engineered’ within business organizations through control, reporting, target setting, strategic communication, and other instruments. Through a case study of a company mainly active within the recycling industry, an alternative understanding is given. A distinct organizational sustainability identity is, rather, a social construct based on perceptions of the core operations as “sustainable in themselves” and collaborative work with customers that is perceived as entailing sustainable solutions. Understood in this way, organizational sustainability identity has relatively little to do with formal controls such as codes, policies, reports used by management to position the company as sustainable. Rather, for organizational members, the process of constructing oneself as sustainable builds on convictions about the core operations and the possession of specific capabilities manifested in customer relations. The article adds to current literature through its constructivistic approach and through identifying underlying beliefs that condition the process of forming an organizational sustainability identity.     

Outsourcing logistics operations in circular economy towards to sustainable development goals

One of novel manners to achieve sustainable development is concentrating on circular economy in order to manage greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, and waste. It also helps to protect the environment and optimize usage of input resources. The main element of circular economy is closed-loop supply chain which covers both forward and reverse products flows. This study aims to outsource logistics operations in a closed-loop supply chain. An innovative analytical multi-step fuzzy decision-making method is proposed to rank sustainable third-party logistics service providers (3PLSPs). Fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) is first used to evaluate the relationships among the main criteria. Then, fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) is applied to weight the determined set of criteria. In order to develop the hybrid fuzzy DEMATEL-ANP method and to simplify the computation, the expert judgment method is used between the two techniques as a middle step to reduce the number of criteria. As many of the criteria overlap with each other on content and context, expert opinions are used to shortlist and rank the criteria. Finally, the 3PLSPs are ranked through the fuzzy complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method. To validate the practicability and applicability of the improved decision-making model, a household appliance case study is applied with data obtained from industry experts. In this case, five service providers are considered and ranked, while the first one gets the best score. A sensitivity analysis is performed by altering the criteria weights to validate the proposed approach, data, and the obtained results. In terms business and the environment, this study provides success critical criteria for decision-making problems in circular economy for addressing sustainable development.