System of crop intensification for more productive,resource-conserving,climate-resilient,and sustainable agriculture: experience with diverse crops in varying agroecologies

With continually increasing demand for food accompanied by the constraints of climate change and the availability and quality of soil and water, the world’s farmers are challenged to produce more food per hectare with less water, and with fewer agrochemical inputs if possible. The ideas and methods of the system of rice intensification which is improving irrigated rice production are now being extended/adapted to many other crops: wheat, maize, finger millet, sugarcane, tef, mustard, legumes, vegetables, and even spices. Promoting better root growth and enhancing the soil’s fertility with organic materials are being found effective means for raising the yields of many crop plants with less water, less fertilizer, reduced seeds, fewer agrochemicals, and greater climate resilience. In this article, we review what is becoming known about various farmer-centred innovations for agroecological crop management that can contribute to agricultural sustainability. These changes represent the emerging system of crop intensification, which is being increasingly applied in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. More research will be needed to verify the efficacy and impact of these innovations and to clarify their conditions and limits. But as no negative effects for human or environmental health have been identified, making these agronomic options more widely known should prompt more investigation and, to the extent justified by results, utilization of these methodologies.     

重塑自然资源管理新格局：目标定位、价值导向与战略选择

研究目的:立足新时代党和国家机构改革背景,分析自然资源管理改革目标定位和面临挑战,明确未来自然资源管理改革价值导向与战略选择。研究方法:文献研究法,综合分析法。研究结果:自然资源管理改革的目标定位是实现"五统一",即统一调查评价、统一确权登记、统一"多规合一"和用途管制、统一资产管理和统一督查监管。针对当前自然资源管理理论储备不足、开发利用伦理缺乏科学引导、开发和保护矛盾冲突长期存在、新管理体制效能有待实践检验等挑战,自然资源管理改革亟需注重"公平效率"、强调"永续利用"、融合"三资一体"、构建"有效市场",切实重塑自然资源管理新格局。研究结论:新时代自然资源管理改革应该以权籍为基础,完善自然资源市场体系;以规划为龙头,构建国土空间规划体系;以"三线"为底线,推进全域国土空间用途管制;以整治为抓手,推进"山水林田湖草"生命共同体综合治理;以法制为保障,构建自然资源管理法律体系,从而塑造"三体系一管制一治理"的自然资源管理新格局。     

物流成本:价格上涨的重要推手

物流成本是物流活动中所消耗的物化劳动和活劳动的货币表现,作为商品价值的重要组成部分,其上升必然推高商品价格,成为商品价格上涨的重要推手。它的上升主要会通过运输费用、经管费用、税费和制度性成本等路径推动商品价格上涨。要保持市场价格的基本稳定,必须通过改革公路收费、改进物流管理、培育物流企业、优化物流模式等措施,多管齐下遏制物流成本上升。     

Transformation and Rebirth of Chinese Brands: A Case From the Hotel Industry

ABSTRACT

Chinese domestic brands have developed rapidly in recent years, and yet few of them have entered global competition as product or service brands brands with exceptions such as Huawei. In addition, the evolution of Chinese brands has hardly been understood or introduced properly by international business educators. In this article, we identify the development patterns of Chinese domestic brands by using a local hotel brand as an example. Particularly, we examine and discuss how a Chinese brand can be established with specific positioning, brand image, and product offering, as well as how the brand can grow by vertical and horizontal extensions based on balancing market opportunities and the brand’s own capabilities. Moreover, we expect this research to facilitate the understanding of Chinese brands among international business education.     

The breakdown of the workplace ‘family’ and the rise of personnel management within an Australian financial institution 1950–1980

The management of its people defines the way in which an organisation develops the capabilities to successfully compete in the market environment. Since the 1950s, approaches to staff management have evolved from traditional bureaucratic foundations to strategic planning exercises. This article uses a case study approach to investigate the way in which the process of organisational learning evolved in the development of personnel management practices. It suggests that although old and new practices were often overlaid on each other, ‘bridges’ developed which allowed the progressive development of new managerial processes.     

Relevance of Fundraising Charities’ Content-Marketing Objectives: Perceptions of Donors,Fundraisers, and Their Consultants

Many fundraising charities invest heavily in content marketing, often using consultants to direct their content-marketing efforts. Thus it is vital to establish whether certain key aims of content marketing suggested by literature in the field actually match the aspects of content marketing deemed most important by charity donors. This paper examines the significance attached by samples of charities, donors, and content-marketing consultancies to four possible major objectives of content marketing—the attainment of high–search-engine-results-page rankings, image enhancement through impression management, the stimulation of public perceptions of organizational transparency, and the creation of messages that “go viral.” Several major differences in perceptions emerged among the three groups, with substantial implications for how fundraising charities should manage their content-marketing programs and activities. Charity managements need to consider carefully and critically the possible returns on large-scale expenditures intended to pursue the putative aims of content marketing that are routinely advocated by practitioner and academic literature.     

E-loyalty driven by website quality: The case of destination marketing organization websites

The capability of website quality management to drive tourism customer e-loyalty is the key factor to achieve superior performance of destination marketing organization (DMO) website operations. The quality management approaches that revolve around website design quality and online relationship quality have drawn intensive attention from e-loyalty researchers in recent years. Thorough empirical investigation, however, still lacks in incorporating the integrative impact generated by the two approaches into DMO website quality management. The current study introduces and validates a theoretical framework based on such impact. As the research result reveals, six facets predict tourism customer e-loyalty directly: informational usefulness, navigational effectiveness, aesthetic appeal, entertainment, social presence, and self-concept congruity embedded in the functional, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of website design quality. Online relationship quality, comprised of relationship satisfaction and relationship trust, plays a partial mediator role in amplifying the e-loyalty driving effect of website design quality in the DMO website context.     

Customer Interaction Management Capabilities on the Micro-Retail Fashion in Indonesia

This article aims to investigate and examine Customer Interaction Management Capabilities (CIMaC) as mediator in the relation of Market Intelligence Quality (MIQ) and Customer-Centric Commitment (CCC) with New Product Performance (NPP). A Structural Equation Model (SEM) is used to test the empirical research design, using the data retrieved from micro-retail owners in Central Java, Indonesia. A Confirmatory Factor Model is used to test the multi-dimensionality of a theoretical construct (construct validity test). The findings show that only MIQ influences NPP, while CCC does not. However, CIMaC genuinely mediate the relationship between MIQ and CCC with NPP. By investigating the literature of various market learning, CRM, NPD, and entrepreneurship, this study offers a unique analysis about the market intelligence quality, customer-centric commitment and its impacts on customer interaction management capability, and the new product performance. Conceptual discussion and empiric results explore the previous research about market orientation culture on micro businesses.     

After over 25 years of accrediting beaches,has Blue Flag contributed to sustainable management?

This paper examines the qualitative, quantitative, and geographical evolution (1987–2012) of the Blue Flag campaign and accreditation process in Spain, a leading coastal tourism destination heading the list of awards. The standard Blue Flag criteria for crowded, developed beaches are now adapting to new demands for natural beaches, but they still fail to capture essential sustainable tourism features, such as limiting user numbers, or preserving and restoring sand ecosystems. Given these shortcomings, some destinations are moving to alternative awards with a higher environmental commitment, such as EMS, ISO14001, and Eco-Management and Audit Schemes (EMAS). A cluster analysis of Blue Flag data for 983 beaches in Spain over 26 years revealed different behaviour patterns: established tourist areas that have always opted for the Blue Flag programme; tourist areas that adopted the Blue Flag early on but replaced it with ISO14001 and EMAS; recently developed destinations applying for the award to boost their tourism promotion; and tourist areas with no well-defined policy that have opted intermittently for Blue Flag. These profiles illustrate the different policies of Spain's Autonomous Regions, and they are useful for tourism managers to verify whether their destination's behaviour pattern contributes to sustainable tourism and matches strategic policies they have designed for them.     

Can tourism be part of the decarbonized global economy? The costs and risks of alternate carbon reduction policy pathways

Global leaders agree on the need to substantially decarbonize the global economy by 2050. This paper compares potential costs associated with different policy pathways to achieve tourism sector emission reduction ambitions (?50% by 2035) and transform the sector to be part of the mid-century decarbonized economy (?70% by 2050). Investment in emissions abatement within the tourism sector, combined with strategic external carbon offsets, was found to be approximately 5% more cost effective over the period 2015–2050 than exclusive reliance on offsetting. The cost to achieve the ?50% target through abatement and strategic offsetting, while significant, represents less than 0.1% of the estimated global tourism economy in 2020 and 3.6% in 2050. Distributed equally among all tourists (international and domestic), the cost of a low-carbon tourism sector is estimated at US$11 per trip, equivalent to many current travel fees or taxes. Exclusive reliance on offsetting would expose the sector to extensive and continued carbon liability costs beyond mid-century and could be perceived as climate inaction, increasing reputational risks and the potential for less efficient regulatory interventions that could hinder sustainable tourism development. Effective tourism sector leadership is needed to develop a strategic tourism policy framework and emission measurement and reporting system.