An empirical investigation of water consumption forecasting methods

Many regions on earth face daily limitations in the quantity and quality of the water resources available. As a result, it is necessary to implement reliable methodologies for water consumption forecasting that will enable the better management and planning of water resources. This research analyses, for the first time, a large database containing data from 2 million water meters in 274 unique postal codes, in one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, which faces issues of droughts and overconsumption in the hot summer months. Using the R programming language, we built and tested three alternative forecasting methodologies, employing univariate forecasting techniques including a machine-learning algorithm, with very promising results.     

The State as Both Regulator and Player: The Politics of Transfer of Development Rights in China

The conventional argument that the introduction of transfer of development rights (TDR) shifts the power of land use regulation from the state to the market is increasingly under challenge. In China, the state's grip on land is reinforced through TDR, in which the state is both regulator and player. This state-dominated form of TDR affects China in three ways. First, competing aspirations of different scales of government complicate how TDR is implemented. Although the central state promotes TDR to maintain a national balance of arable land, some local states instrumentalize it to expand their landed basis of accumulation. Secondly, TDR tends to benefit the state but not its people. It may increase the fiscal income of the sending government and lessen the land shortage of the receiving government, but sometimes at the expense of the interests of land users without land ownership. Thirdly, given the state's deep involvement in TDR programs, the key for China's TDR to protect arable land lies not so much in clear property rights or a fully fledged market as in effective checks and balances regarding the state's powers over TDR. These three observations attest to the embeddedness of TDR in the local political economy.     

When profession trumps potential: The moderating role of professional identification in employees’ reactions to talent management

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the role that a professionalized context plays in shaping employee reactions to talent management decisions. We examined the mediating role of felt obligation in the relationship between talent ratings and organizational citizenship behavior. Further, the study tested whether professional identification moderates the relationship between talent ratings and felt obligation towards the organization. Five hundred and ninety-eight teachers that had recently received ratings of their talent status responded to a survey questionnaire. Felt obligation mediated the relationship between talent ratings and organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, professional identification moderated the relationship between ratings of potential and felt obligation in such a way that the relationship was strongest for the teachers expressing the lowest professional identification. At high levels of professional identification, the relationship was not significant. These results indicate that conventional talent management might be less effective for increasing favorable attitudes and behaviors among employees in highly professionalized contexts, such as the education sector.     

Towards an integrated model for the transference of environmental responsibility

This research explores how environmental responsibility transfers to others. Although environmental responsibility is one of the most debated topics in environmental management literature, a framework describing how a teacher's environmental responsibility shapes the student's environmental responsibility is still lacking. Adopting emotional contagion theory as a lens, the paper addresses this issue via the mediation of emotional contagion and the moderation of a teacher's environmental concern. Based on a survey of teachers and students (N = 283) conducted in Pakistan, our findings provide evidence that a teacher's environmental responsibility can better transfer to students via emotional contagion. Additionally, our data establish that the transference of environmental responsibility from teachers to students via emotional contagion is more effective when the teacher has a high level of environmental concern than when he or she has a low level of environmental concern. Finally, the authors discuss the implications for policy in detail.     

基于煤矿网络动态安全体系的安全账户管理效益分析

针对山西潞安集团潞宁煤业公司实际,在建立动态安全网络体系的基础上,构建安全账户管理体系,通过个人安全技能账户体系的构建,实行标准化考核,违章和事故大大降低,取得了预期的效益。     

Environmental factors influencing the management of key accounts in an Arab Middle Eastern context

Within the sales and marketing literature, it is recognised that a range of external factors can influence how companies in the business-to-business field manage business relationships within national and across international borders. However, there have been very few studies that explore the influence of the external environment on key account relationships, especially within the context of emerging economies. This study draws on the network approach and contingency theory to identify and highlight the influence of external environmental factors on the management of inter-organisational relationships with key customers in emerging economies in the Arab Middle East region. It is based on an extensive qualitative enquiry that utilises 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Jordan with endogenous and Western firms. It concludes that key account practices within an Arab context are shaped by a number of contingencies that are embedded in broader institutional contexts and the business environment, which may challenge the adoption of company-wide universal key account management policies across borders.     

知识重叠、知识库特性与创新绩效

以往研究着重探讨重叠/非重叠知识在技术并购中的创新效应，然而在测度知识重叠时仅关注到数量属性而忽略了质量评估。因此，构建一个新的理论框架，利用国家知识产权局2008-2018年专利授权数据，分析217家中国机械制造企业352次国内技术并购案例，探索知识库中重叠、非重叠知识数量和质量属性对并购后创新绩效的影响。结果表明，高质量重叠知识对并购后的企业创新绩效具有正向影响，而高质量非重叠知识则有负向影响。同时，探讨知识数量对并购后创新绩效的影响。研究结果强调了知识重叠对企业获取外部知识的重要性，对企业技术并购实践具有借鉴作用。     

非洲铁路发展需求分析与市场开发策略

中资企业面向非洲铁路市场,多以"广覆盖"的形式投入开发,一定程度上造成了资源浪费。为优化中资企业在非洲铁路市场布局以及资源配置,在分析非洲铁路发展现状、铁路网发展影响因素基础上,基于铁路系统需求度、铁路发展需求度分析非洲铁路发展需求,提出了非洲大陆49个国家高、较高、中、低4个等级的铁路发展需求度,同时提出非洲铁路市场开发策略建议,即:优化非洲铁路市场开发资源配置,分区域实施铁路市场开发及项目建设,创新合作模式、拓宽资金来源。     

Impact of national policies on patterns of built-up development: an assessment over three decades

Globally, built-up development is taking place at unprecedented rates. To mitigate and limit its effects, recent scientific and spatial planning communities call for built-up management to be addressed on broader scales, from regional to national, and coordinated with multiple policy domains. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the evolution and impact of Romania’s national policies on built-up management during the entire period from the fall of the communist regime to the present. The new perspective offered by our study concerns the use of spatiotemporal built-up development assessment with policy analysis and visualization. Moreover, policies and built-up land changes are addressed in direct relationship with major political events and global economic influences. Our findings reveal that policies were influenced by the communist legacy, accession to the EU and the global economic crisis. Most effective were the policies adopted during the pre-EU accession period and after the economic crisis. The strongest impact on patterns of development came from policies in the domains of transportation, regional development, public administration and the environment.     

GRADING JOURNALS IN ECONOMICS: THE ABCS OF THE ABDC

Many institutions and governments grade academic journals for the evaluation of research. In this paper, we implement a multi-bibliometric methodology for the evaluation of such a list of journal grades. We examine the grades assigned by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) for over 750 journals in the fields of economics and statistics. Firstly, we generate up to 48 bibliometric-based grades for each journal based on the grade distribution implied by the ABDC. Secondly, we categorize the bibliometrics employing a cluster analysis of an interrater agreement statistic. Thirdly, we present a visualization of the consistency of the grading by journal. Finally, we list those journals where the majority of the matched bibliometrics indicate a higher or lower grade than their ABDC grade.