From Davos,Switzerland to Mombasa,Kenya: a position paper on the adoption of the ‘Davos declaration’ by hotels

Climate change has been identified as a major challenge in the achievement of sustainable development especially for developing countries like Kenya. There has been a wide acknowledgement that there is a need for long-term strategies for the industry players to reduce their contribution to climate change in line with other industries. Industries and societal sectors have sought ways of mitigating the causes of climate change. The Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism, held in Davos, Switzerland, on 3 October 2007, provided practical guidelines for the industry in response to climate change. This paper seeks to evaluate the adoption of the ‘Davos Declaration’ among selected Mombasa hotels in terms of water, energy and waste management. Results indicate that despite wide knowledge among hoteliers on the impacts of climate change and the role hotels can play in its mitigation, most hoteliers are slow in adopting the mitigation measures.     

The Trucking Sector Optimization Model: A tool for predicting carrier and shipper responses to policies aiming to reduce GHG emissions

In response to the growing Climate Change problem, governments around the world are seeking to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of trucking. The Trucking Sector Optimization (TSO) model is introduced as a tool for studying the decisions that shippers and carriers make throughout time (focusing on investments in Fuel Saving Technologies), and for evaluating their impact on life-cycle GHG emissions. A case study of fuel taxation in California is used to highlight the importance of (1) modeling the trucking sector comprehensively, (2) modeling the dynamics of the stock of vehicles, and (3) modeling different sources of emissions.     

厄瓜多尔干旱情况初探及对策分析

厄瓜多尔水资源极其丰沛,但时空分布不均,旱灾时有发生。在分析厄瓜多尔水资源概况和历史主要旱灾情况的基础上,利用Arc GIS软件绘制了干旱湿润指数等值面图,对厄瓜多尔进行干旱等级划分、易旱季节区分、干旱损失分析等。根据厄瓜多尔的干旱情况、目前水资源条件及形势,提出应对干旱的工程与非工程措施。相关经验可供类似条件的国家和地区借鉴。     

Calculated risk? A cybersecurity evaluation tool for SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are among the least mature and most vulnerable in terms of their cybersecurity risk and resilience. In this article, we describe a methodology developed using the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) as a starting point. The NIST CSF does not meet all the needs of the SME IT leader, but it offers a solid foundation for a useful evaluation and recommendation methodology. We propose an SME cybersecurity evaluation tool (CET) that consists of a 35-question online survey to be completed by IT leaders to self-rate their maturity within the five NIST framework categories: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. We outline this approach to cybersecurity risk management before discussing its effectiveness and implications for practitioners.     

Multinational enterprises’ risk mitigation strategies in emerging markets: A political coalition perspective

This paper contributes to the IB literature by investigating MNEs’ risk mitigation strategies in emerging markets. Drawing on institutional perspectives and March’s theoretical concept of forming a ‘political coalition’, we propose that risk mitigation cannot be limited to passive compliance and/or demonstrating good corporate behavior, but should extend to collective efforts by building a political coalition and working with key stakeholders to manage potential risk and obtain favorable outcomes in complex institutional environments. In considering MNEs in contemporary China and India, we offer different types of risk mitigation strategies under various institutional contexts and a framework for future research.     

基于信息辅助块稀疏贝叶斯学习的直扩通信窄带干扰抑制

现有基于Nyquist-Shannon采样定理的窄带干扰(Narrowband Interference,NBI)抑制方法存在应用受限于采样率较高的问题。应用压缩感知(Compressive Sensing,CS)理论解决上述问题,利用NBI在频域表现出的块稀疏特性以及直接序列扩频(Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum,DSSS)信号的类噪声特性,提出了基于块稀疏贝叶斯学习(Block Sparse Bayesian Learning,BSBL)框架的DSSS通信NBI抑制模型。实现干扰抑制后,利用传统的CS重构算法实现DSSS信号的压缩域解调。为进一步提高算法性能,将NBI稀疏分块的块内自相关矩阵建模为单位矩阵,提出了信息辅助BSBL(Aid BSBL,ABSBL)算法,设计了基于ABSBL的DSSS通信NBI抑制算法。该算法在保持较好NBI抑制性能的条件下,提高了运算效率并且不依赖NBI的稀疏结构。仿真验证和对比分析结果表明,所提方法能够有效抑制DSSS通信中的NBI,在干扰强度相同的条件下,NBI带宽越小、压缩率越大,算法对NBI的抑制性能越好。     

Mitigating transaction risk for cross-border e-commerce firms: A multiagent-based simulation study

The industry of cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) has experienced rapid development in recent years, however it has also faced severe challenges concerning the managerial risks taking place across national borders. The aims of the study are two folds: first examine the effects of applying different risk mitigation strategies on the market performance of international online vendors (IOVs) and utilities of consumers; second explore whether consumers’ choices among vendors from different nations based on psychic distance are affected by the risk mitigation strategies of platforms or by the actual frequency of vendors making default moves. A dynamic simulation has been conducted based on four combinations of platform strategies determined by two dimensions of ex ante intervention and ex post investigation. The results indicate that (i) once increasing the frequency of ex post investigation of risk events, customers will suffer less default losses, and both IOVs and customers will gain more utilities; (ii) the profits of ordinary vendors will increase marginally when reducing the frequency of ex ante intervention of high-risk orders, causing a lower degree of shopping concentration; (iii) when platforms adopt risk mitigation strategies of more frequent intervention or higher investigation intensity toward IOVs, the psychic distances of consumers towards IOVs from the same nation and from relatively closer nations become closer.     

Assessing the Efficiency of Risk Mitigation Strategies in Supply Chains

Mitigating supply chain risk is a critical component of a company's overall risk management strategy. Drawing upon Contingency Theory, we posit that the appropriateness and effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies are contingent on the internal and external environments and that there is no one‐size‐fits‐all strategy. While literature on risk management has proposed a variety of tools and techniques for effectively evaluating and managing supply chain risks, comprehensive assessment of the efficiencies of alternative risk mitigation strategies has not been addressed in the literature. Such an assessment will help managers select the appropriate mitigation strategy for a given decision‐making environment. To this end, this study is first of its kind in evaluating and proposing efficient supply chain risk mitigation strategies in the presence of a variety of risk categories, risk sources, and supply chain configurations. We combine an empirically grounded simulation methodology with data envelopment analysis and nonparametric statistical methods to analyze and rank alternative mitigation strategies. We find that the more efficient strategies focus on flexibility rather than on redundancy for supply chain failures. Our research presents several interesting and useful managerial insights for deciding what strategies are most capable of mitigating risks in a variety of contexts.     

Enterprise Social Networking: Opportunities,Adoption, and Risk Mitigation

Social networks on the Internet are becoming extremely popular and have begun to change the way we live and work. Many enterprises are assessing the potential of exploiting the commercial opportunities of this technology. Although social networking commercial activities may be the next big productivity booster for firms, some consider such activities to be time wasters and security traps. Therefore, it is useful to develop a framework to consolidate the issues in adopting this technology. This article reviews the opportunities provided by enterprise social networking and proposes using the fit-viability model to evaluate concerns related to the successful implementation of enterprise social networking. We also examine the major potential risks and the mechanisms for their management.