Logistics determinants for managing value chain and developing business policies: critical insights for sustainability and total logistics modelling

All industries depend on natural capital assets and ecosystem services, either directly, through their supply chains, or through their investments. Companies are therefore challenged to reorient their production systems and turn the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into an opportunity for sustainable economic development. In this paper, we analyze the interest of institutional investors in these corporate policies through the role they play in the disclosure that companies make about them. For a balanced data panel of 8,320 firm‐year observations from 832 global companies operating in different sectors of activity over the period 2011–2020, the results obtained indicate that institutional investors, especially those with investment a long‐term investment horizon, are interested in biodiversity commitments and exercise their demand for information on these initiatives through their representatives on the board of directors. Furthermore, we show that companies are rewarded for disclosing relevant information on business policies, biodiversity management, and the valuation of ecosystem services in the value chain.

“Development” is a far-reaching term, and the subjects of the reviewed literature vary by geographical and organisational coverage, stage of socioeconomic development under study, and perspective adopted. More specifically and substantively addressed is increased participation in global value chains, including upgrading, as applied to firms, industries, and regions. This is driven by both the business practitioner’s and policy maker’s perspectives, and is addressed through the global value chain framework. In contrast to supply chains, value chains provide a better macro-scale perspective on matters such as distribution of income and power across firm networks, and the interlinkages between firms and their socioeconomic environments. Operationalisable typologies of upgrading and value chain governance reviewed here will be of interest to the business practitioner and policy maker. Our literature search also yields a niche body of literature on the subject of rural development and agriculture, which is reviewed near the end of the chapter.

The purpose – The aim of this study are two fold - that the research focuses on the creation of value chain models identify relatively homogeneous market segments and the choice of those who are most profitable, and which will form an authentic tourism product. It is in this context, the generic and specific problems related to the value chain model are investigated specifying causal relationships between latent variables of resources and hypothetical structures. Design – Formulated hypotheses can be discussed from the perspective of the aspirations holders of tourist and business policy to align their capabilities with market needs, in order to satisfy customers and achieve an appropriate profit. The main challenges of today's modern times are represented in the form of requirements that govern the tourist market, the planned participation in the tourist market, improving market performance and competitiveness in the market of tourist services. Methodology – A hypothetical model of the value chain has been proposed based on the hypothesis formulated, and a sequence of key operations that create new value in the form of an authentic tourism product. The theoretical proposed model value chain is tested on a sample of responses obtained through interviews using questionnaires Likert scale. Approach – Keeping in mind that South Serbia interesting tourist destination that makes the combination of pristine and undiscovered nature, describes the properties and advantages of capabilities are presented in direct connection with the engagement of elected and identified tourism resources for modern tourism. Findings – The proposed model can enable the value chain forming an authentic tourism product in practice, while at the same time must take into account the implications as holistic as possible. Each model has a value chain impact and scope that simply can't be predicted on the field, regardless of the actors of the event. Originality of the research – Projected value chain model can be used as a concept in the development of new models according to their goals of strategic planning, resource values according to tourist destinations and forming the desired authentic tourism products.

Climate variability impacts significantly on the agricultural service sector, affecting the operations and policies of agribusiness suppliers, banking and insurance companies. For example, bank lending policy and agribusiness advice was likely affected by recent El Nino drought events. Through consultation with agribusiness suppliers, banks and insurance companies, it is clear that their business operations and policies could benefit substantially from access to enhanced processes for dealing with climate variability. The Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit (APSRU) has demonstrated that farmers can utilise information derived from climate forecasts and simulation models in interpreting past experience, planning and decision making. Variability in production also poses challenges for both input suppliers and firms involved in the value chain from farm to consumer. Bank lending policies, crop insurance policies, product inventories and marketing advice may all be positively influenced through better dealing with climate variability. For example, insurance policies based on the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) model’s objective prediction of yields may potentially reduce claimant disputes and cut legal costs, representing significant savings to industry. Likewise, better prediction of seasonal outlooks using the APSIM model, climate forecasts and fallow water reserves would allow farmers and lenders, such as produce suppliers and banks, to negotiate individually-tailored financial packages. APSRU has recently extended risk management tools developed primarily for farmers to agribusiness to determine whether better targeted and costeffective agribusiness services can be provided for the benefit of agribusiness organisations and Australian farmers. In this paper we report on our experiences and learnings from our action research approach, where APSRU researchers are working alongside agribusiness staff on relevant case studies to identify the opportunities for and to resolve constraints against implementation of improved agribusiness operations based on climate forecasts and use of the APSIM model. Our collaborators represent a mix of agribusiness organisations, including input suppliers, marketers, banks and insurance companies. The case studies involving our collaborators are described and discussed in the paper, along with results of our initial evaluation. The use of climate forecasts and APSIM has generated interest amongst the agribusiness sector. While the costs of conducting this research are high, we conclude that there are good opportunities for these tools to assist agribusiness operations in providing better services to Australian farmers.

The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the ‘safe operating space’ bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting ‘distance from boundary’ measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors.

The General Counsel as Partner in Shaping a Corporate Culture that Respects Human Rights

Global soft law (notably the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ‘UNGPs’), multistakeholder norms, the business practices and policies of leading companies, the expectations of investors and stakeholders, and hard law in a growing number of jurisdictions, all expect that businesses should respect human rights in their operations and in their value chains. The COVID 19 pandemic has made it urgent for corporate legal departments, led by the general counsel, to support the company’s commitment to respect human rights. This means using human rights due diligence to improve human rights performance, rather than as a paper exercise intended primarily to avoid legal liability. This paper provides practical guidance on how corporate general counsel can help their companies conduct authentic and robust human rights due diligence by acting as technical legal experts, wise counsellors, and leaders.

Each year, the Nigerian gas industry churns out big data on all channels of its value chain. The data is collated, analyzed, and reported by government agencies, corporate companies, institutions, and even academia. Some of these reports are the NNPC and DPR annual oil and gas reports. The annual oil and gas reports contain data tables, charts, and data driven insights. Considering the growing uncertainty in business intelligence triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fast-paced 4th industrial revolution, the future of data reporting, analyzing, and presentation is also experiencing a new normal. Oil and gas stakeholders desire quick data-driven and actionable insights to reduce business risks caused by the impacts of these key drivers. This article explores and presents the use of Power BI on Nigerian gas data from 2000 to 2018. It extracts data on demand, production, utilization, gas flare volumes, export, current infrastructure capacity, domestic gas supply, and other relevant data categories. The collated data is developed into a dataset by appending and merging tables from the different reports. This data is prepared, and model relationships are created to answers questions on demand, production, infrastructure, and sustainability of the Nigerian Gas market. Empirical results show that new insights can be obtained from the dataset using new tools and a thoughtful data design process. These insights are presented on a dashboard where key takeaways for quick business decisions and policy implementations are easily assessed. The method is proposed as the future of annual energy reporting. It is also a continuous improvement process that can be applied by all oil and gas stakeholders in their data architecture.

Global value chains in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of business regulations, policies and institutions

The Malaysian economy has experienced robust economic growth over the past few decades, averaging around 6 per cent a year since 2000. With competitive pressure for resources from non-agriculture sectors, there is likely to be an inadequate capacity to increase agricultural production. Attaining agriculture business performance continued relevance remains demanding in the Eleventh Malaysia Plan. Anchored in the supply chain management philosophy, this paper highlights cattle businesses and the interrelated elements of supply chain integration and a digital marketing perspective. The cattle meat industry in Malaysia is gradually transforming from unorganized backyard farming into organized farming. However, the supply chains are still characterized by inefficiencies, diseconomies of scale, lack of investments, and inadequate arrangement. Therefore, to improve the efficiency and economy of scale, added value chain is required. One form of value creation is technology adoption. The digital marketing part of technology currently leads to the adoption new business policies in agriculture production. Policies and procedures also need to be eased to facilitate investments to increase production. This paper concludes that, in many important ways, the Malaysian Government still sees food security as a public obligation, especially in the case of protein-based products, and is working attentively to increase food security for its citizens.

The Strategy Oven: A Book Review

PurposeThe paper frames modern slavery as a global wicked problem and aims to provide a set of international business (IB) policy recommendations for taming it. The outlined approach can also guide IB policymaking to address other kinds of wicked problems.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper that reviews existing literature on wicked problems and integrates it with an IB policy double helix framework. The paper focuseses on the role multinational enterprises (MNEs) play in moderl slavery globally, either through global value chains or within global factory modes of operation.FindingsAs a global wicked problem, modern slavery will never be solved, but it can be re-solved time and time over. Understanding the social reproduction of modern slavery can help shift the focus from labor governance and a narrow supply chain focus toward the role of transnational governance and the need to address institutional, market and organizational failures.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the gap in an overarching theory of modern slavery and systematically applies the concept of wicked problems and wickedness theory to modern slavery. Drawing on an IB policy double helix framework, the paper addresses the governance nexus between modern slavery, IB and policymaking which can in turn advance IB policy research and theory.

This research focuses on the application of the Process Value Added (PVA) method in the environment of custom piece production at STS Prachatice a.s. The main objective was to identify the most profitable and most loss-making processes, to evaluate the value added of individual production operations, to assess the potential for outsourcing certain processes, and to analyse the profitability of specific orders. The study uses a selection of 30 atypical orders from 2022, obtaining data on selling prices, production hours and costs associated with production and overhead. The analysis shows that manufacturing processes add the most value, while inspection processes are less profitable. Processes suitable for outsourcing were identified, especially when in-house capacity is not used. It was also found that the most profitable orders are those that combine high product uniqueness with efficient use of materials and production hours. The PVA methodology allowed to quantify the added value in the context of time and cost parameters and revealed that contracts with high time pool and unit costs have the most significant added value. PVA indices were established to better reflect the results achieved. The research findings have practical implications for the organization and efficiency of the production process at STS Prachatice, contribute to the development of business policy and procurement activities, and serve as innovative material for academic purposes. The study demonstrates that the PVA method is an effective tool for analysing and optimising business processes, enabling companies to better understand and manage process value-added in order to increase profitability and competitiveness. The implementation of this method in practice has shown concrete economic benefits and provided valuable information for further business policy and procurement solutions.

States that over the last few years, the growing importance of the ecological question has led many executives to modify their business policies. The integration of “green” issues in the process of strategy formation has significant financial, managerial and organizational implications for the corporate system, thus requiring firms to re‐design their value chain activities and processes. This paper aims at: analysing current patterns of environmental behaviour adopted by firms; discussing whether and how the ecological challenge must be seen as a major source of change, thus identifying specific implications on the corporate system of environmental entrepreneurship; presenting the basic triggers which may foster the introduction of innovative environmental programmes.

One of unique characteristics of Thai jasmine rice is its aroma, which can easily reduce in various conditions during post-harvesting activities, especially in rice milling stage. This study aims to investigate logistics cost analysis of the rice mill of Kasetwisai Agricultural Cooperative, Ltd. by using activity based costing (ABC) method and to define key activities for the improvement of the rice aroma loss reduction. The results show that the activity that has the highest logistics cost is warehousing at 26.52%, followed by material handling at 24.27%, transportation at 12.33% and packaging at 10.84% of the total logistics cost, respectively. The total logistics cost per unit of the rice mill is about 4.52 baht/kg. Findings from an in-depth interview revealed that warehousing and transportation can be major activities influencing aroma loss in jasmine rice. To reduce the aroma loss in a cost effective way, the Kasetwisai Agricultural Cooperative, Ltd. should focus on storage time and temperature in warehousing and transportation systems. In addition, the collaboration of the rice miller with supply chain partners should be encouraged to cut the logistics cost and to improve the quality of rice. Keywords: Activity Based Costing; Aromatic Rice; Jasmine Rice; Logistics Cost; Value Chain