Business Demands Research Articles

The Social Subcontract: Business Ethics as Democratic Theory

What does democracy demand of business? We argue that an answer to this question requires an understanding of the sorts of ethical obligations businesses have more generally. Against approaches that understand the duties of business in terms of citizenship or fiduciary obligation, we propose and develop the notion of subcontractor duties. We conceive of commercial activity as a social subcontract, in which businesses are empowered to exercise their judgment in pursuit of parochial interests, but for broader social reasons. Such license, however, puts businesses in a position to use this judgment in ways that unduly influence broader political processes. Given this, business ethics should be seen as indispensable for normative democratic theory, as it offers a conception of how business leaders should discharge their discretionary power in a manner least offensive to democratic principles. Drawing on a pragmatist understanding of democracy, we contend that businesses must respect, and avoid undermining, the formal and informal processes that characterize democratic politics. We conclude with rough sketch of what this looks like in practice, listing three broad sets of desiderata that a social subcontract seems to demand of businesses vis-à-vis democracy.

5G AND 6G EVOLUTION

The constant evolution in telecommunications is recognized both as a market driver and as a driver for R&D, since R&D activities are built to support consumer and business demands. The market pressures and recent past recessions have considerably shifted the focus of companies to product development and incremental research. This current focus on short term gains has paved the way for applied research to the furthest extent. Research and technological development, which is a founding block of any field of science and technology, was explained from the point of view of ICT with a primary focus on the telecom industry. The research ecosystem along with its shortcomings were also presented. It is important that governments and the ICT industry re-evaluate the R&D ecosystem and consider having both a 3 to 5-year view along with a 30 to 40-year long vision. 5G technology started to roll out effectively to ordinary users in 2019 (development of this technology started in April 2008), and in 2020 it was expected to spread to even more countries, and then in a few years it will be global. This is despite various studies that point out that 5G radiation will have negative effects on human health (which has also been claimed for 4G and 3G), while organisations such as the US Communications Commission (US FCC) and almost all similar organisations state that 5G radiation has no significant effects on human health. Another concern is the security of communications over 5G networks, especially equipment sold by China. Australia and the UK – in early 2019, took steps to restrict or eliminate the use of Chinese-sourced equipment in their 5G networks. Also in 2019 the US via the FBI and the UK via Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) other intelligence services, began to get more involved in changing surveillance standards. Including at the NATO meeting in London in December 2019, 5G network security and development was discussed. In addition to high download speeds, the 5G network also has a low “air latency” (between phone and antenna) of 8-12 milliseconds.

Reliable Scheduling Algorithm for Space Debris Monitoring Resources Using Adaptive Multipopulation Differential Evolutionary Optimization With Reinforcement Learning

The continuing growth in space debris has posed a great threat to on-orbit operations. It is urgent to implement reliable and lasting monitoring of space debris. Safety and diversity in monitoring devices and business demands makes scheduling system resources increasingly complicated. This article proposes a novel adaptive multipopulation differential evolutionary algorithm based on a theoretical model specialized in the scheduling of space debris monitoring resources. Using Q-learning, the proposed algorithm adapts self-learning and dynamic adjustment properties in population proportion parameters. Experiments are performed with practical batch tasks and monitoring data to verify the effectiveness and reliable utility of the proposed algorithm to ensure the safety of on-orbit operation.

Research on information sharing incentive mechanism of China's port cold chain logistics enterprises based on blockchain

Blockchain technology resolves the bottleneck of traditional centralized data storage technology. It can better facilitate the seamless operation and supervision of port cold chain logistics and can meet the massive business demand for cold chain imports and the surging demand for pandemic prevention and control. However, it is a challenging task to incentivize cold chain enterprises in the maritime industry to adopt blockchain technology and actively participate in information sharing platform. Using evolutionary game theory, through an analysis of evolutionary stability strategies, this paper explores the evolutionary path of port cold chain logistics enterprises that participate in information sharing. An incentive mechanism based on blockchain smart contract is designed to encourage cold chain logistics enterprises to actively participate in information sharing within chains. Smart contracts can continuously encourage enterprises to participate in information sharing by timely adjusting the incentive participation costs of participating enterprises.

New Graduates' Experiences in Paediatric Private Practice: Learning to Make Intervention Decisions.

Background. Challenges with clinical decision-making are common among new graduate occupational therapists. There is limited research exploring their experiences of learning to make intervention decisions. Purpose. To explore new graduates' experiences of learning to make intervention decisions in pediatric private practice. Method. A case study approach, involving a range of data sources, explored the experiences of 11 new graduates and three experienced occupational therapists working in Australian private practices. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Findings. Themes pervading new graduates' decision-making experiences were: "being seen as capable and competent," "similar and familiar," and "specialist versus generalist positions." Contextual influences contributed to new graduates utilizing their support networks and personal experiences in addition to workplace supports. Implications. It is vital to balance private practice business demands with opportunities for new graduates to engage with experienced occupational therapists and professional communities of practice to assist their learning to make intervention decisions.

Appraising the Origins of British Language and the Challenges of Business Communication

The English language has shown the same history and development as Anglo-Saxon and British peoples. English ancestors were great warriors and business people. They showed great achievements in Germanic, Scandinavian, Greek, Roman ,French ,English and American wars ,and other activities. This makes English a relevant and suitable language for Wars, social and economic activities; hence the sociolinguistic origins and dimensions of English and business. Nevertheless, this well-known and important language is challenged by business demands that shape and reshape English for communication in the direction of modernity and globalization. The purpose of this analysis is to use structuralism criticism to revisit the diachronic and synchronic aspects of the language to demonstrate connections and interconnections between the origins of the language ,its development and the use of business communication for the promotion of social, political and economic activities. Languages promotion and business development or success are then interdependent for sustainable development

An Emotional Intelligence Training Program in the Tourism Sector

Abstract: In a competitive and continually changing tourism and hospitality sector the need for high qualified and motivated human resources, which meet the current and future business demands is more than ever imperative. As tourism is expected to thrive in the coming years, it is essential for tourism employees to have intrapersonal and interpersonal abilities that lead to positive interactions with customers, contributing to their memorable emotional experiences and delivering at the same time benefits to the tourism industry. On the other hand, putting emphasis on Emotional Intelligence development, through innovative training programs and educational methods, can lead to qualified personnel, which apart from cognitive abilities can also develop emotional abilities, significant for the tourism sector. In this framework, an education and training program that implements Transformative Learning theory, based on critical reflection, rational discourse, and experience, can motivate tourism employees to get outside of their comfort zones and change their assumptions, their dysfunctional beliefs, their values, and the way of being in the world. In a multicultural environment, such as the tourism field, the implementation of Transformative Learning can lead individuals to be more inclusive, open to new cultures and ideas, re-establishing their perspectives and behaviors to be more functional. Additionally, the utilization of digital learning environments, which are extremely popular in the recent years and characterized by flexibility and ubiquity, can contribute to the effectiveness of the learning process and the improvement of Emotional Intelligence. This research presents a training program that embraces the advantages of digital learning environments utilizing Transformative Learning as a pedagogical tool for the development of Emotional Intelligence in the tourism sector.

Innovative crisis-response through best human resources practices during COVID-19

During COVID-19, Human Resources evolved as a pivotal organisational function, able to ensure continuity of the business by balancing demands of employees and business. Concurrently, it ensured operational vitality by navigating the crisis through implementing innovative human resources practices. Human Resources practitioners responded swiftly to the operational, administrative, and strategic challenges posed by the dynamics of external and internal changes. This qualitative and informative research explores the innovative practices implemented by human resources practitioners as a response to past health pandemics and the Covid-19 crisis. A mix of inductive, deductive, and indicative-deductive thematic analysis was applied to present the findings from the literature review on Human Resources practices during health-pandemics before Covid-19 and during Covid-19 (published in 2020-2021). This study found Human Resources practitioners amongst the first responders to a health-related crisis. During a crisis, the HR role skews towards becoming a responsive change agent sustaining empathy and productivity whilst implementing new policies and practices, redefining the work, workforce, and the workplace in response to the changing external environment. The innovative HR practices implemented during the Covid-19 crisis will offer insights to the Management and HR practitioners, and will further guide the re-invention and championing of creative people management strategies for achieving human capital and organisational resilience. Decision-makers will understand the value of responsive practices at the time of global crisis.

Towards feasibility and sustainability of chrysanthemum cut flowers farming: Evidence from Pasuruan Regency, Indonesia

The chrysanthemum commodity has shown a marked increase in the demand for decorations, ornaments and ceremonies service business in urban areas. This has raised attention to the feasibility and implications of sustainable production at the farm level. This study aims to measure the economic feasibility and sustainability of the chrysanthemum farm business. The study was carried out by surveying 24 chrysanthemum farmers in the village of Tutur, Tutur District, Pasuruan Regency. The analysis method used farming feasibility and multidimensional scaling (MDS) approach of Rapfish. The results of the study found the criteria for chrysanthemum cultivation of R/C ratio and ROI of 2.58 and 1.58, with profit equivalent to 126.66 million rupiahs per month per hectare. The study also found that the sustainability index in the dimensions of the social, economic, institutional, and environment was 62.74, 57.76, 57.48 and 51.66; all of which are categorized as fairly sustainable. In those dimensions, it was found that the most important attributes influencing sustainability were land conversion, farmers' network in chrysanthemum cultivation, access to business capital and changes in market trends. Further research suggests strengthening farmer group institutions, implementing innovation and developing sustainable tourism areas.JEL Classification F18; Q13; Q18

Business demands for processing unstructured textual data – text mining techniques for companies to implement

Business demands for processing unstructured textual data – text mining techniques for companies to implement

Dynamics of Innovation Activity in the Context of the Narrative Economics Approach

The purpose of this paper is the explanation of the dynamics of innovation activity in Russia (on the example of the level of innovation activity of organizations) and identification of the problems for innovative development, based on the methodology of narrative institutional analysis. Research methods are narrative and content analysis, a graphical method for displaying statistical data. The study formulates the differences in the interpretation and methods of analysis of narratives between the narrative economy (in the tradition of R. Schiller) and the narrative analysis in other social sciences. The application of the approach of narrative economics to the study of the Russian innovation system provides a study of narratives that combines the qualitative and quantitative research methods. Narratives in R. Schiller’s approach are interpreted as stories or expressed explanations of events, discussed in conversations, news, and social media to stimulate interest or demonstrate emotions. The problem of interrelation between the narratives about the innovation activity and the indicators of the innovation activity is considered. The distinction between the direct and indirect influence of narratives on indicators of innovative activity is proposed. The direct influence of narratives on the indicators of innovation activity may include modifying the methods for calculating indicators. The indirect influence of narratives on the indicators of innovation activity may include modifying the motivation and level of activity of the actors of the national innovation system. The observed dynamics of indicators of innovative activity indicate its stagnation, at the same time, the volume of discussion in the media about innovations is increasing. The paper discusses possible reasons that impede the strengthening of innovative development. The main focus is on assessing the importance of the problem of business demand for innovations and commercialization of innovations. The paper formulates a theoretical framework that summarizes the types of problems that may arise during the implementation of innovative activities. There are five types of problems that may arise during the implementation of innovative activities. The first type of the problems is caused by government compulsion, institutional constraints and intervention in economic activity. The second type of problem is caused by the opportunism of individuals who are selfish at any cost and are capable for violating rules and agreements. The third type of problem is associated with the difficulty of coordination and adapting the plans of free individuals, each of whom has only a part of the common knowledge that should be used in economic activity. The fourth type of problems is the lack of resources and knowledge for innovation; it is well studied by economic science. The fifth type of problems is the inability of individuals to make the optimal choice; in relation to the Russian innovation system, this is only a hypothesis and has not yet been studied. The first three «ideal types» of problems are incorporated in the narrative of the low demand for innovation from the business side.

Business Demand for a Cloud Enterprise Data Warehouse in Electronic Healthcare Computing

Cloud enterprise data warehousing is a top level strategic business and information technology (IT) investment initiative in any organization that is technologically inclined, profit driven and customer oriented. To build the data warehouse, data are obtained from numerous heterogenous data sources, transformed, cleansed and processed into an applicable data repositories for implementation across the healthcare organizational settings. The current paper constructed an enterprise cloud data warehouse for e-healthcare organization and connected the medical/clinical workforces through the enterprise e-healthcare data warehouse and allowed the medical solutions and clinical information of all the patient to be stored. The proposed system is expected to improved the e-Healthcare information management by providing a model to support medical software automation, hardware system integration and enhances the control and management of the patients records.

Testing Bank Resiliency Through Time

<ns3:p>A resilient banking system meets the demands of households and businesses for financial services during both benign and severe macroeconomic and financial conditions. Banks' ability to weather severe macroeconomic shocks, and their willingness to continue providing financial services, depends on their levels of capital, balance sheet exposures, and ability to generate earnings. This note uses the Forward-Looking Analysis of Risk Events (FLARE) stress testing model to evaluate the resiliency of the banking system by consistently applying severe macroeconomic and financial shocks each quarter between 2014:Q1 and 2021:Q3.</ns3:p>

Pedagogical potential of the success situation in the teacher professional and creative self-realization

Introduction and problem statement. The article combines scientific and pedagogical ideas on the success situation as a way to organize the creative activity of the teacher's personality and a form of his professional self-realization. Nowadays, self-realization as a process of revealing intentions and talents of an individual takes place in conditions of fierce competition and high demands of business, labor market. Therefore, besides the main professional profile, the teacher needs to master many related professional and personal competencies, hard and soft skills, correlating desires, goals and opportunities. Methodology. As the scientific literature analysis result, the author deduces three meaningful interpretations of success as: 1) an activity characteristics; 2) an experience of joy; 3) a motive; and does not reduce it to the attributes of material prosperity and other quantitative indicators. Here, success is a prerequisite for personal development and creative self-realization. Based on the above, the success situation is stated as the leading condition for creative self-realization. Methods. The paper presents the author's classification of success situations by types of joy in educational and pedagogical activity. At teaching creative professions, the success situation can be developed in a set of techniques: removing clamps (through exercises to restore breathing); exercises for gradually increasing difficulties; accounting the physical condition and emotional well-being of a dancer/actor; evaluating not the result, but the physical effort and emotional costs to achieve a successful result; optimistic attitude for the future. Results. The article emphasizes that the success achievement contains both the external manifestations of social prestige and material wealth, and the individual internal reserves. The study shows that success, in addition to the activity result and its evaluation, contains a motive, meaning, purpose and means to achieve it; which are accompanied with feelings of joy by those who study, and pedagogical techniques to create a situation of success serve as the basis for the teacher professional competence and creative self-realization.

Measuring Determinants of Time Deposit in The Commercial Banks in Nepal

Time deposit is one of major source of liquidity of the commercial bank to maintain money supply to the demand of business and household sector. In this context, an interesting query is the determinants of time deposit. This paper measures the determinants of time deposit in the commercial banks of Nepal based on 15 years’ time series data sets from 2000-01 to 2017-18 of the sample commercial banks published by the central bank of Nepal. Using descriptive statistics and multiple regression models as the analytical tools, the paper has found fluctuating trend of liquidity in the commercial banks but inclining trend of external and internal variables including GDP, Deposit, Capital, Size of Bank, remittance and public debt. In this trend, the liquidity of the commercial banks depends significantly on time deposit and remittance inflow. Besides, the positive trend of time deposit from 1994-95 to 2017-18 has caused the positive trend of total deposit from 1994-95 to 2017-18. Additionally, the paper has found that GDP per capita, US exchange rate, interest rate and the branch of the bank are positively and significantly determinants to the time deposit of the commercial bank but inflation rate is negatively and determinant with significance. The internal variables are more determinants than the external variables to the time deposits. It is clear that time deposit is a reliable and long-term source to main the bank liquidity of the commercial bank for their financial stability and performance depends on more the internal variables than the external variables. Therefore, the commercial bank should reform as mentioned in the monetary policy and money market dynamics to improve the competitiveness and smartness of bank policy including interest rate policy and branch of the commercial banks for effective mobilization of the scattered small resources all over the country for higher rate of capital formation, investment, and economic growth

Measuring Determinants of Time Deposit in the Commercial Banks in Nepal

A time deposit is one of the major sources of liquidity of the commercial bank to maintain money supply to the demand of business and household sector. In this context, an interesting query is the determinants of time deposit. This paper measures the determinants of time deposit in the commercial banks of Nepal based on 15 years’ time series data sets from 2000-01 to 2017-18 of the sample commercial banks published by the central bank of Nepal. Using descriptive statistics and multiple regression models as the analytical tools, the paper has found a fluctuating trend of liquidity in the commercial banks but the inclining trend of external and internal variables including GDP, Deposit, Capital, Size of Bank, remittance, and public debt. In this trend, the liquidity of the commercial banks depends significantly on time deposits and remittance inflow. Besides, the positive trend of time deposit from 1994-95 to 2017-18 has caused the positive trend of total deposit from 1994-95 to 2017-18. Additionally, the paper has found that GDP per capita, US exchange rate, interest rate, and the branch of the bank are positively and significant determinants to the time deposit of the commercial bank but the inflation rate is negatively and determinant with significance. The internal variables are more determinants than the external variables to the time deposits. It is clear that time deposit is a reliable and long-term source to main the bank liquidity of the commercial bank for their financial stability and performance depends on more the internal variables than the external variables. Therefore, the commercial bank should reform as mentioned in the monetary policy and money market dynamics to improve the competitiveness and smartness of bank policy including interest rate policy and branch of the commercial banks for effective mobilization of the scattered small resources all over the country for the higher rate of capital formation, investment, and economic growth.

Resilience of U.S. Rail Intermodal Freight during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 marked a challenging time for the US and its freight industry. Manufacturing slowed, consumer purchasing patterns changed, and for many, shopping moved online. The freight industry suffered a sharp decline in shipments, followed by a surprisingly quick rebound. The industry had to adapt quickly to meet fast-changing demand and supply patterns upended by global supply chain disruptions. This paper uses U.S. intermodal activity data, supported by in-depth interviews with leaders of railroads, intermodal carriers, equipment manufacturers, car leasing companies, shippers, and e-commerce players to characterize and assess how the rail industry met the challenge of this demand whiplash and other performance impediments. What emerges is a rich picture of the multi-actor intermodal supply chain, the impacts of COVID-19 on it, the performance of the logistics system in general, and railroads in particular during the pandemic. Industry interviews revealed that a handful of choke points, many of which were outside the rail industry, complicated supply chain responses to COVID-19. The paper shows how the rail industry was an essential component of pandemic resilience, demonstrating a high level of adaptability to meet consumer and business demands. Through the use of depth interviews it reveals the complexity of the intermodal supply chain, and it accurately foretells the subsequent disruptions that continued to plague that supply chain long after the initial impacts of the pandemic.

Long-term storage of combined feed in containers with unregulated gas medium

Combined feeds are a determining factor in the price formation for meat and dairy products. Currently, the time of combined feed storage under normal conditions is about two months. This circumstance requires the interconnected work of the feed mill and the livestock enterprise. When small farms are provided with fodder, the smooth work of the feed mills is disrupted, and the costs of the combined feed production increase. Therefore, the improvement of storage methods for small batches of feed will help reduce the cost of production due to the smooth operation of feed mills, and meet the demand of small businesses.

Design of Intelligent Customer Service Questioning and Answering a System for Power Business Scenario Based on AI Technology

In order to solve the problems of large demand for power business and small number of customer service, an intelligent customer service questioning and answering a system for power business scenario based on AI technology is designed. The approach first uses the particle swarm optimization algorithm to automatically classify the question attributes and then uses the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm to match the answers with the highest similarity to the questions and return to the customers. The system collects the questions raised by customers through the acquisition module, uploads the question work order to the knowledge base through the information assistance module, and stores the preprocessed questions to the knowledge base. After completing the problem attribute classification through the particle swarm clustering algorithm classification model in the batch analysis and calculation module, the question answers are matched through fuzzy c-means clustering. At the same time, the similarity of different keywords is calculated to find a series of related questions. After the obtained data are analyzed in real time through the self-service customer service module, the answer is extracted and fed back to the customer, and the question answer is presented to the customer in the system interface. The experimental results show that the designed system has low worst-case time complexity, which is up to 0.35 only. The reason is that the system in this paper can use priority information to deal with the problems raised by customers, which is different from the past work where dealing with customers request via priority information is not used. The system can give the corresponding answers according to the customer’s options. It has convenient operation, high integrated control ability, and good information management performance. Compared with the traditional approach which could waste a lot of resource and data, the proposed approach can reduce the differences between problem data, eliminate invalid data, and simplify the data classification process. The application of the system can effectively accelerate the information transmission efficiency of the power company and can be used for power exchange platform automation in the future.

Systematic Approach for Static Steering Effort Reduction through Linkages Optimization in Small Commercial Vehicles (SCV)

The steering system design of a vehicle is of utmost importance as it not only acts as an interface between the driver and the entire vehicle but also is one of the key vehicle sub system which accounts for vehicle overall performance including vehicle handling and stability. With the recent infrastructure development and changes been witnessed in doing commercial vehicle business to hub and spoke and to door to door logistics delivery are expecting improved vehicle performance particularly in small and light commercial vehicles segments (SCV and LCV) where the business demands are more for the movement of vehicle in narrow city lanes and sharp corners. Also, now driver comfort is considered one of the key factors before purchasing any commercial vehicle. Thus, having power steering in SCV’s and LCV’s has not only become a mandate but also the vehicle steering system performance should be such that the driver is easily able to maneuver the vehicle in narrow city lanes and corners. Through this paper a methodology has been derived wherein factors contributing for achieving static lock to lock maneuverability in a power steering vehicle are analyzed without overdesigning the hydraulic power assistance of the vehicle. The approach mainly focuses on LH/RH symmetric hydraulic pressure build up in the system by critically designing the steering system linkages hard points such as drop arm length, drop arm SAP angle, steer arm length, track rod arm’s length. Also, this study ensures that the derived hard points not only enhances hydraulic assistance in the steering system but also ensures vehicle to have least turning circle diameter (TCD) and enhanced tire life by having least Ackermann error.