Cardiff Business School Research Articles

Economic and geopolitical uncertainty vs energy variables: exploring connectedness in the LNG freight market

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to the literature by applying quantile connectedness methodology to explore the impact of geopolitical and economic uncertainty on the volatility of LNG freight rates. Our findings justify modelling this market using econometric methodologies that depart from the classical Gaussian assumptions. First, we find asymmetric spillover effects between LNG freight rates, uncertainty, and energy variables, with the impact of uncertainty on the LNG rates becoming more intense at the tails of the distribution. Second, we find that the marginal variation in LNG freight rates after a shock is attributable to geopolitical and economic uncertainty, as the energy variables appear to absorb the marginal effects. Our results point to profound spillovers in the LNG freight market resulting from the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and government interventions to mitigate the adverse impact of these developments. These findings contribute to the LNG freight rate risk management. This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled «Assessing the Impact of uncertainty and energy variables on LNG freight rates: A dynamic quantile connectedness analysis» presented at European Financial Management Association (EFMA) 2023 annual conference, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, on Thursday, June 29, 2023.

Lindsay Leg Clubs and social prescribing: Leg Clubs at the Cardiff Business School Breakfast Briefing.

Lindsay Leg Clubs and social prescribing: Leg Clubs at the Cardiff Business School Breakfast Briefing.

Lessons From Creating a Business School for Public Good: Obliquity, Waysetting, and Wayfinding in Substantively Rational Change

This paper applies Weber’s distinction between instrumental (outcome focused) and substantive (values driven) rationality to offer both a conceptually-underpinned explanation for the mounting criticism of business schools, and to provide the basis for a new business school model. We begin by extending Brewer’s (2013) treatise on the public good of social science to articulate a substantively rational Public Value Business School. We then report how processes of waysetting, wayfinding and strategic obliquity informed the iterative development of this approach at Cardiff Business School in the UK. Our case study illustrates the significant challenges and tensions that arise from trying to introduce a substantively-rational approach and change process within an institutional context of instrumental rationality. Our analysis underscores the importance of combining both purposive action (away from the current) and substantively rational purposeful action (a direction of travel informed by particular values). It also highlights the potential for some business schools to combine substantive rationality with strategic obliquity in attempts to enhance public good through systemic, institutional change.

Barry Wilkinson: 1956 – 2019

Barry Wilkinson died on 2 February 2019, age 63, after a long illness. Barry was first cited by scholars in industrial sociology and related fields for his The Shopfloor Politics of New Technology, published in 1983 and based on his PhD thesis at Aston University. A contract at the National University of Singapore was not renewed in 1986 after Barry and I co-authored an analysis of 'Human and Industrial Relations in Singapore' that offended the authorities there, who labelled us 'wild' and 'bold', but he immediately began research on the Japanisation of British industry and elsewhere at the Cardiff Business School, where he was offered a professorship. After a prolific publication record on industrialisation in Asia, Barry subsequently moved to the Universities of Bath and then Exeter, where illness overtook him and ended his academic career. Barry was a dedicated and hard-working scholar who shared his enthusiasm and research with many colleagues.

Contributors

Previous articleNext article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJoshua Murray is assistant professor of sociology and affiliated faculty at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Vanderbilt University. His research spans the fields of political, economic, and organizational sociology and focuses on understanding the structure and consequences of class warfare/corporate political action in global capitalism.Yanfei Sun is associate professor of sociology at Zhejiang University. Her research interests include sociology of religion and political sociology. In addition, she also studies religious movements, the global expansion of Christianity, religious toleration, religious nationalism, and ethnoreligious violence.Yao Lu is associate professor in sociology at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the impacts of social and demographic processes on political development and on the ways in which migration shapes inequalities in receiving and sending societies.Ran Tao is professor of economics at Renmin University of China. His research focuses on China’s economic growth in transition, urbanization and migration, local public finance and governance issues in development.Matthias Thiemann is assistant professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and currently a Resident Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in in Paris. Bringing together strands from political economy and economic sociology, he investigates the evolution of regulations in financial markets.Jan Lepoutre is associate professor at ESSEC Business School, France. Drawing on multiple disciplines, his research focuses on how organizations and institutions succeed or fail in creating solutions to complex and systemic, often societal issues.Anıl Divarcı Çakmaklı is assistant professor at the Department of Management at Istanbul Şehir University, Turkey. She holds master’s degrees from Istanbul Technical University and Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a Ph.D. from the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on organization theory and strategy.Christophe Boone is professor of organization theory and behavior at the Faculty of Applied Economic Sciences at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research interests focus on the dynamics of organizational populations in local communities, team and organizational diversity, CEO values and cognition, and the neuroeconomics of decision making.Arjen Van Witteloostuijn is professor in the Department of Business, Economics, and Public Administration at Tilburg University and is affiliated with the Cardiff Business School and the management school at the University of Antwerp. He has published about 160 articles across a wide spectrum of journals and is currently area editor of the Journal of International Business Studies.Thomas A. DiPrete is the Giddings Professor of Sociology and the codirector of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University. His research focuses on social inequality and the life course.Thijs Bol is assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam and academic director of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies. His current research projects investigate the role of occupations in shaping wage inequality and cumulative advantage in academic funding.Christina Ciocca Eller is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. Her research primarily focuses on educational inequality, examining the role of higher education institutions in shaping opportunities and outcomes for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.Herman G. Van de Werfhorst is professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and director of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS). His work concentrates on the comparison of educational systems with regard to inequalities in education, the labor market, and civic engagement.Christopher Browning is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and an affiliate of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University. His research focuses on neighborhood and activity space influences on health and adolescent development, emphasizing the causes and consequences of social processes such as collective efficacy and network dynamics.Catherine Calder is professor of statistics at Ohio State University. Her research interests include spatial statistics, Bayesian modeling, and network analysis, with applications in the social, environmental, and health sciences.Brian Soller is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on health and well-being, with an emphasis on social networks and romantic relationships.Aubrey L. Jackson is assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. Her scholarship centers on how economic, political, and social contexts influence individuals’ well-being, especially among women and girls.Jonathan Dirlam is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Ohio State University. His research interests include criminology, health, and quantitative methodology. He is currently completing his dissertation, which assesses how the determinants of police killings have changed over time. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 122, Number 6May 2017 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/692674 © 2017 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Erratum

Lindebaum, D (2015). Critical Essay: Building new management theories on sound data? The case of neuroscience. Human Relations 69(3): 537–550. DOI: 10.1177/0018726715599831 The following corrections apply: Dirk Lindebaum’s affiliation is Cardiff Business School, UK. Dirk Lindebaum’s mailing address is Cardiff Business School, College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK. Email: mail@dirklindebaum.eu Dirk Lindebaum’s bio note is as follows: Dirk Lindebaum obtained his PhD from Manchester Business School, and he is now a Professor in Management at Cardiff Business School. One stream of his research activities pertains to organizational phenomena that involve emotional processes broadly defined. Another stream that he has pursued of late concerns the increasing visibility of neuroscientific theories and methods in the study of organizational behavior. Further details on publications, media engagement, online talks and other issues can be obtained from his website ( www.dirklindebaum.eu ).

STATE, MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY AS ACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT: the Challenge of Sustainability in the 21st Century. Interview with Lecturer Heike Doering, PhD

In this edition, professor Priscila De Nadai interviewed Heike Doering, PhD in Sociology from Cardiff University (United Kingdom), lecturer at Cardiff Business School and researcher of the Centre for Local and Regional Government Research, also from Cardiff University. In the past few years, she has conducted research about reginal development and sustainability management, in emerging economies. One of her research projects is being developed in Espírito Santo in partnership with researchers from our State. In this interview, profesor Heike Doering will tell us about her trajectory as a researcher, about her studies and the specific research she is currently conducting in Espírito Santo.

Blacklisting: admissions & an apology, but the fight goes on

the multinational firms who orchestrated the human rights scandal forced to give evidence under oath. BSG want full public disclosure of the documentary evidence that the companies have kept hidden for decades. At a 2-day hearing from 7-8 December, the Court heard legal argument over the use of expert witnesses for calculating loss of earnings. John Hendy QC told the court that the estimated total damages for the 600 claimants is in the region of £60-70million, made up of £40m in loss of earnings and £20-30m in general damages (defamation, human rights, hurt to feelings etc..). Lawyers on behalf of blacklisted workers had applied to use the expertise of Dr Victoria Wass from Cardiff Business School, one of the leading labour market economists in the UK who has acted as an expert witness in numerous high profile cases in the past. The firms argued against the use of Dr. Wass, arguing that the ‘regression analysis’ that she was using was ‘too complicated’ and could not be fully understood by the court (even though virtually every university student in the world is taught regression analysis as a standard statistical tool nowadays). Dr Wass is able to provide a high level of precision in her estimates of loss because she has restricted access to micro data from the Office of National Statistics labour market database. Without an ounce of irony, lawyers for the blacklisting companies, told the court that having access to the ONS personal sensitive information could potentially be a breach of human rights and data protection! In the end, Lord Supperstone and Master Leslie refused the claimants submission - once again we find judges making findings in favour of big business and against the interests of the blacklisted workers. This may be a minor setback in a small skirmish but we are still going to win the war. The next provisional hearing date is 1 February 2016, and then the full trial is set to start in May 2016 and will last 10 weeks. The Blacklist Support Group would like to publicly thank the various legal teams for all the hard work they have carried out on our behalf over many years its very much appreciated. John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor was the keynote speaker at a packed Blacklist Support Group parliamentary meeting in Westminster on Monday 7th. McDonnell described blacklisting as “a deliberate attempt to undermine trade unions by victimising a layer of activists they could not buy off”. He said that “Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and myself put in amendments to legislation on the issue of blacklisting over a period of decades” but lamented that ‘“no government took any notice”. He added “we are currently drawing up advice for Labour councils over public procurement regardAfter six years of denying everything the eight companies finally admitted their role in the blacklisting scandal INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 24 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 DAVE SMITH is Secretary of the Blacklist Support Group and a TUC tutor, and is currently undertaking research at the University of the West of England in Bristol A fter six years of denying everything the eight companies being sued in a major High Court action for blacklisting revised their legal defence, finally admitting their role in the blacklisting scandal. The High Court claims brought by 571 blacklisted workers and scheduled for hearing in 2016 will now no longer need to hear arguments over the contractors’ liability: it is admitted that the 571 have a proper claim and so the argument now revolves around causation and loss: proving the links between being blacklisted , subsequent employment experience, and financial loss. The companies’ joint statement is reproduced below: A ‘full and unreserved apology’ ‘On 7 October 2015 we, the eight companies that comprise the Macfarlanes Defendants*, submitted a ReAmended Generic Defence to the Court. In this document we lay out clearly a number of admissions; these admissions are also covered in the accompanying summary which, we hope, will provide interested parties with an easily accessible reference. Both documents contain a full and unreserved apology for our part in a vetting information system run in the construction industry first through the Economic League and subsequently through The Consulting...

Guest Editorial: Corporate Social Responsibility in Controversial Industry Sectors

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained unprecedented prominence in academic and business spheres alike (Kotler and Lee 2005; McWilliams et al. 2006); more than ever before, it is necessary for organizations to define their roles in society and apply social, environmental, ethical, and responsible standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al. 2004; Lindgreen et al. 2009). Beyond the moral arguments and value-based debates that characterize the complex landscapes of CSR-related concepts and ideas (Garriga and Mele 2004), corporate commitment to socially responsible management practices is associated with a conviction that the failure to meet basic social rules or expectations pertaining to the way organizations behave can result in perceptions of those organizations as illegitimate (Campbell 2007; Sethi 1975). Increased engagement in CSR-related policies and initiatives, and associated communication efforts, provide a way for organizations to circumvent situations and practices that might be perceived as unethical or unsustainable or that ‘‘alienate the organization from the rest of society, resulting in reduced reputation, increased costs, and decreasing shareholder value through erosion of its license to operate’’ (Hill 2001, p. 32). In such a context, a clear question arises: How can organizations in ‘‘controversial industry sectors,’’ which often are marked by social taboos, moral debates, and political pressures, maintain reasonable, socially responsible standards? For industry sectors typically characterized as ‘‘sinful’’ (e.g., tobacco, gambling, weapons, alcohol, adult entertainment), as well as for those that inherently entail persistent or emerging environmental, social, or ethical issues (e.g., nuclear, oil, cement, biotech), this special issue aims to provide some answers and define ways they can adopt CSR-related policies and practices to meet their public legitimacy requirements. In their seminal work in this area, Wilson and West (1981, p. 92) describe controversial industry sectors as those related to ‘‘products, services or concepts that for reasons of delicacy, decency, morality, or even fear elicit reactions of distaste, disgust, offence or outrage when mentioned or when openly presented.’’ Although attitudes to such industry sectors vary by culture (Waller et al. 2005), they and their products or services often come under close scrutiny by external actors who view them as morally corrupt (de Colle and York 2008), unethical (Byrne 2010), offensive (Fam and Waller 2003), or exemplary of aberrant behavior (Budden and Griffin 1996)—perhaps regardless of their actual or latent harm to society, the environment, or individuals (Demont et al. 2004; Kindt 2006; Pratten 2007). Many such industry sectors affect more vulnerable groups in society and local communities disproportionately (Bristow 2007; Cook et al. 2003; Nikiforuk 2008) yet remain legal, provide tax revenues for governments, and meet consumer demands. A. Lindgreen (&) M. Yani-De-Soriano Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK e-mail: lindgreena@cardiff.ac.uk

Project Report: The Economic Impact of Tata Steel in Wales Verina Pinto and Calvin Jones, Welsh Economy Research Unit, Cardiff Business School.

Project Report: The Economic Impact of Tata Steel in Wales Verina Pinto and Calvin Jones, Welsh Economy Research Unit, Cardiff Business School.

Dalla catena del valore le chiavi per le decisioni strategiche nelle filiere della pesca

Generally the Italian food chains suffer problems caused mainly by internal low efficiency standards or qualitative aspects. This paper would offer a methodological/ applicative framework for a food chain’s analysis in order to evaluate its internal functioning and connection mechanisms and to identify some strategic actions aimed at stimulating the product competitiveness and the chain’s performances based on the pointing out of its competitive advantage. The value chain analysis permits to represent the total interrelated activities managed by a firm and the competitive advantage could be reached optimising the several connections’ linkages. Analysing the available data and information the Authors choose the case study along the Northern Adriatic coast, more precisely referred to the Chioggia seaport (Veneto region). The main objective of the study is to complete a global evaluation of the bluefish chain surveying its functioning mechanisms and defining its competitive advantages useful as milestones for the valorization of the product. This result permits a strengthening of the chain on the whole. Concerning the methodology every step of the chain has been examined following a sea to fork approach including all the physical flows of the product but also considering the involved trade intermediaries and the other figures participating to this process, the logistical aspects and the information movements. The bluefish value chain has been represented through descriptive maps containing the Chioggia bluefish flows from a physical point of view and those of the information related to this product, according to the Cardiff Business School publications. First the paper discusses the concept of agrifood chain and then describes the bluefish context in the Chioggia seaport through the catches and technical characteristics of the sector. Then the Chioggia bluefish chain has been divided in some phases and it has been deeply analyzed looking for its competitive advantage or disadvantages. The final step of the work was aimed at gather the bluefish value chain from the construction of maps representing the different flows of products and information with their timing details. Finally the Authors present some reflections and ideas for discussion.

Debate: How mean is Lean really?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsZoe RadnorZoe Radnor is Professor in Operations Management at Cardiff Business School, UK.

22nd Cardiff Business School ACCOUNTING & BUSINESS HISTORY RESEARCH UNIT ANNUAL CONFERENCE at Cardiff University, 6—7 September 2010

22nd Cardiff Business School ACCOUNTING & BUSINESS HISTORY RESEARCH UNIT ANNUAL CONFERENCE at Cardiff University, 6—7 September 2010

Special Issue on Open Economy Models

This special issue of Open Economies Review consists of revised versions of papers that were presented at a conference held at the Bank of Greece in Athens, on March 27–28, 2009. This issue also contains comments on papers by discussants, and presentations made at the two Policy Panels that took place during the conference— one on “The banking crisis—causes and cures” and the other on “The euro—can it survive with its present institutions?” The conference on ‘Testing Open economy Models’ was co-organized by the Bank of Greece, the Julian Hodge Institute of Applied Macroeconomics at Cardiff Business School and the European Monetary Forum, with funding from the Bank of Greece, Cardiff University and the UK Economic and Social Research Council under grant RES-165-25-0020. We are grateful to them for their support, and we thank the conference participants for their contributions. Open Econ Rev (2010) 21:1 DOI 10.1007/s11079-009-9147-3

Surfing the global tide: automotive giants and how to survive them

Although the automotive industry is one that, for many, represents a defining feature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is also an industry that is poorly understood. Despite the plethora of literary material dedicated to the subject, the overall perspective of the industry has been lost in speculation and self-promotion. The result of six years of research at Cardiff Business School, 'Surfing the Global Tide' is the first book in years to reassess the structuring forces that shape the industry. The result is a new paradigm for the industry that sets out how firms should be integrated and quantifies the economies of scale necessary for long-term survival. The book explains why the global giants have grown bloated beyond economic necessity, and suggests the vertical joint venture as a strategy for small firms to punch above their weight.

20th Annual Conference on Accounting, Business & Financial History at Cardiff Business School 11–12 September 2008 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers Guest Speaker – John F. Wilson

20th Annual Conference on Accounting, Business & Financial History at Cardiff Business School 11–12 September 2008 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers Guest Speaker – John F. Wilson

Why this special issue on governance in transition?

In 2004, the guest editors of this special issue, along with some other colleagues at Cardiff Business School, launched an international agendasetting conference on ‘Governance without Government? New Forms of Governance in the Knowledge Economy and Society’, held in Cardiff in May 2005. It was felt that the rise of the knowledge economy and society from the 1980s onwards has radically destabilized seemingly ordered and stable ‘governance systems’ that emerged in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries after the Second World War. The cumulative effect of the complex interaction between ‘globalization’, ‘informationalization’, ‘individualization’, and ‘marketization’ seems to undermine and erode the ideological foundations and political viability of governance strategies and structures dominated by the logic of rational bureaucratic organization and control. A deepening ‘legitimation crisis’ in ‘state-centred’ forms of political representation and administrative coordination has been paralleled by a ‘managerial crisis’ in ‘corporate-centred’ forms of economic organization and control. The success of the Cardiff conference prompted the guest editors to approach the editors of Human Relations about putting together a special issue on ‘Governance in transition? Emerging paradigms and practices in the 21st century’. Our aim was to bring together a number of articles that would explore the diversity and richness of conceptualizations of governance and the shifts, if any, in governance conceptions and structures over recent times. Some commentators have argued that purported changes in governance do not represent a radical transformation in governance logics and forms based on authority and hierarchy to ones founded on autonomy and knowledge. Rather, they are interpreted and explained as providing the ideological,

The Value of Coordination in a Two Echelon Supply Chain: Sharing Information, Policies and Parameters

1. Logistics Systems Dynamics Group, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU, UK. E-mail: disneysm@cardiff.ac.uk, scottd1@cardiff.ac.uk (D.R. Towill) 2. Department of Applied Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, B3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: marc.lambrecht@econ.kuleuven.ac.be 3. Procter and Gamble Services Company NV, Temselaan 100, B-1853 Strombeek-Bever, Belgium. E-mail: vandevelde.wm@pg.com ___________________________________________________________ We study a coordination scheme in a two echelon supply chain. It involves sharing details of replenishment rules, lead-times, demand patterns and tuning the replenishment rules to exploit the supply chain’s cost structure. We examine four different coordination strategies; naive operation, local optimisation, global optimisation and altruistic behaviour on behalf of the retailer. We assume the retailer and the manufacturer use the Order-Up-To policy to determine replenishment orders and end consumers demand is a stationary i.i.d. random variable. We derive the variance of the retailer’s order rate and inventory levels and the variance of the manufacturer’s order rate and inventory levels. We initially assume that costs in the supply chain are directly proportional to these variances (and later the standard deviations) and investigate the options available to the supply chain members for minimising costs. Our results show that if the retailer takes responsibility for supply chain cost reduction and acts altruistically by dampening his order variability, then the performance enhancement is robust to both the actual costs in the supply chain and to a naive or uncooperative manufacturer. Superior performance is achievable if firms coordinate their actions and if they find ways to re-allocate the supply chain gain. Keywords. Supply chains; Bullwhip; Inventory variance; Local optimisation, Global optimisation

Financial Reporting and Business Communication Twelfth Annual Conference at Cardiff Business School

Financial Reporting and Business Communication Twelfth Annual Conference at Cardiff Business School

20th Annual Conference on Accounting, Business and Financial History at Cardiff Business School 11-12 September 2008 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers

20th Annual Conference on Accounting, Business and Financial History at Cardiff Business School 11-12 September 2008 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers