Company's Core Research Articles

Income share and technical efficiency in the broiler partnership system in Sleman regency, Yogyakarta

This study aimed to measure the income share of the owner of production factors of plasma-core in partnership system, and analyze the technical efficiency based on economics of scale. The research was conducted in Sleman Regency as broiler production centre, using 64 determined farmers purposively as samples based on farmers’ participation in the partnership for at least 1 year long. Primary data was acquired by survey method with in-depth interviews using questionnaires. Descriptive analysis showed in average and percentage was used to measure income share in the partnership system, whereas Cobb-Douglass production function was used to determine technical efficiency with OLS method. The results showed that the core company as the owner of the production factors took 87.14% of the gross income for feed, DOC, medicines cost that were supplied. Plasma gets of income share from labor and management as 1.76% and 1.50% respectively. The Cobb-Douglass regression shown that coefficient ß is 0.946 (P <0.01), this which mean the plasma was in a condition of decreasing return to scale. They need better cooperation between core and plasma in the use of production factors such as feed and medicines, then that the plasma can be technically more efficient.

INFLUENCE OF A TURBULENT ENVIRONMENT ON THE MANAGING OF A MINING ENTERPRISE

Motivation: It should be taken into consideration that classical planning methods that worked well at the end of the 20th century are often not effective in a turbulent environment. The article presents planning methods that can be applied in such conditions.&#x0D; Problem statement: The article presents methods of planning of the future in a variable environment. There are constant changes in the macro-environment of mining enterprises in Poland. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to create an appropriate plan for the company's core business i.e. extracting hard coal deposits.&#x0D; Approach and results: The scenario-based planning and SARIMA mathematical model and the forecasts for the demand for hard coal based on them have been presented. The scenarios are used to verify the potential company strategy.&#x0D; Conclusions: It should be noted that the strategy must be created in several variants which finally will enable the company to choose the one that will let it gain a competitive advantage. Only then will the mining company be able to stay ahead of its competitors. In order to allow decision-makers in companies to make the right decisions, appropriate methods and tools for managing the company should be used.

What is the role of the board‐level technology committee?

AbstractThe board‐level technology committee (TC) could play a significant role in enterprise risk management. Unfortunately, only about 10 % of public companies have chartered such a committee. There is evidence that the TC mitigates the negative market reaction to data breaches (Higgs et al. 2016), suggesting that investors expect TCs to control operational IT risk—the risk associated with technology that facilitates the company's core operations, including external risk such as data breaches. Based on a review of 50 existing TC charters, we find that TCs today focus instead mainly on strategic risk—the risk associated with strategic product technology development—with under half of TCs including operational risk management in their charters. We see this as a potential disconnect between stakeholder expectations of risk management and company delivery on that expectation.

Toward Livestock Supply Chain Sustainability: A Case Study on Supply Chain Coordination and Sustainable Development in the Pig Sector in China.

Stricter environmental regulations on livestock production pollution have changed the sustainable practices of livestock supply chain stakeholders. By adopting three cases in China’s livestock supply chain, this study explores how supply chain coordination facilitates sustainable development of livestock production in China. It is found that close supply chain coordination and the capabilities of the core companies jointly contribute to supply chain sustainability. Thus, this research has theoretical significance in explaining the roles of supply chain coordination and core company capabilities in driving supply chain sustainability, which is not completely understood thus far. This study also has practical implications for livestock supply chain stakeholders and the government in terms of improving supply chain sustainability via closer supply chain coordination and enhancing the capabilities of the core companies involved.

Solutions for SMEs Challenged by CSR: A Multiple Cases Approach in the Food Industry within the DACH-Region

Antecedent research has recognized a difference in the participation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices between big companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Certain characteristics of SMEs create challenges which influence the manner with which they treat the CSR topic. However, literature has failed to provide solutions as to how these challenges can successfully be overcome or avoided by SMEs. In an attempt to contribute to these solutions, this paper explores the reasons why some SMEs face challenges as well as how such problems can be mastered. Furthermore, this article provides input that could encourage more SMEs to incorporate CSR practices into their business strategies. The research follows a qualitative approach; data being collected in 2018 through a total of 12 interviews with managers of SMEs in the food industry within the DACH-region as well as with experts in the field of study. The paper reveals that if the managers and owners of SMEs become committed towards CSR and if sufficient resources are allocated and advice on how to implement CSR is obtained, the opportunity certainly exists to persuade larger numbers of SMEs to adopt CSR practices as a core company strategy.

Multilevel Customer Segmentation for Off-Grid Solar in Developing Countries: Evidence from Solar Home Systems in Rwanda and Kenya

Off-grid solar systems have a number of advantages in developing countries, but they rely on the capacity of private entrepreneurs to develop a reliable customer base and methods for recruiting these customers. This study uses data from 68,600 customers of BBOXX, a London-based off-grid solar power company, to classify customers and explore the demographic and recruitment factors associated with customer behavior. We compare a non-parametric clustering method for customer segmentation with linear models of customer behavior. The results show a number of important demographic and geographic factors that influence recruitment of the company's core customers, and demonstrates how linear models can be misleading. For example, women and those recruited by agent advertising or word-of-mouth are more likely in the company's core clientele, even though the linear models suggest that they may be less profitable customers.

Multilevel customer segmentation for off-grid solar in developing countries: Evidence from solar home systems in Rwanda and Kenya

Off-grid solar systems have a number of advantages in developing countries, but they rely on the capacity of private entrepreneurs to develop a reliable customer base and methods for recruiting these customers. This study uses data from 68,600 customers of BBOXX, a London-based off-grid solar power company, to classify customers and explore the demographic and recruitment factors associated with customer behavior. We compare a non-parametric clustering method for customer segmentation with linear models of customer behavior. The results show a number of important demographic and geographic factors that influence recruitment of the company's core customers, and demonstrates how linear models can be misleading. For example, women and those recruited by agent advertising or word-of-mouth are more likely in the company's core clientele, even though the linear models suggest that they may be less profitable customers.

Comparative Company Law 2018

Comparative company law is at once very old and very modern. It is very old because ever since companies and company laws first existed, trade has not stopped at the frontiers of countries and states. The persons concerned, practitioners as well as rule-makers, had to look beyond their own city, country, rules, and laws. This became even more true after the rise of the public company and the early company acts in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ever since, company lawmakers have profited from comparison. But comparative company law is also very modern. Most comparative work has focused on the main areas of private law, such as contract and torts, rather than company law. Internationally acknowledged standard treatises on comparative company law took a very long time to emerge. Company law and comparative company law work remained a task for professionals. The few academics who joined in this work tended also to be practitioners (such as outside counsel, arbitrators, or advisers to legislators), who were less interested in theory and doctrine. This changed only fairly recently with the spread of 1930s US securities regulation into Europe, the company law harmonization efforts of the European Community since the late 1950s, and most recently, in the 1990s, with the rise of the corporate governance movement, an international bandwagon that started in the United States and the United Kingdom, swooped over to Continental Europe and Japan, and has since permeated practically all industrialized countries. Corporate governance covers core company law, particularly the board and more recently also the shareholders and other stakeholders like employees. But it reaches well beyond classical company law into other areas of law, in particular capital market law, that is, securities regulation and most recently bank regulation; into other forms of rulemaking, in particular self-regulation and codes; and into disciplines other than law, in particular economics. In stark contrast to traditional company law, corporate governance, as it is presently studied and practised, is essentially international and interdisciplinary. It follows that comparative company law today is to a considerable degree part of comparative corporate governance, though casebooks and case-based books on corporate law are now available.

USING OUR COMPETENCE WHEN WE INCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Purpose: The main purpose this article is to assess how individuals react to firms that up hold activities in corporate social responsibilities. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, a new form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is emerging. To restore the trust of capitalism as a system and for companies, social responsibility has gained lots of attention. There are several diverse ways firms can demonstrate responsibility for society, for example through sponsorship responsibility for the environment or responsibility for firms’ employees, partners and suppliers. Methodology: The survey utilised the use of both primary and secondary data. Published articles, websites and other credible sources were utilised in assessing the findings from the previous researchers. Also, raw data was collected from a selected sample of individuals in both employees’, investors’ and customers’ perspectives. Finding: The results the study shows that there are high levels of compliance between social activity and competence have a positive impact on customers’ perception of the company’s goodwill and integrity but do not affect how customers assess company's core competence.

Truly Innovative Lighting Design

Truly Innovative Lighting Design

Relationship of Manufacturing Flexibility with Organizational Strategy

Manufacturing flexibility is an essential organizational capability for supporting strategic intent of organizations that seek to outperform competitors in an environment of uncertainty. The specific nature of flexibility characteristics exhibited by different manufacturing organizations depends on their pursued organizational strategic goals. Organizations pursuing a mass production (or, defender strategy) will have a completely different perspective on manufacturing flexibility requirements for their products compared to those seeking differentiation (or, prospector strategy). There are no prominent studies to address the critical relationship between a specific strategy and the type of manufacturing flexibility resource; it should emphasize to remain stable, competitive and performance oriented. The objective of the current study is to draw and investigate the relationship between pursued organizational strategy and manufacturing flexibility. The theoretical framework considers manufacturing flexibility as a multi-dimensional construct with twenty dimensions (MF1–MF20), representing the various activities involved in a production system from procurement of raw materials from suppliers to different production processes in the core company to the distribution of finished products to market. All these twenty dimensions are studied with reference to the two strategy types, to establish the research framework in the form of the hypotheses (H1.a–H20.a and H1.b–H20.b). The findings of the empirical investigation on the data collected from 212 manufacturing firms operating in diverse sectors confirm adequate support for the developed research framework.

IoT security: could careless talk cost livelihoods?

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) promises exciting capabilities for business but could it usher in risks that are difficult to assess, let alone deal with? In a world where companies can use Alexa to help set up new office IT, could unsecured IoT systems be the equivalent of careless talk giving away company secrets – and endangering livelihoods? The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) promises exciting capabilities for business but could it usher in risks that are difficult to assess, let alone deal with? Unsecured IoT systems could be the equivalent of careless talk giving away company secrets and endangering livelihoods. IoT-enabled devices behind cutting-edge consumer and business products must talk securely to the company's core IT and business systems. Without this secure conversation, IoT's learning capabilities could simply enable hackers to carry out wider-scale attacks, explains Marc Sollars of Teneo.

Controlling Default Contagion Through Small-World Networks Analysis

In our increasingly connected business environment, an enterprise’s financial downturn can spread to its economic associates, a phenomenon defined as default contagion. In academic research, the default contagion is usually measured by the default dependence degree. This paper utilizes the Copula metric method to capture the default dependence degree, and studies the default dependence degree of listed companies in China through quantitative analysis. Related properties of default dependence of the listed companies are then explored through a simulation method. Results find that the default dependence degrees of listed companies in China present the remarkable characteristics of a small-world network, which are a high cluster and a short path. This indicates that once the core company defaults, the adverse effect will quickly spread to other companies through the network diffusion effect of the financial market. Hence, this study can provide some theoretical basis for the design of a mechanism to prevent and control large-scale default events.

The Commission’s Action Plan for Financing Sustainable Growth and its Corporate Governance Implications

With the adoption of the Action Plan ‘Financing Sustainable Growth’ that has been published by the Commission in March 2018 the Commission is taking a range of steps towards inciting listed companies to conduct their business in a more sustainable or long-term oriented manner. In fact, this is not a new policy as similar policy goals were evident in the Directive on Non-financial Reporting (Directive 2014/95) and the revised Shareholder Rights Directive (Directive 2017/828). We show that many elements in the Action Plan are intended to have an impact on the governance of listed companies, and even touch on core company law issues. After analysing those elements in the Action Plan that aim at affecting corporate governance in listed companies, we conclude that the Commission's new proposals are different in at least three different respects from earlier initiatives with a similar aim: (1.) Its scope is broader, due to the Action Plan’s focus on the financial market as a whole, (2.) its regulatory instruments are more diverse, and (3.) its regulatory intensity is less soft.

The impact of the core company’s strategy on the dimensions of supply chain integration

PurposeNowadays, supply chain integration (SCI) is considered as an enabler of competitive firm performance. It has three important dimensions: internal, supplier and customer integration. Understanding the interaction between these dimensions and organisational strategy would pave the way for effective implementation of SCI. The famous Miles et al. (1978) strategy typology classifies firms into four strategy types: defenders, prospectors, analysers and reactors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the core company’s product-market innovation strategy on the dimensions of SCI, and to investigate the comparative strength of each dimension of SCI in defenders and prospectors.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were collected through an online survey of 112 firms in 24 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Direct and mediated relationships were assessed by conducting structural equation modelling on the dimensions of SCI and product-market innovation strategy variables. Cluster analysis was conducted on organisational strategy variables to group the firms into different strategy types. Next, a one-way analysis of variance was applied to assess the impact of organisational strategy on each dimension of the SCI. Finally, a post hoc analysis was conducted to compare the strength of each dimension of the SCI against the different strategy types.FindingsThe results indicate that internal integration (II) mediates the positive effects of the core company’s product-market innovation strategy on supplier and customer integration. Furthermore, the results indicate that prospectors have stronger internal, supplier and customer integration as compared to defenders.Research limitations/implicationsThis study had two main limitations. One limitation is the lack of consideration of possible differences in the strengths of the investigated relationships across different geographical locations and cultures. The second limitation is the inability of the cross-sectional research design to capture the dynamics in the process of adopting SCI and organisational strategy.Practical implicationsThe present study highlights to executives the need for understanding the implications of specific strategies on the SC linkages and relationships that are required to implement those strategies. Thus, it could serve as a preliminary clue in decision-making for establishing integrated SC that is compatible with the organisational strategy. Furthermore, it could serve as a guidance to managers in steering their firms in the organisational adaptive cycle, by indicating that the implementation of product-market innovation strategy requires adopting strong SCI, and by highlighting the importance of adopting II prior to external integration.Originality/valueThis paper tests relationships that explain how the core company’s strategy influences each dimension of SCI.

Maturity and Decline in Press Markets of Small Countries. The Case of Austria

Digitalisation, changes in consumer behaviour and the repercussions of the Great Recession seriously threaten the traditional business models of print media. The paper at hand contributes a small state perspective on these issues by analysing the daily newspaper market in Austria in its maturity and decline. We provide a comprehensive overview of the developments and current state of the newspaper industry for the period 2000-2016, with a special emphasis on the move to digital. Thus we examine trends in circulation, online reach and revenue structures. In addition, ownership structures are explored, followed by an analysis of media concentration. We address how media policy, including subsidy schemes, have contributed to the status quo of the Austrian media landscape and evaluate how proposed policy changes take digital transition into account. Finally, core company strategies employed by newspaper enterprises are identified.

Corporate social responsibility in supply chain management: a new model approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains a widely acknowledged business philosophy. However, there are situations when socially responsible activities are incorporated without due attention to the consequences for business operations. It is important to pursue alternatives, such as outsourcing, in the process of deciding how to manage CSR and assessing the impact on supply chain management (SCM). We studied the implications of incorporating non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in SCM to achieve CSR goals. A market survey was conducted in Poland among 100 medium-sized and large local and international enterprises. The model developed to test the research questions was specified and estimated using structural equation modelling (SEM). Our research suggests that a CSR framework should be integrated into the company's core business operations as a full member of its SC. NGOs operating within SCs, owing to their experience and knowledge of market 'games', could help identify opportunities for business development.

Combining Benford’s Law and machine learning to detect money laundering. An actual Spanish court case

ObjectivesThis paper is based on the analysis of the database of operations from a macro-case on money laundering orchestrated between a core company and a group of its suppliers, 26 of which had already been identified by the police as fraudulent companies. In the face of a well-founded suspicion that more companies have perpetrated criminal acts and in order to make better use of what are very limited police resources, we aim to construct a tool to detect money laundering criminals. MethodsWe combine Benford’s Law and machine learning algorithms (logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, and random forests) to find patterns of money laundering criminals in the context of a real Spanish court case. ResultsAfter mapping each supplier’s set of accounting data into a 21-dimensional space using Benford’s Law and applying machine learning algorithms, additional companies that could merit further scrutiny are flagged up. ConclusionsA new tool to detect money laundering criminals is proposed in this paper. The tool is tested in the context of a real case.

An analysis of industrial districts and Triple Helix of innovation – a regional development experience in the south of the state of Rio de Janeiro

This work consolidates a research effort to analyze 70 years of economic development in the region of the Paraíba do Sul River, in the south of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The paper follows the trajectory of the leader company, steelmaker Companhia Siderúrgica National, and its relations with other local actors, such as government and universities. The research question investigates if the steel market is still the company's core business and its evolution in the competitive global production network. This work introduces a different exploratory approach, analyzing productive networks using an industrial district typology and the linkages based on the Triple Helix of university–industry–government. The literature review and case study show the first transition, after the privatization process in the nineties, transforming a state-owned company with a focus in the national market into a transnational corporation with business on four continents. The second transition, from the steel market to a globally integrated production chain of mining and steel is underway. The region's configuration migrated from a company town in a state-centered model to a central-radial arrangement. The second migration to a satellite platform is in progress. Regarding technology development, the company's strategy changed from in-house research and development to buying technology. There is a recent effort to recreate interaction space with universities.

企業城下町中核企業の事業再構築と地方自治体・下請企業の対応 : 神奈川県南足柄市を事例として

企業城下町中核企業の事業再構築と地方自治体・下請企業の対応 : 神奈川県南足柄市を事例として