Core Enterprise Research Articles

Cooperation performance of multi-organisations operating in a sharing economy: game theory with agent-based modelling

Sustainable development within a sharing economy requires close cooperation between participating organisations, while a more complicated management problem involves how to improve the cooperation performance between such organisations. This paper researches multi-organisational cooperation under a shared economy model to analyse the impact of the organisation’s revenue distribution plan, the organisational members’ characteristic abilities and other factors on the cooperation performance among organisations and core enterprises’ profit performance. It aims to provide a theoretical basis for core enterprises to rationally formulate revenue distribution strategy and the promotion of sustainable development of the shared economy. The research results reveal that under the shared economy model, the core enterprise’s revenue-distribution method based on fixed revenue and revenue-sharing can improve cooperation performance among organisational members to some extent. Moreover, the barriers and obstacles in organisations’ cooperation process are small, which will positively increase system profits, core enterprise profit and the proportion of core enterprise profits, but does not necessarily improve system profit margins. The core enterprise should control the cooperation costs between organisations through different incentive strategies to achieve better system profits and system profit margins.

Measuring Risks of Confirming Warehouse Financing from the Third Party Logistics Perspective

Confirmation warehouse financing is an important model in supply chain finance. This type of financing has special characteristics due to the existence of the reverse repurchase link, and it increases the risk commitment of the core enterprise at a certain level. Previous research on supply chain financial risk mostly settled in ‘all-industry, multi-model’, ignoring the special risks of single mode. To supplement the vacancies in the current research, the special risks of supply chain finance should be identified under a single model. On this basis, a measurement index system for confirmation warehouse financing risk is created. The article uses a Back Propagation (BP) neural network to build a Third Party Logistics (3PL) perspective of the risk measurement model for confirmation warehouse financing. The said network is combined with the 24 sets of actual cases from ZY Logistics. MATLAB is used to train the sample data. Results show that the absolute errors—0.042998, −0.011102, 0.020514 and 0.039448—between the training value and the predicted value are smaller than the preset error value. Among the 24 cases, high-risk businesses reached 41.7%, whereas low-risk businesses only accounted for 29.2%. The ZY enterprise confirms that warehouse financial business risk is high, and this situation should be revised. Research shows that the risk measurement indicator system has good risk prediction ability. This study establishes and verifies the rationality of the risk measurement index system and provides a reliable reference for 3PL risk aversion in supply chain finance.

The Construction and Evolution of Technological Innovation Ecosystem of Chinese Firms: A Case Study of LCD Technology of CEC Panda

With a longitudinal case study on the development of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology of China Electronics (CEC) Panda, this study examined how Chinese firms build their technological innovation ecosystem (TIE). We explored the evolution and the driving mechanisms of TIE. The results of the study found: (1) The enterprise’s motivations for innovation and innovation efficiency can be improved when the core enterprise’s TIE is constructed. (2) The evolution of the enterprise’s TIE undergoes three stages: formation period, incubation period, and development period. (3) The interaction between the external factors from the environment and the internal factors from the agent drives the evolution of the TIE (4). Three types of driving modes develop, depending on the nature of the main factor affecting TIE development: extrapolation drive, hybrid drive, and internal drive.

Research on Financial Benefit Distribution of Supply Chain Finance Based on Risk Factor

Because there are many unfair distribution phenomena in the existing distribution model of supply chain financial benefits, it is necessary to establish a fair and reasonable distribution method of benefits. Firstly, this paper analyzes the risks faced by financing companies, core enterprises, banks and third-party logistics enterprises under the prepayment financing model in supply chain finance, and then quantifies the risks of each member enterprises through BP neural network. Finally, the initial benefit distribution model of prepayment financing model is constructed by combining the maximum entropy method, and the initial benefit distribution model is modified by the risk value faced by each member company, and the rational distribution of the interests of each member enterprise is realized.

Features of the microelement composition of the liquid phase in snow cover from the towns of Usolye-Sibirskoe and Svirsk

We analyze the chemical composition of the liquid phase in the snow cover from industrial and residential zones, as well as the background region, the water area of Lake Baikal, to assess the atmospheric pollution of the towns of Usolye-Sibirskoe and Svirsk. We have determined the concentrations of trace elements (Fe, Co, Mn, V, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb, Th, U, and Hg), and most of which have a high toxicity degree. The study has resulted in the identification of priority elements that pollute the atmosphere of the two cities, which differ significantly in the specifics of core enterprises. For the town of Usolye-Sibirskoe, such toxic elements in the liquid phase of snow are Hg, Zn and Pb; for the town of Svirsk – As and V. According to the dispersal halos of pollutants, we determined that their highest concentrations are in the industrial zones of the towns. At the same time, these elements have increased concentrations in the snow meltwater of residential areas of cities as well as in the water area of the Angara River, which is significant as the main source of drinking water supply to the region and fishery facilities. The revealed high concentrations of trace elements in the liquid phase of the snow cover show that a significant part of the pollutants is in the most dangerous dissolved mobile forms. Even in the period of a sharp decrease in the technogenic emission of potentially toxic elements, industrial sites of the investigated cities remain the main sources of air pollution.

Logistics Cost Control Method of the Core Enterprise of the Supply Chain

In view of the huge and complex supply chain system, this paper analyzes the main problems of insufficient cost control of supply chain and puts forward the theory that the core enterprise of supply chain should lead the whole supply chain cost control process. Firstly it analyzes the significant disadvantages on cost control for each stage in supply chain at present in our country, then based on these cost control defects, puts forward a method which the core enterprises of supply chain could apply to cost control process. Finally in combination of actual practice of different nodes in supply chain enterprises the paper extracts its cost control key points, and further explains that the core enterprise of supply chain should adopt this target cost control method, analyze all sections covering each node in supply chain, sort out its process with established standards, in pursuit of achieving cost control for each stage with strengthened interconnections and performance evaluation, to ensure sustainability and continuous improvement of the cost control method.

Analysis of Uncertainty and Advanced Solutions in Enterprise Supply Chain Management Based on Game Theory

The so-called supply chain refers to the network chain structure formed around the core enterprises, namely suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, final customers, logistics service providers and even supplier suppliers and distributors. An effective supply chain system allows companies to plan and utilize resources from a global perspective. Through the construction of management strategies, management processes, partnerships and information systems, real-time monitoring and regulation of the operation of various business activities within the enterprise. Fundamentally speaking, whether the supply chain node enterprises establish cooperative partnership is a game problem between node enterprises. We need a lot of practical support, more efforts and research work. Only by establishing long-term strategic partnership among supply chain node enterprises can a win-win situation be created and higher profits be brought to enterprises. That is to say, to achieve collective rationality on the basis of individual rationality and to achieve optimal cooperation.

Development Strategy of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Context of New Era—Based on the Analysis of Network Governance

Based on the theory of network governance and taking corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the new era as the governance goal, this paper puts forward the internal regulation model and external communication model of CSR. We find that, every enterprise's CSR performance should be matched with its own development conditions, and we should adjust the content of CSR periodically. It’s the precondition of improving the CSR performance in China. Secondly, we should give full play to the positive leading role of the core enterprises in the social networks, and improve the government's supervision mechanism, in order to achieve sustainable development of enterprises while improving the performance of corporate social responsibility.

Optimistic scheduling with service guarantees

Data centers form the core of current information and commercial enterprise. At current scale, any improvement in data center resource utilization leads to substantial savings. We focus on the problem of scheduling jobs in distributed execution environments to improve resource utilization. Cluster schedulers like YARN and Mesos base their scheduling decisions on resource requirements provided by end users. It is hard for end-users to predict the exact amount of resources required for a task/job, especially since resource utilization can vary significantly over time and across tasks. In practice, users make highly conservative estimates of peak utilization across all tasks of a job to ensure job completion, leading to resource fragmentation and severe under utilization in production clusters. We present UBIS, a utilization-aware approach to cluster scheduling, to address resource fragmentation, and to improve cluster utilization and job throughput. UBIS considers actual usage of running tasks and schedules opportunistic work on under-utilized nodes. UBIS monitors resource usage on these nodes and preempts opportunistic containers in the event this over-subscription becomes untenable. In doing so, UBIS effectively utilizes wasted resources, while minimizing adverse effects on regularly scheduled tasks. Our implementation of UBIS on YARN demonstrates improvements of up to 30% in makespan for a representative workload and 25% in individual job durations.

Территории опережающего социально-экономического развития в моногородах: первые обобщения

Introduction. There is an urgent need to assess the activity of Advanced Socio-Economic Development Territories (TASED) set up in single-industry towns and Administrative and Territorial Entities of Closed Type (ATECT). The research objective was to identify the current trends in the modus operandi of TASED set up in ATECT. Data and methods. The research featured official figures posted on the websites of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, on the official websites of local authorities, regional government, Corporation of Far East’s Development, the resident companies of TASED, and various scientific publications. The research was based on comparative analysis and the factor and system analysis. The research results. The population of TASED territories revealed an almost equal distribution. However, its concentration is higher in the towns with over 500.000 residents. The number of residents appeared to correlate with the activity of small and medium-sized enterprises on the territory. Large investment projects in TASED of single-industry towns make up less than 5 % of all projects. The main TASED’s investor is local business. There are mostly low- and medium technology productions. At its current state, TASED do not encourage development of high-technology industries and knowledge-intensive services. The authors propose some options of budgetary efficiency assessment. Discussion and conclusion. TASED proved to be beneficial for the economic development of single-industry towns, especially those with a machine-building complex as core enterprise. However, TASED revealed to have no positive effect on distant depressed towns and single-industry towns with sustainable working core enterprises. The research results can be used by scientists, public authorities, and managers of TASED companies.

Agglomeration, Structural Embeddedness, and Enterprises’ Innovation Performance: An Empirical Study of Wuhan Biopharmaceutical Industrial Cluster Network

Industry cluster’s agglomeration effects facilitate higher productivity for enterprises located in the industry cluster. This paper examines the agglomeration effects of industry cluster on firm’s innovation performance through studying the network embeddedness of the biopharmaceutical companies using cross-sectional data from 2011 to 2015. Measuring the technological cooperation network with text analysis of the interfirm agreement among core enterprises, we found that betweenness centrality and clustering coefficient have statistically significant and positive effects on enterprise’s ability for technological innovation, while the influence from the constraint of structural holes is negative. Our results suggest that government should allow the leading enterprises to establish professional technology cooperation platforms and provide additional support to promote cooperation among firms.

Ciencia amanuense: cultura manuscrita e historia natural en la Francia moderna (c. 1660-1830)

Si la historia de la ciencia ha pasado las últimas tres décadas desmantelando los mitos de la revolución científica y de la revolución de la imprenta, así como la feliz conjunción de ambas en la Edad Moderna, poca atención ha prestado a una de las sombras arrojadas por tales narrativas modernizadoras: la incontestable pervivencia de una sofisticada cultura manuscrita entre los practicantes del saber en tiempos de la llamada “cultura impresa”. Prestaremos aquí atención a algunas prácticas amanuenses en el trabajo de la historia natural, utilizando para ello los ricos fondos del Muséum national d’histoire naturelle en París. Nos centraremos en artefactos manuscritos (diarios, excerptas, catálogos de fichas) e híbridos (herbarios), atendiendo a su función en cuatro gestos clave de la labor del naturalista: observar, leer, clasificar, archivar. Lejos de constituir una práctica secundaria, la creación y manipulación de registros manuscritos se situaba en el corazón de la vasta empresa del conocimiento de la naturaleza entre 1660 y 1830.

Construction of Open Innovation Ecology on the Internet: A Case Study of Xiaomi (China) Using Institutional Logic

The characteristics of collaborative innovation and interactions among core enterprises, users, and partners are critical. Research is lacking on how to construct open innovation ecology through institutional design. This study explores how core enterprises effectively motivate users and partners to participate in innovation activities on the Internet and successfully constructing open innovation ecology, using the institutional logic theory and an exploratory case study of Xiaomi, a famous Chinese Internet enterprise. The findings are as follows: (1) three main characteristics of innovation carried out by core enterprises, users, and partners in the open innovation ecology—iterative innovation, social innovation, and joint innovation; (2) three new institutional practices—following, leading, and symbiotic mechanisms—which provide an effective institutional guarantee for interaction and innovation; (3) two kinds of institutional logic—administrative logic and social logic, which core enterprises follow to construct open innovation ecology on the Internet, and its change in innovation characteristics. Therefore, a full understanding of the changing rules of the institutional logic is fundamental for successfully building open innovation ecology. This study enriches both the open innovation ecology theory as well as the institutional logic theory. In addition, Xiaomi’s open innovation ecological development model proves that core enterprises can take the approach of building open innovation ecology. It provides a strong example to other enterprises on innovations on the Internet.

Credit Line Models for Supply Chain Enterprises with Channel Background and Soft Information

Credit lines have been widely adopted by banks to grant credit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, there often exists a gap between the credit lines granted by banks and the actual funding needs of SMEs. In addition, existing credit line models treat each SME as a stand-alone entity instead of considering it within its supply chain system. But an SME’s supply chain relations have a significant impact on its credit-worthiness. To offer banks a holistic assessment, this paper first constructs a base credit line model for SMEs by considering their supply chain background. Next, by accounting for the unique advantage of soft information processing in a supply chain context, we put forward an extended credit line model for supply chain enterprises with soft information. The base and extended credit line models proposed in this paper aim to reduce information asymmetry between banks and SMEs via the core enterprise in the supply chain, thereby helping banks to secure a sustainable source of profit at a lower risk level and SMEs to obtain more credit to support their sustainable growth. A case study is furnished to illustrate how the proposed models can be applied in practice and an empirical analysis further verifies their validity.

The role of theory for understanding and preventing suicide (but not predicting it): A commentary on Hjelmeland and Knizek

Hjelmeland and Knizek suggest that parsimonious theory is inappropriate for explaining a highly complex and contextual phenomenon like suicide. Similar suggestions have been made by others. In this commentary, I counter that the pursuit of parsimonious theory is at the core of any scientific enterprise, including health sciences and suicide science. Using examples from physics and psychology, I illustrate that parsimonious theories have been essential for understanding highly complex and contextual phenomena like the motion of objects and the behavior of people. I further illustrate that these theories, despite their undeniable validity and enormous utility, have limited value for predicting future real-world events; thus, it is important not to conflate valid theory with highly accurate prediction of the future. To conclude, I offer suggestions for better evaluating and advancing suicide theory, and I affirm that the pursuit of parsimonious suicide theory is important and worthwhile, and must continue.

Logistic-based network stability study of industrial coupling symbiosis applied to oil-gas-based eco-industrial parks

The paper takes the industrial coupling symbiosis network (ICSN) of oil and gas resource-based urban eco-industrial parks (EIPs) as the research object. The purpose is to judge the stability of a symbiotic, one-way relying and two-way symbiosis model applied to oil and gas resource-based cities through constructing a logistic growth symbiotic network model. Through identifying and analyzing the stability model, the research concludes the stability conditions. The analytic results are as follows: In the symmetric ICSN system, it is important to maintain equal status and balanced benefit distribution among the coupled symbiotic enterprises. In the one-way-based ICSN system, the core enterprise significantly promotes the improvement of ecological efficiency the satellite enterprise while the satellite enterprise less effectively promotes the improvement of ecological efficiency of the core enterprise. In the two-way ICSN system, the core enterprise and the satellite enterprise are easily affected by the symbiotic enterprises within the network, and the stability is extremely poor. These conditions and analytic results will serve as a basis for constructing an efficient closed-loop system for ICSN of the oil and gas resource-based urban EIPs.Through the stability analysis of the industrial coupling symbiotic network of the oil and gas resource-based urban eco-industrial park, it can determine the stability conditions that affect the overall performance of the industrial park. Studies have shown that increasing network stability and improving energy efficiency in the park can improve the overall sustainability of the eco-industrial park and accelerate the effective transformation of resource-based cities.

The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java

AbstractColonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the long-run, exerting countervailing effects. We examine these in the context of the Dutch Cultivation System, the integrated industrial and agricultural system for producing sugar that formed the core of the Dutch colonial enterprise in 19th century Java. We show that areas close to where the Dutch established sugar factories in the mid-19th century are today more industrialized, have better infrastructure, are more educated, and are richer than nearby counterfactual locations that would have been similarly suitable for colonial sugar factories. We also show, using a spatial regression discontinuity design on the catchment areas around each factory, that villages forced to grow sugar cane have more village-owned land and also have more schools and substantially higher education levels, both historically and today. The results suggest that the economic structures implemented by colonizers to facilitate production can continue to promote economic activity in the long run, and we discuss the contexts where such effects are most likely to be important.

Моногорода как социальный феномен: особенности их функционирования и развития

The research analyzes the social phenomenon of single-industry towns, their role in the modern market economy, and their genesis in Russia and abroad. The author highlights the historical stages of single-industry town development in the Russian Federation, the specific features of its occurrence in the Soviet Union in the face of merging settlements with core enterprises performing social functions in addition to economic activities. The establishment of company towns in Europe, North America, and Russia is compared. The distinctive features of the USSR single-industry towns are identified. The study investigates company town functioning and development, considers both Russian and international recovery strategies for single-industry municipalities as well as their relevant support measures taken in the Russian Federation.

Research on Trade Credit of Chinese Enterprises from Perspective of Accounts Receivable Financing

This paper studies the trade credit activity of Chinese enterprises from perspective of Accounts Receivable Financing. Based on the trade credit theory, this paper studies the accounts receivable and accounts payable caused by trade credit in Chinese enterprises from three aspects which are the stock of trade credit, the structure of trade by credit and the financing of trade credit. It is found that compared to SMEs, large state-owned enterprises are net occupiers of trade credit, which are reflected in book a large amount of accounts payable, corresponding to accounts receivable of their upstream suppliers. The research shows that the project of accounts receivable financing for core enterprises, such as large state-owned enterprises with higher credit, is helpful to solve the financing problem of enterprises in supply chain systematically. The result highlight the importance of account receivable financing in supply chain.

Forecasting SMEs' credit risk in supply chain finance with an enhanced hybrid ensemble machine learning approach

In recent years, financial institutions (FIs) have tentatively utilized supply chain finance (SCF) as a means of solving the financing issues of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Thus, forecasting SMEs' credit risk in SCF has become one of the most critical issues in financing decision-making. Nevertheless, traditional credit risk forecasting models cannot meet the needs of such forecasting. Many researchers argue that machine learning (ML) approaches are good tools. Here we propose an enhanced hybrid ensemble ML approach called RS-MultiBoosting by incorporating two classic ensemble ML approaches, random subspace (RS) and MultiBoosting, to improve the accuracy of forecasting SMEs' credit risk. The experimental samples, originating from data on forty-six quoted SMEs and seven quoted core enterprises (CEs) in the Chinese securities market between 31 March 2014 and 31 December 2015, are collected to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the RS-MultiBoosting approach. The forecasting result shows that RS-MultiBoosting has good performance in dealing with a small sample size. From the SCF perspective, the results suggest that to enhance SMEs' financing ability, ‘traditional’ factors, such as the current and quick ratio of SMEs, remain critical. Other SCF-specific factors, for instance, the features of trade goods and the CE's profit margin, play a significant role.