Profit Objectives Research Articles

Quality competition among internet service providers

Internet service providers (ISPs) have a variety of quality attributes that determine their attractiveness for data transmission, ranging from quality-of-service metrics such as jitter to security properties such as the presence of DDoS defense systems. ISPs should optimize these attributes in line with their profit objective, i.e., maximize revenue from attracted traffic while minimizing attribute-related cost, all in the context of alternative offers by competing ISPs. However, this attribute optimization is difficult not least because many aspects of ISP competition are barely understood on a systematic level, e.g., the multi-dimensional and cost-driving nature of path quality, and the distributed decision making of ISPs on the same path.In this paper, we improve this understanding by analyzing how ISP competition affects path quality and ISP profits. To that end, we develop a game-theoretic model in which ISPs (i) affect path quality via multiple attributes that entail costs, (ii) are on paths together with other selfish ISPs, and (iii) are in competition with alternative paths when attracting traffic. The model enables an extensive theoretical analysis, surprisingly showing that competition can have both positive and negative effects on path quality and ISP profits, depending on the network topology and the cost structure of ISPs. However, a large-scale simulation, which draws on real-world data to instantiate the model, shows that the positive effects will likely prevail in practice: If the number of selectable paths towards any destination increases from 1 to 5, the prevalence of quality attributes increases by at least 50%, while 75% of ISPs improve their profit.

The influence of family dynamics on business performance: does effective leadership matter?

PurposeFamily businesses have a dual objective of profit making and providing opportunities for family members. This duality leads to a conflict that may bring poor team work and communication, which is difficult to reconcile. Thus, the study looked into how the performance of family enterprises is affected by family dynamics. Additionally, it examines the relationship's ability to be mediated by effective leadership.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a quantitative, explanatory research approach. The study population was family-owned enterprises in KwaZulu-Natal's South Durban Basin, of which 236 were chosen using a snowball and convenience sampling technique. Data was analysed using various descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, namely, multiple regression and the standard deviation.FindingsThe finding of the study shows that family dynamics significantly influenced business performance both directly and indirectly through effective leadership. Besides, the family firms with larger employee sizes have better effective leadership that positively contributes to the business performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study recommends that family businesses should train their members to ensure leadership effectiveness.Originality/valueThis study is unique in that it was conducted in Black Townships and focusses mainly on businesses owned by families of Indian descent that need to prepare for leadership/ownership. It also contributes to academic literature on family dynamics and will encourage families to recognise the importance of strong leadership in controlling family dynamics to improve business success.

Corporate and Society: A Symbiotic Relationship of Service and Sustainability

Business is an economic enterprise and that it must ultimately justify itself on economic performance or achieving its objectives of profit making. It is also true that business is an organ of society and as such it must justify its continuance by fulfilling its role and responsibilities to society. Business depends upon society for inputs like man, money and technology. Earlier, that business organization was considered good which was high profit for its owner but today, the situation has changed. Today responsibility of business is not limited to its owners alone, rather it has assumed larger dimensions. Business has to look to the interests of many other interested groups. Now a days there is feeling that business should help in overcoming social problems. It should try to help the society even at the cost of reducing its profits. After all, it is society consisting of workers and consumers which enables business to earn profits, as saying goes, ‘a tree must protect the land on which it stands’. In this paper I have taken initiative to understand the fundamental changes in paradigm of corporate social responsibility and new innovative practices being applied for its implementation in the last decade in India. An attempt has been made to establish the symbiotic relationship between corporate and society on the basis of secondary study.

Relationship between Environmental Costs and Financial Performance of Oil and Gas Firms in Nigeria

This study explored the relationship between environmental costs and financial performance of oil and gas firms in Nigeria for the period 2010 – 2019. The dependent variable and proxies for financial performance were return on assets, return on equity and earnings per share while environment al costs is the independent variable of the study and was measured by corporate social responsibility expenses. A sample of 5 firms was selected from the 11 oil and gas firms listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the period of study. Secondary data were sourced from the annual reports and accounts of the selected firms and analyzed using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation analysis. Findings from the analysis indicate that the relationship between corporate social responsibility expenses and return on a ssets was negatively weak and insignificant. It was also found that corporate social responsibility expenses of oil and gas firms has weak positive and insignificant associations with return on equity and earnings per share. In view of the findings of the study, we recommend that firm managers should avoid incessant investment in assets and invest only on those assets that will enable them achieve cardinal corporate objective of profit and wealth maximization for the firm owner. It was also recommended that firm managers should use more of equity financing in their capital structure. This will increase return on equity thereby boasting the firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. It was further recommended that the firm should repurchase some of its share floating around the Stock Exchange Market in order to increase the firms’ earnings per share and thus enhance corporate social responsibility performance of the firms.

Influence of Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) on Bulb Yield and Profitability of Onion (Allium cepa L.) Crop in Western Uttar Pradesh, India

A field experiment was carried out at Horticulture Research Centre, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut (U.P.) 250110 during the Rabi seasons of year 2021-22 and 2022 to fulfil various objectives of yield and profitability of bulbs of onion for western Uttar Pradesh climatic conditions. A total of eleven treatments were used in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Out of the eleven treatments, T7 - 75% RDF + FYM@ 2 t/ha + VC@ 1 t/ha + Biofertilizers (Azospirillum + PSB @ 5 kg/ha each) had a beneficial effect on maximum bulb yield (337.49 q/ha), net return (Rs. 208438.14 ha-1) and cost-benefit ratio (4.29) followed by 75% RDF + Biofertilizers (Azospirillum + PSB @ 5 kg/ha each). Whereas, the lowest bulb yield (122.16 q/ha) was observed in T1 – Control treatment followed by T8- 50% RDF + FYM @ 12 t/ha. While the minimum net return (Rs. 48307.20 ha-1) and cost-benefit ratio (1.97) were recorded in T1 – Control treatment followed by treatment T4- 75% RDF + FYM @ 6 t/ha.

An Analysis of the Problems Faced by Rural Women in the Adoption of Integrated Farming System: The Case of Udaipur District, Rajasthan, India

Integrated Farming System (IFS) is a sub-system of a high-level land use system like a village or a watershed which includes crop production, raising livestock, fishery, poultry, and beekeeping on a particular farm with an objective of higher profitability without altering ecological and socio-economic balance on one hand and to meet the national goals on the other hand. The present study was planned to study problems faced by rural women in the adoption of recommended technologies. The study was conducted in Gudli village of Udaipur district of Rajasthan. The AICRP on Home Science has promoted two IFS models viz. crop+horticulture and crop+poultry in the adopted village of MPUAT, Udaipur. From the selected village, 50 respondents for the crop+horticulture model and 60 respondents for crop+poultry model were selected for the study. For accomplishing the present investigation, interviews (Structured) were conducted to collect information from the rural women beneficiaries. After data collection, data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean percent score and paired t-test. The major constraints faced by the respondents in the adoption of technologies were lack of technical guidance, lack of facilities, lack of finance, lack of improved technologies and more workload. There is need of training, good government support, easy availability of credits and improved tools and machinery for smooth running of these IFS models.

Monetary policy variables and return on equity: Empirical evidence of quoted insurance firms in Nigeria

This study examined the effect of monetary policy variables and return equity of quoted insurance firms in Nigeria. Secondary data were obtained from the financial statement of 15 quoted insurance firms and the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin. The study modelled return on equity as the dependent variables while money supply, private sector credit, monetary policy rate, treasury bill rate and real interest rate as independent variables. Panel data methodology is employed while the fixed effects model was used as estimation technique at a 5% level of significance. Fixed effects, random effects and pooled estimates were tested while the Hausman test was used to determine the best fit. From the findings, the study conclude that money supply and real interest rate have negative but no significant effect on the return on equity. Monetary policy rate and private sector credit have a positive and significant effect while the Treasury Bill Rate have a positive but no significant effect on the return on equity of the insurance firms. It recommends that the management of the insurance companies should devise measures of managing the negative effect of monetary policy instruments on the performance of the insurance companies and the monetary authorities should harmonize the profitability objectives of the insurance companies with that of monetary policy to avert the negative effect on return on equity of the quoted insurance firms.

Product‐line pricing with dual objective of profit and consumer surplus

In many settings, consumer surplus directly impacts a firm or organization's objective, and the profit‐only objective becomes inadequate. Our paper is the first to consider the dual objective of profit and consumer surplus in multi‐product pricing under the multinomial logit demand, where the prices are continuously set. We define a firm's marginal consumer surplus as its marginal contribution to the expected customer utility transformed into monetary unit. Although the profit is concave in the choice probability space, the marginal consumer surplus is convex, complicating the analysis. We identify the optimal monopoly pricing solution and develop solution approaches for the equilibrium solutions of both price‐competition and quantity‐competition oligopolies. In the monopolistic setting, we solve the optimal solution in a near‐closed‐form expression, and show that the firm's markup and profit decline as its emphasis for marginal consumer surplus increases and eventually drops to zero when the firm turns into a social welfare maximizer. Therefore, social welfare is maximized only when the monopolist is willing to endure zero profit. In competitive settings, if one firm's emphasis on marginal consumer surplus increases, then the improvement in marginal consumer surplus can magnify through competitive forces, reflected in reduced equilibrium prices for all firms. Moreover, we find that, while the overall marginal consumer surplus always increases with any firm's weight on marginal consumer surplus in its objective (referred to as the CS weight), a firm's marginal consumer surplus increases in its own CS weight but decreases in other firms' CS weight. Finally, we prove that, all else equal, a firm with a higher CS weight can earn a higher profit than its profit‐maximizing competitors, which is counterintuitive. In the quantity competition, a firm may even increase its absolute profit level by increasing its CS weight.

Service level and profit maximisation in order acceptance and scheduling problem with weighted tardiness

Traditional order acceptance and scheduling (OAS) problem focused on profit optimisation and the number of accepted orders has been only regarded as a constraint in the OAS model in a few research studies. The current paper investigates a bi-objective OAS problem to maximise profit and service level. There are two categories of regular and special orders in a single-machine environment. We have proposed a mixed integer linear program using goal programming. Due to the NP-hard nature of the problem, we have developed a simulated annealing-based heuristic to solve the problem, and a lower bound to assess its performance. Both single objective and bi-objective versions of the problem have been studied. Computational experiments demonstrate the ability of the proposed heuristic. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed bi-objective OAS problem are discussed. Also, the relation between service level and profit objectives is studied in both problems with and without special orders.

The post pandemic air transport competitive advantages: new normal challenges of strategic human resource management (the case study of Bangkok Airways)

The epidemic clearly proven that every industry of the economy should never undervalue external environment. Every business needs to be flexible and adaptable without losing sight of their primary objective of profitability. Whereas, internal organizational management needs to be strategically focused. In consequent, an effective management of human resources is essential to enhancing business operations. The air transport industry is particularly sensitive to environmental fluctuations. Therefore, this study emphasizes strategic human resource management to strengthen Thailand's aviation industry's competitive advantage characteristics in the modern period of the new normal culture. The data were collected by using a number of sample questionnaires, which collected from a ground staff employee of Bangkok Airways. In order to evaluate Bangkok Airways' level of human resource management and level of competitive advantage, the sample group of employees was divided into two groups. There are 585 persons in total between the first group of 310 employees as officer level and the second group of 275 supervisors and manager’s level. According to the research findings, in terms of factors influencing competitive advantage in strategic human resource management, Strategic Alignment (SA) is the most crucial element to be implemented.

ОЦІНКА ІНВЕСТИЦІЙНОЇ ПРИВАБЛИВОСТІ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА

In order to form an investment portfolio on the basis of both own and external funds, the enterprise, as part of its development strategy, needs to develop a series of measures aimed at strengthening its investment attractiveness, which includes, first of all, its assessment – a set of indicators that includes quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the enterprise's activity, the level of competitiveness, the company's focus on satisfying consumer expectations, the innovation of all processes in general. The article defines measures to increase the investment attractiveness of the enterprise within the framework of both general and investment development strategies, and provides a scheme for using such a financial instrument as factoring. It is noted that in the matter of assessing and increasing the investment attractiveness of the enterprise, it is important to constantly monitor all processes with the aim of changing and leveling activities in case of deviation from the intended plan. This will allow attracting the amount of financial resources needed by the enterprise, increase profitability and implement the processes of business planning and budgeting, control over the achievement of the planned result, and increase the efficiency of all processes. When implementing the ways of increasing investment attractiveness indicated in the work, investors will consider the enterprise as a profitable object for investment, capable of effectively mastering investment funds and providing the required level of income. It is concluded that there is currently no universal method for assessing the investment attractiveness of an enterprise. At the same time, there is no accurate and effective system for assessing the attractiveness of investing resources in a particular enterprise. The vast majority of assessment models do not take into account the impact of a large number of hard-to-predict external factors, including changes in the competitive environment, the company's sensitivity to exchange rate fluctuations, interest rates, etc. One of the solutions is the consideration of the company's strategic indicators, which include financial and non-financial factors. It is the integrated approach that will give the most accurate result of the analysis of the investment attractiveness of the enterprise, while highlighting not unified indicators, but really important ones, significant for this specific enterprise.

A 2-phase interdependent methodology for sustainable project portfolio planning in the pharmaceutical industry

In response to the increasing awareness of sustainability issues, companies have reevaluated their approach to research and development (R&D). Taking into account the long-term effects and consequences of R&D projects on social, economic, and environmental conditions, this research has presented a comprehensive methodology for planning pharmaceutical holding company project portfolios by considering both sustainability dimensions and profitability objectives. The first phase of the developed methodology consists of a new combined MCDM method that is used to determine the sustainability score of each project. The following phase focuses on developing a bi-level bi-objective optimization model that is designed to take into account the decentralized structure of pharmaceutical holdings to optimize the budgeting, selection, and scheduling of projects. This optimization model proposes that the head office of the holding company as leader allocates R&D budgets between subsidiaries as followers to maximize the holding company's profit and sustainability. In contrast, the followers are responsible for selecting and scheduling research projects. We examine the optimal strategy of each actor using an illustrative case to validate the methodology. Based on experimental results, an approach focusing on sustainability versus profitability (or vice versa) has a significant impact on decisions made at each level of operation. The results reveal that the proposed approach can be adopted by the holding companies to improve the performance of portfolio planning from the sustainability perspective.

Innovation, Profit-Seeking, and the Formation of High Value-Added Companies: An Empirical Study on China’s Listed Manufacturing Companies

ABSTRACT Increasing the value-added ratios (VARs) of manufacturing companies or industries is an important proposition of many governments’ industrial upgrading strategies. Since the VAR has never been the goal of profit-seeking enterprises, whether innovation, which plays an important role in achieving profitability objectives, also has an impact over the VAR, has become a noteworthy issue. Using data from China’s listed manufacturing companies from 2012 to 2019, we conducted an empirical study to analyze the impact of R&D intensities on the VARs, which was further explained under the policy of additional tax deductions for R&D expenses. We found that there is a time lag in the impact of a company’s R&D activities on its VAR: Only when its current-year R&D intensity has been changed for over 1 year, can it incur a significant positive impact on the corporate VAR. And this positive impact grows over time. Moreover, such impact is independent of profitability and thus, although R&D is a profit-motivated activity, increasing the R&D intensity could indeed increase a company’s VAR, and facilitate the formation of a high value-added company.

Laxity Differentiated Pricing and Deadline Differentiated Threshold Scheduling for a Public Electric Vehicle Charging Station

In this article, we study the online pricing and charging scheduling problem for a public electric vehicle (EV) charging station under stochastic electricity prices and renewable generation. We formulate the sequential decision making problem as a partially observable Markov decision process with continuous state and action spaces, with an objective of profit or social welfare maximization. The joint pricing and charging problem is challenging due to the curse of dimensionality (in both the system state and action spaces) and the unknown dynamics of system uncertainties. We propose a novel laxity differentiated pricing (LDP) scheme to tradeoff between electricity cost (associated with EV charging) and opportunity cost (associated with parking infrastructure occupancy). Shown to be optimal under arbitrary system dynamics, the characterized deadline-differentiated threshold charging (DTC) policy is integrated into a model-free soft actor critic (SAC) algorithm to reduce the action dimensionality. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed SAC + LDP + DTC approach significantly outperforms alternative methods with various pricing and charging schemes.

Tourist’s Segmentation Based on Culture as their Primary Motivation

In a crowded global marketplace, destinations are competing against each other to attract tourists; and culture is one of the most important elements in the tourism product, as it offers an authentic and distinctive trait to the destination. Not only does it trigger the tourist’s “visitability”, but also encourages the local people and investors for profitability objectives. Therefore, public authorities and private actors capitalize on cultural resources to enhance the region’s attractiveness. Research in the field has revealed the importance of the tourist’s motives and their behaviors for a better adjustment of the touristic offer, and the urge to identify the different cultural tourist’s segments to adapt the cultural offer to each segment. This paper provides a review of the existing literature, and examines the tourist’s motivation for the choice of a destination characterized by its cultural assets. It also revolves around exploring the different cultural tourist’s segments based on the theoretical background review. Dealing with the reasons behind the choice of a destination has been discussed over the years. Culture on the other hand has been explored from different perspectives. In this paper, we consider culture as a product in order to investigate the different cultural tourists’ segments. Although culture and tourism are distinct sectors with separate strategies, together combined serve the same goal, which is to promote and enhance the attractiveness of a destination in order to lead to its development. Given the importance of understanding tourist’s motivations in one’s economy, we have chosen to direct our attention in this paper to the theoretical underpinnings of cultural tourism and the motivations that incite tourists to choose a cultural destination. Keywords: tourist’s motivation, choice of a destination, cultural assets, cultural tourists’ segments

Alternative cropping systems and optimized management practices for saving groundwater and enhancing economic and environmental sustainability

Rapid decline in groundwater table due to excessive withdrawal of water for irrigation has been posing a serious threat to sustainable agricultural production in hot arid region of India. Alternative cropping systems having low irrigation requirement have been proposed to resolve unsustainable groundwater use but trade-off with other dimensions such as yield, profitability, and environmental impacts is not well-documented. An integrated analysis of amount of groundwater use, productivity, profitability, resource-use efficiency (RUE), and environmental impacts of three cluster bean-based cropping systems [conventional cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba)–wheat (Triticum aestivum) (CB–W), and two alternative cropping systems, namely cluster bean-Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) (CB–IM) and cluster bean–blond psyllium (Plantago ovata) (CB–BP)] under different soil management practices [two tillage types, i.e., conventional (CT), and deep tillage (DT); and three farmyard manure (FYM) application rates, i.e., 0, 5, 10 Mg ha-1] was carried out. Based on a three-year field experiment, compared to conventional CB–W, alternative cropping systems produced 28.6–47.4 % lower seed yield, but enhanced economic returns (7.6–31.1 %), while reduced amount of irrigation (− 27.9 to − 37.2 %), energy (− 22.4 to − 37.0 %), and nutrient (− 17.4 to − 46.1 %) used, global warming potential (− 20.2 to − 45.9 %) and greenhouse gas intensity (− 27.3 to − 57.7 %). Alternative cropping systems saved 1.87–2.50 × 103 m3 per year per hectare of groundwater than conventional cropping systems. Soil management practices influenced agro-economic and environmental dimensions of cropping systems. Deep tillage (DT) enhanced yield (14.0 %), economic profit (18.8 %), RUE (13.2 %, 13.8 % and 8.5 % for nutrient, water and energy use efficiency, respectively). Addition of FYM increased yield (up to 23.0 %), economic net return (up to 21.8 %), RUE (up to 22.7 %, 16.5 %, 91.0 % in water, energy and nutrient use efficiency), and reduced global warming potential (up to − 7.9 %). The CB-BP cropping system with DT and FYM addition offered the best balance of yield, profit, saving of irrigation water, energy and nutrient, while minimizing GWP. This study provides empirical evidence of the opportunities for alternative cropping systems which balance the multiple objectives of sustainable groundwater use, farmer profitability and environmental sustainability for arid region of India. The results have direct implications for sustainable utilization of underground water for similar regions of the world facing water shortage.

The power of food security

ABSTRACT The practice and policy of food security have been the subject of a large body of research. Less is known about the politics of food governance. This article responds to this gap by proposing that food security policies in the Arab Gulf states constitute a form of knowledge-power. This is manifest in a discourse that produces authority, legitimates the region's rulers, and facilitates the needs of the institutions and companies that oversee the governance of food. The discursive emphasis on food security as a technocratic matter serves to obfuscate political and environmental realities; it facilitates the acquisition of foreign land and fulfills objectives of security and profit.

The Chinese factor in the formation of the American foreign policy doctrine of "open doors" (1899-1900)

The article examines the formation of one of the foreign policy doctrines of expansionism, which became the main instrument of US foreign policy in the twentieth century. The theory of "open doors", the essence of which is to provide equal opportunities to all interested parties on the basis of unlimited economic freedom and unhindered penetration of capital, was proclaimed by Secretary of State J. Hay in 1899 in relation with China, which was considered as a potential market for the sale of industrial goods and a profitable object of capital investment. Having opposed the division of China by the European powers, the American ruling elites proposed to replace individual control over individual parts of the country, according to the concluded agreements on "spheres of influence", with the establishment of a collective system of external supervision over its entire territory. By putting external expansion in the form of international agreement, they wanted to force competitors stronger in military and political terms to play by the proposed rules, transferring power rivalry to the trade and economic area, where their commercial superiority was undoubted. The nationalist movement of the Yihetuans, which began in the autumn of 1898, aimed at expelling foreigners out of the country, jeopardized the idea of implementing the doctrine of "open doors". After much thought, the White House abandoned the widely disseminated peacefulness and approved the participation of the expeditionary force in the joint intervention of European powers in China. Interference in the internal political affairs of a formally sovereign state meant that the United States was involved in its violent redistribution. Later, Washington continued to follow its course around the world, creating an arsenal of new political and economic methods, officially formalized as a generally accepted international principle in the 1922 treaty of the Nine Powers.

Union acceptable profit maximization in social networks

Online social network has deeply changed our lives, such as the style of communication and business, and hence promotes a lot of researches in social influence. The prior works in social influence mainly consider the influence from the view of individuals. However, in many cases, influencing the most of members of an important group such as the board of directors in a company can bring bigger profit than directly influencing the individuals of the company. We call such high profit group which obeys the vote rule as an union, different from existed targeted influence model, we consider such scenarios to make union acceptable and propose the union acceptable profit problem (UAPM) to choose seeds to maximize the union-acceptable profit, i.e., maximize the probability of the union being acceptable. The objective of profit in UAPM is #P-hard, and not submodularity or supmodularity. To solve the problem, we propose an efficient estimation method for the objective and design a heuristic algorithm and further a data-driven β(1−1ϵ)-approximation algorithm where β is the data-driven parameter which is related to the input data. At last we evaluate the performance of the algorithms we proposed on effectiveness and efficiency by the experiments in real-world social network datasets.

ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Sustainability is often associated with the natural environment, but it is actually multidimensional architecture that includes profit objectives, the Planet, and the people. In any organization, Human Resource Management (HRM) work should focus on achieving sustainability policies related to people, a section often overlooked in sustainability negotiations .Continuous Human Resource Management - a collection of personnel policies, procedures, and policies focuses on assisting financial, social, and environmental goals by managing people-the difference between organizational success and organizational efficiency. Only by involvement Sustainable HRM the organization can achieve its highest potential by increasing its capacity for this "part of the people" to achieve the goals and strategy of its business, present and future .Continuous Human Resource Management enables an organization to achieve its goals, while simultaneously empowering its employees to maximize their potential and achieve their goals in life. We present a review of sustainability and HR literature, and then we want to integrate these two ideas with a focus on opportunities for sustainable use in HR development. We use staff training facilities and performance appraisal as examples of creative thinking and innovation that needs to be brought to HRM for real improvement the human part of the Triple Bottom Line.