Service Suppliers Research Articles

The Time Factor in the MFN Obligation in Services Trade: Will the Lion Ever Roar?

Trade disciplines under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) apply to the treatment of products (i.e., services) and to that of producers (i.e., service suppliers). Unlike rules on merchandise trade, the GATS thus covers the conditions governing a producer’s commercial establishment and, hence, its competitive position. That raises the question whether Members are free to modify these conditions over time or, instead, whether they are required under the GATS Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) obligation to provide newly arriving producers with the most attractive conditions they accorded in the past. In the latter case, Members might shy away from launching trade-promoting initiatives beyond their existing GATS commitments, which have remained quite modest overall. As a way forward, Members could consider an informal understanding, possibly inspired by recent regional trade agreements (RTAs), to clarify the application of the GATS MFN obligation over time. services, trade in services, GATS, RTAs, most-favoured nation, MFN, discrimination, time factor, temporal effect

Product Briefs

Items listed here are new or improved products on the market. See the AWWA Sourcebook (http://sourcebook.awwa.org) for a full list of product and service suppliers. Send press releases about new products to opflow@awwa.org.

Debt Revenue and the Sustainability of Public Debt

While public debt has risen in the last two decades, the return that it offers to investors has fallen, especially relative to the return on private investment. This creates a revenue for the government as the supplier of the special services offered by public bonds, which include storage of value, safety, liquidity, and reprieve from repression. The present value of this debt revenue is large relative to the stock of public debt, keeping it sustainable even as the present value of primary balances is zero or negative. It gives rise to different policy tradeoffs than the conventional analysis of primary balances and makes different recommendation on the effects of austerity, the optimal amount of debt, or the spillovers between monetary and fiscal policy.

Cloud Servers: Resource Optimization Using Different Energy Saving Techniques.

Currently, researchers are working to contribute to the emerging fields of cloud computing, edge computing, and distributed systems. The major area of interest is to examine and understand their performance. The major globally leading companies, such as Google, Amazon, ONLIVE, Giaki, and eBay, are truly concerned about the impact of energy consumption. These cloud computing companies use huge data centers, consisting of virtual computers that are positioned worldwide and necessitate exceptionally high-power costs to preserve. The increased requirement for energy consumption in IT firms has posed many challenges for cloud computing companies pertinent to power expenses. Energy utilization is reliant upon numerous aspects, for example, the service level agreement, techniques for choosing the virtual machine, the applied optimization strategies and policies, and kinds of workload. The present paper tries to provide an answer to challenges related to energy-saving through the assistance of both dynamic voltage and frequency scaling techniques for gaming data centers. Also, to evaluate both the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling techniques compared to non-power-aware and static threshold detection techniques. The findings will facilitate service suppliers in how to encounter the quality of service and experience limitations by fulfilling the service level agreements. For this purpose, the CloudSim platform is applied for the application of a situation in which game traces are employed as a workload for analyzing the procedure. The findings evidenced that an assortment of good quality techniques can benefit gaming servers to conserve energy expenditures and sustain the best quality of service for consumers located universally. The originality of this research presents a prospect to examine which procedure performs good (for example, dynamic, static, or non-power aware). The findings validate that less energy is utilized by applying a dynamic voltage and frequency method along with fewer service level agreement violations, and better quality of service and experience, in contrast with static threshold consolidation or non-power aware technique.

Comparison of Two Entertainment Industry COVID-19 Programs.

This article follows two entertainment industry COVID-19 worker safety programs from inception through implementation. The first plan was developed by the four major film industry unions in concert with their expert consultants. The second plan for live theater was initiated by the Broadway League, a national trade association for the theater owners, operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in North American cities and their suppliers of goods and services. The efficacy of the plans to provide cast and crew with proper industrial hygiene measures such as ventilation and protective masks is compared by the author.

Endogenous transport costs and international trade

AbstractIn this paper, we model a manufacturing and a transport sector and use export volumes to determine the demand for transport services. If trade exceeds a particular level, transport service suppliers maximise profit by investing in an advanced transport technology, which lowers their marginal costs and reduces equilibrium transport prices. Transport costs thus vary according to two characteristics: the distance between two locations and the endogenous firm decision to invest in transportation. A simulation exercise reveals that ignoring the effect of the investment decision on transport costs biases empirical results. We apply this insight in our empirical estimations which rely on repeatedly collected transport price data from the United Parcel Service. We use an instrumental variable estimator to account for the endogeneity of the investment decision. Our estimation results confirm that transport prices are influenced by both the distance and the level of exports between two countries. We find that trading partners with 10% more exports enjoy on average 0.6% lower transport prices.

Development of a Marketing Strategy to Improve the Market Activities of Agricultural and Processing Enterprises on the Example of Company Policy

Marketing strategy plays a huge role in the quality functioning and development of any enterprise. Therefore, the finding of new methods for the development of marketing strategies always remains the relevant moment for both entrepreneurs and scientists. Since the agricultural and processing enterprises play the greatest role for Ukraine, it was decided to pay attention to the creation of marketing strategy specifically for these enterprises. Thus, the purpose of the work is to analyze an example of the development of a company's marketing strategy in the above-mentioned sectors, describe its advantages and disadvantages, as well as draw conclusions regarding the specifics of creating a marketing strategy in Ukraine. The analysis became the fundamental method for completing the research, considering a significant amount of data that needed interpretation, which were used for it. The features of the creation and implementation of the marketing strategy of the company “Myronivsky Hliboproduct” were analyzed. It was shown that the company focused on scaling (expansion to foreign markets), developing the company's innovativeness and achieving the goals of sustainable development. Its peculiarity is considered the special approaches to the formation of management structure, characterized by its complexity and autonomy, and a business model based on the greatest possible independence from external suppliers of goods and services (closed production cycle). It was shown that the Ukrainian approach to the creation of marketing strategy still had some differences from the European approach, since it was characterized by the higher level of aggressiveness in capturing markets and the lower level of enterprises’ innovativeness, which was offset by the lower prices for labor and raw materials. The work brings new knowledge regarding the specifics of running the marketing campaigns and creating the marketing strategies among Ukrainian companies, in particular in the agricultural sector

Market tools for the provision of urban green spaces in post-socialist Sofia

This study focuses on the provision of urban green spaces (UGS) as suppliers of ecosystem services (ES). Its main goal is to study how, in market-driven urban development with scarce resources, sufficient public UGS can be provided to meet the needs of the local community. The principal issue is that many ecosystem services cannot be provided solely through the market mechanism and therefore remain undersupplied. The contribution of the paper is that it uses institutional design (ID) in the field of urban planning to develop market-oriented tools for the provision of UGS. ID addresses three key issues: identifying the optimal scale of resource use and defining the circles of resource users and providers, proper assessment of resource values and the collection and transfer of payments for ES to those who provide land resources. The paper analyzes these issues in the context of post-socialist Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. The post-socialist context is of particular interest because it is associated with two widespread difficulties – lack of funding for the development of UGS and lack of experience with the application of market-based and value-capture tools. In these conditions, the Municipality of Sofia has been unable to implement over 2000 ha of UGS set in the Master Plan 14 years ago. The paper provides directions for ID solutions for the implementation of UGS through the use of market-oriented tools such as impact fees, transferable development rights, concessions, FSR bonuses, and public-private partnerships.

Product Briefs

Product Briefs

The role of social capital in achieving preferred customer status with manufacturing and service suppliers

PurposeThis study uses social capital theory to analyze how social capital and supplier development support achieving supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status. The resulting model is compared between manufacturing and service suppliers.Design/methodology/approachA survey receiving 482 supplier responses from manufacturing and service suppliers was utilized and analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling and multi-group comparison tests.FindingsThe paper adds new explanations for preferred customer status through empirical evidence of relationships between supplier development, social capital, supplier satisfaction, and preferred customer status. Cognitive and relational capital directly support achieving preferred customer status. The role of supplier satisfaction in achieving preferred customer status is lower for manufacturing suppliers.Research limitations/implicationsBoth service and manufacturing suppliers could also be studied in their specific industry settings. A more in-depth investigation of other business relationship dynamics, such as power, is needed in a future study.Practical implicationsService and manufacturing suppliers need different strategies to obtain the benefits from supplier development and social capital building. For service suppliers, more intangible factors are relevant in comparison to manufacturing suppliers.Originality/valueThis study advances the literature in two main ways. First, it elaborates the role of supplier development and social capital in the path toward supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status as perceived by suppliers. Second, this study answers the calls for a better understanding of the contextual characteristics underlying potential differences in how preferred customer status is formed.

New Actors in China–Brazil Financial Geography: Commercial Banks and Currency Exchange Against the “Resource-Seeking Consensus”

Chinese banks became major players in the global geography of finance. Yet studies of Chinese finance in Brazil focus on development (“policy”) bank loans, overlooking commercial banks. This inhibits theoretical advancements beyond the idea that Chinese finance in Latin America is largely “resource-seeking” in nature. Meanwhile, studies of the internationalization of the renminbi focus on state-led policy mechanisms in leading international financial centers, overlooking the expansion of renminbi exchange by commercial banks on the peripheries of global financial networks. I triangulate data from the Brazilian Central Bank, Chinese bank reports, and qualitative materials to present the first comprehensive account of Chinese commercial banking in Brazil. Although they are not yet major players, they are becoming important suppliers of trade finance and currency exchange services. I argue this reinforces challenges to the theory that Chinese finance in Brazil is primarily resource-seeking, and emphasizes that currency-exchange services play a central role in the internationalization strategies of Chinese finance on the peripheries of global financial networks.

Adaptive Ontology-Based IoT Resource Provisioning in Computing Systems

The eagle expresses of cloud computing plays a pivotal role in the development of technology. The aim is to solve in such a way that it will provide an optimized solution. The key role of allocating these efficient resources and making the algorithms for its time and cost optimization. The approach of the research is based on the rough set theory RST. RST is a great method for making a large difference in qualitative analysis situations. It's a technique to find knowledge discovery and handle the problems such as inductive reasoning, automatic classification, pattern recognition, learning algorithms, and data reduction. The rough set theory is the new method in cloud service selection so that the best services provide for cloud users and efficient service improvement for cloud providers. The simulation of the work is finished at intervals with the merchandise utilized for the formation of the philosophy framework. The simulation shows the IoT services provided by the IoT service supplier to the user are the best utilization with the parameters and ontology technique.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on ecotourism, a study from West of Iran.

Most tourism researchers agree on the effects of the COVID-19 on ecotourism. The present study aims to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ecotourism status in Lorestan province in Iran. To this aim, 29 effects were identified using Delphi technique. According to results, the effects were divided into six categories including the decreased number of incoming tourists, the reduced activity of hotels and resorts, the declined income of goods and service suppliers for tourists, the decreased activity of travel agencies and tourist tours, as well as positive and negative environmental effects. Generally, the results provide new knowledge in the field of ecotourism crisis management. In addition, the identified effects provide the basis for further research on the method of reducing the negative effects.

How do platforms improve social capital within sharing economy-based service triads: an information processing perspective

This study examines how platforms within sharing economy-based service triads (SESTs) can improve their social capital through information processing and knowledge management mechanisms, with the objective to provide better platform services to both service suppliers and end customers. Data were collected through multiple case studies, primarily relying on insight gathered from 32 semi-structured interviews with managers from four sharing economy platform companies in the Chinese ride-sharing (DiDi and Uber China) and logistics-sharing (Huo-che-bang and Yun-man-man) industries. Through our analysis we uncover uncertainties faced by sharing economy platforms in SETSs (including task complexity, over-competition, and task coordination), delineating their information processing requirements. Based on our findings we suggest that these requirements can be addressed by enhanced intra-organizational structures that would contribute to the SESTs’ information processing capacity. Accomplishing this fit between a platform’s information processing requirements and associated information processing capacity carries great promise to not only affect the platform’s knowledge management capability (PKMC) but also the social capital created within SESTs.

Product Briefs

Items listed here are new or improved products on the market. See the AWWA Sourcebook (http://sourcebook.awwa.org) for a full list of product and service suppliers. Send press releases about new products to opflow@awwa.org.

Balancing the segmentation and behavioral principles towards acquiring customer insight.

Digitalization and decentralization within the energy market provide consumers with new opportunities. The trend consequently requires the transformation of energy suppliers’ portfolios beyond energy supply and towards overall household management within business to the customer market. This segment is especially challenging due to its size and variability in habits or behavior related to household management, which includes not only energy supplies but also insurance issues, appliances operations, and service. This study examines, customers’ behavior and their responses to offers of products and services related to household management based on an intrapersonal factor of “age” as an easily accessible and precise type of data about consumers. Dataset examined contains data of customers, who were addressed repeatedly during 24 months from 2019 until 2020 by e-mail offers from a supplier of products and services related to household management. Our results show, that even the age needs to be combined with other factors influencing the decision-making process, it involves the potential to provide vendors insights to improve their targeting and increase the effectiveness in communication with customers.

Role transitions at the prosumer level: spillover effects in the collaborative economy from an interactive marketing perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the process underlying how consumers shift roles from users to suppliers of goods or services in the collaborative economy (CE). It examines quantatively the impact of a series of explanatory variables underlying that switchover process.Design/methodology/approachThis study identifies and tests the key factors that motivate the user-provider transition by introducing the spillover effect from the proenvironmental literature into collaborative practices and using four experimental designs. Considering behavioral characteristics, context, intrinsic variables and socialization, this study provides an in-depth understanding of the process of transition from user to supplier in the CE.FindingsThe results suggest the interactive nature of the spillover as peer influence boosts changes in individual motivations, preferences and behaviors. Furthermore, promoting solidarity between members of the CE platform facilitates the transition of participants from users to providers. In addition, the users’ perception of socialization, satisfaction and sense of indebtedness may also play a significant role in the transition.Research limitations/implicationsThe study highlights the process underlying the switchover from user to provider at the prosumer level. More specifically, this study identifies key variables influencing the intention to switchover in the CE by drawing on the spillover effect from pro-environmental behavior and considering the spillover as an interactive process.Practical implicationsManagers who wish to develop collaborative systems must attract a critical mass of providers to ensure the viability of their systems. Instead of recruiting new providers, managers may convert existing users into providers. This study identifies the key variables to modulate to this end.Originality/valueThe findings offer important managerial implications and shed new light on the CE literature.

Farmer surveys in Europe suggest that specialized, intensive farms were more likely to perceive negative impacts from COVID-19

It has been shown that the COVID-19 pandemic affected some agricultural systems more than others, and even within geographic regions, not all farms were affected to the same extent. To build resilience of agricultural systems to future shocks, it is key to understand which farms were affected and why. In this study, we examined farmers’ perceived robustness to COVID-19, a key resilience capacity. We conducted standardized farmer interviews (n = 257) in 15 case study areas across Europe, covering a large range of socio-ecological contexts and farm types. Interviews targeted perceived livelihood impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on productivity, sales, price, labor availability, and supply chains in 2020, as well as farm(er) characteristics and farm management. Our study corroborates earlier evidence that most farms were not or only slightly affected by the first wave(s) of the pandemic in 2020, and that impacts varied widely by study region. However, a significant minority of farmers across Europe reported that the pandemic was “the worst crisis in a lifetime” (3%) or “the worst crisis in a decade” (7%). Statistical analysis showed that more specialized and intensive farms were more likely to have perceived negative impacts. From a societal perspective, this suggests that highly specialized, intensive farms face higher vulnerability to shocks that affect regional to global supply chains. Supporting farmers in the diversification of their production systems while decreasing dependence on service suppliers and supply chain actors may increase their robustness to future disruptions.

Corporate Capture of Blockchain Governance

AbstractWe develop a theory of blockchain governance. In our model, the proof-of-work system, the most common set of rules for validating transactions in blockchains, creates an industrial ecosystem with specialized suppliers of goods and services. We analyze the interactions between blockchain governance and the market structure of the industries in the blockchain ecosystem. We show that the proof-of-work system may lead to a situation in which some large firms in the blockchain industrial ecosystem—blockchain conglomerates—capture the governance of the blockchain.Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Operation strategy in an E‐commerce platform supply chain: whether and how to introduce live streaming services?

AbstractE‐commerce platforms provide sales channels for enterprises to exploit more markets. Meanwhile, E‐commerce platform supply chain members are increasingly using live streaming services to boost profits. However, whether to introduce live streaming services to E‐commerce platform supply chain and which operation strategy to implement is unclear. In this study, we construct three models to examine the operation strategy in an E‐commerce platform supply chain by considering live streaming services. The results show that introducing live streaming services is always beneficial for both the E‐commerce platform and live streaming services supplier. When live streaming services is introduced and an appropriate revenue sharing proportion and signing fees are set by the E‐commerce platform supply chain members, the operation strategy of live streaming services introduced and implemented by the manufacturer is the consistent choice for E‐commerce platform supply chain members, which is also beneficial for E‐commerce platform supply chain system and consumers.