Short-term Financial Benefits Research Articles

Balancing Innovation and Profitability: Technological Diversification in Iran’s Insurance Industry

Abstract This study explores how technological diversification affects financial performance in Iran’s insurance industry. Using semi-structured interviews with six experts, including CEOs and faculty members, key indicators of technological diversification were identified, such as new underwriting software and digital advertising platforms. A 33-item questionnaire was developed based on these insights and distributed to top managers of Iranian insurance companies, with secondary financial data sourced from the Central Insurance of Iran. The study employes regression analysis and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess the impact of technological diversification on financial performance, controlling for firm size, debt ratio, and company age. Findings indicate a significant negative relationship between technological diversification and both Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA), suggesting that the costs of adopting new technologies may outweigh their short-term financial benefits. Additionally, high debt ratios were found to adversely affect ROA, highlighting the financial risks of excessive borrowing.

Субсидирование как фактор обеспечения эффективности и инновационного развития сельского хозяйства в Казахстане

Abstract. The existing subsidy payments actually leads to overpricing of resources by suppliers and, as a consequence, to reduction of economic availability for all other agricultural producers, who don’t receive support measures. A limited number of economic entities receive short-term financial benefits from subsidies, which don’t refer to the whole agricultural sector. The purpose is to propose and substantiate recommendations for increasing the economic return on agricultural subsidies in Kazakhstan. Methods. The paper applies a statistical analysis of economic return on agricultural subsidies in Kazakhstan. The work estimates volumes of used resources and produced goods per 1 ruble of subsidies (considering their types). Scientific novelty consists in clarifying approaches to the assessment of economic efficiency of agricultural subsidies; determining the factors restraining the agricultural development in Kazakhstan at the expense of subsidies; proposing and justification of measures to mitigate these factors. Results. The focus of support on short-term results (replenishment of working capital instead of introducing new technologies); the orientation of support on gross indicators instead of production efficiency; insufficient funding for general services in the agricultural sector – are factors that hinder the growth of the returns from subsidies. The article proposes the improvement measures: 1) linking subsidies with production efficiency, application of innovative and environmentally friendly technologies; 2) re-orientation of subsidies in favor of domestic production of resources for agriculture; 3) financing of domestic breeding science, seed production. These measures are based on the need to overcome the technological backwardness of agriculture in Kazakhstan.

Субсидирование как фактор обеспечения эффективности и инновационного развития сельского хозяйства в Казахстане

Abstract. The existing subsidy payments actually leads to overpricing of resources by suppliers and, as a consequence, to reduction of economic availability for all other agricultural producers, who don’t receive support measures. A limited number of economic entities receive short-term financial benefits from subsidies, which don’t refer to the whole agricultural sector. The purpose is to propose and substantiate recommendations for increasing the economic return on agricultural subsidies in Kazakhstan. Methods. The paper applies a statistical analysis of economic return on agricultural subsidies in Kazakhstan. The work estimates volumes of used resources and produced goods per 1 ruble of subsidies (considering their types). Scientific novelty consists in clarifying approaches to the assessment of economic efficiency of agricultural subsidies; determining the factors restraining the agricultural development in Kazakhstan at the expense of subsidies; proposing and justification of measures to mitigate these factors. Results. The focus of support on short-term results (replenishment of working capital instead of introducing new technologies); the orientation of support on gross indicators instead of production efficiency; insufficient funding for general services in the agricultural sector – are factors that hinder the growth of the returns from subsidies. The article proposes the improvement measures: 1) linking subsidies with production efficiency, application of innovative and environmentally friendly technologies; 2) re-orientation of subsidies in favor of domestic production of resources for agriculture; 3) financing of domestic breeding science, seed production. These measures are based on the need to overcome the technological backwardness of agriculture in Kazakhstan.

Evaluating green supply chain performance based on ESG and financial indicators

To reduce carbon emission and enhance social development simultaneously, “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) plays a significant role in supply chain management. The study collected 2,400 financial data and ESG performance of 200 companies from the Clean 200 list of global public companies from 2019 to 2021. It aimed to: 1) evaluate green supply chain performance based on financial indicators and corporate’s ESG performance; 2) use the entropy weight method (EWM) to determine the weight of ESG elements in green supply chain; 3) validate this ESG-based green supply chain performance using real world examples. The results showed that operational performance had the highest weight, followed by environmental performance, and profitability ranked the last. The results suggested that managers should focus more on the governance and environment rather than emphasizing short-term financial benefits. It contributes to the literature by incorporating ESG to evaluate green supply chain performance, which is the first of its kind. The results would be beneficial when people wish to select supply chain partners. They are also conducive to companies’ managers and listed companies when they submit financial reports that need to report ESG performance.

Public Value Capture, Climate Change, and the ‘Infrastructure Gap’ in Coastal Development: Examining Evidence from France and Greece

This paper examines the role that two Public Value Capture (PVC) mechanisms could play in providing a source of funding for urban infrastructure in the case of two coastal areas in France and Greece. High development pressures in those areas have been exacerbated in recent times by the growing ‘informality of desire’. Therefore, in a context of climate change the two case study areas face the dual challenge of an increasing ‘investment gap’ and increasing vulnerability. Although the estimated costs are still based on approximate calculations, they are substantive. Using primary and secondary data, as well as analysis of the legal and policy framework, the paper shows that ‘informality of desire’ is not only tolerated but actually incentivised in both countries. This leads to substantial short-term financial benefits for private developers and property owners but also some gains for local authorities and central governments. However, the value captured via the legalisation fees and property taxation is not adequately ringfenced and in any case it is not enough to cover the infrastructure gap and the potential compensation in case of natural disasters.

Prirodni resursi kao indikatori ekološke bezbednosti - stanje i perspektive Republike Srbije

The ubiquitous trend of intensive exploitation of natural resources at the national and global level can cause a series of environmental, political and social disturbances. The need for a healthy environment, on the one hand, and the improvement of people's living standards in the 21st century, on the other, are often incompatible despite the constant formal emphasis on the term or dissonant interpretation of the importance of the concept of sustainable development. In the theoretical sense, changes (disturbances) in the environment are the result of complex natural and social cause-and-effect actions, which, viewed in a wider context, unites ecological security. It can also be said that the conditional degradation of space is an inevitable consequence of the initiation of development, provided that the impacts are reduced to a minimum level by rehabilitation and recultivation of the space and the living environment (which primarily refers to the construction of infrastructure and the arrangement of space for various purposes). This is solved during the preparation of planning documents, environmental impact analyzes and measures and policies for the implementation of planning solutions. Accordingly, for the purpose of researching changes in space and improving the solution to the scientific problem of the lack of adequate methodology for achieving ecological security on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, the most important natural resources were identified as basic indicators in this work: water, soil, air and biodiversity. In accordance with the projected goal (systematic description of the state of ecological security in the territory of the Republic of Serbia with a special reference to the state of natural resources), one of the main techniques will be the analysis of the content of documents created or generated within individual national institutions, as well as international and non-governmental organizations. According to the available data, it can be concluded that the current state of ecological security in the Republic of Serbia is violated or is potentially threatened, bearing in mind the fact that the main cause of the disturbance is the excessive or uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, the trend of realizing short-term financial benefits, the absence of implementation of planned solutions, the creation of conflicts for the purpose of space and the application of measures against endangering the living environment.

Knowledge management in the environment of cross-functional team coopetition: A systematic literature review

Knowledge is crucial, but a transient resource that decides over the success or failure of business operations. Consequently, companies aim for the most profitable method to achieve high gains and conservation of knowledge, while excluding rivals to maintain the position of economic advantage as long as possible. To maximize the efforts of knowledge generation, new concepts of organizational processes were established in recent years. To provide a conceptual foundation and identify promising niches for future studies in the important field of team coopetition, existing literature on the factors of cross-functional team coopetition was reviewed, concluding in a systematic review. For this purpose, leading peer-reviewed journals from 2010 to 2021 offered 25 articles that fall within its established search inclusion criteria. Adding to the change of stakeholder project management, the shift from traditional, cooperative-led organizational approaches towards coopetition between two or multiple rivals can lead to promising results. However, it was indicated that this concept often fails due to misleading coordination in a coopetitive tension. Current studies extracted their results from applied team management mostly on short-term organizational, financial, and technical benefits or drawbacks, excluding long-term innovation effects. Most studies were categorized into three outcomes contributing to knowledge management: performance, relationship, and innovation. As a result, it is pointed out that several factors derived from the literature significantly influence the outcomes.

Why Join a Team?

We present experiments exploring why high ability workers join teams with less able coworkers when there are no short-term financial benefits. We distinguish between two explanations: prosocial preferences and expected long-term financial gains from teaching future teammates. Participants perform a real-effort task and decide whether to work independently or join a two-person team. Treatments vary the payment scheme (piece rate or revenue sharing), whether teammates can communicate, and the role of teaching. High ability workers are more willing to join teams in the absence of revenue sharing and less willing to join teams when they cannot communicate. When communication is possible, the choice of high ability workers to join teams is driven by expected future financial gains from teaching rather than some variety of prosocial preferences. This result has important implications for the role of adverse selection in determining the productivity of teams. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.

Implementing community-based tourism (CBT): Lessons learnt and implications by involving students in a CBT project in Laelae Island, Indonesia

Lack of community participation is a major reason leading CBT to fail. This study discusses and illustrates how to involve students into a CBT project in order to achieve two major aims: a) use the students as key informants and stakeholders in CBT implementation with the purpose to provide useful insights and advice to local communities; b) provide a practical example on how to enhance students’ learning experiences and practice-based learning identify the challenges addresses; and c) identify the challenges experienced by the students in order to inform how to better design field-based educational experiences. The student findings revealed useful information about the socio-cultural issues inhibiting CBT implementation (e.g. focus on short-term financial benefits rather than long-term sustainable programmes), which in turn are used for providing useful suggestions to the local community. Consequently, three ways to better implement CBTprojects are identified: understanding the socio-cultural condition of the community and of obtaining community support, having a clear purpose and firm foundation for CBT, and creating a tourism and environmental awareness group. Findings also revealed that students faced three major challenges in participating in the CBT project: different attitudes and responses from the local community on the CBT project, the issue of palimbang and the reclamation megaproject. The paper concludes by discussing the implications on how to better integrate students in CBT projects, as the latter represent an important way in which educational institutions can provide community service.

Economic Implications of Chinese Diagnosis-Related Group-Based Payment Systems for Critically Ill Patients in ICUs.

To evaluate the economic implications of payments based on Chinese diagnosis-related groups for critically ill patients in ICUs in terms of total hospital expenditure, out-of-pocket payments, and length of stay. A pre-post comparison of patient cohorts admitted to ICUs 1 year before and 1 year after Chinese diagnosis-related group reform was undertaken. Demographic characteristics, clinical data, and medical expenditures were collated from a health insurance database. Twenty-two public hospitals in Sanming, Southern China. All patients admitted to ICUs from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018. The implementation of Chinese diagnosis-related group-based payments on January 1, 2018. Economic variables (total expenditures, out-of-pocket payments, and length of stay) were calculated for each patient from the day of hospital admission to the day of hospital discharge. Adjusted mean out-of-pocket payment estimates were 29.46% (p < 0.001) lower following reform. Adjusted mean out-of-pocket payments fell by 41.32% for patients in neonatal ICU, whereas there were no significant decreases in out-of-pocket payments for patients in PICU and adult ICU. Furthermore, adjusted mean out-of-pocket payments decreased by 55.74% in secondary hospitals, but there was no significant change in tertiary hospitals after Chinese diagnosis-related group reform. No significant changes were found in total expenditures and length of stay. Chinese diagnosis-related group policy provided an opportunity for critically ill patients in ICUs to achieve at least short-term financial benefits in reducing out-of-pocket payments, without affecting the total expenditures and length of stay. Chinese diagnosis-related group-based payment significantly relieved financial burdens for patients with lower illness severities, such as patients in neonatal ICU. The results of this study can offer significant insights for policymakers in reducing the financial burden on critically ill patients, both in China and in other countries with similar systems.

Assessment of biological safety: A social and legal aspect

The article is dealed with problems and prospects of experiments with biological objects directed on change of a natural hereditary basis, which include risks of creation of new unnatural living organisms that can represent biological danger to the humans and environment. We noted that the possibility of uncontrolled creation of highly pathogenic strains of microorganisms, which do not exist in nature, for humans or animals, poses a great threat. We considered that such new pathogenic strains should be dangerous to the environment and will inevitably endanger human and animal life on the planet. There are several quite convincing examples in the world illustrated the danger of invading the genetic program of a living organism, while ignoring the laws of evolution and genetics, focusing only on short-term financial benefits to individuals, companies or financial groups. We established that a key element in preventing the spread of infection from laboratories or other artificial places of consolidation is the strict implementation of standard microbiological requirements. The development of effective measures to prevent and eliminate the consequences of biological attacks, taking into account their various possible scenarios, should be based on biomedical, social, economic and legal criteria. We suggested we need to consider the cost-benefit analysis and other indices characterizing the state of ecology, economy, health, and social relations when implement the measures on biological safety. In Ukraine today there is a priority to develop a legislative position in the field of counteraction to bioterrorism. This issue concerns not only the development and adoption of special laws, but also the implementation of the policy of "efficiency" against biological threats by the relevant state authorities. This also includes the establishment of full state control over enterprises and institutions related to biological agents and toxins, and the improvement of the system of "state-scientist" to control the leakage of professional knowledge outside the country.

Why Join a Team?

We present experiments exploring why high ability workers join teams with less able co-workers when there are no short-term financial benefits. We distinguish between two explanations: pro-social preferences and expected long-term financial gains from teaching future teammates. Participants perform a real-effort task and decide whether to work independently or join a two-person team. Treatments vary the payment scheme (piece rate or revenue sharing), whether teammates can communicate, and the role of teaching. High ability workers are more willing to join teams in the absence of revenue sharing and less willing to join teams when they cannot communicate. When communication is possible, the choice of high ability workers to join teams is driven by expected future financial gains from teaching rather than some variety of pro-social preferences. This result has important implications for the role of adverse selection in determining the productivity of teams.

Grand Challenges Cannot Be Treated in Isolation

If not well understood, linkages among the grand challenges of poverty alleviation, environment protection, and climate mitigation could lead to paralyzed policies and even conflicting consequences. Quick changes need to happen at the institutional, societal, and scientific levels to maximize the synergy of addressing these challenges instead of treating them in isolation.

How do knowledge management resources and capabilities pay off in short term and long term?

How sustainable are the financial payoffs obtained from knowledge management (KM) resources and capabilities? To illuminate this issue, we use multiyear, firm-level survey data, as basis in examining the extent to which KM resources and capabilities influence a firm’s financial performance over time. The findings suggest that the impact of KM capability on firm performance is more pronounced in the long term than in the short term. By contrast, knowledge management systems (KMS) is associated only with immediate, short-term financial benefits with such gains prone to instability in the long term. Interestingly, knowledge stock (KS) in and of itself exerts neither short-term nor long-term impacts on a firm’s performance. However, both KMS and KS indirectly affect a firm’s long-term performance by virtue of KM capability.

Emergy-based environmental accounting of one mining system.

Metal production from mineral resources is crucial for economic development. However, most mining activities usually target short-term financial benefits, rather than long-term consideration on ecological sustainability. To better understand the impact of metal production, systematic evaluation methods should be applied to complement current economic accounting tools. Under such a circumstance, this study proposes an emergy-based metal production evaluation framework, taking a life cycle perspective from the formation of mineral deposit to the final production of metal. Ecosystem service loss, CO2 emissions, and emissions' impact are quantified, evaluating the comprehensive performance of a lead and zinc production system in Yunnan Province of China. The results show that minerals contribute significantly to the formation of lead and zinc production; however, emergy received in terms of money substantially undervalues environmental work associated with production. Such a metal production system relies heavily on nonrenewable resources and put enormous pressures on local ecosystems. The beneficiation subsystem generates the highest negative impact per emergy output, followed by the smelting and refining subsystem and the underground mining subsystem. From climate change point of view, producing 1ton of lead bullion leads to 1.79E+03kg CO2eq. Electricity use contributes a dominated share to the total CO2 emission of all subsystems. In addition, lead recycling can greatly reduce the overall CO2 emission, indicating that it is necessary to build up a regional lead collection and recycling system. Finally, several policy suggestions are raised by considering the local realities, aiming to promote sustainable development of this industry.

The relationship between office type and job satisfaction: Testing a multiple mediation model through ease of interaction and well-being.

Objectives This cross-sectional study investigated the associations between office type (cellular, shared-room, small open-plan, and medium-sized open-plan) and employees' ease of interaction with coworkers, subjective well-being, and job satisfaction. Methods A brief survey including measures of office type, ease of interaction with coworkers, subjective well-being, and job satisfaction was sent electronically to 1500 Swedish real-estate agents, 271 of whom returned usable surveys. The data were analyzed using a regression-based serial multiple mediation model (PROCESS Model 6), which tested whether the relationship between office type and job satisfaction would be mediated by ease of interaction and, in turn, subjective well-being. Results A negative relationship was found between the number of coworkers sharing an office and employees' job satisfaction. This association was serially mediated by ease of interaction with coworkers and subjective well-being, with employees working in small and medium-sized open-plan offices reporting lower levels of both these aspects than employees who work in either cellular or shared-room offices. Conclusions Open-plan offices may have short-term financial benefits, but these benefits may be lower than the costs associated with decreased job satisfaction and well-being. Therefore, decision-makers should consider the impact of office type on employees rather than focusing solely on cost-effective office layout, flexibility, and productivity.

Green IT: sustainability by aligning business requirements with IT resource utilisation

The term 'green IT' is defined as Optimal use of Information and Communication Technology ICT for managing the environment sustainability of enterprise operations throughout their life cycles'. Its objective is to create a positive impact on environment through net lowered emissions. The heart of green information technology IT is the concept of 'Environmental Sustainability', its initiatives are multifaceted to support enterprises 'business as usual model', in low-carbon economy. Many green IT initiatives have provided short-term financial benefits, based on which organisations are now focusing on increased energy efficiency. Since many of these approaches provide less financials benefits' which are harder to implement but provides improved environmental performance. So, the financial benefits and environmental performance should be the multiple objectives in the green IT study. In many geographic locations organisations need to pay for some carbon emissions. The soaring energy cost forces organisations to see energy as a costly resource. Data centres as IT resources are allocated to satisfy business needs. This research aims to align the business requirements with IT resource utilisation which can influence the resource efficiency of IT and reduces its environmental impact.

The farm-level economics of conservation agriculture for resource-poor farmers

The farm-level economics of conservation agriculture (zero tillage, mulching and crop rotation) are described, reviewed and modelled. The economics are defined broadly to include not just short-term financial benefits and costs, but also the whole-farm management context, constraints on key resources such as labour and capital, risk and uncertainty, interactions between enterprises, and time-related factors, such as interest rates and the urgency of providing for the farm family. A wealth of evidence shows that these economic factors and variables related to them have significant influences on farmers’ decisions about adoption of conservation agriculture. Literature on the farm-level economics of conservation agriculture for resource-poor farmers is reviewed. There is not a large body of high-quality relevant studies. Those that have been published highlight that the economics are highly heterogeneous and need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Their results tend to indicate that it would be profitable to adopt conservation agriculture or components of it (although not in all cases). This contrasts with disappointing adoption in many of the regions of interest. Potential reasons for this disparity are discussed. A general model of the farm-level economics of conservation agriculture and its components is presented, and used to illustrate influences on the overall economic attractiveness of conservation agriculture. Key factors that would tend to discourage adoption in situations that otherwise look favourable include: the opportunity cost of crop residues for feed rather than mulch, the short-term reduction in yields under zero tillage plus mulching in some cases, combined with short planning horizons and/or high discount rates of farmers, farmer aversion to uncertainty, and constraints on the availability of land, labour and capital at key times of year. Good quality economic analysis should be used more extensively to guide research and extension in this area, particularly in relation to the targeting of effort, and adaptation of the system to suit local conditions.

In Arms We Trust: the Economic and Strategic Factors Motivating China-Iran Relations

This article examines contemporary China-Iran relations, focusing on the economic and strategic ties that have helped solidify the relationship since 1979. We begin with an overview of the arms and technology transfers that mark the early years of the relationship, analyzing the benefits each side gained from these transactions. In addition to discussing the short-term financial benefits behind forging stronger ties, we examine how the regional ascent of both states has also presented several long term factors that helped motivate their cooperation. These developments shed light on the important role the U.S. has played, both in terms of where it has tried to intervene and what success it has had influencing the Sino-Iranian relationship.

Public Private Partnership in the European Union: Experiences in the UK, Germany and Austria

The political context of governments differs between the UK, Germany and Austria, but each government currently has a positive view of Public private Partnership (PPP). There are many similarities to the drivers for PPPs in Austria, Germany and the UK. The UK has had more experience, and the conservative-led government in Austria has been moving towards greater use of PPPs of the “privatisation”-type, but only very cautiously towards PPPs of the “PFI-type”. The major motives for moving towards PPPs are macroeconomic or budgetary, especially in Germany and Austria, but also microeconomic or improving the efficiency of public service delivery, especially in the UK. In all three countries PPPs appear to be a systematic middle response to the alternatives of privatisation or public service provision of infrastructure and operational support. There are more significant multi-tiered levels of government in the Federal systems of Germany and Austria, with many autonomous players including federal government, states and municipalities. Investment by the latter two exceeds investment expenditure of the federal government. In the more centralised UK system policies towards PPPs have been relatively rapid and similar, although not identical, across the UK. In Germany the search for a comprehensive approach (Gesamtkonzept) has slowed the dissemination of PPP; Austria seems to handle the issue more pragmatically. One issue that remains crucial to the future impacts of PPPs is whether they offer genuine and sustainable increases in efficiency and effectiveness compared to the alternatives. If they do then they should have a positive impact on future public resource availability, but if they do not then they may provide short-term financial and political benefits, but at the cost of constraining future decision makers and placing greater pressures on public finances in the longer-term.