We use 9 years of dynamic panel data (4,090 observations) to explore how decarbonization moderates the association between a selection of efficiency‐driven shop‐floor initiatives and labor ...productivity. The results are mixed: the relationship between materials efficiency and labor productivity is positively moderated by decarbonization, but the relationship between increases in inventory turnover or the average firm wage as a multiple of average sector wages are negatively moderated by decarbonization. Overall, we find that decarbonization leads to an average drop in sales of 1.8% per worker. This evidence therefore suggests that climate change goals impacting industrial firms might be difficult to accomplish if managers expect to achieve decarbonization for free with current organizational best practices.
The paper addresses the synergies from combining a heuristic method with a predictive technique to solve the Dynamic Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP). Particularly, we build a genetic algorithm that ...feeds on Newton׳s motion equation to show how route optimization can be improved when targets are constantly moving. Our empirical evidence stems from the recovery of fish aggregating devices (FADs) by tuna vessels. Based on historical real data provided by GPS buoys attached to the FADs, we first estimate their trajectories to feed a genetic algorithm that searches for the best route considering their future locations. Our solution, which we name Genetic Algorithm based on Trajectory Prediction (GATP), shows that the distance traveled is significantly shorter than implementing other commonly used methods.
Today's conventional wisdom on competitive strategies advanced at a time when climate change was not an issue. However, increasing requirements for decarbonization may be affecting the soundness of ...well‐established knowledge, which includes the effect of competitive strategies on performance. Based on 15 years (2005–2019) of panel data on 1264 publicly traded corporations from 34 countries, we find that carbon abatement positively moderates the relation between the intensity of a cost‐leadership strategy and ROA, ROE, and Tobin's Q. A post hoc analysis also reveals, nevertheless, that this requires firms to show a minimum level of cost‐reduction expertise before they can consider harnessing decarbonization for the same purposes. By contrast, the effect of decarbonization on the differentiation–performance nexus only improves for Tobin's Q, thus reflecting their difficulty to monetize climate change efforts in the short term. Overall, these findings not only allow revitalizing a rather stuck literature on competitive strategies and performance but also inform managers about when and why they can expect to achieve decarbonization for free with current competitive strategies.
Abstract
We hinge on a panel data of 4660 firms across 79 countries and over 15 years to explore how country, industry, and firm effects influence firms' CO2 emissions. Our results show that firm ...effects are the main factor influencing firms' CO2 emissions (32.8% of the total variance), ahead of industry (30.6%), country (29.3%), or country‐industry effects (4.0%). These results highlight the need to overhaul current public policy baselines that mainly focus on environmental regulation and technological development, for the dissemination of proactive environmental practices within the firm also appears to be—at least—as important to ground a low‐carbon future. Our findings should also permeate the rhetoric of the agents setting business collective beliefs and influencing management training, as well as that of international organizations at the forefront of the crusade for decarbonization. By contrast, if the misleading idea of marginal firm effects entrenches in our set of beliefs, it could become a self‐fulfilling prophecy in the normative system under which policymaking and organizational behavior unfold.
•We explore the influence of environmental and information technologies (ET&IT) on lean routines to improve industrial performance.•Data stem from a sample of 763 manufacturing plants in five ...different European countries.•Analyses were performed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).•Results confirm total mediation by both technologies (ET&IT) between Lean Manufacturing (LM) and performance.•LM establishes shopfloor conditions for developing technology-enabled capabilities that can be leveraged to improve performance.
This paper analyses the role played by Environmental and Information Technologies (ET&IT) in the capability of Lean Manufacturing (LM) to achieve improved industrial performance. In contrast to seminal literature about lean practices, and in view of increasing consumer requirements regarding response times and environmental concerns, we suggest that shop-floor technologies are crucial for transforming lean routines into enhanced performance. Hypotheses were tested in a multisectoral sample of 763 manufacturing plants (NACE codes 15–37) from five different European countries. Results confirm total mediation by both technologies between lean routines and industrial performance, which entails that LM establishes efficient conditions on the shop floor for developing technology-enabled capabilities that can be leveraged to improve industrial performance. From a managerial perspective our findings highlight the need for avoiding short-sighted attitudes and for internalising plant technologies within lean transformation projects. This is important not only because such technologies are determinant for maximising the potential of organisational routines in current manufacturing systems but also because of their intrinsic benefits.
Purpose Most studies explore the success of mergers and acquisitions through ex ante analyses based on the compatibility of resources and capabilities between the acquirer and target. As more than ...half of them fail, there seems to be room for enhancing our understanding of when and how acquisitions can actually improve firms' competitiveness. Diverging from these conventional approaches, the authors posit that attention should be at the strategic level. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to explore the existence of compatibility between acquirers’ and targets’ competitive strategies and its effect on post-acquisition business performance. Design/methodology/approach Through the Thomson Reuters Eikon financial and acquisition databases, the authors built a unique data panel of 174 acquirer–target matched acquisitions in the manufacturing sector from 24 different countries between 2000 and 2020. The authors used a two-step System-GMM approach to address the hypotheses proposed in this paper. This methodology allowed to isolate and easily compare the differential effects of each possible combination of strategic similarity and dissimilarity between the target and acquiring company on the latter’s post-acquisition strategies. Findings The need to unravel the motives behind successful acquisitions has gained enormous interest in recent years among academics and managers to improve – or maintain – firm competitiveness. Through a panel data of 174 acquisitions among manufacturing firms (2000–2020), this study shows that differentiated firms improve their business performance by acquiring firms with similar strategies; nevertheless, their performance worsens if the acquired firm follows a cost-leadership strategy. Concerning acquirers with a cost-leadership strategy, the lack of clear behavioral patterns suggests that the lower knowledge absorption capacity associated with these firms might be a decisive factor in being able to assimilate and efficiently exploit the acquired firm's knowledge. Originality/value Overall, this approach offers a new and valuable perspective for practitioners because it improves understanding of the possible causes of merger failure and opens new attentions to consider in maximizing success and long-term competitiveness. The results of this study bring, thus, an unexpected result to this research: the importance of the acquirer’s strategy beyond the similarity or dissimilarity of the strategies of the acquirer and the acquired company.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how lack of financial cooperation damages the operational efficiency of supply chains. The thesis is that economic and technological forces are provoking increasing ...financial tensions that push companies to transfer their credit needs and inventory requirements to their weakest suppliers. Thus, what might initially seem positive from an individual perspective can in fact generate losses in production efficiency for the supply chain as a whole.
Design/Methodology/approach
This paper uses official data collected from 116 first- and second-tier suppliers in the Spanish automotive components sector, covering nine years (2001-2009). The relationships between the key variables are analysed using panel data estimations.
Findings
Significant differences were found between the working capital (WC) of first- and second-tier companies, proving additionally that although this approach may temporarily improve the results of first-tier suppliers, it leads to lower production efficiency in plants throughout the value chain.
Practical implications
Practitioners should avoid short-sighted attitudes when organizing the supply chain on a cooperative basis, going beyond the conventional wisdom on physical and information flows between original equipment manufacturers and their suppliers to reach upstream stages and embracing financial considerations.
Originality/value
The paper takes a novel approach to the issue of inter-organizational collaboration in the supply chain, aiming to go beyond conventional Lean Supply practices. From an empirical point of view, while much of the research on the topic utilizes key informant insights collected using psychometric data collection techniques, this study uses different financial proxies collected from secondary panel data.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how temporary labor moderates the relation between two well-known lean initiatives (process flow and process quality) and line productivity. This ...paper focuses on high-volume, low-variety (HVLV) shop floors, where work experience may not be as relevant as expected and extrinsic motivation of the temporary workforce could become a key driver of individual performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors follow an insider econometrics approach based on panel microdata (1,793 observations) from nine lines over two years in a Spanish manufacturing plant. The authors selected this setting for two reasons: Spain has traditionally had one of the highest levels of temporary employment in the world, so it perfectly represents labor market trends in OECD countries. Simultaneously, the authors also searched for a type of shop floor that could be representative of one of the most common manufacturing environments: a shop floor with highly repetitive and low-complexity work tasks.
Findings
The results of this paper suggest that in HVLV environments, temporary labor could contribute up to a 1.4% improvement in line productivity, provided there is a strong lean implementation. Otherwise, the use of temporary labor could undermine the positive effects of both process flow and process quality on plant productivity.
Originality/value
External incentives derived from high levels of unemployment, coupled with manufacturing’s increasing automation and specialization, may be minimizing the weaknesses traditionally associated with temporary workers in lean environments. By contrast, those shop floors lacking lean standards face serious productivity consequences from adjusting to global trends by using temporary work.
We address the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the US airlines market and discuss the benefits and limitations of current business models in a context of increasing socio-economic uncertainty and ...stringent environmental regulations. Drawing our data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and 10-K/A reports, we undertook an exploratory study of the performance of the 10 main passenger airlines in their domestic operation during one year. We found that, although major losses occurred industry-wide, ultra-low-cost and low-cost airlines fared better than full-service network carriers did in terms of financial performance. We argue, nevertheless, that such apparently successful business models are not necessarily adaptive to address future industry changes.
The multiple Traveling Salesman Problem (mTSP) is a widespread phenomenon in real-life scenarios, and in fact it has been addressed from multiple perspectives in recent decades. However, mTSP in ...dynamic circumstances entails a greater complexity that recent approaches are still trying to grasp. Beyond time windows, capacity and other parameters that characterize the dynamics of each scenario, moving targets is one of the underdeveloped issues in the field of mTSP. The approach of this paper harnesses a simple prediction method to prove that integrating forecasting within a metaheuristic evolutionary-based method, such as genetic algorithms, can yield better results in a dynamic scenario than their simple non-predictive version. Real data is used from the retrieval of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) by tuna vessels in the Indian Ocean. Based on historical data registered by the GPS system of the buoys attached to the devices, their trajectory is firstly forecast to feed subsequently the functioning of a genetic algorithm that searches for the optimal route of tuna vessels in terms of total distance traveled. Thus, although valid for static cases and for the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), the main contribution of this method over existing literature lies in its application as a global search method to solve the multiple TSP with moving targets in many dynamic real-life optimization problems.
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