Retail is currently in a state of upheaval due to digitalization and the associated booming online trade. Sales figures in stationary retail are stagnating. Online trading offers advantages through ...convenience and quick availability that customers no longer do not want to miss. Due to climate change, retailers and customers have changed their mind set towards more sustainability. Consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable products, so retailers must act appropriately to be both digital and climate-friendly in the future. The aim of this exploratory study is to use the example of floristry retailers to analyze whether they are growing with digitalization and whether they are taking sustainable initiatives to act as climate-friendly as possible. In addition, the florists' whole value chain is examined for climate friendliness. The results of the exploratory online survey of 68 floristry businesses in Germany show that both digitalization as well as climate and sustainability awareness play a significant role in floristry retail.
In this paper, the customer to manufacturer (C2M) platform in e-commercial business which connects the customers and the manufacturers is studied. The platform is organized in a centralized ...collaboration framework where an e-commercial company and multiple manufacturers form a collaborative alliance to satisfy the product orders of multiple customers and maximize a total profit of the alliance. The key issue of the C2M platform is to seek a fair allocation of the profit among the manufacturers. A profit allocation mechanism is proposed for the platform that can assure the stability of the alliance and the sustainability of the platform. The mechanism is based on core allocation and considers each manufacturer’s contribution in fulfilling orders. The effectiveness of the mechanism is evaluated by numerical experiments on 60 instances generated from real data of Alibaba. The experiment results display that the participation of more manufacturers in the C2M platform is profitable. The proposed mechanism can create a profit allocation that keeps in the core in 31 of 60 instances and produce a feasible profit allocation in other 29 instances, which is more reasonable than the current mechanism of C2M platform and easier applied in practice.
As technology-based enterprises (TBEs) are more promising than non-technology firms, there is a strong case for their incubation and promotion. However, TBEs use incubators not as support providers ...for idea incubation but to control costs incurred to develop and implement their ideas, thus defying the objective of incubation. Different types of incubators, such as commercial, social and university business incubators (UBIs), have different types of tangible and intangible resource offerings for their incubatees. Entrepreneurs utilize these resources based on their needs to save costs and reduce risks. Drawing from the conversations with the serial incubatees it was evident that once their access to resources at one incubation centre is exhausted, they move to another incubation centre for further fulfillment of their enterprise’s needs. Our analysis based on 20 interviews with the entrepreneurs of TBEs reveals a need-heed gap between the incubatees and incubators, which will have to be reduced for incubators to remain relevant to firms and effective for entrepreneurs.There is a need for a ‘hybridized incubation’ arrangement for TBEs in which incubators will have to pay heed to their roles as providers of specialized resources from both academia and industry.
Secondary data containing the locations of food outlets is increasingly used in nutrition and obesity research and policy. However, evidence evaluating these data is limited. This study validates two ...sources of secondary food environment data: Ordnance Survey Points of Interest data (POI) and food hygiene data from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), against street audits in England and appraises the utility of these data.
Audits were conducted across 52 Lower Super Output Areas in England. All streets within each Lower Super Output Area were covered to identify the name and street address of all food outlets therein. Audit-identified outlets were matched to outlets in the POI and FSA data to identify true positives (TP: outlets in both the audits and the POI/FSA data), false positives (FP: outlets in the POI/FSA data only) and false negatives (FN: outlets in the audits only). Agreement was assessed using positive predictive values (PPV: TP/(TP + FP)) and sensitivities (TP/(TP + FN)). Variations in sensitivities and PPVs across environment and outlet types were assessed using multi-level logistic regression. Proprietary classifications within the POI data were additionally used to classify outlets, and agreement between audit-derived and POI-derived classifications was assessed.
Street audits identified 1172 outlets, compared to 1100 and 1082 for POI and FSA respectively. PPVs were statistically significantly higher for FSA (0.91, CI: 0.89-0.93) than for POI (0.86, CI: 0.84-0.88). However, sensitivity values were not different between the two datasets. Sensitivity and PPVs varied across outlet types for both datasets. Without accounting for this, POI had statistically significantly better PPVs in rural and affluent areas. After accounting for variability across outlet types, FSA had statistically significantly better sensitivity in rural areas and worse sensitivity in rural middle affluence areas (relative to deprived). Audit-derived and POI-derived classifications exhibited substantial agreement (p < 0.001; Kappa = 0.66, CI: 0.63-0.70).
POI and FSA data have good agreement with street audits; although both datasets had geographic biases which may need to be accounted for in analyses. Use of POI proprietary classifications is an accurate method for classifying outlets, providing time savings compared to manual classification of outlets.
Aspects of the food environment such as the availability of different types of food stores have recently emerged as key modifiable factors that may contribute to the increased prevalence of obesity. ...Given that many of these studies have derived their results based on secondary datasets and the relationship of food stores with individual weight outcomes has been reported to vary by store type, it is important to understand the extent to which often-used secondary data correctly classify food stores. We evaluated the classification bias of food stores in Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and InfoUSA commercial business lists.
We performed a full census in 274 randomly selected census tracts in the Chicago metropolitan area and collected detailed store attributes inside stores for classification. Store attributes were compared by classification match status and store type. Systematic classification bias by census tract characteristics was assessed in multivariate regression.
D&B had a higher classification match rate than InfoUSA for supermarkets and grocery stores, while InfoUSA was higher for convenience stores. Both lists were more likely to correctly classify large supermarkets, grocery stores, and convenience stores with more cash registers and different types of service counters (supermarkets and grocery stores only). The likelihood of a correct classification match for supermarkets and grocery stores did not vary systemically by tract characteristics whereas convenience stores were more likely to be misclassified in predominately Black tracts.
Researches can rely on classification of food stores in commercial datasets for supermarkets and grocery stores whereas classifications for convenience and specialty food stores are subject to some systematic bias by neighborhood racial/ethnic composition.
Abstract
Regulatory data protection is mandated in the Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) for two kinds of goods: medicinal products and plant ...protection products (PPP). In the European Union (EU), the level of their protection has been set far beyond the minimum TRIPS standards and the adopted model of protection has been, for the most part, based on temporary exclusivity. Innovative plant protection products benefit from data exclusivity combined with a compulsory data sharing regime. Data exclusivity refers to products being authorised for the first time for the market of the EU on the grounds of a complete authorisation procedure, based on submission of a full data dossier. Within the period of exclusivity, these data may not be referred to in the authorisation procedure of a generic product—an equivalent to the reference one. In this way, data exclusivity creates a period of factual monopoly for the innovative products and constitutes a sui generis intellectual property right. This paper presents the regime of regulatory data protection in the European Union law as an instrument of legal protection for innovative products in the agrochemical industry. It first analyzes the purpose and functions of regulatory data protection in EU law and in the TRIPS Agreement. Then, the rules of protection by means of data exclusivity and compulsory data sharing are examined. This allows for further considerations on the role of regulatory data protection and compulsory sharing of data in the overall legal protection for innovative products in the agrochemical industry. In view of the above, this chapter discusses both the instruments of protection for PPP regulatory data and poses several questions concerning their rules, practical meaning and possible future modifications. In particular, it is considered whether data exclusivity is the optimal regime of protection for registration data and recommend that a data sharing approach could be used instead of the data exclusivity rule, as is the case with compulsory vertebrate data sharing, to the benefit of the industry and public interest. This chapter allows for evaluation and assessment of the economic and social value of data exclusivity in said areas for fostering primary and secondary innovation, while acknowledging other vital interests such as protection of public interest and safeguarding competition in the relevant markets. Finally, this chapter maps challenges of the current model of protection and indicates areas for further consideration in both creating a coherent and balanced framework of PPP data protection and the possible extrapolation of the data sharing rules to systems of data protection for other life science products.
This research aimed to establish the relationship between social networks and entrepreneurship, in order to design a methodological guide to optimize the use and management of social networks among ...entrepreneurs operating in the Esmeraldas canton of Ecuador. The methodology was descriptive-correlational, non-experimental. The population was 120 business entrepreneurs. The data were collected in an interview with Likert scale questionnaire. Results: indicator interpersonal networks, 45% neither agree nor disagree in the use of the networks of greater social use; interorganizational networks, 50% agree in relating to the social networks of other related businesses; formal networks, 50% agree in making use of the different social networks of related entrepreneurs; informal networks, 43% neither agree nor disagree, in have personal and permanent interactions with the users of social networks for economic benefit; formation of the entrepreneur, 47% neither agree nor disagree with personal self-realization; promotion of the value of entrepreneurship and innovation, 50% agree that social networks allow them to disseminate the services; development of a support ecosystem; 49% agree that they support each other in the dissemination of their services with other entrepreneurs; the social networks variable, 37% agree that social networks are necessary to achieve effective entrepreneurship; the entrepreneurship variable, 38% agree with the elements of entrepreneurship development. There is dependence between the variables, thus, the entrepreneurship variable is being affected by the Social Networks variable. Conclusion: it is necessary to design a methodological guide for the use and management of social networks in entrepreneurs of commercial businesses operating.
Replacing traditional stoves with advanced alternatives that burn more cleanly has the potential to ameliorate major health problems associated with indoor air pollution in developing countries. With ...a few exceptions, large government and charitable programs to distribute advanced stoves have not had the desired impact. Commercially-based distributions that seek cost recovery and even profits might plausibly do better, both because they encourage distributors to supply and promote products that people want and because they are based around properly-incentivized supply chains that could more be scalable, sustainable, and replicable.
The sale in India of over 400,000 “Oorja” stoves to households from 2006 onwards represents the largest commercially-based distribution of a gasification-type advanced biomass stove. BP's Emerging Consumer Markets (ECM) division and then successor company First Energy sold this stove and the pelletized biomass fuel on which it operates. We assess the success of this effort and the role its commercial aspect played in outcomes using a survey of 998 households in areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka where the stove was sold as well as detailed interviews with BP and First Energy staff. Statistical models based on this data indicate that Oorja purchase rates were significantly influenced by the intensity of Oorja marketing in a region as well as by pre-existing stove mix among households. The highest rate of adoption came from LPG-using households for which Oorja's pelletized biomass fuel reduced costs. Smoke- and health-related messages from Oorja marketing did not significantly influence the purchase decision, although they did appear to affect household perceptions about smoke. By the time of our survey, only 9% of households that purchased Oorja were still using the stove, the result in large part of difficulties First Energy encountered in developing a viable supply chain around low-cost procurement of “agricultural waste” to make pellets. The business orientation of First Energy allowed the company to pivot rapidly to commercial customers when the household market encountered difficulties. The business background of managers also facilitated the initial marketing and distribution efforts that allowed the stove distribution to reach scale.
•A unit of BP and its successor First Energy sold >400,000 “Oorja” stoves in India.•Significant adoption driven by value proposition of Oorja fuel vis-à-vis LPG.•Difficulty keeping pelletized biomass fuel affordable led to a steep drop in use.•Messages on the health dangers of smoke were absorbed but did not help sales.•Business-oriented approach facilitated scaling and, later, a pivot to commercial users.
Studies of retail alcohol outlets are restricted to regions due to lack of U.S. national data. Commercial business lists (BL) offer a possible solution, but no data exists to determine if BLs could ...serve as an adequate proxy for license data. This paper compares geospatial measures of alcohol outlets derived from a commercial BL with license data for a large US state.
We validated BL data as a measure of off-premise alcohol outlet density and proximity compared to license data for 5528 randomly selected California residential addresses. We calculated three proximity measures (Euclidean distance, road network travel time and distance) and two density measures (kernel density estimation and the count within a 2-mile radius) for each dataset. The data was acquired in 2015 and processed and analyzed in 2015 and 2016.
Correlations and reliabilities between density (correlation 0.98; Cronbach's α 0.97-0.99) and proximity (correlations 0.77-0.86; α 0.87-0.92) measures were high. For proximity, BL data matched license in 55-57% of addresses, overstated distance in 19%, and understated in 24-26%.
BL data can serve as a reliable proxy for licensed alcohol outlets, thus extending the work that can be performed in studies on associations between retail alcohol outlets and drinking outcomes.
This paper provides insights into the implementation of new public management (NPM) practices in Telecom Fiji and whether an employee share-ownership scheme was helpful in the organizational change ...process. The adoption of NPM practices in Fiji was part of political, economic and public sector reforms introduced after 1989 and was required by international lenders. This paper explains the background and obstacles to the reforms and how the employee share-ownership scheme persuaded employees to commercialize the service. The authors make recommendations for policy-makers in Fiji and other developing countries.
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