Search Results (17)

Demand–responsive transit (DRT) provides flexible, user-centric services and is gaining attention as a solution to modern transportation challenges. Establishing a minimum service level is crucial for its effectiveness, yet existing methods rely on supplier-centric indicators that fail to reflect user psychology and the flexible nature of DRT. To address this, this study applied a prospect theory from behavioral economics and used logistic regression analysis of stated preference survey data to determine minimum service levels based on user perceptions. To account for regional variations, we classified user groups based on primary transportation mode, travel purpose, and age, proposing dynamic minimum service levels tailored to each group. Additionally, using the maximum likelihood estimation method, we estimated value function parameters for the prospect theory, allowing us to analyze users’ loss aversion and sensitivity to DRT services. The findings indicated that users would accept higher fares for DRT than for conventional public transportation, provided it offers shorter travel times. Sensitivity to service levels varied across user groups, highlighting the need for differentiated policies. This study provides insights to optimize DRT operations, improve user satisfaction, and guide policies that reflect regional and demographic characteristics, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of DRT services. Full article

The paper aims to identify, characterize, and determine the method of managerial activities in the value creation process for buyers and suppliers with the subsequent determination of their significance. The study employs a hybrid methodology combining theoretical and empirical approaches. The theoretical framework was developed through a systematic review of contemporary literature, leading to the creation of a procedural model for effective value creation in B2B environments. This model outlines key managerial activities, including the diversification of suppliers and buyers, securing communication channels, value identification, determination of value creation variants, and feedback evaluation. To empirically validate this framework, interviews were conducted with managers from twenty Slovak manufacturing enterprises. These interviews aimed to assess the alignment between the theoretical model and actual managerial practices and to identify any discrepancies or areas for improvement. The findings indicate that while managers engage in several key activities intuitively, there are notable variations in the application of specific practices. The study contributes to the literature by bridging theoretical concepts with practical implementation. It offers actionable recommendations for enhancing value creation processes, highlighting the importance of aligning managerial practices with theoretical best practices to achieve better stakeholder satisfaction and business success. Full article

As pivotal members of upstream channels, suppliers wield significant influence on supply chains’ competitive advantage through their abundant resources. Buyers often engage in supplier development to access scarce resources, yet the motivations guiding suppliers’ responses remain unclear. This study elucidates suppliers’ cognitive processes and the factors influencing their decisions to allocate resources. Utilizing the S-O-R framework, we construct a moderated mediation model to verify motivational drivers and explore interactions among mediators. A survey involving 246 Chinese manufacturing suppliers was conducted, employing path analysis with bootstrap validation. It aimed to confirm how supplier-perceived relationship value, trust, and switching costs mediate between supplier development and resource allocation decisions. Our study delves into how supplier development impacts resource allocation, emphasizing psychological motivation within the S-O-R framework. We analyze three dimensions of supplier value perception: relationship value, trust, and switching costs. These factors influence physical and innovation resource allocation differently. While all prompt the prioritization of physical resources, only relationship value encourages innovative resource sharing, with switching costs hindering this. Supplier-perceived trust acts as both a mediator and moderator, enhancing positive effects on physical allocation and mitigating negative impacts on innovation resource sharing. This study advances the S-O-R framework’s applicability, providing novel insights into supplier resource allocation. Full article

The success of companies and the recognition by the community in which they are inserted depends on the confidence that the company generates in this community and the approach to local development formulated by the community. In this sense, the impacts of CSR and the recognition of the company as an important agent within the community forge the reputation of the company in terms of its management and interrelations with the community. To analyze the factors that influence the recognition and legitimacy of companies by communities, this paper analyzes the communities’ perception of territorial development and the impacts of CSR activities agreed in the social licenses in the context of Law 21/1991 on Prior Consultation in the Colombian Caribbean. Communities value investment in training and education from primary school to professional training, as well as income-generating practices. They also value respect for their culture, race, customs, and environmental wealth. CSR actions in healthcare do not provide greater legitimacy to the company. The same is the case with actions aimed to improve the relationship between suppliers and companies, as well as to strengthen the leadership of the community. Full article

The research aims to identify individual value-creation indicators, which are provided to suppliers, and their significance in building and maintaining sustainable, long-lasting mutual relationships between enterprises and their suppliers. The enterprises (in the position of suppliers) assigned the importance of the individual value-creation indicators which are provided to them and expressed the level of satisfaction with the relationships with their buyers. The research was carried out through structured questionnaires and collected answers from 112 managers of enterprises from Slovakia. Research results include the list of 21 individual value-creation indicators (defined in the questionnaire) and show which value-creation indicators are provided to the enterprises (suppliers) the most, which of these indicators are essential for the suppliers, and if the suppliers are provided with the values, they consider significant. The analysis of individual value creation indicators was done separately using Chi-squared and Cramer’s V tests and Rank–Biserial Correlation. The logistic regression was used to analyze all factors and their influence on the relationship between suppliers and the enterprise. Enterprises (suppliers) are generally satisfied with their relationship with buyers. However, almost 19% of suppliers consider their relationship neutral or unsatisfying. This result points out that there is room for improvement, which can be done by providing significant value-creation indicators to suppliers. Full article

The most recent years of research have shifted the perception of desalination brine from being waste to a high-value resource, in consonance with a circular economy perspective. The Canary Islands, containing the largest number of desalination plants per square kilometre in the world, are a perfect location to study its characteristics and evaluate its potential. A total of 10 heterogeneous seawater reverse osmosis plants were selected to determine the brine’s physicochemical characterisation, comprising 37 parameters, and its correlation to the technical and operational aspects of the desalination plants. The results show a stable narrow range of the percentage of major ions concentration in relation to the total dissolved solids (55% Cl⁻, 29.5% Na⁺, 8% SO₄²⁻, 4% Mg²⁺, 1.5% Ca²⁺, 1.2% K⁺, 0.5% HCO₃⁻, and 0.2% Br⁻) irrespective of specific differences between plants. The results obtained in this study are highly beneficial to industrial suppliers and future users of desalination brine valorisation (DBV) technologies, allowing an estimation of the chemical composition of a brine through knowledge only of its conductivity. Such information is crucial before investing in and optimizing DBV technologies. Nonetheless, from an environmental, economic, operational, energy-based, and R&D point of view, several improvements are required to promote their large-scale feasibility and viability. Full article

Italy is the second largest extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) producer within the European Union. Despite its importance in preserving rural landscape and in supporting household economy, the EVOO sector faces several constraints due to high management costs, small farm size, lack of cooperation and investment, production vulnerability, and farmers’ ageing. Such a number of weak points suggests the need to identify and adopt innovative approaches, at both the farm and oil mill levels. In order to address these priorities, a fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) survey was carried out in Umbria region, central Italy, involving key local stakeholders of the EVOO value chain in the Orvieto district. Based on stakeholders’ perception and knowledge, this paper aims to identify and evaluate the most relevant components of the local olive oil value chain, and predict scenarios responding to hypothetical changes of the same components. These stakeholders were firstly invited to each build an individual fuzzy cognitive map and then, grouped all together, build a joint fuzzy cognitive map. Finally, the maps represented both the individual and the grouped stakeholders’ perceptions. The maps were translated into adjacency matrices in order to create an FCM model by applying the software “Mental Modeler”. In total, 24 participants, including practitioners, multipliers, researchers, suppliers and members of local administration, participated in the survey. The component analysis and the scenario analysis highlighted several priority issues: to preserve the ecosystem functioning, to implement cooperation, innovation and education, to adapt and mitigate climate change. The main novelty of this study is that all stakeholders’ categories in the EVOO sector recognize several challenges to sustain the EVOO value chain, in particular, climate change adaptation and mitigation. Full article

The forest-landscape image is the bridge for communication between human beings and the forest. The aim of this paper is to construct the landscape-image conceptual model from the personal perception of the forest, with what people are looking at and how they are viewing themselves as a part of the forest. This research constructed a forest-landscape image by young adults by utilizing the landscape-image-sketching technique and selecting 140 young adults who had lived in Changsha, Central China for ten years, using convenience sampling, during April and May 2018. The results demonstrated that the forest was considered as the people’s life world, as rural scenery around the respondents’ homes, instead of the perception of the objective forest, an important habitat for animals and a limited resource supplier for human living. In fact, the natural values of the forest, such as the ecological and aesthetic values, received more attention than the social ones of the forest, including the life, production, and cultural values. Finally, it is important to raise the public’s awareness of the objective entity of the forest and to guide the variety of experiences for the respondents in the forest. Full article

Competitive agri-food supply chain (hereafter, AFSC) is an important component of AFSC. In a competitive environment, more and more AFSCs use blockchain-based traceability services (hereafter, BBTS) to improve the traceability level of agricultural products. The investment rules concerning BBTS and the coordination rules in an AFSC are vital issues for many firms who want to adopt BBTS. To explore these laws, we constructed two competitive AFSCs, each of which included a supplier and a retailer. Considering the new changes in consumers’ perception of product quality and safety after using the BBTS, the demand function was modified. Then we built the income functions of chain members under three situations of investment. The research found that: (1) the improvement of customers’ perceived quality by using the BBTS can increase their benefits; (2) when decision-makers want to invest in the BBTS, they should pay attention to consumers’ perceived quality safety factor for their competitive products; (3) when the investment cost is greater than its threshold value, two competitive AFSCs should invest in the BBTS together. Full article

The thriving circular economy is expected to contribute to all three dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, economic, and social. This paper aims to propose a framework to assess social indicators to support circular business models. To validate the framework, we conducted a case study in a medium-size Italian footwear luxury industry, using the Value Focused Thinking–VFT. This approach was used to define proper social indicators to measure the perception of the company’s managers related to the level of incorporation of social dilemmas in the company. We collect data through interviews, documental analysis and direct observation from October/2019 until August/2020 and apply a questionnaire in 2020/2021. The novelty of this paper lies in the proposition of a framework to assess the social indicators in broad categories, capable of covering all supply chains: Corporation, Community; Consumers; Suppliers; Human Rights and Human Resources. Another novelty is related to the analysis of indicators in terms of strategic, tactical, and operational levels, similarly to the idea of a Balanced Scorecard, which was allowed by applying the VFT approach. Full article

Supply chain management begins with supplier evaluation and selection. The supplier selection deals with various criteria with different contexts which makes it a complex multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. In this paper, a novel MCDM method, called the alternative ranking process by alternatives’ stability scores (ARPASS), is proposed to solve supplier selection problems. ARPASS considers each alternative as a system that is constructed on integrated components. To perform properly, a system requires high integrity and stability. ARPASS utilizes the stability of alternatives as an effective element for ranking the alternatives. The ARPASS is developed in two forms, ARPASS and ARPASS*. The new method utilizes standard deviations and Shannon’s entropy to compute the alternatives’ stabilities. In this paper, in addition to the new MCDM methods, a new method called the grey equilibrium product (GEP) is introduced to convert grey linguistic variables into crisp values, using decision makers’ subjective perceptions and judgments. To highlight and validate the novel methods’ performance, they are applied to two sustainable supplier selection problems. For evaluation of the reliability of ARPASS and ARPASS*, their results were compared with the results of the popular MCDM methods. We compared the methods in terms of calculation time, simplicity, transparency, and information type. Full article

Housing associations (HAs) play a pivotal role in the delivery of affordable homes and, therefore, offsite construction could be beneficial in alleviating the crisis. Existing literature has focused on the perceptions of the housing sector at large towards offsite construction (OSC), particularly private housebuilders. This research addresses this gap in the literature. This paper explores the perceived barriers of using OSC through a survey of the largest HAs in England [n = 69], and how these compare with the perceptions within the wider housing sector. The evidence from this research indicates cost-related barriers are perceived to be the most significant barriers to OSC use for HAs, followed by the capacity of suppliers and end-user preferences for traditional construction. The perceived barriers of those with experience are aligned with the OSC literature, whilst the responses of those without direct experience suggested heightened concerns towards the key barriers. A conceptualised feedback model is proposed to monitor, capture knowledge and share best practice as HAs commit to accelerating project delivery through strategic partnerships with offsite manufacturing firms, local authorities at a local/regional level, that leverage the high-value, high-impact transformation of the housebuilding sector in tangible terms of efficiency, cost, and material savings. Full article

Organic agriculture is of great significance to human health and the ecosystem, and the consumption of organic food is considered a kind of pro-environment behavior of urban residents. Taking value perception, food safety awareness and environmental awareness as mediating variables, an analytical framework of the influence of “organic” cognition on purchase intention was constructed in this paper, and the empirical test was implemented by the Ologit model based on the micro-survey of organic milk purchase intention of 1113 urban consumers in China. The results show that cognitive level positively affects residents’ value perception and purchase intention of organic food, and value perception plays an intermediary role in the influence of cognition on purchase intention; meanwhile, consumers’ food safety awareness and environmental awareness play a moderating role between cognition and value perception, thus the mediating effect of value perception on the relationship between cognition and purchase intention is also regulated. Therefore, using diversified ways to publicize organic food knowledge is of positive significance to enhance consumers’ “organic” cognitive level and enhance their purchase intention in practice. Providing differentiated products and services, strengthening consumers’ benign social interaction and meeting their diversified value pursuit is crucial for suppliers. Meanwhile, the government and enterprises need to strengthen the popularization and dissemination of environmental protection and food safety knowledge to enhance consumers’ environmental and food safety awareness, improving the social environment of the cultivation of the organic food market. Full article

Mediterranean cultural landscapes have been recognized as multifunctional landscapes that are currently threatened by two opposing trends: rural abandonment and agricultural intensification. Uncovering people’s perceptions of different landscape configurations, and how inhabitants value the contributions of nature to human wellbeing, is essential to understanding current landscape trends. In this study, we analyze the social perception of the cultural landscapes of Sierra Morena (Andalusia, Spain) based on 389 face-to-face visual questionnaires in an attempt to understand individuals’ landscape preferences, the reasons behind those preferences and how those landscapes are perceived as suppliers of ecosystem services by different groups of stakeholders. Four groups of stakeholders were identified that differed in how they perceive and value the cultural landscape. An urban-related group was characterized by their preferences for pine plantations and “green” landscapes, guided mostly by aesthetic criteria. A livestock-related group showed a clear preference for wood–pasture landscapes (dehesas) due to their ability to supply multiple ecosystem services. An environmentally aware group showed preferences for dehesas and Mediterranean forests, mainly guided by ecological criteria. Finally, an olive-related group showed a clear preference for olive grove landscapes as key for the regional economy and their cultural identity. Overall, the local inhabitants of Sierra Morena perceived a higher supply of ecosystem services in moderately disturbed landscapes, such as dehesas and mosaic landscapes, than in highly disturbed ones, such as conventional olive groves and pine plantations, or in less used landscapes, such as the Mediterranean forest. Understanding the differences in valuation/demand for ecosystem services among groups of stakeholders, characterized by their landscape preferences, provides important information with which to identify potential trade-offs and conflicts, thereby providing insights into the improvement of landscape planning and decision making. Full article

The implementation of National Health Insurance in Taiwan has affected the medical industry by significantly depleting the supply chain’s profits. Service providers in the medical industry must meet the dual-service expectation of serving as medical manufacturers with upper reaches and as suppliers in the downstream marketing channel. As a result, service providers must anticipate customer requirements, offer new service items that align with customer demands and improve the quality of existing services. This study aims to examine consumer perspectives about service satisfaction in the domestic medical industry using Kano’s two-dimensional model. In addition, it employs the importance-satisfaction model to determine service items that need improvement. The empirical findings show that consumer perceptions about service quality attributes vary and thus, service items may be categorized differently in Kano’s model. Further, the reliability of service quality significantly affects customer satisfaction. Thus, service providers can gain a competitive edge and maintain their market position by offering high value added and critical quality attributes. Finally, analyzing customer attitudes toward new service items for indifference quality will help service providers determine effective tactics in a competitive market. In general, service providers should assign higher priority to items that customers consider in need of improvement. Full article