System Dynamics in Food Quality Certifications: Development of an Audit Integrity System

Due to the complex structure of certification schemes the risk of flaws and scandals is generally high. It has further increased by several developments during the last years. With regard to their potential effects, it is questionable whether the certification approaches are actually able to detect deficiencies within the system and thus prevent crises which may lead to its breakdown. Hence, the ability of a standard to meet its objectives of food quality and safety needs to be enforced. In this contribution we launch the implementation of a controlling tool which automatically monitors audit quality based on information of the respective data bases. By analysing possible negative influences, opportunistic behaviour can thus be detected.certification, quality assurance systems, risk oriented auditing approach, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty,

European integration and complementarities driven network alignment: the case of ABB in Central and Eastern Europe

The depth of industry integration between European ‘West’ and ‘East’ depends on the simultaneous existence of several factors, which, through mutual complementarities, align global and local networks. This paper takes the case of Asea Brown Bowery (ABB), one of the first large investors in central and eastern Europe (CEE), to show that the successful penetration of this company into CEE was the result of the simultaneous occurrence of several factors, which had mutually reinforcing complementarities. Changes in the strategy of ABB towards knowledge-based services may be weakening these complementarities and dis-aligning local and global networks in CEE. By integrating the insights of Milgrom and Roberts (1995) on complementarities the paper further develops the ‘network alignment’ perspective (Kim and von Tunzelmann, 1998) on growth

System Dynamics in Food Quality Certifications: Development of an Audit Integrity System

Due to the complex structure of certification schemes the risk of flaws and scandals is generally high. It has further increased by several developments during the last years. With regard to their potential effects, it is questionable whether the certification approaches are actually able to detect deficiencies within the system and thus prevent crises which may lead to its breakdown. Hence, the ability of a standard to meet its objectives of food quality and safety needs to be enforced. In this contribution we launch the implementation of a controlling tool which automatically monitors audit quality based on information of the respective data bases. By analysing possible negative influences, oppor­tunistic behaviour can thus be detected

The Ethical Dilemma of Information Asymmetry in Innovation: Reputation, Investors and Noise in the Innovation Channel.

A sufficient and steady stream of innovations is widely seen as a basis for healthy modern economies. Governments divert substantial resources from other purposes in society to increase innovation. Yet the failure rate among innovative SMEs is high, suggesting that resources are wasted. Avoiding such waste is a challenge for both governments and investors, but also raises a question for the innovative company, namely how to build and fund the\ud enterprise on an ethical basis. The dilemma of giving in to temptations to ‘cut corners’ clearly exists, for example to exploit the inevitable asymmetry of information arising in innovation and potentially deploy this in support of misleading claims about specific capabilities and/or the unjustified creation and exploitation of reputation. This is consistent with Olaf Fisscher’s finding that entrepreneurs starting new ventures tend to exhibit an inherent bias towards compromising their own values in order to succeed at any cost. When the innoSME’s aspirations are unrealistic or the proposed innovations are of marginal value, the ethical issues are broader and extend also to those who are potential financiers. Noting this as a gap in the ethics literature, we argue that the current situation fails to match economic and ethical ideals and that work is needed to develop tools which allow those who provide finance and support for innovation to target it more effectively at those who have a prospect of successfully launching genuine innovations and thus reduce the ‘noise’ in the innovation field

HOW PERFECT ARE MARKETS FOR SOFTWARE SERVICES? AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON MARKET DEFICIENCIES AND DESIRABLE MARKET FEATURES

Global service markets, which efficiently coordinate the supply of services with the demand, are a cornerstone for the breakthrough of service-oriented computing (SOC). With the increasing popularity of SOC, forecasts hence predicted that service marketplaces would rapidly evolve and work profitable. Despite such promising prospects, only a few marketplaces were able to establish themselves until now, however. Trying to explain this situation, we analyzed leading service marketplaces like Salesforce’s AppExchange or Google’s Apps Marketplace from an economic perspective. Based on the theory of perfect markets with perfect competition, we describe several characteristics of service markets that cause market deficiencies. To adapt to the special characteristics of service markets, agents have to adjust their business strategies accordingly. While current literature primarily focuses on providing strategies for providers and consumers, marketplace operators as essential intermedi-aries are barely considered. We therefore derive desirable market features that can be integrated into the business strategies of marketplace operators and summarize them in a conceptual architecture of a model service marketplace. As a validation, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with SOC experts, who corroborated most of our findings and attested their practical relevance

Escaping the Shadow of Malpractice Law

Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the alternative route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted

Escaping the Shadow of Malpractice Law

Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the alternative route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted

A classification of social media methods of environmental scanning for entrepreneurial opportunity development

A limited amount of scholarly literature has focused on environmental scanning and the use of social media by nascent entrepreneurs. This paper aims to address these deficiencies in literature. A theoretical framework is presented that describes the level of scanning towards entrepreneurial opportunity development and includes fifteen social media based methods for scanning the environment with the objective of entrepreneurial opportunity development. This methods are reviewed on their data collection, interpretation and learning. Several implications for both practice and future research derive from this framework and are discussed