Strategies for regional sustainable development in South-West Oltenia

The paper analyses the relationship between sustainable development, regionalism and strategic orientation in one of the least developed Romanian regions, South-West Oltenia. Based on a questionnaire filled in by a sample of managers from the region, the perception on business strengths and weaknesses, as well as the assessment of the external environment were investigated, and paralleled with the main causes of underdevelopment, as identified by the respective managers. The conclusions of the study give a plausible picture of the level of development, interrelated with the quality of business strategies in the region, and ask for a comparative analysis of more Romanian regions, having various development levels.sustainable development, regional planning, strategic management, South-West Oltenia.

Expert Systems for Integrated Development: A Case Study of Shanxi Province, The People's Republic of China

The research and development project described in this status report is a collaborative project between IIASA and the Tate Science and Technology Commission of the People's Republic of China (SSTCC). The project objective is to build a computer-based information and decision support system, using expert systems technology, for regional development planning in Shanxi, a coal-rich province in northwestern China. Building on IIASA's experience in applied systems analysis, the project develops and implements a new generation of computer-based tools, integrating classical approaches of operations research and applied systems analysis with new developments in computer technology and artificial intelligence (AI) into an integrated hybrid system, designed for direct practical application. To provide the required information, several databases, simulation and optimization models, and decision support tools have been integrated. This information is presented in a form directly useful to planners and decision makers. The system is therefore structured along concepts of expert systems technology, includes several AI components, and features an easy-to-use color graphics user interface. The study is being carried out with intensive collaboration between IIASA, and Chinese academic, industrial, and governmental institutions, especially the regional government of Shanxi Province. The report describes the status of the project after one year of research, summarizing the problem area, the design principles of the software and the current status of prototype implementations

Financial Data Governance

Finance is one of the most digitalized, globalized, and regulated sectors of the global economy. Traditionally technology intensive, the financial industry has been at the forefront of digital transformation, starting with the dematerialization of financial assets in the 1960s and culminating in the post–2008 global financial crisis era with the fintech movement. Now, finance is data: financial transactions are transfers of data; financial infrastructures, such as stock exchanges and payment systems, are data networks; financial institutions are data processors, gathering, analyzing, and trading the data generated by their customers. Financial regulation has adapted to this fast-paced evolution both by implementing new regimes and by adapting existing ones. Concomitantly, general data governance frameworks to protect a broad spectrum of interests, from individual privacy to national security, have emerged. Though these areas of law intersect, their relationship often remains unclear. This Article sheds new light in this critical area, focusing on key challenges and providing viable solutions to address them. First, we define financial data governance as a heterogenous system of rules and principles concerned with financial data, digital finance, and related digital infrastructure. To explain how legal and regulatory regimes interact with the digitalization of finance, we consider the key emerging financial data governance styles in the European Union, People’s Republic of China, India, and the United States. Second, we examine the challenges affecting financial data governance. While finance is inextricably linked to data governance, the coalescence of financial regulation, new regulatory frameworks for digital finance, and general data governance regimes is not always harmonious. Conflicts arising from the intersection of different uncoordinated regimes threaten to frustrate core policy objectives of stability, integrity, and security, as well as the functioning of the global financial system. Addressing this requires a reconceptualization of the financial data centralization paradigm, both by regulators and by the financial industry

Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

Smart Manufacturing

This book is a collection of 11 articles that are published in the corresponding Machines Special Issue “Smart Manufacturing”. It represents the quality, breadth and depth of the most updated study in smart manufacturing (SM); in particular, digital technologies are deployed to enhance system smartness by (1) empowering physical resources in production, (2) utilizing virtual and dynamic assets over the Internet to expand system capabilities, (3) supporting data-driven decision-making activities at various domains and levels of businesses, or (4) reconfiguring systems to adapt to changes and uncertainties. System smartness can be evaluated by one or a combination of performance metrics such as degree of automation, cost-effectiveness, leanness, robustness, flexibility, adaptability, sustainability, and resilience. This book features, firstly, the concepts digital triad (DT-II) and Internet of digital triad things (IoDTT), proposed to deal with the complexity, dynamics, and scalability of complex systems simultaneously. This book also features a comprehensive survey of the applications of digital technologies in space instruments; a systematic literature search method is used to investigate the impact of product design and innovation on the development of space instruments. In addition, the survey provides important information and critical considerations for using cutting edge digital technologies in designing and manufacturing space instruments

Big Data in MultiAgent Systems: Market Design Solutions

El objetivo principal de esta Tesis es presentar un conjunto de novedosos y diferentes métodos en los que los sistemas multiagente pueden jugar un papel clave en predicciones y modelos económicos en un amplio conjunto de contextos. La hipótesis principal es que los sistemas multiagente permiten la creación de modelos macroeconómicos con microfundamentos reales que son capaces de representar la economía en los diferentes niveles de acuerdo con diferentes propósitos y necesidades. La investigación se estructura en seis capítulos. El Capítulo 1 es una introducción teórica al resto de los capítulos que presentan aplicaciones empíricas. En él se compara los sistemas multiagente con dos alternativas: los modelos de equilibrio general computable y la econometría espacial. El resto de los capítulos son intencionadamente diferentes en sus objetivos y sus contenidos. Estas cinco aplicaciones incorporan diferentes tipos de agentes: incluyen individuos (2, 5, 6), familias (2, 5), empresas (3, 5, 6), establecimientos (5), instituciones financieras (6) y usuarios (4). En el ámbito espacial, la desagregación espacial es deliberadamente diferente en cada aplicación: El capítulo 4 no incluye el espacio, El capítulo 6 es una aplicación para la zona euro en su conjunto y en el capítulo 3 se toma España en su conjunto. Los capítulos 2 y 5 exploran las dos de las principales posibilidades para la incorporación del espacio en los sistemas multiagente: el capítulo 2 incluye las regiones NUTS 3 de la Unión Europea y en el capítulo 5 se geolocalizan los agentes. En el capítulo 2 se desarrolla un sistema multiagente que incluye a todos los individuos de la Unión Europea. Con este sistema podemos predecir la población a escala regional para toda la Unión Europea y cómo distintos niveles de crecimiento económico repercuten asimismo sobre el empleo. En el capítulo 3 se presenta un modelo de simulación con los principales puntos de vista de la teoría de negocios para estudiar el crecimiento empresarial y la demografía empresarial en un modelo evolutivo estocástico. El modelo que se presenta también muestra cómo las empresas se adaptan a los cambios en las características deseadas del producto y el efecto de la crisis sobre estas dinámicas. El capítulo 4 discute el papel clave de los incentivos en la seguridad de los sistemas de información. Trabajos anteriores realizan este estudio utilizando un enfoque de teoría de juegos, pero el capítulo muestra que un modelo basado en agentes es capaz de incluir la heterogeneidad y las interrelaciones entre los individuos, y no se centra en el equilibrio alcanzado sino en la dinámica antes de su aparición. El objetivo del capítulo 5 es el estudio de los efectos de la Ley para la Revitalización Comercial (Ley de Dinamización Comercial) que fue aprobada en la Comunidad de Madrid durante el año 2012. Por último, el objetivo del capítulo 6 es explicar los determinantes de la inflación y pronosticar la tasa de inflación en la zona euro en los próximos cinco años. Se predice una inflación para la zona euro creciente hasta 2018 con un límite cercano al 2,5% en tasa interanual siempre que no se produzcan perturbaciones externas relevantes

Business economics of knowledge and innovation: an empirical analysis of the role of firms' search diversity

Die Wissensinfrastruktur von Unternehmen spielt eine entscheidende Rolle in der Wettbewerb- Innovation-Dynamik, die interne und externe Wissensmanagementfähigkeiten verkörpert. Diese Dissertation konzentriert sich auf den Wissenserwerb, der nach Chesbroughs trendverändernder Formulierung von Open Innovation (als Suche nach und Nutzung von externem Wissen) zu einem herausragenden Element der Wissensinfrastruktur von Unternehmen wurde. Externe Wissensstrategien als Komponenten externer Wissensmanagementfähigkeiten können zwei Formen annehmen; Search Breadth (spiegelt die Anzahl der Quellen wider, die von Unternehmen erkundet werden) und Search Depth (die Bedeutung verschiedener Quellen, die erkundet werden). Bei der Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen Suche nach externem Wissen und Innovation, wird jedoch neben der zugrundeliegenden Allgemeingültigkeit des erworbenen Wissens vor allem die primäre Diversität der Wissenssuche als einflussreich auf die Dynamik verschiedener Arten von Innovation hervorgehoben. Diese Dissertation schlägt eine Suchstrategie vor, die die Vielfalt in der Suche dynamischer und rigoroser erfasst als andere Such Modi und analysiert die Auswirkungen der strategischen Search Diversity auf verschiedene Arten von Innovations. Es gibt drei originelle analytische Richtungen, die in dieser Arbeit untersucht werden, jede davon hat ihre eigenen neuartigen Analyseebenen: 1. Diversität der Wissenssuche und technologische Innovation verlängert auf: Einführung hybrider Suchstrategien zur Neutralisierung von Gegenwirkungen einzelner Suchstrategien, Integration von des moderierenden Mechanismus des Technologieerwerbs in die Beziehung zwischen Search Diversity und technologischer Innovation und Analyse der Rolle von Mergeranteils der Industrien in der Industrie-Search Diversity als endogenes Konstrukt 2. Diversität der Wissenssuche und organizational Innovation verlängert auf: Integration von Marktmechanismen in dieser Beziehung und Integration des exogenen Mechanismus der organisatorischen Innovationsdichte von Unternehmen in verschiedenen Industrien in diesem Rahmen 3. Diversität der Wissenssuche und Logistikinnovation verlängert auf: Integration von der moderierenden Rolle der Marktwettbewerbsintensität in dieser Beziehung und Integration des exogenen Mechanismus der Logistikinnovationsdichte der Industrien in diesem Rahmen.Competition is the driving force behind innovation and innovation is the reaction of firms to gain competitive advantage. There are different ways in which innovation and competition in the market interact based on the structural and interorganizational relations in industries. Whether firms intend to be first movers in the market or they intend to raise rivals’ costs for being innovative, it is the undeniable role of information that directs the consequences of all such scenarios. For firms to sustain and prosper while competing in their offerings it is vital to introduce processes and skills based on the knowledge they acquire -from market responses (demand and supply side) to all competing choices - to solve their future problems. Innovation as the upshot of competition is a dynamic process of knowledge analysis. How this knowledge is obtained and analyzed on its way to creativity depends on many interacting contextual, environmental and structural factors. Environmental turbulences on one hand draw firms’ attention into being innovative not to get behind in competition (Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Burgelman, 1991; Romanelli & Tushman, 1994; Child, 1997). On the other hand, how such strategies towards idea production yielding to sustainable competitive advantage is very much dependent on contextual framework of the firms (Burns & Stalker, 1961; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Pugh et al., 1969; Blau, 1970; Perrow, 1970; Mintzberg, 1979; Chesbrough & Teece, 1998). Different paths directing those attributes and forces (environmental and contextual) into development of innovation are predominately determined by enterprises’ capacity in knowledge creation and knowledge aggregation (Aygris & Schoen, 1978; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). In other words, it is the environmental dynamisms which provide synergies for firms to innovate (as a perspective for creating competitive advantage), there are enabling factors of innovation as a process (context) and there are functional ecosystems throughout which innovation becomes an output. As literature suggests (Cui, et al., 2005, Hock-Doepgen et al., 2021) such functional ecosystem constitutes the so-called knowledge infrastructure which embodies internal and external knowledge management capabilities. Internal capabilities constitute technology, culture and structure and external capabilities encapsulate knowledge acquisition, conversion and application. Innovative changes can take form in association with either of the elements embodied in knowledge infrastructure. Thus, innovation is not only a breakthrough product or technology being introduced into the market but it also comprises introduction or adoption of new business models or processes. Hence searching for knowledge from the outside world, assimilating it with internal stock and incorporating it into the innovation process plays substantial role in the success of firms’ innovative journeys. Although acquiring knowledge from external environment was exercised in practice (Teece, 1986; March, 1991) even before open innovation was theorized in the seminal work of Chesbrough (2003) (as searching and utilizing external knowledge), it was after his trend changing formulation that it became organized as a prominent element of firms’ knowledge infrastructure. Open innovation implies that knowledge development for successful innovation campaigns cannot be limited to firms’ internal capacities (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004; Dahlander & Gann, 2010) such as their internal R&D investments (Dominici & Levanti, 2011; Varga et al., 2014) and employees’ individual potentials (as partials of context) (Galende & De la Fuente, 2003). Rather, for firms to be able to catch up with the fast-changing market circumstances it is required to extend their search domain outside their boundaries. In fact, external sources of knowledge are the parties who shape up enterprises’ surroundings. Thus, acquiring information from those actors enriches firms’ (industries) idea cultivation to tackle environmental forces and to gain competitive advantage over their rivals. External knowledge strategies as components of external knowledge management capability can take different forms. Search breadth (reflecting number of sources being explored by firms) and search depth (referring to importance of different sources to explore) as prominent external knowledge acquisition practices have attracted much academic attention in open innovation literature (Katila & Ahuja, 2002; Laursen & Salter, 2006; Greco et al., 2015). Nevertheless, when analyzing how search for external knowledge affects technological and non-technological innovative transformations, in addition to the underlying generality of the acquired knowledge, it is the elemental diversity in knowledge search that is mostly emphasized to be influential on dynamics of different types of innovation rather than other aspects (Kaplan, 1998; Hargadon, 2002; Flor et al., 2018). This study proposes and codifies a search approach (as a component to search breadth) which captures diversity in search in a more dynamic and rigorous way than other search modes do. This novel search approach is utilized to analyze the impact of diversifying search (as a search strategy) for external knowledge on different types of innovation outcomes for enterprises. The role of knowledge (acquisition or development) as the most strategic resource of firms (Grant, 1996) on their way to innovative outcomes has been vastly highlighted. Furthermore, the effect of traditional external search strategies on some (rather than all) types of innovation has been treated but the dynamic role of competition in that type of literature has not been comprehensively taken into account. This thesis’s further novelty lies in investigation of how heterogenous knowledge if acquired from external sources is incorporated to explain desirability to initiate diversity of innovations in interaction either with firms’ internal knowledge management capabilities (such as technology) or with market dynamisms (such as competition intensity).Since uncertainties inherent in innovative attempts raises the desirability for variety in innovation (Nelson & Winter, 1977), I shed light on how such varied spectrum of innovations is explained by diversifying strategies in search for knowledge as an open innovation process. There are three main and original analytical directions investigated in this thesis each of which has their own novel layers of analysis: 1. Knowledge search diversity and technological innovation 2. Knowledge search diversity and organizational innovation 3. Knowledge search diversity and logistics innovation. The first direction extends towards: a) Introduction of hybrid search strategies for neutralizing counter-effects of individual search strategies on their way towards technological innovation. Such approach is developed based on the comparison made between the established patterns of search breadth and technological innovation and that of search diversity and technological innovation according to the outcomes of empirical analyses. b) Integration of the moderating mechanism of technology acquisition (machinery and software) into the relationship between search diversity and technological innovation. c) Integration of the industrys’ merger share into the search strategies framework and analyzing its role in industrys’ search diversity as an endogenous construct. The second direction extends towards: a) Integration of the moderating mechanisms of market competition intensity and demand uncertainty into the relationship between search diversity and different modes of organizational innovation. b) Integration of the exogenous mechanism of industrys’ organizational innovation density into the correlation of search diversity and of the moderating mechanisms with introduction of organizational innovation by firms in different industries. The third direction extends towards: a) Integration of the moderating role of market competition intensity into the relationship between search diversity and logistics innovation. b) Integration of the exogenous mechanism of industrys’ logistics innovation density into the correlation of search diversity and of the moderating mechanism with the introduction of logistics innovation by firms in different industries

Abnormal profits and profit persistence: evidence from the European food industry

This thesis comprises three papers that aim to analyze the phenomenon of firm profits in the European food industry that differ from the competitive norm either at a specific point in time or over longer time periods. The thesis adds to existing literature as it is one of the first studies of this type that directly focuses on the European food industry. Following an extended introduction, the first paper estimates the relative importance of firm, industry, country and year effects as drivers for profit deviations from the competitive norm at a specific point in time which are also commonly named ‘abnormal profits’. Besides conventional approaches such as ANOVA or components of variance, a hierarchical linear model (HLM) is implemented. The HLM approach additionally provides the possibility to estimate the impact of structural firm and industry variables on the degree of abnormal profits. All three approaches lead to the result that firm effects are the most important driver for abnormal profits while industry effects only play a minor role. Among the structural firm and industry variables it is in particular the size of firms’ that positively influences the degree of abnormal profits. On the other hand, firm risk and age as well as the growth rate of the industry in which firms operate have a negative impact. While the first paper focuses on abnormal profits at a specific point in time, the second paper analyzes the persistence of abnormal firm profits over longer time periods. This analysis is based on autoregressive models (AR) as well as Arellano-Bond dynamic panel estimation. Both approaches additionally allow for the identification of the firm and industry characteristics that determine the degree of profit persistence. The estimation reveals that a significant number of firms generate abnormal profits that persist in the long run. However, as competition among food industry firms is strong and concentration in the downstream market is high, persistence in abnormal profits in the food industry tends to be lower in comparison to other manufacturing sectors. Further characteristics that have a negative influence on the degree of persistence are firm age and risk as well as the industries R&D intensity. Similar to the occurrence of abnormal profits at a specific point in time, firm size is estimated to have a positive impact on the persistence of such profits. The first two papers of the thesis are based on a sample of 5,494 food processors from the five countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The third paper also uses AR models and dynamic panel estimation to analyze a sample of 590 dairy processors from the same five countries. Here the dairy industry was chosen not only because of its economic importance within the food industry but also due to its special structural features such as a high number of cooperatives and a strong regulation of economic activity by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The AR models reveal that cooperatives, which account for approximately 20 % of all firms in the sector, are not predominantly profit oriented. Similar to the entire food industry the results indicate strong competition as the degree of persistence remains low even when cooperatives are removed from the sample. Again firm size turns out to be an important driver for persistence. Firm age and risk as well as growth and R&D investment of the sector have a negative impact. The same holds for the level of concentration in the retail sector which is an indicator of the retailers’ bargaining power.Abnormale Gewinne und deren Persistenz: Eine Analyse der europäischen Lebensmittelindustrie Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht die Europäische Lebensmittelindustrie im Hinblick auf Unternehmensgewinne, welche von der Wettbewerbsnorm abweichen. Hierbei wird im Rahmen dreier wissenschaftlicher Papiere sowohl das Auftreten solcher ‚abnormalen‘ Gewinne zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt als auch deren Persistenz über längere Zeitperioden analysiert. Da es sich um eine der ersten Studien dieser Art handelt, welche sich ausschließlich mit Firmen der europäischen Lebensmittelindustrie befasst, liefert diese Dissertation einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Literatur. Im Anschluss an eine ausführliche Einleitung wird im ersten Papier der Einfluss von Firmen-, Industrie-, Jahres- und Ländereffekten auf das Ausmaß der abnormalen Gewinne analysiert. Die Schätzung der Effektklassen erfolgt hierbei sowohl auf Basis konventioneller Methoden wie ANOVA oder Varianzkomponentenanalyse als auch durch ein hierarchisches, lineares Modell (HLM). Der HLM-Ansatz bietet darüber hinaus die Möglichkeit den Einfluss struktureller Firmen- und Industrievariablen auf die abnormalen Gewinne zu schätzen. Die drei Methoden führen zu dem Ergebnis, dass Firmeneffekte der wichtigste Einflussfaktor sind wohingegen Industrieeffekte eine vernachlässigbare Rolle spielen. Unter den strukturellen Variablen stellt sich die Firmengröße als positiver Einflussfaktor heraus. Firmenrisiko und Alter sowie die Wachstumsrate der Industrie hingegen haben einen negativen Einfluss. Während im ersten Papier das Auftreten abnormaler Gewinne zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt analysiert wird, befasst sich das zweite Papier mit der Persistenz abnormaler Gewinne über längere Zeitperioden. Diese Analyse basiert sowohl auf autoregressiven Modellen (AR) sowie einem dynamischen Panelmodell. Beide Ansätze ermöglichen es zusätzlich den Einfluss struktureller Firmen- und Industrievariablen auf die Höhe der Profitpersistenz zu bestimmen. Die Analyse führt zu dem Ergebnis, dass eine hohe Anzahl an Firmen langfristig abnormale Gewinne erwirtschaftet. Jedoch führen starker Wettbewerb und hohe Konzentration im Lebensmitteleinzelhandel dazu, dass das Ausmaß der Persistenz geringer ausfällt als in anderen Industriesektoren. Des Weiteren stellen sich Firmenrisiko, Firmenalter sowie der F&E Aufwand der Industrie als negative Einflussgrößen heraus. Die Firmengröße hingegen hat einen positiven Einfluss auf das Ausmaß der Persistenz. Die ersten beiden Papiere basieren auf einer Stichprobe von 5.494 Lebensmittelproduzenten aus den fünf Ländern Belgien, Frankreich, Italien, Spanien und Großbritannien. Im dritten Papier wird hingegen eine Stichprobe von 590 Firmen des Milchsektors im Hinblick auf Profitpersistenz analysiert. Der Milchsektor wurde hierbei zum einen aufgrund seiner hohen wirtschaftlichen Relevanz im Ernährungsgewerbe als auch aufgrund seiner speziellen strukturellen Charakteristika ausgewählt. Zu diesen zählen u.a. eine hohe Anzahl an Genossenschaften sowie eine starke Regulierung durch die Gemeinsame Agrarpolitik (GAP) der EU. Die AR Modelle führen zu dem Ergebnis, dass Genossenschaften, welche in etwa einen Anteil von 20 % der Firmen im Sektor ausmachen, nicht gewinnorientiert sind. Analog zur gesamten Lebensmittelindustrie deuten die Ergebnisse auf eine hohe Wettbewerbsintensität, da das Ausmaß der Persistenz auch nach einem Ausschluss der Genossenschaften aus der Analyse gering ausfällt. Auch im Milchsektor stellt sich Firmengröße als positiver Einflussfaktor heraus, wohingegen Firmenrisiko, -alter sowie das Wachstum und die F&E Aufwendungen des Sektors einen negativen Einfluss haben. Gleiches gilt für die Konzentration im Lebensmitteleinzelhandel, welche als Indikator für dessen Verhandlungsmacht gesehen werden kann