Sustainable Business Models

The dynamically changing world economy, in an era of intensive development and globalization, creates new needs in both the theoretical models of management and in the practical discussion related to the perception of business. Because of new economic phenomena related to the crisis, there is a need for the design and operationalization of innovative business models for companies. Due to the fact that in times of crisis, the principles of strategic balance are particularly important; these business models can be sustainable business models. Moreover, it is essential to skillfully use different methods and concepts of management to ensure the continuity of business. It seems that sustainable business models, in their essence, can support companies' effectiveness and contribute to their stable, sustainable functioning in the difficult, ever-changing market. This Special Issue aims to discuss the key mechanisms concerning the design and operationalization of sustainable business models, from a strategic perspective. We invite you to contribute to this Issue by submitting comprehensive reviews, case studies, or research articles. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer review procedure, with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications

Fuzzy Sets in Business Management, Finance, and Economics

This book collects fifteen papers published in s Special Issue of Mathematics titled “Fuzzy Sets in Business Management, Finance, and Economics”, which was published in 2021. These paper cover a wide range of different tools from Fuzzy Set Theory and applications in many areas of Business Management and other connected fields. Specifically, this book contains applications of such instruments as, among others, Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Neuro-Fuzzy Methods, the Forgotten Effects Algorithm, Expertons Theory, Fuzzy Markov Chains, Fuzzy Arithmetic, Decision Making with OWA Operators and Pythagorean Aggregation Operators, Fuzzy Pattern Recognition, and Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets. The papers in this book tackle a wide variety of problems in areas such as strategic management, sustainable decisions by firms and public organisms, tourism management, accounting and auditing, macroeconomic modelling, the evaluation of public organizations and universities, and actuarial modelling. We hope that this book will be useful not only for business managers, public decision-makers, and researchers in the specific fields of business management, finance, and economics but also in the broader areas of soft mathematics in social sciences. Practitioners will find methods and ideas that could be fruitful in current management issues. Scholars will find novel developments that may inspire further applications in the social sciences

Supply Chain

Traditionally supply chain management has meant factories, assembly lines, warehouses, transportation vehicles, and time sheets. Modern supply chain management is a highly complex, multidimensional problem set with virtually endless number of variables for optimization. An Internet enabled supply chain may have just-in-time delivery, precise inventory visibility, and up-to-the-minute distribution-tracking capabilities. Technology advances have enabled supply chains to become strategic weapons that can help avoid disasters, lower costs, and make money. From internal enterprise processes to external business transactions with suppliers, transporters, channels and end-users marks the wide range of challenges researchers have to handle. The aim of this book is at revealing and illustrating this diversity in terms of scientific and theoretical fundamentals, prevailing concepts as well as current practical applications

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

EXPLAINING WELFARE DEVELOPMENT IN EAST ASIA BY USING SET-THEORETIC METHODS:East Asia in Transition

After Gøsta Esping-Andersen published his classic thesis The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism in 1990, comparative welfare research entered a flourishing period. Compared to this, the comparative study of East Asian welfare systems has remained relatively underdeveloped. Particularly, during and after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, East Asia’s economic and social structures came under strain, and their social progress faced many challenges, which sparked new debates regarding the crisis and its social consequences. The classic Productivist Welfare Capitalism (PWC) thesis faced a fundamental challenge as part of these debates. Drawing on the PWC thesis, this thesis theoretically and empirically explored the welfare developments and reforms of East Asian states in this context. The analysis of welfare systems focuses on the debates of the distinction between ‘productive’ and ‘protective’ dimensions of welfare. As such, six key policy fields, education, health-care services, family policy, old-age pensions, housing and the protective labour market policy, of six states, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, over the past two decades are explored by set-theoretic methods. First, employing fuzzy-set ideal type analysis (fsITA) it is argued that it is inappropriate to talk about a single, homogeneous welfare model in East Asia. East Asian states have distinctive patterns of welfare development often combining ‘productive’ and ‘protective’ welfare policies. What is more, after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, social protection became a more important aspect of welfare systems across East Asian states. Second, the reasons for the diverse developmental trajectories are examined by employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Here, the findings suggest that in contrast to the PWC thesis, economic growth was not a necessary condition for welfare development in East Asia. Instead, it is argued that welfare development can occur under both weak and strong socio-economic conditions in combination with demographic conditions and the level of globalisation. This thesis thus advances current debates in the literature on East Asian welfare models and development and sets the stage for future research

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Modernisation, Confucianism and Gender Justice in Rural and Urban China:The Lived Experience of Women with Children

Several profound demographic and socioeconomic transitions that have taken place since the 1980s have reshaped the everyday lives of women with children in contemporary China, as has the interaction between the Chinese modernisation process and transforming Confucianism. This thesis aims to investigate and compare the implications of these shifting social, institutional, and economic dynamics on women using a multiscalar and mixed-methods approach. The methods include the descriptive data analysis of national datasets and the thematic analysis of policy documents, which explore the breadth of socioeconomic transitions. A qualitative case study approach is also used to collect empirical data from a city and a village in Guangdong province. Empirical data are collected via sixty-nine semi-structured interviews with 13 stakeholders and 56 individual informants, which captures the complex and multidimensional experiences of women with children. As the foundation of this study, the human dignity approach is applied and developed to explore five interlinked dimensions of these lived experiences: physical and psychological well-being, care relations, social integration, self-determination, and equal value.The findings of secondary data suggest that Chinese families have become structurally independent under the transformation to a state-led market economy and its interaction with family planning policies. However, the lived experiences show that receiving support from older parents (in-laws) is still central to women’s coping strategies of the women to maintain care relationships, paid work, and further career development. The empirical evidence also reveals the rationale behind the different strategies, bringing to the fore how rural and urban women’s heterogeneous experiences are reconfigured through the interaction of the social stratifications of gender, place, and generation (age). Furthermore, this thesis further elaborates on the impact of continuities and changes in the labour market and family practises in relation to women’s self-determination in couple finance, household decision making, and parenting. Through rich empirical and theoretical analysis, this thesis has the potential to inform policy practises to address both institutional and spatial barriers facing women with children, promote the equal value of paid and unpaid care work, and meet women’s changing needs in different dimensions of everyday life.<br/

KNOWLEDGE-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT (KBDSS-QFD) TOOL FOR ASSESSMENT OF BUILDING ENVELOPE MATERIALS AND DESIGNS IN THE EARLY DESIGN STAGE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

The Influence of organizational culture on innovation in technology SMEs

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Strathmore UniversityCulture is often considered a crucial basis for how an organization operates. It can be used as an enabler for employees to develop certain habits and fills the gaps between what is formally announced and what actually happens. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of organizational culture on innovation in Information Technology (IT) Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya. It sort to explore the dominant culture in these companies and how the organizations can enhance innovation by studying the factors that influence an innovation culture. The study used a framework for analyzing organizational culture developed by Cameron and Quinn where culture is examined as a set of competing values in four dimensions. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The population of study was employees in small and medium-sized information technology companies. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the companies and employees to respond to the survey. The study was conducted in more than twenty IT companies, with 66 out of 110 respondents returning the filled questionnaires. This represented a 60% response rate. Primary data was collected through self-administered questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and inferential data analysis method was used to analyze the gathered data. It was analyzed using IBM SPSS software and presented in tables and figures. The study established that a market culture is dominant in technology SMEs and goes on to suggest that this is a potential hindrance to innovation due to its focus on stability and control. The findings showed that organizations with cultures that are flexible, collaborative and encouraged employee participation had the highest correlation to innovation. Clan and adhocracy cultures exhibited these characteristics. Latent factors that affect an innovation culture in organizations were also derived. Finally, the study recommends areas of further research like using qualitative methods of data collection and analysis to uncover deeper cultural aspects or using a different organizational culture model for the study. The terms Information Technology (IT) and Information Communication and Technology (ICT) were used interchangeably throughout the study to mean the same industry