5,531 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    An empirical investigation of the relationship between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in supply chains

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    This research aimed to develop an empirical understanding of the relationships between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in the supply chain domain, based on which, two conceptual frameworks were constructed to advance the field. The core motivation for the research was that, at the stage of writing the thesis, the combined relationship between the three concepts had not yet been examined, although their interrelationships have been studied individually. To achieve this aim, deductive and inductive reasoning logics were utilised to guide the qualitative study, which was undertaken via multiple case studies to investigate lines of enquiry that would address the research questions formulated. This is consistent with the author’s philosophical adoption of the ontology of relativism and the epistemology of constructionism, which was considered appropriate to address the research questions. Empirical data and evidence were collected, and various triangulation techniques were employed to ensure their credibility. Some key features of grounded theory coding techniques were drawn upon for data coding and analysis, generating two levels of findings. These revealed that whilst integration and dynamic capabilities were crucial in improving performance, the performance also informed the former. This reflects a cyclical and iterative approach rather than one purely based on linearity. Adopting a holistic approach towards the relationship was key in producing complementary strategies that can deliver sustainable supply chain performance. The research makes theoretical, methodological and practical contributions to the field of supply chain management. The theoretical contribution includes the development of two emerging conceptual frameworks at the micro and macro levels. The former provides greater specificity, as it allows meta-analytic evaluation of the three concepts and their dimensions, providing a detailed insight into their correlations. The latter gives a holistic view of their relationships and how they are connected, reflecting a middle-range theory that bridges theory and practice. The methodological contribution lies in presenting models that address gaps associated with the inconsistent use of terminologies in philosophical assumptions, and lack of rigor in deploying case study research methods. In terms of its practical contribution, this research offers insights that practitioners could adopt to enhance their performance. They can do so without necessarily having to forgo certain desired outcomes using targeted integrative strategies and drawing on their dynamic capabilities

    Resilience and food security in a food systems context

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    This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the world’s population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners

    2023-2024 Boise State University Undergraduate Catalog

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    This catalog is primarily for and directed at students. However, it serves many audiences, such as high school counselors, academic advisors, and the public. In this catalog you will find an overview of Boise State University and information on admission, registration, grades, tuition and fees, financial aid, housing, student services, and other important policies and procedures. However, most of this catalog is devoted to describing the various programs and courses offered at Boise State

    Handbuch kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erinnerungsforschung

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    Producing performance collectively in austere times (UK 2008-2018)

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    This thesis examines collective and artist-run performance producing practices in the UK in the period of austerity from 2008-2018. This thesis examines collective practices in opposition to the rhetoric, logic, and impacts of neoliberal austerity, while examining how they are, at one and the same time, caught up within them, and frequently complicit with them. I argue that collectives can temporarily reverse and rework the negative material and affective impacts of austerity through gathering artists and producers with similar practices and concerns together in the same space, producing social and affective spaces that feel and operate differently to the rest of the artistic infrastructure, and sharing material and immaterial resources. As I go on to establish, austerity works by making people feel precarious, uncared for, alone, indebted, hopeless, and disentitled. At their best, collectives work by making people feel the opposite. In gathering together in their own space, these artists and producers feel and imagine the possibility of a different way of doing things. These spaces exist to present the performance of others, to support the organisers’ individual practices and administrative work, to run festivals and performance events, and to organise around particular issues. An analysis of these functions of collective practice structure the main body of this thesis, which begins by examining collective and artist-run models of performance venues, then studios, then festivals, and finally, networks. In each chapter I examine a specific negative affect of austerity which these groups seek to resist. These are: insecurity or precarity, neglect or a lack of care, isolation or disconnectedness, and hopelessness or a lack of access to futurity. I show, using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of field, Henri Lefebvre’s production of space, and Sara Ahmed’s work on affect, how the practices of each structural model of collective and artist-run organisation responds to and reworks these conditions by producing affective spaces of security, care, communitas, and hope. These spaces, and the practices that create them, are embedded within the wider context of neoliberalism and austerity which they oppose, and are thus temporary and susceptible to reproducing exploitative and exclusive practices. The task of this thesis is to reveal the immediate positive affective and material impacts of these collectives in opposition to austerity, as well as the complexity of the problems that arise as these groups interact with a wider context over which they have no control. Despite the limitations of collective practice, this thesis argues that through providing relief from the negative affective impacts of austerity, it can provide vital support to artists, practices, and communities during difficult economic conditions, and allow them to survive, to organise, and to imagine and enact better and more liveable futures in the field of performance

    An Investigation of Airline Catering Supply Chain Processes, Performance and Practices using SCOR Model

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    Supply chain management is critical to airlines' ability to provide high-quality in-flight dining experience to passengers. Managing airline catering supply chain can be complex and difficult because the chain frequently delivers a large volume of airline meals, manages the resulting reverse flow, and is required to meet performance requirements, often under uncertainty. This thesis delves into the business processes of airline catering supply chains, develops performance metrics for the chain, and proposes an approach for improving the chain's practice effectiveness. The thesis is divided into three main areas of study known as research projects, which are based on the portfolio of research work completed during the study. In this thesis, the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model is used as the reference model for airline catering supply chain. The SCOR model is generic and provides a common definition of business processes, metrics, and best practices for supply chain evaluation. The model must be adapted to fit different industry settings. SCOR-based approaches to improving airline catering supply chain effectiveness have been developed in the thesis, by selecting the appropriate supply chain processes, performance metrics, and practices that are essential to the airline catering service. The first project adapts the SCOR model to create a framework and reference models for integrated business processes regarding the airline catering supply chain. The relevant standard processes were chosen from the SCOR model and expanded to define the specific workflow of airline catering logistics using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) techniques. As a result, a hierarchical process structure is defined, including how the SCOR framework's processes of source, make, and deliver map to the airline catering supply chain process. The second project is concerned with selecting performance metrics for airline catering supply chain. In adapting SCOR performance metrics for airline catering supply chains, a method of selecting performance metrics for the chain is presented. A set of 55 relevant metrics is identified from the SCOR model and prioritised using the MoSCoW based prioritisation method. Results of the prioritisation show that an emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can influence performance considerations, including the selection of appropriate performance metrics. Finally, the third project focuses on practice effectiveness. It develops a SCOR based methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of airline catering supply chain practices and identifying weak performing practices. The methodology incorporates relevant supply chain practices, practice categories, and performance attributes adapted from SCOR. The methodology uses fuzzy logic, and it is applied in this thesis to a case study of a large airline catering supply chain. The case study company is found to operate highly effective practice, and areas requiring further improvements were recommended. The thesis demonstrates that the airline catering supply chain must pay attention to business processes, performance metric selection, and seek to continuously improve practice effectiveness. The methods and models developed in the thesis will help airline catering supply chains in all three areas. Insights from the chosen case study are valuable. Research limitations are identified, and future directions are suggested

    Winds of change in a ‘Saffronised’ Indian Borderland: dispossession and power in rural Kutch

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    Renewables are imagined in India around features of ‘greenness’ and ‘cleanness’ and are presented as the key solutions towards sustainable development and unlimited growth. But this narrative entails a problematic land politics and the reconfiguration of territories for capital accumulation: following the 2001 earthquake, Kutch district has been framed as a major resource frontier and experienced several waves of land liberalisation and industrialisation programs. Being a borderland district, the proximity with Pakistan and the presence of Muslim pastoral populations on both sides of the border have also fostered important ‘saffron’ Hindu nationalist discourses since 1947. What do the new territories of ‘green’ energy extraction look like in this context of sensitive borderland? This research focuses on the land politics of extracting wind energy as embedded within relations of caste and class, citizenship, and religious identities. Land is being imagined ‘empty’ and ‘waste’, shifting from one user to another via bureaucratic means, while it is materially aligned with companies’ interests. This process affects social differentiation and creates new trajectories of accumulation and domination for ground-level brokers and fixers who mediate consent and resistance. These actors merge the companies’ endless appetite for land with their own socio-economic and political gains affiliated with nationalist projects of territory revivalism. As the thesis argues, wind infrastructures align with broad ethno-religious conceptions of Indian citizenship and space as Hindu and their expansion over new border areas serves the enforcement of a racialised citizenship and security regime. Finally, the emergence of everyday resistance and political reactions to the arrival of wind power reveals continuity with traditional agrarian struggles, but also with caste politics and exclusive forms of mobilisation. This research adopts perspectives from political ecology, human geography, and critical agrarian studies and is grounded in a 7-month ethnographic investigation in mainland and borderland Kutch
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