3,204 research outputs found
PRODUCER SEGMENTATION AND THE ROLE OF LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP IN MALAYSIA’S MILK SUPPLY CHAINS
Research on buyer-seller relationships in the agricultural sector receives little attention. A growing body of evidence suggests that strong buyer-seller relationships facilitate more efficient supply chains. The long term relationship literature tends to treat suppliers as a homogenous group when attempting to identify motivations, strategies and incentives to enhance the quality of buyer-seller relationships. This article explores the role of long-term relationships between buyers and sellers in Malaysia’s dairy industry, taking into consideration the heterogeneous nature of the producers. Interviews with 133 producers provide the data for this study. Cluster analysis suggests two well-defined groups differing in terms of demographic characteristics and relationship perceptions toward their buyers. Based on the results, the study proposes some policy implication and marketing strategies for both milk buyers and government.buyer-seller relationship, price satisfaction dimensions, cluster analysis, dairy industry, Malaysia, Marketing,
No. 1: Towards the Harmonization of Immigration and Refugee Law in SADC
The MIDSA project on legal harmonization of immigration and refugee law in the Southern African Development Community had four main objectives: (a) to collect and collate information on national legislation in a single publication as a resource for policy-makers; (b) to identify points of similarity and difference in national immigration law between SADC-member states; (c) to investigate the possibilities for harmonization of national immigration policy and law; and (d) in the interests of good governance and regional cooperation and integration to make specific recommendations for harmonization. A second, parallel, SAMP study is investigating the issue of harmonization of migration data collection systems within SADC.
For ease of inter-country comparison, the report contains a series of comparative tables covering all facets of the immigration regime of the SADC states. The tables can be used as a resource in themselves but are also used to supplement the analysis in the text proper. This executive summary focuses on the main findings and recommendations of the narrative report.
The states of the SADC have committed themselves to increased regional cooperation and integration. This commitment is reflected in a series of Protocols to which the various states are signatory. The Protocol dealing with the cross-border migration of people within SADC (the so-called “Draft Free Movement Protocol”) owed too much to European (Schengen) precedent and too little to the political and economic realities of the region. As a result, the Protocol (and a modified version called the “Facilitation of Movement Protocol”) was rejected by certain states in the region (primarily the migrant-receiving states). The level of opposition was such that the Protocol was shelved by SADC in 2000.
While this publication is not designed to promote or contest the idea of free movement, it is the belief of the MIDSA partners that good migration governance is a general aim to which all can subscribe. To that end it makes perfect sense for the individual states of SADC to re-examine their current legislation. Migration has changed dramatically in the last decade and a review of the adequacy of existing legal and policy instruments would be a positive development for all states. Beyond the issue of updating legislation and making it more relevant to current management challenges, it is clear that regional cooperation in migration management would be facilitated by a set of basic principles and laws that applied more-or-less across the region. Obviously each country has certain unique features and each state reserves the right to pursue its own immigration policy. However, there are many features of migration governance that are common to all and there is nothing to be lost, and a great deal to be gained, by simplification and standardization.
A regional review of this nature also allows for an analysis of the degree to which individual states have been influenced by or subscribe to international conventions and norms in the migration and refugee protection areas. A secondary purpose of this publication is therefore to stimulate a regional debate on the extent to which individual SADC states do or should adhere to the principles of international conventions and guidelines on the movement of peoples and the protection of the persecuted
Observing the Evolution of QUIC Implementations
The QUIC protocol combines features that were initially found inside the TCP,
TLS and HTTP/2 protocols. The IETF is currently finalising a complete
specification of this protocol. More than a dozen of independent
implementations have been developed in parallel with these standardisation
activities.
We propose and implement a QUIC test suite that interacts with public QUIC
servers to verify their conformance with key features of the IETF
specification. Our measurements, gathered over a semester, provide a unique
viewpoint on the evolution of a protocol and of its implementations. They
highlight the arrival of new features and some regressions among the different
implementations.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure
TCPSnitch: Dissecting the Usage of the Socket API
Networked applications interact with the TCP/IP stack through the socket API.
Over the years, various extensions have been added to this popular API. In this
paper, we propose and implement the TCPSnitch software that tracks the
interactions between Linux and Android applications and the TCP/IP stack. We
collect a dataset containing the interactions produced by more than 120
different applications. Our analysis reveals that applications use a variety of
API calls. On Android, many applications use various socket options even if the
Java API does not expose them directly. TCPSnitch and the associated dataset
are publicly available.Comment: See https://www.tcpsnitch.or
Relationship quality as the predictor of long term relationship in the Malaysian dairy industry
Dairy market in Malaysia has been increasing due to high income and population growth in the region. In response to the increasing demand, milk processors need to obtain constant milk supplies from the dairy farmers. One way of doing this is when the buyers and the sellers build and maintain quality relationships in order to enhance long term sustainability of the milk supply. This paper examines the determinants of relationship quality and its role in enhancing long term relationship between the Malaysian milk processors and dairy farmers. The study revealed that where as mutuality and price satisfaction influence the perceived relationship quality of the farmers positively; dependency and price flexibility do not. Furthermore, the perceived relationship quality of the farmers has a positive influence on long term orientation of the relationship.Long term relationships, Relationship Quality, Dairy Industry, Malaysia
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