The intellectual capital - environmental practices, performance and their relationships in the Romanian banking sector

Purpose – This paper reviews the knowledge assets that can be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) implementation in the Romanian banking industry. GSCM is defined as the company’s ability to understand and manage the environmental risks along the Supply Chain (SC) (Carter and Rogers,2008). Banks are very much members of the SCs (McKenzie and Wolfe, 2004), called to integrate the environmental management into both operational and core commercial activities and to manage the environmental risk in their supply chain (FORGE Group,2000; International Finance Corporation, 2006; UNEP Finance Initiative, 2009a). Intellectual capital, or the ‘stock’ of knowledge-based equity firms hold, is recognized as a key contributor to their competitiveness (Bontis et al., 1999), which may act as a driver of environmental pro-activeness (Bernauer et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2007), as well as an obstacle in the process to design and implement GSCM (Post and Altman, 1994; Baresel-Bofinger et al., 2007), while organizational learning is seen as the key component in overcoming the organizational obstacles to environmental changes (Post and Altman, 1992; Post and Altman, 1994; Anderson and Wolff, 1996). Design/methodology/approach – This research paper describes the empirical results of a cross-sectional design employed in a sample of 41 banks operating in Romania with the purpose a. to explore the stage of designing and implementing GSCM practices in the Romanian banking sector; b. to determine which GSCM practices tend to be followed the most, c. which are the bank managers’ perceived benefits from implementing GSCM practices, as well as perceived obstacles in GSCM implementation in the banking sector; and d. what is the relationship between the aforementioned variables. For these purposes several statistical analyses were used, including both descriptive and inferential statistics. Originality/value – This is the first study looking for GSCM issues in the Romanian banking industry. The results of this research provide insights into what extent knowledge assets could be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management implementation in the Romanian banking industry. Furthermore, it is increasing the ecological awareness, the theoretical and managerial insights for an effective implementation of GSCM practices in the banking sector. The analysis reveals that GSCM practices (especially practices in the immaterial flow) are strongly and significantly correlated with perceived benefits and pressures. However,this should be addressed in future research because the present study offers only correlational data and cannot establish causation. The study also concludes that bank’s size and foreign/Romanian ownership do not influence at all the level of GSCM practices implementation and related perceptions (pressures, obstacles,benefits) in the Romanian banking sector. Practical implications – The findings of this paper point to the conclusion that the banking sector in Romania is at a somehow advanced stage of ecological adaptation in the physical flow and at an early stage in the immaterial and commercial flows. Based on the literature and study’s findings, regarding the role that the management of intellectual capital and knowledge flow plays, several recommendations are proposed for enhancing the implementation process of GSCM practices in the banking industry in Romania

A Liouville theorem for ancient solutions to a semilinear heat equation and its elliptic counterpart

We establish the nonexistence of nontrivial ancient solutions to the nonlinear heat equation $u_t=\Delta u+|u|^{p-1}u$ which are smaller in absolute value than the self-similar radial singular steady state, provided that the exponent $p$ is strictly between Serrin's exponent and that of Joseph and Lundgren. This result was previously established by Fila and Yanagida [Tohoku Math. J. (2011)] by using forward self-similar solutions as barriers. In contrast, we apply a sweeping argument with a family of time independent weak supersolutions. Our approach naturally lends itself to yield an analogous Liouville type result for the steady state problem in higher dimensions. In fact, in the case of the critical Sobolev exponent we show the validity of our results for solutions that are smaller in absolute value than a 'Delaunay'-type singular solution.Comment: In this third version, we clarified that the approach of Fila and Yanagida [Tohoku Math. J. (2011)] also works in the subcritical regim

Securities Regulation: SEC Brands Sales Reward Interpositioning a Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Antifraud Violation

The report analyzes governance forms (primarily organization and financing) for the planning and realization of cross-border transport infrastructure projects in the Öresund region. The study is nased on analyses related to the current Öresund Bridge and the planned and proposed new fixed links in the Öresund Region; the Helsingborg-Elsinore-connection (HH-link) and the metro-line extension Copenhagen-Malmoe. The project has been financed by Region Skåne as part of the EU-funded Baltic Sea Region TransGovernance-project.QC 20140613</p

First Collection Records of \u3ci\u3eHippodamia Variegata\u3c/i\u3e (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in Minnesota Corn and Soybean

The coccinellid Hippodamia variegata (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is a relatively recent addition to the North American coccinellid fauna. This species was first reported in 1984 near Montreal, Quebec (Gordon 1987). Since then, its range has expanded beyond northeastern North America with the newest records in the midwestern United States, including Michigan (Gardiner and Parson 2005), Ohio (Pavuk et al. 2007), Wisconsin (Williams and Young 2009), and most recently South Dakota (Hesler and Lundgren 2011). Here we provide the first records of H. variegata in Minnesota. In addition, our records further define the movement pattern of this beetle across the Midwest by documenting its presence in the gap between Wisconsin and South Dakota