Achieving sustainability together:stakeholder collaboration for corporate sustainability and the circular economy

This PhD thesis focuses on investigating how incumbent enterprises can assist in achieving societal sustainability. Societal sustainability is an increasingly adopted concept in both literature and practice and addresses how society can reach social, environmental and economic goals. Enterprises are central actors for achieving societal sustainability and can fulfil this role by engaging in corporate sustainability. Another approach enterprises can take to assist in achieving societal sustainability is by adopting circular principles, such as reuse, reduce and remanufacture, which can enable enterprises to close resource loops and keep them closed over time. However, in order to contribute to societal sustainability, enterprises have to make impactful changes and integrate the principles of corporate sustainability and the circular economy in their strategies. This requires new capabilities which are focussed on the generation, preservation and restoration of collective values in collaboration with diverse stakeholders. This PhD thesis therefore investigates how enterprises can interact and collaborate with diverse stakeholders and explores whether this can assist enterprises in integrating the principles of corporate sustainability and the circular economy in their strategies. The findings show that it is essential for enterprises to collaborate and interact with external stakeholders in the network, such as local communities and knowledge institutions, for both the integration of corporate sustainability and the circular economy. Furthermore, this PhD thesis highlights the importance of an early and active involvement of local communities in circular strategies and approaches, where a two-way communication between incumbent businesses, local communities and other stakeholders is crucial

The new Global Multiple Sclerosis Severity Score (MSSS) correlates with axonal but not glial biomarkers

This study investigated whether the new Global Multiple Sclerosis Severity Scale (MSSS) correlated with cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for axonal and glial pathology. The MSSS correlated with the phosphorylated neurofilament heavy chain (NfH-SMI35, R=0.44, P=0.016). The degree of neurofilament phosphorylation (ratio NfH-SMI34 to NfH-SMI35) was 8-fold higher in severely (median MSSS 6.5) versus mildly (MSSS 3.2) disabled patients (7.3 versus 0.9, P=0.03). The MSSS may provide a statistically powerful tool for comparing overall disease severity and be useful for validating the biomarker concept in MS

The impact of managers and network interactions on the integration of circularity in business strategy

Integrating circularity in business strategy is difficult to achieve for companies as it requires impactful changes in core business processes. While research has focused on identifying key barriers, little is known about the organizational attributes that can assist businesses in integrating circularity in their strategies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the implications of organizational managers and network interactions for the integration of circularity in business strategy. Through using survey data from 627 SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) in the Netherlands, this study shows that managers who interpret circularity as an opportunity can have a positive direct and indirect effect on the integration of circularity in a company’s strategy. The results furthermore highlight the importance of circular network interactions for the integration of circularity in business strategy. This article contributes to recent calls for more empirical research into the integration of circularity and offers relevant insights for companies aiming to integrate circularity

Effect of muscle temperature soon after slaughter on pork quality: a pilot study.

The effect of various environmental temperatures, ranging between 42.5 and 25 degrees C during the first 2 h after slaughter, on pork quality was studied in longissimus dorsi samples. Higher environmental temperatures resulted in higher lactate and lower pH 2 h after slaughter. Samples kept at higher environmental temperatures (42.5 and 40 degrees C) showed characteristics typical for pale soft exudative pork. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission

The impact of dynamic capabilities on the sustainability performance of SMEs

Despite environmental and social goals being identified as key objectives for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the literature has not provided an explanation of how these goals can be achieved alongside stable economic outcomes. Several researchers have argued that sustainability performance should be addressed through a process of constant adjustment, which can be facilitated by dynamic capabilities. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of integrative dynamic capabilities on the social, environmental and economic performance of SMEs. This study is among the first to investigate this effect and uses unique survey data from 297 SMEs in the Netherlands. The empirical results highlight the importance of external integrative dynamic capabilities for all three pillars of sustainability performance in SMEs. These findings contribute to the debate on the ability/inability of SMEs to balance social, environmental and economic objectives by integrating new insights from the dynamic capabilities literature. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

THE Effect of a single locus (Halothane) on variances of and correlations among quantitative production traits

International audienc

Production characteristics of dutch landrace and dutch yorkshire pigs as related to their susceptibility for the halothane-induced malignant hyperthermia syndrome

International audienc

Halothane-test in pig breeding

International audienc

Innovating for sustainability through collaborative innovation contests

Innovation contests are increasingly used by businesses as an instrument for open innovation to address sustainability related questions. However, according to the open innovation literature, one of the main pitfalls of this approach can be the mismatch between the solutions proposed by non-experts and the companies’ capabilities to implement such solutions. We introduce the concept of collaborative innovation contests – where companies actively collaborate with non-experts – as a way to address this mismatch. Through participant observations, we analyse the process of a sustainability-oriented collaborative innovation contest guided by design-thinking. Our results indicated that the combination of an open innovation contest and design thinking could, through the creation of constant feedback loops, lead to increased collaboration between the contests participants, the companies proposing a challenge, and other relevant stakeholders. However, our results also highlighted trade-offs between the innovativeness of ideas, the alignment of solutions with firm capabilities and the resources needed for collaborative innovation contests. We conclude that, through the involvement of different stakeholders, their ideas and perspectives, collaborative innovation contests are a useful approach to generate a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability challenges companies face