Relationship between Business Travels and Virtual Meetings: How organizations can use virtual meetings effectively to reduce business travels?

Climate change are starting to receive more attention, even so, transport sector is responsible for approximately 20% of energy related GHG emission, which still has increasing trend. Solutions based on using information and communication technologies are started to be used for reducing anthropogenic GHG emissions and replacing business related travels. Meetings that is held by using ICT, can save money and time as compared to its travel alternative, reduce environmental impact, as well as increase productivity. Especially during financial crisis, business organizations see the importance of managing business travels efficiently. However, adopting VMs into an organization do not automatically reduce the business. In order to achieve the benefits of replacing VMs need to be implemented in an organization effectively by controlling negative rebound effects. The aim of this research is to investigate the ways to reduce environmental impacts of the business related travels and the role of VMs to do that. It also aimed to find the most effective way to use VMs by controlling the negative rebound effect. Other than literature review, the information is gathered through three different source; REMM Project, surveys with travel managers and in-depth interviews with the employees of a large international retail company. According to the finding, after VM development, there are three possible scenarios for the organizations’ business travel trends. For decreasing business travel trend, rebound effect need to be controlled and VMs need to implement effectively. The successful VM adaptations are investigated under five different levels; policy-maker level, organizational (upper management) level, project management level, employee level, technical level. Additionally, for the rebound effects two indicators are selected; the increase in business travel volume and the number of VMs and their durations. Based on these two indicators mitigation measures are developed

The True Cost: The Bitter Truth behind Fast Fashion

The True Cost is a documentary about the clothes we wear, the people who make them and the impact the industry has on the environment, the society, and the workers. It shows us the dark and grim side of global fast fashion supply chain. The review provides the main highlights of the film and summarizes the human, social and environmental costs of the industry. A number of counter-examples are included to show how people can make a difference and there can be a better way of making clothes. The current fast fashion model is all about profit. It does not take into consideration what the true cost is. It is imperative that we start to question, challenge and consider the long term sustainability of this model. In this regard, The True Cost can be a turning point for most of the viewers, inviting consumers, producers, and governments to become more sensitive on these issues

Can Luxury Fashion Provide a Roadmap for Sustainability?

Fashion industry is one of the prominent industries in the world with critical negative impacts on the social and ecological environments. It constitutes a very complex and fragmented industry. The currently dominant model of fast fashion, fulfills the desires of consumers who aspire to wear luxury fashion brands but cannot afford them, by offering them similar styles at affordable prices. However, the main principles of fast fashion, which are speed, affordability, change, disposable trends and aesthetic fads, contradict with sustainability goals and principles. Luxury fashion, on the other hand, emphasizes longevity, durability, authenticity, craftsmanship and quality, and can therefore be better associated with sustainability. Hence, it is important to discuss if luxury fashion brands and retailers are more likely to foster the values of sustainability and thereby initiate change towards a more sustainable fashion system. In this regard, this conceptual paper examines the relationship between fashion and sustainability and assesses how the values of luxury fashion align and or contradict with sustainability. Luxury fashion brands can overcome some of the problems that fast fashion creates. On the other hand, there are some challenges and skepticism about luxury fashion and sustainability relationship. The paper reflects on these conflicts and evaluates the role of luxury fashion in development for a better and a more sustainable fashion system

Conflicting Perspectives on Speed: Dynamics and Consequences of the Fast Fashion System

The fashion industry today is trapped in a competitive cycle of shorter and faster sales and production periods, requiring continual changing of styles, frequent renewal of products, and speed of availability. This high speed of the current fashion system has both positive and negative outcomes on the environment, the workers and the society. The purpose of this study is to provide a more comprehensive and macro perspective on speed, by acknowledging the conflicting perspectives of different stakeholders, focusing mainly on institutional actors. Ethnography, with emphasis on participant observation and interviews, was used as a research method, supported by secondary data on fast fashion and sustainable fashion practices. Findings contribute to existing literature by shedding light on these dynamics and consequences of speed of the current fashion system, hoping to raise awareness among marketers, managers, and public policymakers

A Divided Government, an Ideological Parliament, and an Insecure Leader: Turkey's Indecision about Joining the Iraq War

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Objectives On March 1, 2003, the Turkish parliament rejected a government motion that would involve Turkey in the Iraq war and allow U.S. forces to use Turkish territory in an offensive against Iraq. This decision has been considered as a significant departure from traditional Western-oriented Turkish foreign policy. We investigate the reasons behind this rather unexpected foreign policy decision. Method To systematically examine the decision-making process and the outcome, we utilize the decision-units framework. We present primary and secondary evidence from government and media sources and utilize interviews conducted with some of the high-level decisionmakers that were involved in decision making at the time. This article combines traditional methodological tools, such as elite interviews and process tracing, with novel approaches in foreign policy analysis studies. Results The nature of the decision-unit, decision-making rules, the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the AKP (Adalet and Kalkinma PartisiJustice and Development Party) leadership, and the absence of a strong and decisive leader shaped the outcome. Conclusion The Turkish parliament's decision on its role in the Iraq war is an interesting and informative case for foreign policy studies. It challenges the conventional wisdom on parliamentary influence in foreign policy making in parliamentary regimes. Under certain circumstanceseven when a single-party enjoys parliamentary majorityparliaments can be major players in foreign policy decision making

Religious Discrimination and International Crises: International Effects of Domestic Inequality

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper explores religious discrimination against ethnic groups and foreign policy crisis linkages as part of the broader foreign policy approaches developed by McGowan and Shapiro (1973) and James and Özdamar (2005, 2008). Informed by the literature suggesting that domestic policies of repression and inequality may result in similar patterns of behavior internationally, this study tests whether states characterized by high levels of religious discrimination against ethnoreligious minorities are more likely to initiate or become involved in foreign policy crises with other states in general. A broad range of data sources, including an independently collected religious discrimination index, are used to test the hypothesized relationship between religious discrimination and international crisis during the period 1990-2003. The results suggest that religious discrimination is an important predictor of initiating and becoming involved in international crises. © 2013 International Studies Association

What to expect from a greater geographic dispersion of wind farms? - A risk portfolio approach

The UK, like many other industrialised countries, is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. To achieve this goal the UK is increasingly turning towards wind power as a source of emissions free energy. However, the variable nature of wind power generation makes it an unreliable energy source, especially at higher rates of penetration. Likewise the aim of this paper is to measure the potential reduction in wind power variability that could be realised as a result of geographically dispersing the location of wind farm sites. To achieve this aim wind speed data will be used to simulate two scenarios. The first scenario involves locating a total of 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity in a single location within the UK while the second scenario consists of sharing the same amount of capacity amongst four different locations. A risk portfolio approach as used in financial appraisals is then applied in the second scenario to decide upon the allocation of wind power capacity, amongst the four wind farm sites, that succeeds in minimising overall variability for a given level of wind power generation. The findings of this paper indicate that reductions in the order of 36% in wind power variability are possible as a result of distributing wind power capacity

The link between health condition costs and standard of living: A structural equation modelling

This study employs a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to explore the health related costs using the Standard of Livings (SoL) approach in Turkey, employing data from the cross sectional Household Budget Survey (HBS) over the period 2002-2013. The SEM allows us to investigate all these concerns simultaneously. A health condition index is created regarding questions related to the mental and physical limitations (disability) of people. The study extends the previous research by the following ways. First, a SEM framework is introduced, which accounts for the measurement error in both SoL and health-condition indices and it allows for the simultaneous estimation of the link between health condition costs and SoL using structural equations. The underlying theory of the SoL approach is that a household’s SoL is a function of needs and income and the additional costs of disability can be estimated by comparing the standard of livings of household with and without disabled members and controlling for other source of variation. The results show that disability has a significant and negative impact on SoL. Second, exploiting the health reform of 2008, a quasi-experiment approach using difference-in-difference (DID) regression within a SEM framework between the disabled and non-disabled households takes place. The disability related costs consist of the 23 per cent of the household income corresponding to 4,000 Turkish Liras (TL)

The Current Perspectives, Theories and Practices of Mobile Learning

Mobile learning (m-learning) is a highly popular multidisciplinary study field around the world. It has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in different disciplines who have realized the potential to apply mobile technologies to enchance learning. Thus, mobile learning has been defined differently by different people. This study is a review of m-learning literature for understanding and discussion of current perspectives and theories in mobile learning. Additionally, some m-learning practices that are implemented in different sectors such as corporate, university and military have been mentioned