Food Justice: An Empirical Analysis of Food Landscapes and Population Health in a Large U.S. City

This study examines the challenge of “food justice” by investigating the relationships between food landscapes and the health and wellbeing of local communities in a large urban setting. We identify and discuss the implications of these relationships for advancing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger, improving health and wellness for all, and promoting sustainable agriculture. Empirical results show that controlling for several health-related variables, rates of obesity in a community coincide with the incidence of food outlets with no or low produce available. That is, urban neighborhoods with higher numbers of stores selling mostly unhealthy food options and little or no fresh fruits and vegetables are characterized by higher rates of obesity. Lack of access to healthy foods is a symptom of food injustice. Implications for social entrepreneurs, business and government leaders, and public health professionals are discussed along with ways to address the pervasive global challenge of food injustice

Organizational Alignment and Performance: Past, Present and Future

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and define the types of organizational alignment – vertical and horizontal; to examine the evidence for the alignment‐performance relationship, and propose research questions and practical implications to advance the theory and practice of managing alignment. Design/methodology/approach – The study is a conceptual examination based on a thorough review of both theoretical and empirical research. Findings – The paper finds that vertical alignment has received considerably more attention in the literature. Studies of horizontal alignment within organizations are less common. When horizontal alignment is studied, the focus tends to be dyadic – between two functional areas. The limitations posed by the dyadic approach suggest gaps in the research and opportunities for future research. As firms grow and diversify, becoming multi‐business organizations, the importance of horizontal alignment will be elevated. Research limitations/implications – Research on vertical alignment should focus on developing larger sets of moderating variables, such as the morale of the workforce, or the life cycle of the firm or industry. Research on horizontal alignment should explore multi‐point horizontal alignment. Practical implications – Managers in organizations with multiple strategic business units could use the application questions in the study to assess the state of alignment in their respective units and the organization as a whole. Originality/value – The paper documents existing literature on the concept of organizational alignment and identifies new opportunities to continue to build and expand the research stream. It also provides a list of application questions that may be used to assess organizational alignment in organizations

Competitive Priorities and Strategic Consensus in Emerging Economies: Evidence from India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the competitive priorities of manufacturers in India, and examine the level of agreement or strategic consensus between senior executives and manufacturing managers on manufacturing competitive priorities in light of the prevalent culture. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data collected from 156 respondents from 78 manufacturing units based on a national sample in India are used to test the hypotheses using the paired samples t‐tests and multivariate analysis of variance. Findings – A relatively high emphasis by both levels of managers on quality, compared to the other three competitive priorities, is noteworthy and consistent with the global trends. The emphasis on delivery is a close second. Differences in competitive priorities exist across managerial levels in India despite the high power distance and low individualism. Research limitations/implications – The effect of ownership as private or public company was examined and no significant differences found, but data could not be collected on the ownership structure such as wholly owned domestic firms, foreign subsidiaries, or joint ventures. and whether a firm is a supplier to a multinational company. It may also be noted that a majority of the manufacturing companies in this paper came from three industries – chemicals, fabricated metals, and electronic and electrical equipment – and, hence, the findings of the paper might have been unduly influenced by the prevalent practices in these industries. Practical implications – The paper informs global managers and firms seeking to outsource to, or invest in, India that the Indian managers place significantly high emphasis on quality and delivery, but not as much on product variety or ability to make frequent changes to product design and production volume. The managers in India need to take note of prevailing differences in managerial priorities and efforts need to be made such that the priorities are aligned and manufacturing strategy may be unified and coordinated. Originality/value – In the Indian context, this is the first study that deployed multiple respondents to understand the manufacturing competitive priorities, and also the first to examine strategic consensus in operations strategy

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale