crisis or opportunity economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability introduction to this special issue abstract this article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth this is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level in the short and long term the paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible degrowth proponents come from diverse origins some are critics of market globalization new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world all criticize gdp accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations demand a deepening of democracy defend ecosystems and propose a more equal distribution of wealth we distinguish between depression i e unplanned degrowth within a growth regime and sustainable degrowth a voluntary smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption the question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis it would actually be a democratic collective decision a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio environmental justice worldwide most articles in this issue were originally presented at the april 2008 conference in paris on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity this conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article hueting d alessandro and colleagues van den bergh kerschner spangenberg and alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are un sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable matthey and hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth lietaert and cattaneo with gavalda offer a down to earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments cohousing and squats highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives finally van griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes

technological regimes schumpeterian patterns of innovation and firm level productivity growth the paper investigates the relationships between technological regimes and firm level productivity performance and it explores how such a relationship differs in different schumpeterian patterns of innovation the analysis makes use of a rich dataset containing data on innovation and other economic characteristics of a large representative sample of norwegian firms in manufacturing and service industries for the period 1998 2004 first we decompose tfp growth into technical progress and efficiency changes by means of data envelopment analysis we then estimate an empirical model that relates these two productivity components to the characteristics of technological regimes and a set of other firm specific factors the results indicate that 1 tfp growth has mainly been achieved through technical progress while technical efficiency has on average decreased 2 the characteristics of technological regimes are important determinants of firm level productivity growth but their impacts on technical progress are different from the effects on efficiency change 3 the estimated model works differently in the two schumpeterian regimes technical progress has been more dynamic in schumpeter mark ii industries while efficiency change has been more important in schumpeter mark i markets

enhancing socio ecological value creation through sustainable innovation 2 0 moving away from maximizing financial value capture abstract there is considerable consensus that a key to addressing the serious socio ecological crises facing the world is for organizations to implement innovations that foster sustainable development drawing from the sustainability innovation and resource based view literature this paper aims to examine the organizational capabilities associated with promoting a particular sustainable innovation conservation agriculture among small scale farmers in low income countries findings suggest that a paradigm shift is needed to what we call sustainable innovation 2 0 sustainable innovation 2 0 is associated with a double bottom line approach to sustainability that seeks to enhance positive socio ecological externalities while maintaining financially viable organizations i e financial well being is subservient to socio ecological well being we describe how sustainable innovation 2 0 is associated with i making rare sustainable innovations commonplace ii making inimitable emerging sustainable innovations transferable and iii developing institutional infrastructures and bundles of resources that counteract the non substitutability of sustainable innovations we discuss the implications of these ideas for the associated literature and for future research

the costs and benefits of foreign borrowing a survey of multi period models this article surveys the literature on multi period models of foreign borrowing to shed light on the issue of how much a country should borrow and under what circumstances there is a role for public intervention it identifies the essential structural elements of multi period models and draws out the ramifications of the alternative specifications adopted it discusses the insights and shortcomings of three classes of models non optimising optimising borrower and jointly optimising borrower and lender

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

from a systematic literature review to integrated definition for sustainable supply chain innovation ssci publisher elsevier articletitle from a systematic literature review to integrated definition for sustainable supply chain innovation ssci journaltitle journal of cleaner production articlelink http dx doi org 10 1016 j jclepro 2016 11 153 content type article copyright 2016 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

technological innovation and the distribution of employment growth a firm level analysis this work studies the firm level relationship between different types of innovative activities and employment growth rates improving on previous investigations on the topic it combines a detailed analysis of the effects of product and process innovation on average employment growth with a broader outlook on the whole conditional employment growth distribution results show that product innovation especially in terms of good new to the entire market has a positive effect on employment growth this role is likely to be particularly relevant for both fast growing and shrinking firms process innovation appears instead to have less clear cut dynamics consistently with existing evidence among different types of process innovation the introduction of novel auxiliary processes appears to be more positively linked with employment growth

innovation and productivity across four european countries nber working paper seriesinnovation and productivity across four european countriesrachel griffithelena huergojacques mairessebettina petersworking paper 12722http www nber org papers w12722national bureau of economic research1050 massachusetts avenuecambridge ma 02138december 2006we would like to thank laura abramovsky manuel arellano rupert harrison jordi jaumandreu elizabeth kremp pierre mohnen helen simpson the analysis contained in this paper was fundedby the european commission the esrc and esf under grant res 000 23 0901 and the advancedinstitute of management research aim all errors and omissions remain the responsibility of theauthors the views expressed herein are those of the author s and do not necessarily reflect the viewsof the national bureau of economic research 2006 by rachel griffith elena huergo jacques mairesse and bettina peters all rights reserved short sections of text not to exceed two paragraphs may be quoted without explicit permission providedthat full credit including notice is given to the source

sustainable supply chain management in emerging economies environmental turbulence institutional voids and sustainability trajectories abstract although research on supply chain management has made many valuable contributions there is a dearth of empirical evidence and theoretical reflection on the characteristics of supply chains that operate mainly in developing and emerging economies the aim of this paper is to help to fill this gap by exploring how supply chain sustainability can be implemented and managed in these settings an in depth case study of the upstream oil and gas industry supply chain in brazil was used to develop propositions about supply chains that operate in developing settings drawing from institutional theory evolutionary theory complexity theory and from the organizational learning innovation and strategy literatures this paper offers four key findings and contributions to the supply chain literature first it shows that becoming a sustainable supply chain is not a destination but a journey where trajectory and time matter given the evolutionary nature of supply chain sustainability trajectories this paper highlights that supply chains learn and evolve just as organizations do second this research indicates that although globalization is a trend natural resource based supply chains are often more geographically bounded and susceptible to local social demands than other supply chains third this paper extends the supply chain literature by arguing that supply chains face additional barriers to sustainability in developing and emerging economies which contribute to a higher degree of complexity and uncertainty due to the existence of highly turbulent business environments and institutional voids these factors in turn hinder supply chain learning and innovation and reduce the slope of supply chains sustainability trajectories finally this research contributes to the literature by claiming that due to the highly complex and uncertain business environments in these settings focal companies play an even more important role in managing the escalating ambiguity stimulating supply chain learning and promoting innovation towards supply chains enhanced sustainability performance

domestic market power and foreign trade abstract this paper develops a conjectural variation model to include foreign trade and applies it to the swedish industry the main conclusions emerging from the empirical application are that the degree of implicit collusion is generally very low in sweden and further that while high seller concentration exerts a positive influence on this degree there is strong and counteracting competitive pressure from foreign trade a more general conclusion is that it is important to include foreign trade in analyses of market power in open economies

the governance of sustainable socio technical transitions a quasi evolutionary model of socio technical transitions is described in which regimes face selection pressures continuously differentiated transition contexts determine the form and direction of regime change in response to these pressures the articulation of pressures and the degree to which responses are coordinated and based on resources available within the regime define the transition context four alternative contexts are described endogenous renewal re orientation of trajectories emergent transformation and purposive transitions agency and power in the governance of regime transformation are analysed power to affect change depends on regime membership the distribution of resources for change and expectations

sustainability in mining minerals and energy new processes pathways and human interactions for a cautiously optimistic future the supply of minerals and energy is critical to global society however this supply is associated with social and environmental impacts leading to concerns of generational and intergenerational equity in light of these concerns a call for papers for a special volume on the mining industry was issued with the view that such academic work could assist in reducing the negative impacts associated with this industry this paper introduces the special volume the sustainability agenda of the minerals and energy supply and demand network an integrative analysis of ecological ethical economic and technological dimensions the special volume contains 84 articles divided into several themes sustainability accounting and reporting corporate social responsibility future mining challenges integrative frameworks for sustainability management aspects mining in a developing context and new frontiers in the oil and gas industry the special volume also includes two letters on contemporary issues with commentaries on these from experts in the fields viz community conflict and land rehabilitation insights obtained across these themes are summarized and recommendations are made of what is needed to build upon the findings of this special volume a research agenda is proposed for the future from the gaps and synergies identified the overall contribution of this special volume is that it renews the debate on the sustainability challenges for the mining industry and provides transdisciplinary insights into resolving some of these challenges

price behaviour in the italian manufacturing industry abstract this paper sets out to test the hypothesis that the price cost margins of italian manufacturing industries are influenced by excess domestic demand and by international prices of manufactured products using annual data 1956 1982 a mark up equation is estimated for each of the twelve industries in which the manufacturing sector has been disaggregated the ratio of industry price to average total cost is functionally related to the ratio of international price to domestic cost and a measure of excess demand on the basis of the estimates which are obtained by maximum likelihood techniques and some specification tests it is concluded that both factors influence pricing behaviour although their effect is not uniformly significant in every sector

towards sustainable consumption and production competitive pricing of modular products for green consumers abstract concern for unsustainable development has peaked and promoting and devising sustainable production and consumption is vital therefore via an analytical model we examine the impact of modularity and consumer sensitivity to sustainability on the pricing decisions of two competing firms consider an environmentally conscious green consumer who will buy one of two available horizontally differentiated products a modular product m manufactured by firm m or a standard product s manufactured by firm s firm m can take advantage of its modular production technology and product return policy for such a consumer driven demand setting we develop a model and solve to optimality a single stage non cooperative game where both firms simultaneously set their competitive prices in addition to analytical expressions for the optimal prices and the profits for both firms we provide structural results and numerical examples to render practical insights the refund rate has a strong impact on profits sensitivity of product greenness can be increased by conscientious advertising and the reusability of modular parts encourages lower pricing and higher market share we assert that modularity is a strong concept and practice in developing sustainable products and thereby in production which in turn may enhance sustainable consumption this study s findings have direct implications for reverse supply chain management and firms should take these findings into account early in the product design phase

constructing sustainable palm oil how actors define sustainability abstract biofuels as a renewable source of energy have gained considerable importance in recent years the use of biofuels is expected to rise since national governments of developed nations like the us and european countries see it as one of the ways to fulfill climate targets and increase the security in their energy supply production of biofuels is also expected to rise as developing nations see in biofuels the opportunity for connecting to international markets through supplying a new demand in the energy market several studies report on the environmental social and economic gains and detriments that can arise from increased biofuel production and consumption however research that provides insight into the way in which such issues are defined by actors within the product chain is scarce in this article we analyse how the strategies and value definitions of actors involved in the production and consumption of biofuels lead to specific definitions of sustainability the empirical material concerns the chain of palm oil production in colombia and electricity generation in the netherlands it is analysed using the method of action in context which allows us to uncover the level and source of diversity of sustainability definitions in the product chain while the current growth in production of palm oil is definitely buyer driven the analysis of various activities in the chain shows that several aspects of sustainability are defined in more complex actor fields throughout the product chain

the paradox of sustainable innovation the eroom effect moore s law backwards innovation has been widely acknowledged as a key mechanism for addressing sustainable development concerns however less attention has focused on downstream commercialization challenges such as achieving increasingly complex and stringent regulatory approval such challenges may hinder the development of more sustainable technologies especially those coming from smaller or publically funded institutes as well they may obstruct the development of applications that could provide societal benefits but may only have limited commercial viability due to small market niches or applicability to customers with limited financial means we explore this apparent paradox using the concept of the eroom effect moore s law backwards i e where improved price performance due to technological advances are outweighed by increasing costs of regulatory approval and other commercialization costs we illustrate this phenomenon with two cases of publically funded institutes one developing transgenic cotton and the other lignin transformation technology that can replace petroleum based feedstocks in a number of industrial applications we discuss the unintended consequences of the eroom effect and conclude with implications for industry policy and ngos

the profitability concentration relation market power or efficiency industrial economists have been studying the relationship between profitability and concentration using cross industry samples for many years now however as sometimes happens once it appeared that some consensus had been achieved with few exceptions market concentration and industry profitability are positively correlated peltzman i977 p 229 people began to question the interpretation of those results in particular demsetz e g i973 i974 and others suggested that rather than concentration market power leading to higher prices and profits the causal direction in fact ran from greater efficiency to both higher profits and incidentally to higher concentration our purpose here is to subject these conflicting hypotheses to cross industry empirical test using u k data in order to do this we first develop a model which is sufficiently general to allow for both alternative explanations of a positive concentration profitability correlation in the light of this model we then examine the implications for the within industry relation between market share and firm level profitability more specifically we explore demsetz s claim that the empirical form of this relationship should signal which of the alternative hypotheses is consistent with the between industry profitability concentration correlation our model suggests that in certain special circumstances this claim is partly justified in that it should be possible to assess the relative strengths of the market power and efficiency effects from the within industry relation more generally however factors such as product differentiation and scale economies may seriously impair the information content of the relation with at least a strong suspicion that the estimates will tend to exaggerate the evidence in favour of the efficiency hypothesis in the event our results tend to confirm that for most industries the within industry data offer little conclusive support for either hypothesis but for a not insignificant minority of industries the evidence suggests some support for the view that both efficiency and market power are at work simultaneously our model is detailed in section ii and estimated on u k data in section iii after which we offer a few comments in section iv first however we drovide a backcloth to the later analysis

business models of heat entrepreneurship in finland abstract this paper presents the business models of small scale heat energy production in finland firstly the development of heat entrepreneurship in the country is presented including the remarkable growth of small and medium size enterprises smes in the last 15 years secondly the concept of business model business architecture of product service flows and earning logics is modified to the framework of wood heat production the business model concept and its sub concepts is applied in a brief review of current heat energy businesses in finland we arrive at a business model of heat entrepreneurships that are public companies utilities public private partnerships private companies and cooperatives energy saving company esco network model of large enterprise and franchising descriptive cases of these models are presented finally the paper concludes with a discussion on the applicability of the business models in different operational environments and geographical contexts

a fuzzy linear programming enterprise input output model for optimal crisis operations in industrial complexes abstract industrial complexes may be subject to significant risk of cascading failure caused by various disruptions and emerging economies are potentially more susceptible to the impacts as less established policies are in place to deal with these issues in particular there is a need to develop adaptation strategies to ensure the resilience of industrial activities to various perturbations that may result from climate change the inherent complexity of such systems makes decision making for risk management a non trivial task that is best facilitated with the aid of mathematical models enterprise input output models have been used extensively to model production systems at different scales in this work a fuzzy linear programming enterprise input output model is developed to determine optimal adjustments in production levels of multi product systems when a crisis is induced by a loss of resource inputs the model allows for adjustments that are equitable for different decision makers that may comprise an industrial complex or a supply chain capabilities of the model are illustrated with a case study on the effect of water shortage on an aluminum production system

technological infrastructure and international competitiveness the paper is probably the first written paper using the concept of the national innovation system and it analyses how technological infrastructure differs between countries and how such differences are reflected in international competitiveness it makes a critical review of new in the 1980s developments in the theory of international trade and confronts them with recent empirical results it shows how competitiveness cannot be explained by wage rates prices currency rates technological leadership gives absolute rather than comparative advantage and technological leadership will reflect institutions supporting coupling creating clustering comprehending and coping in connection with technology the analysis is rooted in historical context through references to friedrich list and his criticism of adam smith and laissez faire special emphasis is put on list s concept of mental capital finally the analytical arguments are illustrated by the catching up and forging ahead of first germany and later japan the paper concludes that disequilibria in international trade will be persistent and that for laggard economy the free trade doctrine may be unduly restrictive another conclusion is that public investment in technological infrastructure and intellectual capital is crucial for successful economic development it is pointed out that there is a need to couple education science trade and industry policy in order to build competitiveness

privatization of electricity distribution in the northeast of brazil the good the bad the ugly or the naive this paper analyzes the evolution of five electricity distribution companies in the northeast of brazil using technical and financial indicators three privatized and two public firms were analyzed between 1997 and 2008 the financial indicators are used as proxies for the capacity of the business to generate value for shareholders while the technical indicators are used as proxies for service quality provided to consumers we observed that the privatized firms had their financial indicators improved after privatization increasing the value of the firm for the shareholders however there is no evidence that privatization affected the quality of service provided to consumers

debt and the developing countries a simple model of optimal borrowing this article proposes a simple macroeconomic model of optimal borrowing for ldcs using a two period framework it is shown that optimal debt levels are functions of interest rates on debt shadow exchange rates the shares of investment in domestic output and foreign inflows the multiplier effects of investment and borrowing on output growth and inter temporal consumption preferences empirical evidence is considered on the main observable variables and provides a basis for simulation exercises for appropriate parameter values optimal borrowing is found to be particularly sensitive to the interest rate capital productivity and the extent of foreign inflows invested

in pursuit of monopoly power recent quantitative work in industrial economics this paper reviews empirical work in industrial organization devoted to the question of inferring the existence of monopoly power from data on observed market outcomes like profits and prices the discussion covers inter industry work long conventional in the area newer developments in intra industry analysis and case studies and concludes with some remarks on a small but growing body of work assessing market dynamics the wide range of studies reviewed all generally reveal that market power exists in many industries

the impact of technological and organizational innovations on employment in european firms by using firm level data provided by the fourth community innovation survey cis4 for a selected number of eu countries this article explores the employment impact of innovation extending the analysis to organizational change the empirical evidence presented shows that both technological and organizational innovation exert a positive impact on employment mainly indirectly that is by improving growth performances in firms the strength of these indirect effects have been found to vary across different types of innovations despite the limits imposed by data at our disposal the evidence presented seems to somewhat diminish the relevance of the labor displacing effects of the process innovation the latter being strong and clearly visible only within the manufacturing industry and only when process innovations are combined with organizational changes copyright 2012 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

a note on the burden of the mexican foreign debt abstract this paper examines the macroeconomic repercussions of the future foreign debt restrictions that mexico will face our view is that credit conditions will be fundamentally modified in the years to come so that the foreign debt will have to grow at a substantial lower rate than in the recent past given the reduced availability of foreign savings the relevant question is whether the country will be able to generate enough internal savings to compensate for the fall of foreign savings and thus produce the necessary flow of investment to sustain an adequate rate of growth we also examine the burden of the interest rate that mexico is paying on its foreign debt in terms of additional required savings and or lower economic growth

a hard nut to crack implementing supply chain sustainability in an emerging economy abstract in the last decade sustainable supply chain management has become a key topic in the sustainability literature as well as a buzzword in industry and policy circles although research has made substantial contributions there is a lack of understanding on how focal companies operating in emerging economies can lead the implementation of sustainability into their supply chains this research connects and advances the constructs of cleaner production sustainability and supply chains by exploring a classic case of a focal company operating in an emerging economy that even facing considerable challenges has been able to succeed in transforming its entire supply chain drawing from stakeholder theory and contingency theory this research offers four key contributions to the sustainability and supply chain discourses as follows 1 it proposes an innovation centered approach to sustainable supply chain management by adapting and extending the tcos uncertainty framework 2 it suggests that the way a focal company manages and is influenced by its established network of relationships shape the evolution of the supply chain sustainability trajectories 3 it argues that supply chains are dynamic entities and should then be considered and understood through the lenses of evolutionary approaches and 4 it suggests that the implementation and management of sustainable supply chains are context specific challenges and therefore theoretical managerial and policy generalizations are difficult to be achieved

validity of sustainability framework for china s mining cities a structural equation modelling approach abstractmany studies developed their framework for sustainability through indicator systems but the interactions and relationships within these indicators have not been studied yet in this article based on indicator systems we use a sample of 78 mining cities in china and employ structural equation modelling sem method to explore the validity of sustainability framework our empirical results show that resources abundance positively affects urbanization level significantly but negatively affects cleaner production level and environmental protection level significantly economic strength positively affects urbanization level significantly cleaner production level has a significant effect on economic strength and non mineral resources conversion efficiency we also find that when economic strength is low resources abundance might weaken the positive effect of economy on urbanization

assessing the relationship between economic and ecological performance distinguishing system levels and the role of innovation in this article we critically discuss the different perspectives that are currently in use for assessing the relationship between ecological and economic performance based on a review of the literature we propose that research up till now has made use of four distinct system boundaries the firm markets production and consumption systems and economic systems making these boundaries explicit is helpful in interpreting the mixed results that have been obtained we describe the consequences of the choice for each of these system boundaries and look at implications for innovation we also argue that the production and consumption system boundary offers potential for further advances in the field and deserves more attention in future research

competitiveness of nations a knowledge discovery examination this paper presents the insights gained from the use of data mining and multivariate statistical techniques to identify important factors associated with a country s competitiveness and the development of knowledge discovery in databases kdd models to predict it in addition to stepwise regression and weighted non linear programming techniques intelligent learning techniques artificial neural networks and inferential techniques classification and regression trees were applied to a dataset of 43 countries from the world competitiveness yearbook wcy the dataset included 55 variables on economic internationalization governmental financial infrastructure management science and technology as well as demographic and cultural characteristics exploratory data analysis and parameter calibration of the intelligent method architectures preceded the development and evaluation of reasonably accurate models mean absolute error 5 5 and subsequent out of sample validations the strengths and weaknesses of each of the kdd techniques were assessed along with their relative performance and the primary input variables influencing a country s competitiveness our analysis reveals that the primary drivers of competitiveness are lower country risk rating and higher computer usage in entrepreneurial urbanized societies with less male dominance and basic infrastructure with higher gross domestic investment savings and private consumption more imports of goods and services than exports increased purchase power parity gdp larger and more productive but not less expensive labor force and higher r d expenditures without diminishing the role and importance of wcy reports our approach can be useful to estimate the competitiveness of many countries not included in wcy while our findings may benefit policy makers and international agencies to expand their own abilities insights and establish priorities for improving country competitiveness

organisational capabilities and learning in complex product systems towards repeatable solutions this paper suggests that chandler s chandler a d 1990 scale and scope the dynamics of industrial capitalism belknap press of harvard univ press cambridge ma organisational capabilities framework can be modified to explain how suppliers of complex product systems cops build the capabilities necessary to expand successfully into new lines of business in addition to chandler s functional and strategic capabilities we propose the concept of project capabilities to refer to important cops activities of bid preparation and project execution an organisational learning cycle model is presented to show cops firms can move from the first bid or project of its kind in a new domain of business to achieve what we call economies of repetition by putting in place organisational changes routines and learning processes to provide a growing number of similar bids and projects more efficiently and effectively

employment innovation and productivity evidence from italian microdata italian manufacturing firms have been losing ground with respect to many of their european competitors this paper presents some empirical evidence on the effects of innovation on employment growth and therefore on firms productivity with the goal of understanding the roots of such poor performance we use firm level data from the last three surveys on italian manufacturing firms conducted by mediocredito capitalia which cover the period 1995 2003 using a modified version of the model proposed by harrison jaumandreu mairesse and peters 2005 which separates employment growth rates into those associated with old and new products we provide robust evidence that there is no employment displacement effect stemming from process innovation the sources of employment growth during the period are split equally between the net contribution of product innovation and the net contribution from sales growth of old products however the contribution of product innovation is somewhat lower than that for the four comparison european countries considered by harrison et al

integrating cleaner production into sustainability strategies an introduction to this special volume abstract this special volume of the journal of cleaner production is built primarily upon articles submitted for the 4th international workshop advances in cleaner production held in sao paulo brazil in 2013 the 54 articles underscore the urgent need for changing from unsustainable production and societal patterns to sustainable ones they provide many new approaches to help industries governments and society to speed up the transition to sustainable patterns the authors focus on defining and solving problems with special emphasis upon sustainability strategies raw material replacement renewable energy technological developments product and policy changes the central roles of improved corporate management for sustainable societal transitions are explored with an emphasis upon stakeholder empowerment in promoting implementation of new cleaner technologies within companies industrial sectors supply chains and countries some authors improved assessment tools for environmental accounting at the biospheric scale some authors underscored the need for cooperation among governments industrial sectors and companies to accelerate the integration of cleaner production into policies and practice multiple examples of successful integration of cp in national and local policy structures exemplified how focused work in key industrial sectors is delivering multiplier benefits within and among companies and in the community at large the authors documented numerous benefits of holistic integration of local regional national and global efforts to accelerate the transition to sustainable development and societal well being

sustainable innovations in the corporate sector the empirical evidence from ibex 35 firms abstract sustainable innovation practices those which simultaneously contribute to environmental social and economic value creation have drawn increased attention from academics industry leaders and policy makers around the globe there is a general agreement that innovation is a very important part of the puzzle in achieving long term sustainability thus a critical question to be answered is what factors actually differentiate and appear to contribute to sustainable innovations si at the firm level this paper addresses the question by examining empirical evidence from the ibex 35 companies from the years 2010 2015 our results obtained from multivariate regression model indicate that the intensity of a firm s si activity is strongly and statistically significantly associated with the sector in which a given firm operates with a rising level of environmental footprint acting as a stimulant for innovation additionally firms characterized by higher net profit margins and returns on equity were also much more likely to introduce sis the findings also suggest that factors like size and age of a given company as well as level of competition in a sector in which it operates are not significant predictors for the implementation of sustainable innovations overall this study contributes to our understanding of the main characteristics of companies active in the area of si

organisational change technology employment and skills an empirical study of french manufacturing this paper analyses the correlations between technological change organisational change and skill change using a survey on organisational change in manufacturing firms conducted in 1993 considerable diversity is allowed for in terms of the measure of technological and organisational change and the analysis shows a positive correlation between technological change and reorganisations whatever their types the paper then analyses the relationships between these changes and the employment behaviour of firms it shows that changes in the required skills and in the occupational structure of firms are more closely connected to organisational than to technological change although organisational change affects the work content and skill requirements of blue collar workers it is mainly indirect workers that are affected in terms of the number employed finally the analysis shows that technology tends to stabilise the workforce whereas the move towards the model of flexible enterprise favours its renewal copyright 2003 oxford university press

employment and technological innovation evidence from u k manufacturing firms this article uses british firm level panel data on actual innovative activity drawn from different statistical sources to identify the effect of technical change on jobs previous work tends to find positive associations of proxies for technical change and employment but such studies suffer from various statistical drawbacks in this study even when one controls for fixed effects dynamics and endogeneity innovations have a positive and significant effect on employment which persists over several years there seems to be little direct role for spillover effects from industry innovations or any role for industry wages or union power

cooperation v rivalry price cost margins by line of business fl c bureau of economics working papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment all data contained in them are in the public domain this includes information obtained by the commission which has become part of public record the analyses and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and do not n essarily ref1 t the views of other members of the bureau of economics other commission staff or the commission itself upon request single copies of the paper will be provided references in publications to fit bureau of economics working papers by ffc economists other than acknowledgement by a writer tnat ne has access to such unpublished materials should be cleared with the author to prot t the tentative character of these papers

real interest rates home goods and optimal external borrowing the paper investigates the optimal time path of consumption and external borrowing in the dependent economy model the small country faces given world prices and a given world real interest rate the presence of a home goods sector implies that the relevant real interest rate appropriate to consumption decisions depends on the rate of change of the real price of home goods the paper shows how transitory disturbances in output or in the world real interest rate affect the time profile of consumption and the trade balance in particular it is shown that the presence of a home goods sector dampens the consumption effects of changes in the world interest rate

university industry relations and research group production is there a bidirectional relationship this study aims to analyze if there is a bidirectional relationship between university industry collaboration and scientific production the results from a sample of 137 research groups at a university in an ultra peripheral region reveal the existence of this bidirectional relationship scientific production has a positive influence on university industry relations thus when the articles published by the research groups increase the contracts between university and industry also increase moreover the results reflect a nonlinear relationship between contracts and scientific production university industry relations are complementary to scientific production up to a certain level and after that point there is a substitution effect the results also show the moderating effect of the knowledge area on this relationship because groups belonging to technology oriented areas have higher scientific production in response to university industry relations

r d innovation and productivity new evidence from italian manufacturing microdata italian manufacturing firms have been losing ground with respect to many of their european competitors this article presents some empirical evidence on the effects of innovation on employment growth and therefore on firms productivity with the goal of understanding the roots of such poor performance we use firm level data from the last three surveys on italian manufacturing firms conducted by mediocredito capitalia which cover the period 1995 2003 using a slightly modified version of the model proposed by harrison jaumandreu mairesse and peters harrison et al 2005 which separates employment growth rates into those associated with old and new products we find no evidence of significant employment displacement effects stemming from process innovation the sources of employment growth during the period are split equally between the net contribution of product innovation and the net contribution from sales growth of old products however the contribution of product innovation to employment growth is somewhat lower than in the four european countries considered in harrison et al 2005 and the contribution of innovation in general to productivity growth is almost nil in italy during this period

are cleaner production innovations the solution for small mining operations in poor regions the case of padua in brazil abstract mining in santo antonio de padua a city located in the underdeveloped northeast area of the rio de janeiro state in brazil is currently the most important economic activity in the region unfortunately companies lag behind technologically and use rudimentary production methods which cause serious environmental problems social implications and poor competitiveness in order to seek sustainable solutions for the padua mining region local support organizations have created initiatives to develop endogenous cleaner production innovations to enhance the industry s sustainability performance during this process some barriers for mining companies to adopt these developed technologies have emerged this research draws on the cleaner production sustainability and innovation literature and uses a qualitative research with multiple sources of evidence to understand the dynamics behind the padua mining region more specifically this research explores how initiatives to improve the sustainability performance led by local support organizations took place analyzes their outcomes i e cleaner production innovations and identifies some of the barriers to technology adoption this paper offers three key research contributions first we claim that cleaner production approaches alone cannot create sustainable mining regions in emerging and developing countries but they are definitively a step in the right direction since they provide the base for expanding the scope towards sustainability second we argue that technology cannot be understood as the panacea for sustainability because it will never represent the complete solution for companies sustainability problems third we claim that companies can face a managerial trap if they pursue enhanced sustainability performance solely through the adoption of cleaner production innovations

paradoxes and dilemmas for stakeholder responsive firms in the extractive sector lessons from the case of shell and the ogoni this paper examines some of the paradoxes and dilemmas facing firms in the extractive sector when they attempt to take on a more stakeholder responsive orientation towards issues of environmental and social responsibility we describe the case of shell and the ogoni and attempt to draw out some of the lessons of that case for more sustainable operations in the developing world we argue that firms such as shell rio tinto and others may well exhibit increasingly stakeholder responsive behaviours at the corporate strategic level however for reasons of strategy lack of competency or institutional will this increasing level of corporate responsiveness may not be mirrored effectively in dealings between subsidiary business units and their most important direct stakeholders for example local communities and in the developing world we contrast the struggles of shell to replicate its corporate stakeholder responsiveness at the local level in nigeria with the experiences of other firms that seem to have developed managerial capabilities at a somewhat deeper level throughout the firm with consequent benefits both for stakeholders and the business

cleaner production towards a sustainable transition abstract this special volume of the journal of cleaner production was built principally upon articles submitted for the 5th international workshop advances in cleaner production held in sao paulo brazil in 2015 the 43 articles emphasize the imperative need for shifting from unsustainable production and societal patterns to sustainable ones they provide many new technological and or management related approaches to help industries governments and society to speed up the transition to sustainable patterns efforts on defining and solving problems with the special accent upon a sustainable solution for the use of raw materials and energy technological advances product and policy changes are presented and deeply discussed improved corporate management for sustainable societal transitions is discussed highlighting consumer empowerment in sponsoring implementation of innovative cleaner technologies within companies industrial sectors supply chains and countries multiple examples are provided relating the successful combination of cleaner production in policy structures illustrating on how the focused work in production sectors is delivering multiplier benefits and creating conditions to facilitate a leapfrogged path toward sd

cleaner technology diffusion case studies modeling and policy abstract the development and application of cleaner technologies environmental technologies offer multiple benefits for the adopter reduced emissions less waste and cost savings from reduced resource use and savings on waste costs the question here is if cleaner technologies offer such great benefits why they are diffusing so slowly across the economy this special issue is about answering this question by presenting a collection of contributions that lay down a good foundation for students scholars practitioners and policy makers interested in making sustainable development more than a metaphor the contributions range from surveys of literature identifying gaps and directions in the field cleaner technology diffusion case studies advances in diffusion modeling and diffusion policy issues and recommendations in general the set of papers present an overview of the advances in the field of cleaner technologies diffusion research

productivity effects of organizational change microeconometric evidence this paper analyzes the relationship between investment in information and communication technologies ict non ict investment labor productivity and workplace reorganization firms are assumed to reorganize workplaces if the productivity gains arising from workplace reorganization exceed the associated reorganization costs two different types of organizational change are considered enhancement group work and flattening of hierarchies empirical evidence is provided for a sample of 411 firms from the german business related services sector we develop and estimate a model for labor productivity and firms decision to reorganize workplaces that allows workplace reorganization to affect any parameter of the labor productivity equation our general and flexible methodology allows us to properly take account of strategic complementarities between the input factors and workplace reorganization the estimation results show that changes in human resources practices do not significantly affect firms output elasticities with respect to ict non ict capital and labor although most of the point estimates of the individual output elasticities and of the control variables for observable firm heterogeneity are larger if workplace reorganization is realized we therefore apply the kernel density estimation technique and demonstrate that for firms with organizational change theentire labor productivity distribution shifts significantly out to the right if workplace reorganization takes place indicating that workplace reorganization induces an increase in labor productivity that is attributable to complementarities between the various input factors and workplace reorganization by contrast firms without organizational change would not have realized significant productivity gains if they had reorganized workplaces