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

negotiating an agreement on global warming a theoretical analysis abstract the outcome of international negotiation on combatting global warming is derived and analyzed using a two country bargaining model it is shown that while side payments between countries will generally be part of an agreement some of these payments are made purely as a result of asymmetry in bargaining power and have nothing to do with the polluter pays principle or the victim pays principle factors affecting the outcome of negotiation include a country s size of population the welfare level at the disagreement point and the order of making offers the enforcement issue is also discussed

examining generic competitive strategy types in u s and european markets identification of generic competitive strategy types has recently attracted considerable attention most of this research has however focused on competitive strategy of u s businesses in their domestic market the present study extends these findings to markets outside the united states and more specifically europe based on a sample of industrial businesses drawn from the pims database similar dimensions underlying competitive strategy and similar generic types are found among business in the u s and in europe some differences in the performance and business characteristics of certain strategy types were however observed between u s and european markets rate of market growth also appeared to have more significant relation to performance of businesses in europe than in the u s

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

comparing systems approaches to innovation and technological change for sustainable and competitive economies an explorative study into conceptual commonalities differences and complementarities this paper makes a distinction between three theoretical frameworks that have been highly influential in the discourse on innovation competitiveness and sustainability sectoral systems of innovation ssi technological innovation systems tis and socio technical systems st systems these frameworks share a common systems approach to innovation but are often positioned as different bodies of literature that correspond to different epistemic communities this paper is explorative and conceptual in nature it presents a systematic comparative review of ssi tis and st systems based on the following analytical dimensions 1 system boundaries 2 actors and networks 3 institutions 4 knowledge 5 dynamics and 6 policy approach in the concluding section commonalities and differences of the three approaches are presented and suggestions for complimentarily are made c 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

interrelationships among the elements of national innovation systems a statistical evaluation abstract an obstacle often faced by countries in attempting to improve the standard of living of their people and the productivity of their economic base is a low level of technological development at the national level such a problem may be conceptualized in the form of a national innovative system nis which represents a country s involvement in innovative activity it is the purpose of this paper to develop a comprehensive nis model through the identification of elements which characterize a country s nis and of the interrelationships embedded in each individual system the point of departure is to treat the nis as any other sector of the economy as a result its various elements are delineated according to their role within the nis as inputs outputs moderators or as a measure of productivity the nature of the interrelationships is assessed through a structural equations model linking the various elements it is shown that substantial commonalities exist among the basic elements of the various niss notwithstanding large differences in technology development strategies that exist across countries and the wide disparity between levels of development of each country in the sample

going one s own way drivers in developing business models for sustainability business models have received much attention in recent years due to their importance in the fundamental logic of every company this paper is based on a qualitative empirical research study conducted in cooperation with 10 austrian companies in 2014 it aims to investigate business models for sustainability in order to better understand how they operate and what the drivers for developing these business models are this is a cross industry sample covering companies showing notable sustainability activities in fact half of the companies were founded with the intention of complying with sustainability principles the results show that business models incorporating aspects of sustainability do not differ substantially from traditional business models however they do require specific adaptations and extensions furthermore the findings highlight the significance of company leaders in organizing change processes so as to encompass sustainable business practices the findings reveal that business models undergo constant change and that sustainability plays a central role both internally and externally the results gained allow for a deeper understanding of the motivational aspects and drivers needed in developing business models for sustainability and serve as a solid basis for further research in this field

anti dumping what are the numbers to discuss at doha while tariff barriers have decreased worldwide through various gatt rounds anti dumping has surged to play a crucial role as the most important non tariff barrier after much debate and opposition anti dumping is on the agenda of the doha round of multilateral trade negotiations and it is one of the most important issues especially for developing countries as they are the main targets of this policy instrument with this prospect it is important to assess the relevance of anti dumping not only by focusing on traditional users but by analysing the experience of new users which are now major players in the field this paper improves upon existing studies by providing a comprehensive assessment on the use of anti dumping first data on the time pattern of worldwide implementations of anti dumping laws are presented this time profile shows interesting relationships with legal developments in gatt and wto dispositions second usual sources of data are complemented with various other sources this allows the inclusion of recent heavy users like china russia taiwan and ukraine which are ignored in similar studies but important for their trade volumes this enlarged and updated dataset shows that new users are even more important than previously thought with implications for the doha negotiations

economic crisis and social learning for the provision of public services in two spanish municipalities economic crises pose challenges for the provision of public services but may also open up opportunities for social learning about how to achieve a sustainable society the main research question addressed in this paper is can economic crises catalyse social learning for a sustainable society the hypothesis of the paper is that social learning emerges in association with the reduction of consumption levels that follows degrowth or with the reconfiguration of infrastructure management practices and sustainable innovation that could lead to a transition to sustainability following this we empirically examine whether the crisis has led to social learning about the sustainable provision of public services in two similar municipalities in the north of spain after the economic crisis of 2008 we develop an interpretative analysis of individual experiences of learning from the crisis using a set of qualitative interviews with individuals who were involved in key decisions about public service delivery during or immediately after the crisis the analysis suggests that there has been a broader cultural change which is challenging institutional models of regional development that there has been a drive towards greater resource efficiency and that some opportunities have opened for entrepreneurs to develop sustainable innovations the findings support the view that the crisis may have fostered learning responses that could lead to either degrowth or a sustainable transition

trade deflection and trade depression this is the first paper to empirically examine whether a country s use of an import restricting trade policy distorts a foreign country s exports to third markets we first develop a theoretical model of worldwide trade in which the imposition of antidumping and safeguard taris or trade remedies by one country causes significant distortions in world trade flows we then empirically test this model by investigating the eect of the united states use of such import restrictions on japanese exports of roughly 4800 products into 37 countries between 1992 and 2001 our estimation yields evidence that us restrictions both deflect and depress japanese export flows to third countries imposition of a us antidumping measure against japan deflects trade as the average antidumping duty on japanese exports leads to a 5 7 increase in japanese exports of the same product to the average third country market the imposition of a us antidumping measure against a third country depresses trade as the average us duty imposed on a third country leads to a 5 19 decrease in japanese exports of that same product to the average third country s market we also document the substantial variation in trade deflection and trade depression across dierent importing countries and exported products

business models as drivers of the low carbon power system transition a multi level perspective abstract decarbonising the electrical power system holds a critical role in climate change mitigation recent developments in technology are helping change the current centralized paradigm into one of integrated distributed clean energy resources in spite of these developments radical transformation is not occurring at a speed to effectively meet environmental targets mostly due to the incumbent carbon lock in trajectory we argue that business model bm innovation dynamics are key drivers in accelerating the low carbon power system transition often operating irrespective of the underlying technology we combine bm theory with the multi level perspective on sociotechnical transitions to present a useful framework to analyze this potential transition this paper presents the application of this framework characterizing relevant bm dynamics of niche and regime business actors and supporting these with illustrative examples particularly we find that new actors in the distributed energy business are achieving market scale by offering financially innovative bms that do not require upfront costs from customers higher penetrations of renewable energy sources in liberalized electricity markets are destabilizing the historical bm of large centralized utilities through erosion of wholesale prices furthermore a shift towards distributed and dynamic energy resources further challenges incumbents and might bring opportunities for bms focused on active customer participation and social value creation as these tendencies are expected to accelerate we find analyses of bms will have important relevance for future power system transition research

the propensity to patent abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between 1974 rd among the exceptions the tendency was toward diminishing returns variables measuring overseas sales federal r d support diversification scope of invention use and invention type had only modest explanatory power there was no significant evidence of disproportionate patent accumulation in the more highly concentrated industries

innovation process of new ventures driven by sustainability abstract since the brundtland report appeared in 1987 various approaches to realising sustainable consumption and production have come into practice while more traditional approaches like ecodesign and design for sustainability often emphasize optimizing existing products processes and businesses more radical approaches like product service systems and system innovation for sustainability emphasize developing new innovative products and services with higher environmental gains although these studies increased our understanding of sustainability in relation to product design they are criticized for failing to draw on existing theoretical frameworks in the organizational innovation literature berchicci 2005 this paper seeks to explore the innovation process within new ventures driven by sustainability since 1 conventional wisdom suggests that young and new firms have advantages in innovation acs and audretsch 1990 and as such they are the potential candidates of offering radical solutions to the challenges of sustainability and 2 there are few studies that address exploiting sustainable product ideas through new organizations the paper reports on the results of an explorative study involving the use of generative techniques during 19 individual semi structured interviews with eight entrepreneurs and seven innovation support organizations the results suggest that the relative impact of internal and external factors on the innovation process change over time as the new organization forms in addition creating new businesses from sustainability ideals is influenced by the firms ability in understanding and managing the differences between intended and created value and in finding an overlap between customer benefits and clearly defined prioritized sustainability goals

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

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

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

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

analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems a scheme of analysis various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics however policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind in this paper we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers the scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking it can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals

sustainable business model adoption among s p 500 firms a longitudinal content analysis study in this study we examine the diversity of sustainable business models adopted by the largest global corporations those listed in the s p 500 index over the period 2005 2014 we examine press release communications during this period which represent public data about business relevant events we expect that examining this communication can reveal longitudinal patterns in the adoption of sustainable business activities and models empirically we utilize academic and practitioner expert panels to build a set of keywords across nine sustainable business model archetypes and utilize automated content analysis to examine the breadth and nature of a firm s sustainable business activities and practices we find evidence of the increasing prominence of different types of sustainable business models over time in particular the results show that large capitalized firms have mostly adopted the environmentally oriented archetypes and to much lesser extent the societal and organizational ones

a strategic analysis of global warming theory and some numbers we model the global warming process as a dynamic commons game in which the players are countries their actions at each date produce emissions of greenhouse gases and the state variable is the current stock of greenhouse gases the theoretical analysis is complemented by a calibration exercise the first set of results establishes theoretically and then with illustrative numbers the over emissions due to a tragedy of the commons the power of simple sanctions to lower emissions and increase welfare is then examined as is the effect of cost asymmetry finally a complete theoretical charactrization is provided for the best equilibrium and it is shown that it has a very simple structure it involves a constant emission rate through time

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

measuring the national competitiveness of southeast asian countries national competitiveness is a measure of the relative ability of a nation to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can compete so that the level of prosperity can be improved this paper proposes a methodology for measuring the national competitiveness and uses the 10 southeast asian countries for illustration the basic idea is to deconstruct the complicated concept of national competitiveness to measurable criteria the observations data on the criteria are then aggregated according to their importance to obtain an index of national competitiveness for data collected from questionnaire surveys a calibration technique has been devised to alleviate bias due to personal prejudice in data aggregation the importance is expressed by both a priori weights and a posteriori weights these two types of weights consistently show that singapore malaysia and thailand have the highest national competitiveness while myanmar cambodia and laos are the least competitive countries the performance of each country in every criteria measured also provides directions for these countries to make improvements and for investors to allocate resources

on the methodology of the world competitiveness report abstract a nation with its natural resources human capabilities research and educational institutions government organizations financial systems and cultural and social values provides an environment in which firms are created organized and managed the competitive environment a nation provides influences the performance of its firms at home and abroad therefore it is of prime importance for both governments and firms to study the competitive environment of a country in comparison with those of the others the world competitiveness report wcr a report annually produced by the institute for management development imd and the world economic forum wef both based in switzerland is a study that rates and ranks the competitiveness of a certain group of countries oecd plus 15 newly industrialized countries and is a widely quoted study in the international media although some essence of its methodology is given for a general understanding details are not provided perhaps for proprietary reasons since the report is a commercial enterprise itself the objective of this paper is to uncover the methodology used by the wcr for this purpose the methodological information provided in the wcr is used to the fullest extent however for the steps where the information is missing or when different interpretations are possible an approach based on mathematical programming is employed to guess the methodology

overcoming barriers to innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies some features of a sustainable innovation policy regime despite a deepening understanding of systems and processes by which the innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies occurs relatively little attention has been given to the development of policy processes that reflect this deeper understanding a set of guiding principles for improving sustainable innovation policy processes has been formulated and disseminated by the authors and colleagues in research drawing on theoretical and empirical analysis including a case study of low carbon energy innovation in the uk and interactions with policy makers and other stakeholders through a series of workshops this paper elaborates on two of the guiding principles 1 stimulating the development of a sustainable innovation policy regime bringing together innovation and environmental policy regimes 2 applying systems thinking engaging with the complexity and systemic interactions of innovation systems and policy making processes to promote a transition to sustainability

three is a crowd exploring the potential of crowdfunding for renewable energy in the netherlands there is a huge gap between demand and supply of finance for energy transitions and the financial and economic crisis have had a negative impact in the already meagre funds for transforming the energy system towards renewable sources in this paper we explore whether crowdfunding for renewable energy as a novel sociotechnical practice developed in a niche has the potential to break through and transform both the energy and the financial regimes utilising the multi level perspective theory we empirically investigate crowdfunding platforms linked to renewable electricity projects in the netherlands the main conclusion is that the volume of crowdfunding today is low but the dynamic of these projects holds potential there is limited indication of learning processes until now as well as limited support from regime actors pointing at a low level of niche stabilization and break through potential which may however be related to the early stage of development of crowdfunding in the netherlands on the other hand the heterogeneity of crowdfunders is very promising platforms dedicated to renewable electricity exclusively and with an investment based business model seem to be the most successful we show how governmental market regulation and support mechanisms are shaping crowdfunding as a business model and discuss the implications for other countries

action characteristics as predictors of competitive responses a central question in competitive dynamics is whether a competitive response can be predicted this study links various characteristics of actions with the total number and the time lag of competitors responses the hypothesized relationships were tested with a sample of competitive moves among u s airlines the results suggested that responses are influenced by the characteristics of the actions that evoked them specifically the total number of competitors affected by an action and the importance to these competitors of the markets under attack by the action increase the number of competitive responses strategic as opposed to tactical actions or actions which require substantial implementation efforts reduce the number and delay the timing of rivals counteractions finally contrary to prediction competitors who have a high stake in the markets under attack by a competitive move react slowly

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

canada s anti dumping and safeguard policies overt and subtle forms of discrimination like many countries in the international trading system canada repeatedly faces political pressure from industries seeking protection from import competition i examine canadian policymakers response to this pressure within the economic environment created by its participation in discriminatory trade agreements such as the north american free trade agreement nafta in particular i exploit new sources of data on canada s use of potentially wto consistent import restricting policies such as antidumping global safeguards and a china specific safeguard i illustrate subtle ways in which canadian policymakers may be structuring the application of such policies so as to reinforce the discrimination inherent in canada s external trade policy because of the preferences granted to the united states and mexico through nafta

evolution roots and influence of the literature on national systems of innovation a bibliometric account the literature on the national systems of innovation nsi is a relatively new field of research that has spread remarkably in the past 20 years this article offers a complementary quantitative description of the state of the art of the literature based on bibliometric methods by explicitly addressing the roots evolution and influence of nsi literature the exercise shows that over time the rate of published articles was quite irregular and that contributions on nsi have not yet converged to an integrated analytical framework although historically detailed descriptions on nsi showed a noticeable increase in the more recent period 2006 2010 analyses using more formal and diversified quantitative methodologies for assessing the performance of nsi remained lacking reflecting its persisting methodological weaknesses the roots of the nsi literature can be found at the core of innovation studies by certain well known scholars in the area of economics of innovation and science policy research even though publications on nsi are falling in relative importance and are highly concentrated on a small set of countries united kingdom denmark and the united states their influence is global they are cited by authors affiliated in organisations around the world notably in latin america and asia such an influence goes far beyond the area of innovation studies and has resonated in fields such as economic geography environmental studies international business and managerial sciences this demonstrates that the nsi literature is not self referential

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

empirical generalizations in eco innovation a meta analytic approach abstract although discussions on eco innovation are ongoing and the concept is evolving its central idea is highly stimulating thus a great number of studies has been conducted in recent years around the world based on different perspectives contexts and outcomes therefore the identification and analysis of factors related to eco innovation are essential if knowledge in this field is to be improved and consolidated this research aimed to advance our understanding of the different dimensions of eco innovation through a meta analytical review of its antecedents or drivers consequents and moderators thus a total of 71 studies was analysed generating 818 effect sizes and 220 582 cumulative samples the main findings revealed that barriers company capabilities environmental regulation market turbulence information sources r d and company size were significant antecedents to eco innovation it was also noted that a significance relationship exists between eco innovation and firm performance regarding the moderating effect it was observed that culture the economic situation of the country and context influence the relationship between eco innovation and performance the results revealed that countries with a lower hdi presented stronger effects between eco innovation and firm performance than countries with a higher hdi these findings were interesting because they could demonstrate that eco innovation tends to promote more competitive advantage in countries with environmental problems and consequently a lower hdi

business models for sustainable biofuel transport the potential for intermodal transport the use of solid wood biofuels for energy production in heating plants has increased drastically during the last decades great interest has been shown in replacing unsustainable road transport of wood fuel with more sustainable intermodal transport this paper maps the common business models for biofuel transport in sweden and suggests how these models may be developed to accommodate intermodal transport a view of the biofuel supply chain as five overlapping networks industry material operations transport and infrastructure connected by four transaction markets sourcing operations transport and traffic have been used four typical business models have been found regional national biofuel company local biofuel company heating plant own account and wood processing industry cooperation and vertical integration among the actors are important to reach the large transport volumes required for intermodal transport key issues to increase the intermodal potential are increased vertical integration and cooperation sharing of transport resources and infrastructure joint purchases outsourcing to expert actors building trust and open communication and not underestimating the complexity of intermodal transport the results have implications for any actor interested in developing intermodal transport or policy measures the contribution includes the new approach of developing business models by using the five layer network market model

general managers control new and existing products differently abstract this article presents some initial findings from an ongoing research project on the way that divisional general managers of targe organizational units control new product innovations control in this instance refers to the set of procedures systems and actions that general managers use to monitor evaluate influence or define what subordinates are doing the research presented here focuses on three broad questions 1 1 do divisional general managers of large organizational units control their new product activities differently from their more established operations 2 2 is a new product s innovation strategy related to the nature and degree of divisional general manager control and if so in what way 3 3 is a divisional general manager s choice of control methods related to his her unit s new product output the results were based on in depth interviews with the general managers of 26 large canadian based divisions in 12 firms all the firms were significant competitors in the north american market and all were actively engaged in new product activities firm size ranged from 210 million to 5 billion in sales the following is a summary of the study s principal findings and conclusions 1 1 control varies among dimensions the study measured the degree of control exercised by divisional general managers over new and established products on 14 control variables it was found that none of the new products relative to established brands was controlled in the same fashion by the managers instead new products were always managed through a variety of loose and tight controls in so doing it appeared that the divisional general managers were trying to balance the control and freedom required by subordinates with new products 2 2 control varies with strategy both theory and empirical research generally support the notion of linkage between a unit s strategy and its organizational eg design reward placement information etc practices the results of this study strengthen this line of thinking the data show that both the nature and degree of divisional general manager control vary with three dimensions of product strategy i e familiarity uniqueness and advancement 3 3 control varies with output the analysis highlighted the pivotal relationship between divisional general manager control and new product output both the nature and degree of control were found to be associated with new product output in each strategic category although there does not appear to be one best way to control all types of new products some divisional general management approaches to control were more preferred than others 4 4 loose formal tight informal the general managers control patterns showed that formal control dimensions were usually managed more loosely than informal ones that tighter informal controls were used to off set or balance the more relaxed formal dimensions and that the observed reduction in formal control should not be interpreted to mean either the absence of bureaucracy or the absence of formal control indeed some formal bureaucratic control was always found in the high output strategic categories thus rather than being considered or labeled as typically bad bureaucracy may in fact be beautiful provided of course that it is appropriately used the article concludes by arguing that a divisional general manager s approach to controlling new products seems to make a difference in terms of performance as such the control approach chosen should not be made haphazardly or with abandon

can economic activities lead to climate chaos an economic analysis on global warming this paper presents a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model in which the productivity of the agricultural sector depends on the atmospheric temperature which in turn is influenced by the activities of the manufacturing sector the equilibrium time paths of the world economy and temperature depend on the rate at which the earth sheds heat if this decay is too small the dynamic interaction between the climate system and the market mechanism both of which are stable in isolation may lead to cycles or even chaos furthermore economic growth may push the world economy and temperature from a stable stead state into a cyclical or chaotic time path

sectoral systems of innovation and production the concept sectoral system of innovation and production provides a multidimensional integrated and dynamic view of sectors it is proposed that a sectoral system is a set of products and the set of agents carrying out market and non market interactions for the creation production and sale of those products a sectoral systems has a specific knowledge base technologies inputs and demand agents are individuals and organizations at various levels of aggregation they interact through processes of communication exchange co operation competition and command and these interactions are shaped by institutions a sectoral system undergoes change and transformation through the co evolution of its various elements 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

relative importance of political instability and economic variables on perceived country creditworthiness this paper examines the relative importance of political instability and economic variables on perceived country creditworthiness our results indicate that both political instability and economic variables are taken into account in evaluating country creditworthiness however it appears that bankers assign larger weight to economic variables hence it seems that the country creditworthiness perceptions are largely based on a country s economic performances which we except to reflect longer term political stability in addition the frequency of changes in the regime and armed conflict both proxying for political instability also affect the credit ratings

national competitive advantage and the roles of economic and political freedom evidence from hong kong the equivocal interrelationships between economic performance and the institu tions of respectively economic and political freedom are examined using data from firms op erating in hong kong an economy where both an erstwhile paramount international business reputation for competitiveness and the institutional basis on which it was predicated have come into question in recent years it is hypothesized that i both economic and political freedom declines will be associated with a proxy for future economic performance competitiveness decline but that ii the correlation of economic freedom declines with competitiveness de cline will be mediated by political freedom declines hierarchical regression analyses tend to support these hypotheses although results vary by firm origin

determinants and resource use efficiency of better cotton an innovative cleaner production alternative abstract the resource constraints along with socioeconomic attributes and capabilities of farmers cause variations in the adoption of agricultural technologies these variations represent an inefficiency source in complete utilization of management practices and epitomize a lack of achieving full potential offered by better cotton an innovative cleaner production alternative therefore this research focused on identifying the potential areas of improvement in better cotton farmers input use by investigating the technical and economic efficiencies as well as the factors determining the resource use efficiency technical allocative and economic efficiencies of better cotton were analyzed using input oriented data envelopment analysis factors affecting technical and economic efficiencies were identified using bootstrapped truncated regression there was variation in technical efficiency and it was positively influenced by farmers education farming experience and drainage status whereas it was negatively influenced by the number of household members involved in farming and the area under cotton the mean economic efficiency of 56 indicated that at the current productivity level inefficient farmers can reduce their costs by 44 the economic efficiency was negatively affected by the number of household members involved in farming and the intensity of using crop management practices thus efforts should be made to improve input use efficiency of particularly those better cotton farmers who are currently operating inefficiently this efficiency analysis aims to provide recommendations to policy makers and promoters of better cotton as to which practices and inputs should be focused while implementing better cotton as a cleaner alternative to conventional cotton

strategic implications of market share attraction models market share attraction models which specify that a firm s market share is equal to the ratio of its attraction to the total attraction for all firms have received increasing attention in recent years however there has been little research investigating the practical implications of such models this paper presents a game theoretic analysis of such a model and deduces the strategic implications of a nash equilibrium solution to the model it is shown that these implications are consistent with previous empirical research in marketing and business policy

a methodology for competitive advantage analysis and strategy formulation an example in a transitional economy industrial competitiveness has become the focal point of study in recent years as global competition has intensified although many studies are devoted to the topic they remain largely conceptual and descriptive and thus it is difficult to make them operational very recently several studies were conducted to model industrial competitiveness through quantitative analysis but few consider how to combine the degree and scope of determinant factors of competitive advantages dfcas and competitive strategic goals csgs to maximize a firm s competitiveness or how to analyze the main problems of creating competitive advantage the present study proposes a model based approach to competitive analysis and discusses its multi phased implementation in a large electronic plant in china the proposed model can provide a comprehensive analytical tool for industrial competitiveness and can yield useful insights for competitive strategy formulation

demand pull government policies to support product service system activity the case of energy service companies escos in the uk product service systems psss constitute a family of service based business models designed to satisfy our societal needs in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner to date however pss application has remained niche due to a variety of critical barriers this paper explores how demand pull national government policies could support pss activity by addressing these barriers and cultivating market demand lessons are drawn from a case study of how regulatory economic incentive informative and procurement policies have supported energy service company esco activity in the uk a sub set of the pss family focused on energy service provision subsequently five policy recommendations are presented to support pss activity 1 balancing economic incentives and regulatory disincentives 2 promoting indirect policy support 3 redesigning existing market structures 4 promoting locally led pss activity and 5 creating stable policy frameworks the paper warns however that national government policy cannot easily address all pss barriers such as customer preferences international developments technological progress and inherent business model weaknesses pointing to the need for other complementary solutions furthermore other governance actors beside national government could also implement pss supporting policies

high profit strategies in mature capital goods industries a contingency approach high profit and low profit strategic gestalts in two different types of mature capital goods industries are examined multiple avenues to high profits are found within both types but they differ

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

scenario analysis for sustainable woody biomass energy businesses the case study of a japanese rural community abstract woody biomass is widely used as a renewable energy source to produce electricity and heat with the goal of reducing co2 emissions enhancing energy security and rejuvenating rural economies in japan the energy usage of woody biomass is currently incentivized by feed in tariff fit programs however a variety of unpredictable factors e g a drastic change in national energy policy and feedstock supply might undermine the sustainability of woody biomass energy businesses in order to clarify conditions for designing sustainable woody biomass energy businesses from environmental and economic viewpoints this paper proposes a method for undertaking scenario analyses where the influences of future uncertainties are analyzed for quantitative assessment a woody biomass energy business is modeled as a sequence of processes using a discrete event simulation technique a case study is carried out with a particular focus on the energy business with a 10 mw woody biomass power generation plant in a japanese rural community in the period of 2015 2034 20 years the results reveal that the business has potential to gain economic profit and halve co2 emissions when compared with the worst case scenario critical factors for enhancing the sustainability of the business include collecting the amount of wood residue used for electricity generation and keeping the selling price of electricity from woody biomass at over 35 of the current price