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1 – 10 of over 83000Ryan Atkins, Kim Deranek and Robert Sroufe
Research and interest in food loss and waste (FLW) have increased, but barriers stand in the way of firms engaging in food recovery efforts. The purpose of this study is to gain a…
Abstract
Purpose
Research and interest in food loss and waste (FLW) have increased, but barriers stand in the way of firms engaging in food recovery efforts. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how firms overcome these barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study followed a qualitative, field-study-based research design in which 23 decision-makers at food-based organizations were interviewed. Quotes were extracted and categorized to develop a conceptual model of the food recovery process.
Findings
The conceptual model that evolved helps to explain decision-making related to FLW across the following dimensions: barriers to food recovery, incentives to overcome the barriers, internal processes for engaging in food recovery and external relationships influencing internal incentives and processes. In addition, the barriers and incentives were divided into operational and managerial issues.
Originality/value
Building on the barriers to food recovery in prior research, we explored the processes that help firms overcome these barriers. The model developed in this study is an important step toward addressing these processes and relationships. It can serve as a foundation for a variety of future studies of food recovery.
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Muhammad Yaseen Bhutto and Aušra Rūtelionė
This research examines consumer reluctance to purchase organic food using the theory of innovation resistance and also extends the theory by investigating the moderating…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examines consumer reluctance to purchase organic food using the theory of innovation resistance and also extends the theory by investigating the moderating influence of eco-literacy. In addition, the authors used a multigroup analysis to identify differences between consumer segments.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection used computer-assisted web interviewing and a prior screening process to confirm engagement. Through stratified quota sampling, 1,000 useable responses were obtained from 2,887 recipients.
Findings
The findings reveal barriers are significant inhibitors to adopting organic food. Among these barriers, usage, risk tradition and image barriers have a significant adverse influence on purchase intention. In contrast, the value barrier has a nonsignificant influence on the purchase intention of organic food. However, the study found that eco-literacy significantly reduces the negative influence of risk and tradition barriers on consumers' intentions. In addition, a multigroup analysis examines notable differences between consumer groups based on education, age and income.
Social implications
This research has significant social implications for boosting sustainable consumption in Lithuania. It identifies key barriers to organic food adoption, emphasizing the need for strategic interventions. The study highlights eco-literacy as an essential tool in diminishing resistance to organic food, advocating for targeted educational initiatives. Additionally, it reveals the importance of tailored marketing strategies based on different consumer demographics. Overall, this study provides important insights to promote environmentally conscious consumer behavior and overcome resistance to innovation in the organic food sector.
Originality/value
This study expressively advances the understanding of intentional behavior by exploring organic food within Lithuania's Baltic economy. It authenticates the innovation resistance theory's applicability to organic food behavior in the region while emphasizing the moderating impact of eco-literacy in the link between barriers and purchase intention concerning organic food. Furthermore, using advanced methods such as partial least squares statistical modeling and multi-group analysis, the research reveals how barriers affect the purchase intention of organic food among different groups of consumers.
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This study examines the importance of 25 barriers to market entry in industrial markets. A survey of 93 firms indicates that majority of business executives consider cost…
Abstract
This study examines the importance of 25 barriers to market entry in industrial markets. A survey of 93 firms indicates that majority of business executives consider cost advantages and capital requirements to enter markets as the two most important barriers to entry followed by incumbents having a superior production process, capital intensity of the market, and customer loyalty. The least important barriers perceived by the executives in the study are government licensing requirements, followed by heavy advertising. In addition, the study investigates the underlying dimensions of barriers to entry in industrial market through a factor analysis. The results indicate that there are four major underlying dimensions of entry barriers in industrial markets.
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Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of stator and rotor pole number combinations together with the flux-barrier layers number on the performance of synchronous reluctance machine with emphasis on output torque capability and torque ripple.
Design/methodology/approach
AC synchronous reluctance machine (SynRM) or permanent magnet assisted SynRM presently receives a great deal of interest, since there is less or even no rare-earth permanent magnet in the rotor. Most of SynRM machines employ a stator that is originally designed for a standard squirrel cage induction motor for a similar output rating and application, or the SynRM machine with 24-slot, four-pole are often directly chosen for investigation in most of the available literature. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the influence of stator and rotor pole number combinations together with the flux-barrier layers number on the performance of SynRM machine with emphasis on output torque capability and torque ripple.
Findings
The average torque decreases with the increase of the pole numbers but remain almost constant when employing different stator slot numbers but with the same pole number. In addition, the torque ripple decreases significantly with the increase of the stator slot number. The machine with double-layer flux-barrier in the rotor has the biggest average torque, while the machines with three- and four-layer flux-barrier in the rotor have almost the same average torque but their value is slightly smaller than that of machine with double-layer flux-barrier. However, the machine with three-layer flux-barrier has the lowest torque ripple but the highest torque ripple exists in the machine with double-layer flux-barrier.
Research limitations/implications
The purely sinusoidal currents are applied in this analysis and the effects of harmonics in the current on torque ripple are not considered in this application.
Originality/value
This paper has analyzed the torque ripple and average torque of SynRMs with considering slot/pole number combinations together with the flux-barrier number.
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Edmund K. Banghart, James P. Lavine, Joseph M. Pimbley and Bruce C. Burkey
Numerical and analytical solutions of the carrier continuity equation are found for the problem of charge transfer in charge‐coupled devices in the presence of potential barriers…
Abstract
Numerical and analytical solutions of the carrier continuity equation are found for the problem of charge transfer in charge‐coupled devices in the presence of potential barriers. The analytical solution is for a rectangular potential barrier and is useful for obtaining a qualitative understanding of charge transfer over a potential barrier. Numerical results show that the charge transfer inefficiency is strongly affected when the shape of the potential barrier is varied and the height of the potential barrier remains fixed.
Niamh Murtagh, Paulo Lopes and Evanthia Lyons
The purpose of this paper is to present research findings on the experience of career barriers by women who have changed career, and to suggest the practical implications of these…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present research findings on the experience of career barriers by women who have changed career, and to suggest the practical implications of these findings for career management.
Design/methodology/approach
An established, qualitative methodology, interpretative phenomenological analysis, was used to explore participants' experiences. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight women who had changed careers and were analysed to identify the salient themes.
Findings
Participants experienced career barriers, but their subjective experience did not necessarily match objectively defined barriers. One participant, for example, experienced redundancy not as a barrier to her career path but as an opportunity. It was only when situations or events threatened the self‐concept that problems were experienced as barriers. These barriers were not insurmountable and participants used a number of strategies to overcome potential barriers.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that career management or counselling should acknowledge and explore the client's subjective experience of career barriers. Strategies such as challenging or reframing potential barriers can be effective methods for helping clients to dismantle them.
Originality/value
This research points to the gap in career theory and research on the experience of barriers in adult careers. It presents evidence on the subjective nature of barriers and on strategies used to overcome them.
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The aim of this paper is to describe the Polish empirical studies of information barriers. The focus is to highlight the hierarchy of barriers, and the relation between…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to describe the Polish empirical studies of information barriers. The focus is to highlight the hierarchy of barriers, and the relation between demographic variables (sex, age, discipline etc.) and perception of barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
After a deep literature review some empirical studies have been conducted. Respondents were divided into groups in terms of: sex, field of study (social sciences, human sciences, natural sciences and technical sciences), age, science degree and year of study. In analysis of data two statistical methods: analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a chi‐square test (χ2) were used.
Findings
The phenomenon of information barriers is very common, encountered by around 80 per cent of users. The most troublesome barriers were barriers connected with libraries. The study showed that the sex variable had varied the respondents' answers to the greatest extent. The women perceived information barriers as a more serious problem than men (p<0.001). With regard to types of discipline, the faculty group found information barriers more troublesome in such disciplines as humanities and social sciences than in natural or technical sciences (p=0.001).
Research limitations/implications
The hierarchy of barriers obtained from the study is related to a particular environment, a given group of users, the equipment of home library.
Practical implications
Studies of this subject may prove valuable in identifying people that are likely to experience difficulties in access to information.
Originality/value
The knowledge of the relation between demographic variables and perception of barriers, in earlier literature, was fragmentary. Findings may lead to a better understanding of the information barriers phenomenon by librarians and library users as well.
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Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reduce the torque ripple but not to decrease the average torque of synchronous reluctance machines by using one step or more than two axially laminated rotors with asymmetric flux-barrier.
Design/methodology/approach
A 24-slot four-pole synchronous reluctance machine with overlapping windings and asymmetric flux-barrier in the rotor is, first, described and designed by finite element (FE) method for maximizing average torque. The dimensions of asymmetric flux-barrier including the pole span angle and flux-barrier angle will be optimized to minimize the torque ripple and its influence on the average torque is also investigated by FE analysis. The impact of current angle on the average torque and torque ripple are also analysed. The step laminations together with the asymmetric flux-barrier are employed for further torque ripple reduction which can consider the both rotation directions.
Findings
The torque ripple of synchronous reluctance machine can be significantly reduced by employing asymmetric flux-barrier but the average torque is not reduced.
Research limitations/implications
The purely sinusoidal currents are applied in this analysis and the effects of harmonics in the current on torque ripple are not considered in this application. The 24-slot/four-pole synchronous reluctance machine with single-layer flux-barrier has been employed in this analysis, but this work can be continued to investigate the synchronous reluctance machine with multilayer flux-barrier. This asymmetric flux-barrier can be easily applied to permanent magnet (PM)-assisted synchronous reluctance machine and the interior PM machine with flux-barrier in the rotor, since the space which is used for PM insertion is the same as the SynRM machines.
Originality/value
This paper has analysed the torque ripple and average torque of synchronous reluctance machines with asymmetric flux-barrier and step laminations with asymmetric flux-barrier. The torque ripple can be reduced by this flux-barrier arrangement. The difference of this technique with the other techniques such as stator/rotor skew is that the average torque can be improved.
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Ahmad Khodamipour, Hassan Yazdifar, Mahdi Askari Shahamabad and Parvin Khajavi
Today, with the increasing involvement of the environment and human beings business units, paying attention to fulfilling social responsibility obligations while making a profit…
Abstract
Purpose
Today, with the increasing involvement of the environment and human beings business units, paying attention to fulfilling social responsibility obligations while making a profit has become increasingly necessary for achieving sustainable development goals. Attention to profit by organizations should not be without regard to their social and environmental performance. Social responsibility accounting (SRA) is an approach that can pay more attention to the social and environmental performance of companies, but it has many barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify barriers to SRA implementation and provide strategies to overcome these barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors identify barriers to social responsibility accounting implementation and provide strategies to overcome these barriers. By literature review, 12 barriers and seven strategies were identified and approved using the opinions of six academic experts. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) has been used to identify significant barriers and find textual relationships between them. The fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method has been used to identify and rank strategies for overcoming these barriers. This study was undertaken in Iran (an emerging market). The data has been gathered from 18 experts selected using purposive sampling and included CEOs of the organization, senior accountants and active researchers well familiar with the field of social responsibility accounting.
Findings
Based on the results of this study, the cultural differences barrier was introduced as the primary and underlying barrier of the social responsibility accounting barriers model. At the next level, barriers such as “lack of public awareness of the importance of social responsibility accounting, lack of social responsibility accounting implementation regulations and organization size” are significant barriers to social responsibility accounting implementation. Removing these barriers will help remove other barriers in this direction. In addition, the results of the TOPSIS method showed that “mandatory regulations, the introduction of guidelines and social responsibility accounting standards,” “regulatory developments and government incentive schemes to implement social responsibility accounting,” as well as “increasing public awareness of the benefits of social responsibility accounting” are some of the essential social responsibility accounting implementation strategies.
Practical implications
The findings of the study have implications for both professional accounting bodies for developing the necessary standards and for policymakers for adopting policies that facilitate the implementation of social responsibility accounting to achieve sustainability.
Social implications
This paper creates a new perspective on the practical implementation of social responsibility accounting, closely related to improving environmental performance and increasing social welfare through improving sustainability.
Originality/value
Experts believe that the strategies mentioned above will be very effective and helpful in removing the barriers of the lower level of the model. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this study develops a model of social responsibility accounting barriers and ranks the most critical implementation strategies.
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Manh-Hoang Do, Yung-Fu Huang and Vu-Dung-Van Phan
This research study aims to identify and rank the most substantial barriers to implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) in the Vietnamese agriculture industry.
Abstract
Purpose
This research study aims to identify and rank the most substantial barriers to implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) in the Vietnamese agriculture industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) techniques have been employed for this work to rank the critical GSCM barriers. The rankings were determined based on the expertise and input of ten experts from Vietnamese agriculture firms who participated as respondents.
Findings
This study has identified seven clusters of barriers, which encompass a total of 19 sub-barriers. Among these obstacles, the categories of financial costs and external stakeholders have emerged as the top priority barriers that require immediate attention and resolution. Meanwhile, the technology and strategic management clusters have a relatively weaker impact on GSCM implementation.
Practical implications
These findings provide valuable guidelines for the top managers in this sector to consider before systematically deciding on the GSCM implementation problems to improve performance and competitive advantage.
Originality/value
This work focuses on considering GSCM barriers for the Vietnamese agriculture industry; hence, it enriches the GSCM literature by offering perspectives from a transitional market, which results in variations in the barriers, categorization and importance ranking.
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