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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of clan social capital on the willingness to pay (WTP) and WTP value for collective biogas investment.

Using the Heckman two-stage model and a dataset of 1,265 representative observations from three provinces in Central China collected in 2019, this paper utilizes the contingent valuation method to estimate households' WTP value for collective biogas investment. The paper also explores the heterogeneity between households with different clan governance mechanisms and village governance structures.

The results indicate that clan networks and trust were likely to improve farmer households' WTP, while clan trust and norms could improve their WTP values. For clans with councils and for clans that can influence the decision-making of village committees, their members were more likely to be influenced by the social capital of their clans to pay for collective biogas investment.

This paper focuses on the WTP and WTP values of households for collective biogas investment, which is often neglected in the research. This paper suggests that clans can be used as a medium to urge households to increase their collective power to reduce carbon emissions and climate crises. The findings empirically contribute to efforts to reduce rural carbon emissions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the potential and challenges of biogas utilization as an alternative and sustainable energy source in the Gurage zone of Southern Ethiopia, where traditional energy sources such as firewood and charcoal are widely used.

The study adopts a mixed-methods approach to collect and analyze data from different sources and perspectives. The research collects quantitative data from structured interviews with 200 rural households who use biogas or other energy sources, and qualitative data from key informant interviews and focus group discussions with biogas experts, local authorities and community leaders. Socioeconomic analysis is conducted to assess the importance of biogas in terms of income, expenditure, health and environmental benefits, and a multivariate probit model is used to identify the factors influencing biogas energy adoption among rural households.

The findings indicate that biogas users are more likely to substitute traditional energy sources with biogas for cooking, lighting and heating purposes. The model reveals that age, sex, education level, land size and livestock quantity influence biogas energy adoption, whereas income, distance to market and access to credit do not have a significant effect. The findings also show that biogas users have higher income, lower expenditure, better health and lower greenhouse gas emissions than nonusers.

The study concludes that the socioeconomic impact of biogas varies among households based on location and lifestyle. The study also highlights the need for further research on the technical, institutional and behavioral aspects of biogas utilization in different contexts.

To address the challenges faced by biogas users and their energy choices, such as lack of awareness, maintenance, quality control and affordability, the study suggests exploring biogas energy to meet the diverse needs of cattle owners in different regions. The study also recommends enhancing the capacity of local stakeholders, promoting public–private partnerships, and developing supportive policies and regulations for biogas development in Ethiopia.

The study implies that biogas utilization can contribute to social development by improving the living standards, health status and gender equality of rural households. The study also suggests that biogas utilization can foster social cohesion and empowerment by creating opportunities for collective action, knowledge sharing and income generation among biogas users and their communities.

The study provides a comprehensive and empirical analysis of the socioeconomic landscape of biogas utilization and the determinants of energy choice in the Gurage zone of Southern Ethiopia. The study also offers valuable insights and recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, researchers and other stakeholders involved in biogas development in Ethiopia and other developing countries.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the importance of several variables centered around partnership in renewable energy (RE) projects. The concept developed earlier is applied to the project environment to identify interrelations between external and internal drivers, project partnership, resources and project success. A framework consisting of logical chain to project success is proposed.

The study derived the concepts and variables of RE projects’ partnership from the academic literature. The methodology of the case study was used to gain insights in relation to the variables in the logical chain of the proposed framework, suggesting that certain external/internal drivers direct diverse stakeholders to a partnership.

RE technologies are not commodities and require involvement of different stakeholders, who directly or indirectly are impacted by implementation of the RE projects. For the project to be a success, it is critical to involve the stakeholders early in the process and induce partnership synergy, through which dynamic capabilities and implementation mechanisms are capitalized upon as resources to achieve project success.

There appears to be no specific framework directly linking partnership synergy and project success; their relationships are only indirectly inferred. Focusing on project-level activities of public and private stakeholders the paper proposes a framework that conceptualizes relationships among external/internal drivers, partnership, resources and project success/performance. This could be a promising future research direction, helping technology project stakeholders maximize their returns by realizing full advantage of collaboration and partnership

The main objectives of collective forest tenure reform in China are to stimulate rural households to invest in forestry management, protect the ecosystem and improve their livelihood. By constructing the unbalanced panel data of household investment, this study discusses the dynamic changes and influencing factors of household investment, which will lay a foundation for further research and provide a reference for decision-making.

Based on 3,500 samples from rural households in the provinces of Fujian, Hunan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Gansu, and Liaoning collected during field investigations from 2010 to 2015, this study conducts an empirical analysis of the household investment in forestry management and its factors with nonbalanced panels.

According to the analysis, the average investment in forestry management per household from 2010 to 2015 fluctuates greatly; the age of the householder, increased forestry area, subsidies, joining professional cooperatives, and forest tenure mortgage show positive effects on achieving the objectives.

The discussions are drawn from the study that supporting policies such as the forest tenure transfer system, professional cooperatives, financial services and subsidies should be further improved to sustain a positive in the forestry industry.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the interdependencies involved and how interaction takes place in the context of a project organization as a network of academic and business actors.

This study focuses on relationships between business and academia and applies a single case research strategy. Data are collected through a series of theoretically sampled in-depth interviews including company observations. The single case study provides a rich narrative of the network structure and processes involved in establishing, implementing and completing a research project in Poland. The Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group network approach focusing on resource combinations that emerge in a network structure characterized by interdependency and integration is applied to analyze interaction in this project-organized network.

Change in interdependencies, interaction and integration are analyzed individually, and in conclusion in relation to each other. While supply chain management literature postulates that integration is a management goal, a driver of successful business, this study points out that integration is an outcome of interaction in a context of changing interdependencies. This means that managerial focus should rather be driven to understanding the nature of network interdependencies, their path of change and how interaction is carried out in this emergent context.

The study aims to help better understand the potential for research project cooperation by explaining how businesses and research units can cooperate through an understanding that integration is a complex phenomenon, focusing on how management may better support services production through careful consideration of that integration is developed through considerations of interdependencies as context of interaction in the varied business cultures a project network comprises. Project management is more a learning process than a planning process.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework for renewable energy (RE) technology commercialization and partnership synergy. The interrelations/influences between external/internal factors, stakeholders’ partnership synergy, and resources in the form of dynamic capabilities and implementation mechanisms are used in this framework to explore the path toward overcoming non-technical barriers for RE technologies commercialization success.

Prior relevant research/literature is reviewed to derive the proposed theoretical framework constructs, while insight information on relationship between them is gained through case study methodology. The results of four case studies along with 16 validity/checkpoint interviews were used to support/reject 25 propositions linking the constructs.

The findings of the study supported 24 out of 25 propositions representing these relations, whereas one was rejected. The framework suggests that partnership synergy, if achieved, produces a unique internal and external resource combination that will result in successful technology commercialization.

This study is limited to RE technologies and did not focus individually on non-technical barriers. Future research may extend into other industries and explore the impact of partnership synergy on each non-technical barrier of technology commercialization.

Due to absence of economic theory of synergy there is a gap in academic literature regarding partnership between stakeholders of innovative technologies, the level of its synergy and their relation to successful commercialization. The study attempts to fill this gap to some extent through the produced theoretical framework, which might also help a broad array of RE projects’ participants maximize the returns by realizing full advantage of collaboration with other stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development of rural warehouses condominiums (or “condos”) as new rural configurations in the Brazilian agribusiness from the perspective of the theory of collective action.

A systematic literature review was complemented with multiple case studies based on interviews and direct observation. Content analysis was used to interpret the secondary and primary data.

Rural warehouse condos can be characterized as a collective action which is a new business model in Brazilian agribusiness. This new initiative has several advantages: reduction of the warehouse deficit and other logistical bottlenecks; strategic commercialization of production; reduction of logistical costs; inclusion of smallholders in the economy and, consequently, the generation of income for smallholders and their participation in the market.

The study used a qualitative approach and findings and discussion are inherently interpretative.

Understanding the organization of rural warehouse condos supports the inclusion of smallholding farmers and income generation. This creates a social benefit through rural growth and economic development. Some constraints related to the lack of public policies, specific credit lines in financial institutions, the problem of non-regularized rural areas, lack of transparency and conflicts among the members can limit expansion.

Rural warehouse condos are expanding mainly in the south region of Brazil, where smallholders are concentrated. In this new configuration, they can engage in an association to obtain several benefits, such as reduced logistics costs, better access to financing and increased bargaining power with suppliers. As this research dealt with a relatively new and poorly studied topic, it contributes to the development of new studies to map innovative warehousing practices.

In recent years, non-governmental organizations across the globe aim to improve women’s leadership in adapting to the environmental challenges brought on by climate change. Many of these activities involve outreach and network building and, in the process, seek to establish protocols for specific projects and interventions. In this chapter, the authors review the history of development funding, and then present and analyze a different model, a pilot project based in Nepal that encourages monetary contributions from outside of the country to support women’s work in climate change adaptation and mitigation as a result of deforestation. The W+™ Standard is a certification label that endorses projects that socially and economically empower women and improve the environment. It was developed to measure and quantify women’s work in these areas to enable them to receive monetary benefits from promoting biogas cook stoves. Below, the authors assess the economic and social benefits and drawbacks of this model and complement our critique with interview data from the creator of the W+ Standard, and climate change leader, Jeannette Gurung. The authors conclude by giving recommendations for program monitoring and evaluation that can be applied to projects in similar areas.