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This study has two objectives:(1) to examine impacts of environmental activity, relational marketing, and corporate green image on firm’s competitive performance; and (2) to determine whether relational marketing and corporate green image mediate relationships between environmental activity and firm’s competitive performance. They were data from 375 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the food processing industry in Bangkok, Thailand. This study also investigates the relationships between environmental activity, green corporate image, relational marketing, and influences of these factors on firm’s competitive performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze data. Results reveal significant and positive relationships between environmental activity, green corporate image, relational marketing, and firm’s competitive performance. Moreover, environmental activity, an antecedent variable, indirectly affects a firm’s competitive performance mediated by green corporate image and relational marketing. Therefore, green corporate image and relational marketing can act as mediators between environmental activity and firm’s competitive performance. Findings suggested that firms should focus on improving green corporate image and relational marketing with an appropriate environmental activity strategy to enhance the firm’s competitive performance. Moreover, this study’s result is related to the economics of the environment in terms of cost and benefit. It provides firm’s decision on environmental activity.

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global human lives, killing millions and attacking the real economy to its core. United Nations has called for global solidarity to overcome this unprecedented disaster. Having said that, zakat has been utilized to respond to this ongoing suffering in Muslim countries. This chapter explore zakat utilization for COVID-19 under the shariah perspective and discuss the role of zakat to respond to the pandemic in Muslim countries. A qualitative methodology including conceptual and content analysis is applied to conduct this study. The findings show that most sharia scholars agreed to utilize zakat for the COVID-19 pandemic and endorse advance zakat payment. Moreover, zakat has been disbursed mainly to fulfil basic needs, support emergency health services, sustain education activities, recover economic impact and maintain dakwah programme. The global zakat institutions have also started up the international initiative to respond to this pandemic. This study contributes to the academia on showing how zakat is a conceivable and reliable instrument to give immediate response to this pandemic in Muslim countries. The best practices found in this study are worthy for zakat institutions to continue their programme under this pandemic and be resilient for the next global scale of disasters.

Katipuneros RPG: Bisperas ng Himagsikan (Katipuneros RPG: The Eve of the Revolution) is an immersive and gamified theater that engages its “audiences” in the initiation rites of a secret revolutionary movement in the Philippines in 1896. This descriptive qualitative research evaluates such experiential approach to learning history by investigating the experiences and insights of a group of students from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), who participated in Katipuneros RPG.

Textual data obtained from the participants' reflection papers and focus group discussion transcripts were analyzed using open and axial coding.

Three key themes summarized the participants' learning experiences as they went through the play, as follows: (1) Katipuneros RPG as an immersive, interactive and intrinsically motivating medium for learning history; (2) the knowledge, values and skills that served as facilitating factors for their learning and (3) the insights the participants gained about history and life in general.

The research argues that in Katipuneros RPG, learners take on a more active role in studying history as the “teacher” vanishes in lieu of a learning system the allows students to think critically, reflect and collaborate. The approach integrates elements of development theater, immersive play and gamified learning, as well as the principles of constructivist, play-based and multi-sensorial learning.

As an innovative learning tool, it is a viable medium to teach history in the current socio-political context of the Philippines.

The study hopes to contribute to literature on pedagogical approaches for teaching and learning history through immersive environments.

The study aims to estimate the short- and long-run effects of monetary policy on residential property prices in South Africa. Over the past decades, there has been a monetary policy shift, from targeting money supply and exchange rate to inflation. The shifts have affected residential property market dynamics.

The Johansen cointegration approach was used to estimate the effects of changes in monetary policy proxies on residential property prices using quarterly data from 1980 to 2022.

Mortgage finance and economic growth have a significant positive long-run effect on residential property prices. The consumer price index, the inflation targeting framework, interest rates and exchange rates have a significant negative long-run effect on residential property prices. The Granger causality test has depicted that exchange rate significantly influences residential property prices in the short run, and interest rates, inflation targeting framework, gross domestic product, money supply consumer price index and exchange rate can quickly return to equilibrium when they are in disequilibrium.

There are limited arguments whether the inflation targeting monetary policy framework in South Africa has prevented residential property market boom and bust scenarios. The study has found that the implementation of inflation targeting framework has successfully reduced booms in residential property prices in South Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which enables to measure and analyze the performance of sub-process and overall system of a cargo company.

Network data envelopment analysis method with fuzzy data is used for performance measurement which considers the sub-process efficiency simultaneously together with the overall efficiency and also the uncertainty included in input–output data.

A real-life application of the proposed model is presented for Turkey. The application results show the efficiency scores of ten branches according to each sub-process and also the overall system. Although the obtained results are case specific, the application results indicate that the inefficient branches can achieve efficiency either by decreasing circulation ratio input for human resources sub-process or by increasing closed complaint output or by decreasing open complaint output for customer relationship management sub-process.

The study presented provides insights into the performance measurement applications in cargo sector. The methodology presented provides the flexibility of removing or adding some new sub-processes and also decision-making units which enables the approach to be used for other performance evaluation problems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the stochastic comparisons of the parallel system with independent heterogeneous Gumbel components and series and parallel systems with independent heterogeneous truncated Gumbel components in terms of various stochastic orderings.

The obtained results in this paper are obtained by using the vector majorization methods and results. First, the components of series and parallel systems are heterogeneous and having Gumbel or truncated Gumbel distributions. Second, multiple-outlier truncated Gumbel models are discussed for these systems. Then, the relationship between the systems having Gumbel components and Weibull components are considered. Finally, Monte Carlo simulations are performed to illustrate some obtained results.

The reversed hazard rate and likelihood ratio orderings are obtained for the parallel system of Gumbel components. Using these results, similar new results are derived for the series system of Weibull components. Stochastic comparisons for the series and parallel systems having truncated Gumbel components are established in terms of hazard rate, likelihood ratio and reversed hazard rate orderings. Some new results are also derived for the series and parallel systems of upper-truncated Weibull components.

To the best of our knowledge thus far, stochastic comparisons of series and parallel systems with Gumbel or truncated Gumble components have not been considered in the literature. Moreover, new results for Weibull and upper-truncated Weibull components are presented based on Gumbel case results.

In this study, human activity with finite and specific ranking is modeled with finite state machine, and an application for human–robot interaction was realized. A robot arm was designed that makes specific movements. The purpose of this paper is to create a language associated to a complex task, which was then used to teach individuals by the robot that knows the language.

Although the complex task is known by the robot, it is not known by the human. When the application is started, the robot continuously checks the specific task performed by the human. To carry out the control, the human hand is tracked. For this, the image processing techniques and the particle filter (PF) based on the Bayesian tracking method are used. To determine the complex task performed by the human, the task is divided into a series of sub-tasks. To identify the sequence of the sub-tasks, a push-down automata that uses a context-free grammar language structure is developed. Depending on the correctness of the sequence of the sub-tasks performed by humans, the robot produces different outputs.

This application was carried out for 15 individuals. In total, 11 out of the 15 individuals completed the complex task correctly by following the different outputs.

This type of study is suitable for applications to improve human intelligence and to enable people to learn quickly. Also, the risky tasks of a person working in a production or assembly line can be controlled with such applications by the robots.

Jujube fruit (JF) (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) is used as pharmaceuticals food, flavors and food additives. The purpose of this paper is to study the suitability of JF incorporation into a commercial sponge cake formulation, and to produce a nutritious bakery product with appropriate organoleptic and technological characteristics.

The optimal level of JF was incorporated into sponge cake using a custom mixture design with three independent variables, namely, refined wheat flour (RWF, 15–28 percent), sugar (7–22 percent) and JF (0–28 percent), as well as several responses, including physical properties, texture profile analysis (TPA), sensorial evaluation and color features. Moreover, physicochemical properties (TPA and oxidative indices) of optimal cake (two of the best JF levels) were compared with control sample (without JF) during 51 days storage period, while two baking temperatures (180°C and 170°C) were used.

The optimal amounts of RWF (21.19 percent), sugar (21.20 percent) and JF (7.61 percent) required for making the sample with maximum springiness, cohesiveness, specific volume, sensorial scores and yellowness, as well as the lowest firmness, baking loss and browning were determined. Desirable effects of JF on the cake quality well maintained throughout the storage period, as TPA attributes, peroxide value, ultraviolet absorbance and acid value showed less changes in JF-incorporated cake than the control sample.

Incorporating JF (~7 percent) into the batter was successful to improve the physicochemical properties in both fresh and stored cake with chocolate-like color.

Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to define and list the steps of time-driven activity-based costing system (TDABC); understand and explain the ideas behind the TDABC; implement the TDABC in customer profitability analysis; draw connections among the cost and profitability analysis; evaluate the importance of better costing techniques in profitability analysis; and make managerial decisions based on TDABC analysis.

Gluten Limited’s financial affairs and operations manager, Fatih, was aware that the company was making very little profit from its operations with its biggest customer. The main reason appeared to be that it delivered its products in bulk to the main warehouses of the customer, which then distributed them to the stores. Fatih believed that products were being sent to stores late, so that their expiration dates passed quickly and they ended up being returned.

The case study documents the past year of Gluten Limited’s delivery operations with one of its biggest customers. It focuses on the effectiveness of its delivery operations and ways to increase profitability by reducing sales returns. The case dilemma involves the choices that Fatih faced following a six-month trial period: either delivering products in bulk to the customer’s main warehouses at lower cost but higher return rates or delivering small amounts directly to stores at higher cost but lower return rates. Fatih needed to decide which mode of customer operations was more profitable and continue that way.

Knowing the importance of determining costs properly in profitability analysis, Fatih made the cost calculations using the TDABC system.

This case was written for use in Cost Accounting and Managerial Accounting classes at the undergraduate level. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of customer profitability analysis, cost reductions, eliminating non-value-added activities, and profitability of operations. Instructors seeking to emphasize the most suitable costing methods for customer profitability analysis could assign this case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science