Search results

The purpose of this paper is to understand labor market regulations and their consequences for the allocation of resources.

This paper constructs a theoretical model to study labor market regulations in developing countries and how it affects the allocation of resources between the less productive informal activities and more productive formal activities. It also provides empirical support for some theoretical results using cross-country data.

When workers are risk-averse and the market for insurance against labor income risk is missing, regulations that provide insurance to workers (such as severance payments) reduce misallocation. However, regulations that simply create barriers to the dismissal of workers increase misallocation and end up reducing the welfare of workers. This study also provides some empirical evidence broadly consistent with the theoretical results using cross-country data. While dismissal regulations increase the share of informal employment, severance payments to workers do not.

The empirical exercise is constrained by the lack of availability of good data on the informal sector.

The analysis of the alternative labor market regulations analyzed in this paper in the presence of risk-averse workers is an original contribution to the literature.

Looks at strategic logistics management and technology strategies for manufacturing and groups the contents under four main headings: logistical future; information challenge; 21st century manufacturing; 21st century service industries. Aims to look at the many challenges facing logistics practitioners and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to understand participatory consumers who are involved in translating and distributing overseas cultural commodities, without the permission of copyright holders. It intends to conceptualize them as a new breed of cultural intermediaries and discuss implications of their activities for the cultural industries.

The paper conducts a case study of “manga scanlators” who voluntarily translate manga (Japanese comics) to English and share translated manga online with other fans, without authorization from copyright holders. In addition to literature review and analysis of the text of selected scanlation web sites, the author interviewed ten manga scanlators and eight manga industry practitioners and experts in the UK, the USA and Japan.

It is found that participatory consumers, as new cultural intermediaries, challenge the cultural industries by transferring a substantial part of the industries’ intermediary work to the realm of cultural fandom and by developing their own logics of organizing the intermediation process and distributing fan‐translated products.

Considering the lack of research on fan‐translation and dissemination of cultural products, this paper's findings will be a valuable addition to the existing account of participatory cultural consumption. The copyright infringement aspect in manga scanlation is seen as part of the bigger picture of the gradual decoupling of intermediation activities, which are required to bring cultural products to overseas markets, from the market economy of translated manga production and distribution.

This paper systematically reviewed the contributions of the recent Nigerian government agricultural policies and the impacts on the agricultural value chain system in line with the structural transformation of the sector and the Nigeria's vision 20:2020. The study also suggest strategies to upgrading various segments of the agricultural value chain and argue that Nigeria's agricultural sector requires huge investments and innovative ideas to increase production and create value addition across the most profitable areas of the value chain.

The authors systematically present evidences and data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (the apex monetary authority of Nigeria) and Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (oversees and publishes statistics for Nigeria) to estimate the impact of Government agricultural policies on the value chains system.

The study discovers that the various recent government policy interventions to tackle the austere challenges in the agricultural sector are yet to yield much significant solution. Given to the dwindling performance of the sector, the Nigerian agricultural value chain is somewhat affected with systemic and services gaps which underpin the market failures (missing markets and weak markets), although the agricultural value chain has the potential of triggering economic growth in a higher scale with a trickle-down effect to other sectors of the Nigerian economy.

Overall, the findings indicate strategies to upgrading the production and processing segments of the agricultural value chain and argues that Nigeria's agricultural sector requires huge investments and innovative ideas to increase production and create value addition across the most profitable areas of the value chain.

The study proves that enhancing value addition in the agricultural sector is imperative to achieving triple-benefits of increasing productivity by building resilient systems that leverage on finance opportunities, deepening economic inclusive growth and achieving great milestones.

This study is the first attempt to focus on agricultural value chain system in line with the structural transformation and the Nigeria's vision 20:2020.

It seems to be the consensus (Zhang et al., 2012; George et al., 2003; Arumugam et al., 2013) that Lean Six Sigma (LSS) has become a beneficial improvement initiative used in a variety of industries. There is a move towards integrating any high-level business improvement methods holistically throughout the whole organisation. Indeed, Hoerl (2014) explored the idea that when using LSS for business improvement, the programme should engage the whole organisation in much the same way as the financial function is present throughout each department. The purpose of this paper is to posit that using the lean and green agenda may be the driver to achieve integration.

The research adopted a subjective ontological perspective with the researcher using participant observation as the main research instrument. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) note that it is now common for scholars to argue that the only relevant data are those based upon the personal experience of the researcher; this served as an informing foundation for the approach for the exploration of the topic. Based on multiple case studies, chosen because they operate in different sectors, the paper adopted an extended case method (Burawoy, 1998) to analyse and gather the research. The organisations were chosen because they both were at a similar stage in their continuous improvement (CI) journey. The main reasoning behind the selection of the two different organisations is to reach “Thick Description” (Geertz, 1973, p. 3, 2001).

The findings suggest that there are still significant benefits of implementing a large-scale lean agenda in particular when using an LSS methodology. The paper finds that there are also significant gaps in achieving full integration within the organisation and argues that lean and CI are still the remit of the operations manager. The document goes on to argue that if the CI initiative is driven by the corporate social responsibility (CSR) plan, then any lean/lean green implementation will enable the company to drive CI integration with all stakeholders.

The research has implications for those responsible for the CSR function within the organisation and the operations manager who is charged with implementing any lean/lean and green CI.

The paper argues that the lean and green agenda can drive integration of any CI activity throughout the organisation and suggests that the way this can be achieved is any CI activity that is included in the wider CSR plan.

This paper contributes to the “lean and green” agenda and offers a solution for the problem of integrating LSS activities throughout the whole organisation by placing CI and LSS within the CSR remit.

There is little consensus how this holistic integrated approach should be implemented by the company. This research uses multiple case studies to critically examine the application of LSS as an improvement programme within two large UK-based organisations, each company operating in very different industry sectors to identify the benefits of LSS but also the missed “green/societal” opportunities and argues that if any lean and lean and green agenda is to be holistically adopted, then any CI activity should be driven by the CSR department.

While some hydrogen (H₂) products are available in the industrial market, new clean H₂ applications are considered critical alternatives in decarbonization efforts. As suppliers need to understand how business customers conceive the value of hydrogen, this paper aims to investigate how the value of hydrogen is described in the published evidence and to identify or propose specific tools to assess its value.

An integrative literature review is developed to synthesize studies on the value of hydrogen to identify the main value categories. Then, the authors create a novel guideline by linking three value dimensions: 1) the product-oriented value (including sustainability), 2) the elements of B2B value and 3) the concept of goal-oriented value.

This paper categorizes the aspects of value discussed so far in the literature, suggesting conceptualizing the value of H₂ value-in-use based on economic, environmental, social and technological categories. The missing value categories from the marketing perspective are related to perceived value. A comprehensive guideline for assessing the value of H₂ for business customers was developed to address that gap. The guideline can evaluate hydrogen from a multicategory perspective and compare new hydrogen products with alternatives.

First, the authors present the value of hydrogen in the B2B marketing discussion. Second, the authors propose four hydrogen value categories based on the current state-of-the-art. Third, the authors developed the multicategory guideline for assessing the value of hydrogen products for business customers (VH₂-BC).

Strategic management.

Entry-level post-graduate management students at an MBA program; middle-level professionals in an executive management program.

Royal India Food Retail (RIFR) is an organized food retailer, head-quartered in Delhi, India. The firm has established 180 outlets across the three Indian states of Delhi, Chandigarh and Punjab, selling fruits and vegetables, full-range of staples, grocery items and essential non-food items and fast-moving consumer good products. Since its inception, RIFR has been making losses, owing to both unfavourable external conditions and poor strategic management. In 2014-2015, RIFR reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) loss of Rs 46m as against Rs 276m in 2013-2014 and Rs 346m in 2012-2013. This case examines the problems of RIFR, against the backdrop of an unfavourable industry structure and the need for astute decision making, and poses the question of what the next step for RIFR should be.

Developing a clear understanding of the business environment; understanding the challenges faced by businesses in emerging markets; highlighting the dynamics of a volume-driven vis-à-vis a margin-driven approach to business strategy; and the importance of resources as critical elements of strategy development.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Looks (in this special issue), at technology strategies in manufacturing and how it may pan out in the next decade, covering logistical future; information challenge; 21st century manufacturing; and 21st century service industries. Posits feelings about product life and the “throw away lifestyle” of the modern era. Discusses core business of companies and a possible scenario for them. Itemizes differing industries from the automotive to information systems, computes, the Internet and airlines. Lambasts companies’ approaches to “pooh‐pooh” modern thinking and urges modern thinkers to eschew the “Luddite” reaction to change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of political connections in the emerging market context.

A case study analysis of three Russian pharmaceutical firms is conducted to uncover how they performed through the Russian transition – the institutional upheaval of the 1990s – and the ongoing state-led industrialization.

In the early years of transition, firms heavily rely on political networking to gain legitimacy and fill institutional voids. As institutions strengthen, the need for political networking is being substituted by arm’s length networking. Strengthening of institutions also results in a more stable business environment, evolving firms’ strategies from short-term core competency concentration to long-term innovative visions.

Firms operating in the Russian, Commonwealth of Independent States and some other Eastern European state domains must be wary of complex ties that are prevalent in these countries and often can assist or hinder firm performance. Although formal institutions strengthen arm’s length networks, a close cooperation between strategic firms and the state remains.

The paper proposes two phases of the Russian transition and provides a taxonomy of strategic choices of Russian firms during the transition. Further, the paper describes the key institutional developments in the two phases of the Russian transition. Finally, a framework of political connections and their role in business operations in the two phases of the transition is provided.

A recent innovative technology used in wireless communication is recognized as multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system and became popular for quicker data transmission speed. This technology is being examined and implemented for the latest broadband wireless connectivity networks. Though high-capacity wireless channel is identified, there is still requirement of better techniques to get increased data transmission speed with acceptable reliability. There are two types of systems comprising of multi-antennas placed at transmitting and receiving sides, of which first is diversity technique and another is spatial multiplexing method. By making use of these diversity techniques, the reliability of transmitting signal can be improved. The fundamental method of the diversity is to transform wireless channel such as Rayleigh fading into steady additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel which is devoid of any disastrous fading of the signal. The maximum transmission speed that can be achieved by spatial multiplexing methods is nearly equal to channel capacity of MIMO. Conversely, for diversity methods, the maximum speed of broadcasting is much lower than channel capacity of MIMO. With the advent of space–time block coding (STBC) antenna diversity technique, higher-speed data transmission is achievable for spatially multiplexed multiple input multiple output (SM-MIMO) system. At the receiving end, detection of the signal is a complex task for system which exhibits SM-MIMO. Additionally, a link modification method is implemented to decide appropriate coding and modulation scheme such as space diversity technique STBC to use two-way radio resources efficiently. The proposed work attempts to improve detection of signal at receiving end by employing STBC diversity technique for linear detection methods such as zero forcing (ZF), minimum mean square error (MMSE), ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) and maximum likelihood detection (MLD). The performance of MLD has been found to be better than other detection techniques.

Alamouti's STBC uses two transmit antennas regardless of the number of receiver antennas. The encoding and decoding operation of STBC is shown in the earlier cited diagram. In the following matrix, the rows of each coding scheme represent a different time instant, while the columns represent the transmitted symbols through each different antenna. In this case, the first and second rows represent the transmission at the first and second time instant, respectively. At a time t, the symbol s₁ and symbol s₂ are transmitted from antenna 1 and antenna 2, respectively. Assuming that each symbol has duration T, then at time t + T, the symbols –s₂* and s₁*, where (.)* denotes the complex conjugate, are transmitted from antenna 1 and antenna 2, respectively. Case of one receiver antenna: The reception and decoding of the signal depend on the number of receiver antennas available. For the case of one receiver antenna, the received signals are received at antenna 1 , hij is the channel transfer function from the jth transmit antenna and the ith receiver antenna, n1 is a complex random variable representing noise at antenna 1 and x (k) denotes x at time instant k ( at time t + (k – 1)T.

The results obtained for maximal ratio combining (MRC) with 1 × 4 scheme show that the BER curve drops to 10–4 for signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio of 10 dB, whereas for MRC 1 × 2 scheme, the BER drops down to 10–5 for SNR of 20 dB. Results obtained in Table 1 show that when STBC is employed for MRC with 1 × 2 scheme (one antenna at transmitter node and two antennas at receiver node), BER curve comes down to 0.0076 for Eb/N0 of 12. Similarly, when MRC with 1 × 4 antenna scheme is implemented, BER drops down to 0 for Eb/N0 of 12. Thus, it can be concluded from the obtained graph that the performance of MRC with STBC gives improved results. When STBC technique is used with 3 × 4 scheme, at SNR of 10 dB, BER comes nearer to 10–6 (figure 7.3). It can be concluded from the analytics observed between AWGN and Rayleigh fading channel that for AWGN channel, BER is found to be equal to 0 for SNR value of 13.5 dB, whereas for Rayleigh fading channel, BER is observed nearer to 10–3 for Eb/N0 = 15. Simulation results (in figure 7.2) from the analytics show BER drops to 0 for SNR value of 12 dB.

Optimal design and successful deployment of high-performance wireless networks present a number of technical challenges. These include regulatory limits on useable radio-frequency spectrum and a complex time-varying propagation environment affected by fading and multipath. The effect of multipath fading in wireless systems can be reduced by using antenna diversity. Previous studies show the performance of transmit diversity with narrowband signals using linear equalization, decision feedback equalization, maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) and spread spectrum signals using a RAKE receiver. The available IC techniques compatible with STBC schemes at transmission require multiple antennas at the receiver. However, if this not a strong constraint at the base station level, it remains a challenge at the handset level due to cost and size limitation. For this reason, SAIC technique, alternative to complex ML multiuser demodulation technique, is still of interest for 4G wireless networks using the MIMO technology and STBC in particular. In a system with characteristics similar to the North American Digital mobile radio standard IS-54 (24.3 K symbols per sec. with an 81 Hz fading rate), adaptive retransmission with time deviation is not practical.

The evaluation of performance in terms of bit error rate and convergence time which estimates that MLD technique outperforms in terms of received SNR and low decoding complexity. MLD technique performs well but when higher number of antennas are used, it requires more computational time and thereby resulting in increased hardware complexity. When MRC scheme is implemented for singe input single output (SISO) system, BER drops down to 10–2 for SNR of 20 dB. Therefore, when MIMO systems are employed for MRC scheme, improved results based on BER versus SNR are obtained and are used for detecting the signal; comparative study based on different techniques is done. Initially ZF detection method is utilized which was then modified to ZF with successive interference cancellation (ZFSIC). When successive interference cancellation scheme is employed for ZFSIC, better performance is observed as compared to the estimation of ML and MMSE. For 2 × 2 scheme with QPSK modulation method, ZFSIC requires more computational time as compared to ZF, MMSE and ML technique. From the obtained results, the conclusion is that ZFSIC gives the improved results as compared to ZF in terms of BER ratio. ZF-based decision statistics can be produced by the detection algorithm for a desired sub-stream from the received vector whichs consist of an interference which occurred from previous transmitted sub-streams. Consequently, a decision on the secondary stream is made and contribution of the noise is regenerated and subtracted from the vector received. With no involvement of interference cancellation, system performance gets reduced but computational cost is saved. While using cancellation, as H is deflated, coefficients of MMSE are recalculated at each iteration. When cancellation is not involved, the computation of MMSE coefficients is done only once, because of H remaining unchanged. For MMSE 4 × 4 BPSK scheme, bit error rate of 10–2 at 30 dB is observed. In general, the most thorough procedure of the detection algorithm is the computation of the MMSE coefficients. Complexity arises in the calculation of the MMSE coefficients, when the antennas at the transmitting side are increased. However, while implementing adaptive MMSE receivers on slow channel fading, it is probable to recover the signal with the complications being linear in the antennas of transmitter node. The performance of MMSE and successive interference cancellation of MMSE are observed for 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 BPSK and QPSK modulation schemes. The drawback of MMSE SIC scheme is that the first detected signal observes the noise interference from (NT-1) signals, while signals processed from every antenna later observe less noisy interference as the process of cancellation progresses. This difficulty could be overcome by using OSIC detection method which uses successive ordering of the processed layers in the decreasing power of the signal or by power allocation to the signal transmitted depending on the order of the processing. By using successive scheme, a computation of NT delay stages is desired to bring out the abandoned process. The work also includes comparison of BER with various modulation schemes and number of antennas involved while evaluating the performance. MLD determines the Euclidean distance among the vector signal received and result of all probable transmitted vector signals with the specified channel H and finds the one with the minimum distance. Estimated results show that higher order of the diversity is observed by employing more antennas at both the receiving and transmitting ends. MLD with 8 × 8 binary phase shift keying (BPSK) scheme offers bit error rate near to 10^–4 for SNR (16 dB). By using Altamonti space ti.

It should come as no surprise that companies everywhere are pushing to get products to market faster. Missing a market window or a design cycle can be a major setback in a competitive environment. It should be equally clear that this pressure is coming at the same time that companies are pushing towards “leaner” organizations that can do more with less. The trends mentioned earlier are not well supported by current test and measurement equipment, given this increasingly high-pressure design environment: in order to measure signals across multiple domains, multiple pieces of measurement equipment are needed, increasing capital or rental expenses. The methods available for making cross-domain, time-correlated measurements are inefficient, reducing engineering efficiency. When only used on occasion, the learning curve to understand how to use equipment for logic analysis, time domain and RF spectrum measurements often requires an operator to re-learn each piece of separate equipment. The equipment needed to measure wide bandwidth, time-varying spectral signals is expensive, again increasing capital or rental expenses. What is needed is a measurement instrument with a common user interface that integrates multiple measurement capabilities into a single cost-effective tool that can efficiently measure signals in the current wide-bandwidth, time-correlated, cross-domain environments. The market of wireless communication using STBCs has large scope of expansion in India. Therefore, the proposed work has techno-commercial potential and the product can be patented. This project shall in turn be helpful for remote areas of the nearby region particularly in Gadchiroli district and Melghat Tiger reserve project of Amravati district, Nagjira and so on where electricity is not available and there is an all the time problem of coverage in getting the network. In some regions where electricity is available, the shortage is such that they cannot use it for peak hours. In such cases, stand-alone space diversity technique, STBC shall help them to meet their requirements in making connection during coverage problem, thereby giving higher data transmission rates with better QOS (quality of service) with least dropped connections. This trend towards wireless everywhere is causing a profound change in the responsibilities of embedded designers as they struggle to incorporate unfamiliar RF technology into their designs. Embedded designers frequently find themselves needing to solve problems without the proper equipment needed to perform the tasks.

Work is original.