Search results

This paper aims to identify all variables and parameters related to business and emission within the petrochemical industry. The variables and parameters specified will be modeled into a system dynamic model that will be a baseline for the proposed best scenario(s) to address the business issue related to emission reduction in the petrochemical industry.

Literature review and stakeholder interviews were conducted to define the key factors contributing to the emission reduction of the petrochemical industry. The key factors are then developed into a system dynamic model to measure the quantitative impact of changes in those variables on emission and industry profitability.

This paper provides an analysis of system dynamic model. It suggests that process optimization can lead to a slight amount reduction in emissions. In contrast, a significant reduction shows in the simulation result of bio-based feedstock utilization and implementation of advanced technology. To sustain the emission reduction, strong commitment from stakeholders and support from the government will play an important role.

This research is limited to problem analysis of the primary product (high-value chemical) of the petrochemical industry by only considering the changes in the key factors of emission reduction.

This paper includes implications for interventions that can be imposed to reduce emission while retaining the business profitability.

The contribution of this study is to find the best scenario that can boost emission reduction within Indonesia’s petrochemical industry.

The paper discusses the new concept of “Multinational Investment Projects” (MIPs) and its application in the context of international business operations in China. The petrochemical industry in China is used as the industrial context in which we investigate the interplay between the Chinese government, which encourages growth and investment activities in the sector, and the multinational petrochemical firms competing for global market share in this sector.

The paper investigates the nature of the petrochemical value chain and the investment activities in all of its segments. Using an originally created database of the top 180 MIPs in the petrochemical industry in China and additional context information the business environment in China, the paper reviews the investment strategies of multinational petrochemical corporations, and discusses their strategic choices for mode of entry in China, geographic location and location within the value chain.

The overview of MIPs in the Chinese petrochemical industry confirms the theoretical expectations of the critical impact of Chinese Government policies. The paper explains the emerging shape of international competition in this sector of the Chinese economy.

The main contributions of this paper are the new conceptual framework for analysis of the drivers for strategic investment choices, the assembly of a database with the top 180 MIPs in the petrochemical industry in China, and the analysis of the relationships between the regional endowments, concentration of value‐chain activities and location choices by multinational firms from different countries of origin. The results demonstrate the factors that drive growth in a knowledge‐, technology‐ and capital‐intensive sector.

This study aims to scrutiny the performance of the petrochemical sector and the technological innovation life cycle. Also, the stage of the innovation life cycle for the sector is specified. Then, scenarios are designed to improve the speed of the sector development. For this reason, for synchronizing the petrochemical sector, this study tries to combine two innovation systems (technological and sectoral systems) called “techno-sectoral innovation system” under an integrated model. Furthermore, the “functions and driving motors” are expanded in the proposed model.

By combining two concepts of the innovation systems, the complexity of the system rises to some extent. Also, to model causal relationships in the sector and non-linear connections between variables, system dynamics approach is applied. During this phase, the flow diagram of the model is translated to a simulation programme using Vensim software. Model validation is investigated using a comparison of the actual with simulated values.

The results predict the functions state of the innovation system and detect activation of innovation motors in each stage of the innovation life cycle. Validation shows the acceptable error of the indices. It can be concluded that the sector is relatively in the development state. Four scenarios have been proposed for representing policies that sector uses to motivate its companies. The best scenario is the fourth one that divides resources with different weightings among companies to accelerate switching time between sector’s motors. Finally, the fourth scenario can improve the performance of the petrochemical.

The hybrid approach shows researchers that performance of an industry can be improved based on sectoral and technological at the same time. Thus, this case-based model can contribute to other researchers, as a base model. Also, it could be customized with parameters and the relationship between players and functions. Furthermore, a dynamic switch among the motors has been presented in the model.

This study aims to investigate the impact of job rotation on employee performance and explores the mediating role of human resources (HR) strategy and training effectiveness on this relationship, within the petrochemical industry, which represents a highly specialist and hazardous industrial context.

Data was collected through a questionnaire which was distributed among the experts working in an Iranian petrochemical organization. Previously validated scales were used to measure job rotation, employee performance, HR strategy and training effectiveness, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for hypothesis testing.

The research findings indicated that job rotation had a negative effect on employee performance, while training effectiveness and HR strategy positively mediated the relationship between job rotation and employee performance. This highlights the importance of ensuring effective training and a HR strategy to support job rotation of skilled and specialist employees.

Managers of employees in specialist and hazardous industries, such as petrochemical workers, interested in job rotation to support employee career development, should be mindful of potential negative implications on employee performance. To support and improve employee performance, job rotation should be considered alongside HR strategy and training.

Previous research has largely focused on the value of job rotation to develop managers’ organizational understanding and to reduce injury within blue-collar work, which has led to a paucity of research into job rotation within highly skilled and specialist industrial roles. It is highlighted within the literature that it remains unclear what supports effective job rotation. This study addresses this lacuna by investigating how job rotation affects employee performance in a highly skilled and specialized industry and how strategy and training effectiveness mediate this effect.

The purpose of the paper is to provide to a better scientific understanding of Indonesia’s domestic gas allocation policy and its effects on the national economy and to answer the question of what best priorities can be set in allocating the natural gas for the domestic market to maximize the benefits for the national economy.

The authors apply a Computabled General Equilibrium (CGE). The Social Accounting Matrix 2008 is used to calibrate the CGE Model. There are two scenarios proposed, each is simulated with certain percentage of gas supply curtailment (50 MMSCFD, Scenario A), (100 MMSCFD, Scenario B).

It is confirmed that government’s current policy to give priority to oil production is not the optimum way to maximize added value of natural gas to Indonesian economy. While oil production generates state revenue, it is industry and petrochemical sector that induces high economic impacts because of strong backward and forward linkages.

Due to the limited data availability, it is assumed that the data on the SAM 2008 are valid for describing the structure of Indonesian economy.

The paper provides recommendation to the government to revise gas allocation policy by changing the rank of consumers’ priority.

This paper provides instruments to measure the impact of Indonesia’s domestic gas allocation policy. Finding the best hierarchy of consumer priorities is essential for maximizing added value of natural gas for the national economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, at the industry level, the modes of governance used by multinational companies in the UK petrochemical industry to outsource maintenance activities to engineering contractors. The study focusses on a form of novel governance structure called an Employer Panel (EP).

The study applies an inductive case study method to investigate the contractor governance mechanisms in 19 out of the 20 major petrochemical instillations located in the UK. Data included interviews, documentary and secondary evidence gathered from the cases and also industry bodies.

The study uncovered three distinct types of governance mode: market, managing contractor, and EP of contractors. The latter relies on the governance process of “mandated collaboration” to coordinate.

The main limitation is the focus on a particular industry, albeit an important one. The research implications include extending the empirical research into other sectors which use on-site contracted maintenance such as ship and aircraft manufacturing.

The EP structure with its mandated collaboration process is of value to managers of contractual relationships as it gives insights into coordinative process and it may provide an alternative model for managing outsourcing relationships.

The mandated collaborative process requires clients to engage its contractors in longer term relationships, thus increasing corporate social responsibility and providing wider job security for contractor employees.

The EP mode, as far as can be ascertained, has not been addressed in the literature before.

Facility maintenance is critical for the operation and management of petrochemical plants. Maintenance work completed with higher productivity eventually contributes to better plant performance. Mechanization reduces workforce demand and can increase the productivity of maintenance work. The purpose of this paper is to assess the current mechanization level of the maintenance activities and then identify applicable technology solutions for productivity improvement in petrochemical facility maintenance.

This paper utilizes a mechanization level assessment method for global maintenance data collection and analysis. Subject matter experts’ interviews and market scanning were used to identify corresponding technology solutions.

The study discovered numerous maintenance activities with lower mechanization levels and identified more than 50 technology solutions applicable for maintenance productivity improvement.

This paper provides a roadmap for petrochemical maintenance work participants to assess their mechanization level status quo and identify technology solutions for higher maintenance work productivity. The method adopted is replicable and customizable for further applications with different plant conditions in the petrochemical sector and other industrial contexts.

This paper aims to report on the development of a model to improve process health and safety within the context of a petrochemical environment to achieve a generative health and safety culture within that sector.

A quantitative research methodology and deductive research approach were used in the study. A survey was conducted in a major petrochemical enterprise in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa with 259 returned and duly completed questionnaires. The data was statistically analysed using statistical packages for social science version 25.

This study found that the key process health and safety critical drivers needed to grow a generative process health and safety culture were leadership commitment, chemical exposure management, health and safety risk assessment, process hazard analysis and permit to work.

This study was conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa within the petrochemical industry. Because of self-reported methods of data collection, there is a probability of bias existing in the results of the study.

The contribution of this research is to understand, based on theoretical assumptions, how health and safety improvement could be institutionalised in an organisation. The developed model can be used as a practical tool.

This paper is part of the larger discussion of increasing importance in health and safety policy-making. This study aims at contributing to the literature in the field of health and safety by incorporating the drivers towards a generative process health and safety culture.

This study provides a model to assist senior management to reduce exposure to process health and safety hazards in the petrochemical industry and improve overall performance.

This paper takes the seven overcapacity industries such as the textile industry, electricity and heat, steel, coal, automobile manufacturing, nonferrous metals and petrochemical industry as research objects and proposes a TOPSIS grey relational projection group decision method with mixed multiattributes, which is used for the ranking of the seven industries with overcapacity and provided relevant departments with a basis for decision-making.

First, an evaluation index system from four aspects is established. Secondly, the attributes of linguistic information are converted into two-dimensional interval numbers and triangular fuzzy numbers, and an evaluation matrix is constructed and normalized. This paper uses the AHP method to determine the subjective weights and uses the coefficient of variation method to determine the objective weights. Moreover, this paper sets up the optimization model with the largest comprehensive evaluation value to determine the combined weights. Finally, the TOPSIS grey relational projection method is proposed to calculate the closeness of grey relational projections and to rank them.

This paper analyzes the problem of overcapacity in seven industries with the TOPSIS grey relational projection method. The results show that the four industries of automobile manufacturing, textile, coal and petrochemical are all in serious overcapacity levels, while the three industries of steel, nonferrous metals and electric power are relatively in weak overcapacity level in the three years of 2016–2018. TOPSIS grey relational projection method ranks the overcapacity degree of the seven major overcapacity industries, making the relative overcapacity degree of each industry more clear and providing a reference for the government to formulate targeted policies and measures for each industry.

By using TOPSIS grey relational projection method to evaluate the overcapacity of the seven major overcapacity industries, on the one hand, it makes the relative overcapacity degree of each industry more clear, on the other hand, it can provides the basis for the government and decision-making departments. This helps them promote better the healthy and orderly economic development of the seven major industries and avoid resource waste caused by overcapacity.

This article solves the single evaluation method caused by the limited indicators in the past, combines TOPSIS and the grey relational projection method and applies it to the overcapacity evaluation of the industry, not only applies it to the evaluation of overcapacity for the first time but also involves novel problems and methods, which expands the scope of application of the model.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of sustainability reporting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

Twenty unstructured interviews were conducted to understand thoroughly the determinants and motivations of sustainability reporting among Saudi petrochemical shareholding companies.

This study finds that cultural aspects, compliance with international best practice, competitiveness, reputation and legitimacy are common motivations for sustainability reporting in KSA.

This study has significant implications for industry, especially petrochemical and other highly polluting industries, and for policymakers. There are economic benefits to industry in adopting sustainability reporting, including transparency; and it is suggested that policymakers encourage industries to give more attention to sustainability reporting.

This study provides an original contribution to the extant literature on sustainability reporting, and incrementally adds to knowledge on sustainability reporting in KSA, Gulf cooperation council and Middle East North Africa region countries.