Search results

Subcontracting is a crucial cause behind the simultaneous existence of formal and informal entrepreneurship in India. This article aims to provide an over-time comparative analysis between the subcontracted and the non-subcontracted enterprises within the informal sector. Further, it also brings to fore the contribution of subcontracting towards ensuring sustainability of the informal enterprises.

By constructing a panel data from two rounds of NSS Unincorporated Enterprise Survey Data (2010 and 2015), and employing a PSM-DID method, considering labour productivity and net retained earnings as two critical indicators of growth and development of the informal sector firms, this study has made some broad claims regarding the differences in immediate and long run performances between the subcontracted and non-subcontracted informal sector enterprises in India.

This study finds that subcontracted enterprises have not only been performing at a much lower level than the non-subcontracted enterprises, they are also growing much slowly than their counterparts. However, it has been observed that for the establishments, who are capital abundant and also have a larger production capacity, subcontracting is showing the prospect for deriving sustainable gains.

This article contributes to the existing literature in the following two ways. Firstly, it provides an over-time comparative analysis between the subcontracted and the non-subcontracted enterprises within the informal sector. Secondly, it brings to fore the contribution of subcontracting towards ensuring sustainability of the informal enterprises.

This study investigates the optimum size for manufacturing firms and the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood of achieving their optimal scale in Vietnam.

Using data from the enterprise census in 2017 and 2021, the paper first estimates the production function to identify the optimum firm size for manufacturing firms and then, applies the logit model to investigate factors associated with the optimal firm size.

The study reveals that medium-sized firms exhibit the highest level of productivity. Nevertheless, a consistent trend emerges, indicating that nearly 90% of manufacturing firms in Vietnam operated below their optimal scale in both 2017 and 2021. An analysis of the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood to achieve their optimal scale emphasizes its crucial role, especially for foreign firms, exerting an influence nearly five times greater than that of the judiciary system.

The paper's findings offer crucial policy implications, suggesting that initiatives aimed at enhancing the overall productivity of the manufacturing sector should prioritise facilitating contract arrangements to encourage firms to reach their optimal size. These insights are also valuable for other countries with comparable firm size distributions.

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between firm size and productivity as well as the role of subcontracting in firms' ability to reach their optimal scale in a country with a right-skewed distribution of firm sizes.

Consequence prediction is an emerging topic in safety management concerning the severity outcome of accidents. In practical applications, it is usually implemented through supervised learning methods; however, the evaluation of classification results remains a challenge. The previous studies mostly adopted simplex evaluation based on empirical and quantitative assessment strategies. This paper aims to shed new light on the comprehensive evaluation and comparison of diverse classification methods through visualization, clustering and ranking techniques.

An empirical study is conducted using 9 state-of-the-art classification methods on a real-world data set of 653 construction accidents in China for predicting the consequence with respect to 39 carefully featured factors and accident type. The proposed comprehensive evaluation enriches the interpretation of classification results from different perspectives. Furthermore, the critical factors leading to severe construction accidents are identified by analyzing the coefficients of a logistic regression model.

This paper identifies the critical factors that significantly influence the consequence of construction accidents, which include accident type (particularly collapse), improper accident reporting and handling (E21), inadequate supervision engineers (O41), no special safety department (O11), delayed or low-quality drawings (T11), unqualified contractor (C21), schedule pressure (C11), multi-level subcontracting (C22), lacking safety examination (S22), improper operation of mechanical equipment (R11) and improper construction procedure arrangement (T21). The prediction models and findings of critical factors help make safety intervention measures in a targeted way and enhance the experience of safety professionals in the construction industry.

The empirical study using some well-known classification methods for forecasting the consequences of construction accidents provides some evidence for the comprehensive evaluation of multiple classifiers. These techniques can be used jointly with other evaluation approaches for a comprehensive understanding of the classification algorithms. Despite the limitation of specific methods used in the study, the presented methodology can be configured with other classification methods and performance metrics and even applied to other decision-making problems such as clustering.

This study sheds new light on the comprehensive comparison and evaluation of classification results through visualization, clustering and ranking techniques using an empirical study of consequence prediction of construction accidents. The relevance of construction accident type is discussed with the severity of accidents. The critical factors influencing the accident consequence are identified for the sake of taking prevention measures for risk reduction. The proposed method can be applied to other decision-making tasks where the evaluation is involved as an important component.

This study aims to explore supply chain resilience (SCR) and provides a unique resilience index. The work measures the resilience status of 37 organizations across 22 industries and provides insight into accessing the supply chain (SC) vulnerability in an uncertain environment.

This study involves measuring the resilience status of 37 organizations across 22 industries based on a subjective decision-making approach using fuzzy logic. Experts from industries rated the importance and level of implementation of 33 attributes of SCR, which are used to develop a fuzzy index of implementation that explains the resilience status of organizations.

A novel coexistent resilience index is computed based on mutualism to exhibit the proportion of contribution or learning of each attribute of an organization in an industry. The research will enhance the response plans and formation of strategic alliances for mutual coexistence by industry.

Evidence-based interpretations and suggestions are provided for each industry to enhance resilience through coexistence.

The work uniquely contributes to academic literature and SC strategy. The novel coexistent resilience index is computed based on mutualism, facilitating researchers to access SC resiliency.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new technologies that condition location strategy and enable the reindustrialization of European countries involved in the automotive industry. Business relocation has seen an upsurge in recent years. The development of the technologies linked to new mobility (connected, autonomous and electric vehicles) in European countries is increasing interest in relocating high value activities in origin countries to preserve high quality jobs and maintain competitive advantage.

The paper analyzes the changes in location factors and relocation trends through qualitative research based on a multiple case study methodology of first level suppliers in the automotive industry.

This study reveals the capacity technology has to reconfigure the automotive value chain and to change traditional location factors and relocation trends. The results show relevant differences between the traditional components production divisions characterized by offshoring processes, in a continuous decrease of activity and deindustrialization, and the new technologies divisions linked to new mobility with strong growth, reshoring of the high value activities, reindustrialization plans and links with research and development. For these new mobility divisions, protection of innovation to prevent the core knowledge transfer and strong collaboration with local research institutions are key in this highly technological location context.

The research analyzes the impact of new mobility technologies on the relocation processes in the automotive industry through an original approach based on the evolution of traditional suppliers with divisions linked to new mobility.

This article aims to analyze the strategic work of Polish entrepreneurs in the furniture industry following the political changes in 1989. The authors examined how these entrepreneurs transitioned from local craftsmen or importers into leaders of international manufacturing companies and how their strategizing contributed to the unprecedented growth of the Polish furniture sector.

The authors examined extant data, specifically biographical interviews conducted with 11 prominent leaders in the Polish furniture industry (Hryniewicki, 2015, 2018). They analyzed within a theoretical framework that integrates J.C. Spender’s theory of strategic management with Barry Johnson’s concept of polarity management. Polarity is a way of understanding and managing interdependent, opposing pairs of values or perspectives that give rise to conflict.

The analysis reveals key patterns of strategic challenges at the level of human agency, history and sense-making. The authors identified four key polarities: life and business, knowledge presence and absence, concordance and discordance, and instrumental and non-instrumental sense-making.

The polarity concept illuminates the interplay of agency and determinism in strategic decision-making, offering valuable insights for methodology and a deeper understanding of Poland’s furniture industry.

This study aims to analyze the factors driving Syrian refugees into the informal labor market in Türkiye despite the existence of regulations and programs to facilitate their integration into the formal labor market.

This study presents results from a literature review of secondary sources and primary data collection through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and Syrian refugees.

The study shows that the implementation of policies and programs to boost formal employment among refugees has yielded limited results. Many refugees continue to operate within the informal economy. This informality is due to various socio-economic challenges, including anti-refugee sentiments, geographical restrictions and economic crises. The 2023 twin earthquakes have further exacerbated the vulnerable situation of refugees, intensifying the difficulty of achieving self-reliance.

The study’s drawbacks include a small sample size. This implies that the sample is not representative; therefore, results may lack generalizability.

The study’s findings could stimulate greater engagement in public policy, facilitate the management of public perceptions regarding refugees and provide support to the private sector, all to enhance the integration of Syrian refugees into the formal labor market.

This study addresses crucial areas previously unexplored, including the impact of economic and natural disaster crises on the labor market integration of refugees. To the best of the author’s knowledge, by investigating these factors for the first time, this study offers novel insights into their influence on refugees’ labor market integration.

With production systems become more digitized, data-driven maintenance decisions can improve the performance of production systems. While manufacturers are introducing predictive maintenance and maintenance reporting to increase maintenance operation efficiency, operational data may also be used to improve maintenance management. Research on the value of data-driven decision support to foster increased internal integration of maintenance with related functions is less explored. This paper explores the potential for further development of solutions for cross-functional responsibilities that maintenance shares with production and logistics through data-driven approaches.

Fifteen maintenance experts were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. The interview questions were derived based on topics identified through a structured literature analysis of 126 papers.

The main findings show that data-driven decision-making can support maintenance, asset, production and material planning to coordinate and collaborate on cross-functional responsibilities. While solutions for maintenance planning and scheduling have been explored for various operational conditions, collaborative solutions for maintenance, production and logistics offer the potential for further development. Enablers for data-driven collaboration are the internal synchronization and central definition of goals, harmonization of information systems and information visualization for decision-making.

This paper outlines future research directions for data-driven decision-making in maintenance management as well as the practical requirements for implementation.

Chinese construction projects commonly implement subcontracting, but organizational arrangements have received little attention. Some studies have debated the impact of firm capabilities on subcontracting. To address these issues, this study differentiates the general contractor’s technological capabilities and alliance management capabilities and investigates how capabilities affect the degree of subcontracting and subcontracting dispersion based on the resource-based view and transaction cost economics.

By conducting a survey, 219 valid questionnaires were collected from Chinese construction companies. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the influence of capabilities on subcontracting organizational arrangements and the moderating role of uncertainty.

The results show that technological capabilities decrease the degree of subcontracting, whereas alliance management capabilities increase the degree of subcontracting as well as subcontracting dispersion. The results also indicate that the positive effects of alliance management capabilities are weakened by project uncertainty.

This study provides a better understanding of the diversity of subcontracting organizational arrangements in China. In addition, the findings may help general contractors carry out a rational arrangement by considering their capabilities and transaction hazards.

This study contributes to a holistic understanding of how capabilities determine subcontracting by distinguishing technological capabilities and alliance management capabilities and refining the degree of subcontracting and subcontracting dispersion. Meanwhile, the findings highlight the complementarity of the resource-based view and transaction cost economics by examining the moderating effect of uncertainty.

This paper aims to investigate the governance of labour standards in the less-studied yet rapidly globalising Ghanaian construction sector. While incorporation into international production networks generates several opportunities for workers, the drivers of adverse incorporation originate at multiple levels of analysis. The study offers an investigation into such drivers and their interconnections.

The authors utilise a multi-scalar framework and mixed methods of analysis. Both the qualitative and multi-level quantitative analyses rely on a primary dataset collected among 30 firms and 304 respondents, through semi-structured interviews.

A composite yet unbalanced labour standards governance configuration emerges, where the absence of social governance combined with a weak role of the State leaves labour standards subject to the variegated landscape of firms' embeddedness in the sector.

The construction industry is acquiring ever-increasing relevance in the economic trajectory of Ghana as well as that of several other African economies, not least for its large employment generation potential. Research on the governance of labour standards in the sector is, however, largely missing. The authors argue that labour incorporation dynamics represent a complex under-investigated regulatory challenge as well as a policy-making priority. The analysis is one of the first to offer a reconstruction of the governance landscape determining the challenges workers face in the Ghanaian construction sector, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.