Search results

The present study connects the literature on sustainable HRM with that on employability to investigate the relationship between sustainability-oriented human resource actions and organizational outcomes. More specifically, this study explores how training for employability affects the employer–employee relationship and employee retention. Furthermore, this study considers competitive intensity as a potential moderator in these relationships.

The analyses draw on the fourth European Company Survey (ECS 2019) with a sample of 21?869 firms with more than ten employees. Two separate logistic regression models were used to test the hypothesis.

The results show that training for employability contributes to improving the employer–employee relationship and that competitive intensity positively shapes this relationship. Contextually, training for employability reduces the overall employee retention of the firm.

Although this study supports the potential win–win nature of employability support, especially for companies that operate in competitive markets and an uncertain environment, it also highlights the existence of paradoxical sustainability tensions that should be managed by employers.

International outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 infection has fostered the Italian government to impose the FFP2 protective facial masks in closed environments, including bar, restaurants and, more in general, in the food sector. Protective facial masks are rocketing, both in mass and in costs, in the food sector imposing efforts in fostering reuse strategies and in the achievement of sustainable development goals. The scope of the present paper is to depict possible strategies in manufacturing and reuse strategies that can reduce the carbon footprint (CF) of such devices.

To implement circular economy strategies in the protective facial masks supply chain, it was considered significant to move towards a study of the environmental impact of such devices, and therefore a CF study has been performed on an FFP2 facial mask used in the food sector. Different materials besides the mostly used polypropylene (PP) (polyethylene (PE), polycarbonate (PC), poly (lactic acid) (PLA), cotton, polyurethane (PUR), polystyrene (PS) and nylon 6,6) and different sanitisation alternatives as reuse strategies (both laboratory and homemade static oven, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation) readily implemented have been modelled to calculate the CF of a single use of an FFP2 mask.

The production of textiles in PP, followed by disposal was the main contributor to CF of the single-use FFP2 mask, followed by packaging and transportations. PP and PE were the least impacting, PC, cotton and Nylon 6-6 of the same weight results the worst. PLA has an impact greater than PP and PE obtained from crude oil, followed by PUR and PS. Static laboratory oven obtained an 80.4% reduction of CF with respect to single use PP-made FFP2 mask, whereas homemade oven obtained a similar 82.2% reduction; UV cabinet is the best option, showing an 89.9% reduction.

The key strategies to reduce the environmental impacts of the masks (research for new materials and reuse with sanitisation) should ensure both the retention of filtering capacities and the sanitary sterility of the reused ones. Future developments should include evaluations of textile recycling impacts, using new materials and the evaluation of the life cycle costs of the reused masks.

This paper intends to provide to stakeholders (producers, consumers and policy makers) the tools to choose the best option for producing and reuse environmentally friendly protective facial masks to be used in the food sector, by using both different materials and easily implemented reuse strategies.

The reduction of the CF of protective facial masks in the food sector surely will have relevant positive effects on climate change contributing to reach the goals of reducing CO₂ emissions. The food sector may promote sustainable practices and attract a niche piece of clients particularly sensible to such themes.

The paper has two major novelties. The first one is the assessment of the CF of a single use of an FFP2 mask made with different materials of the non-woven filtering layers; as the major contribution to the CF of FFP2 masks is related to the non-woven textiles manufacturing, the authors test some other different materials, including PLA. The second is the assessment of the CF of one single use of a sanitised FFP2 mask, using different sanitation technologies as those allowed in bars or restaurants.

This study aimed to address the underexplored domain of organisational vulnerability, with a specific focus on understanding how vulnerability is understood in organisations and the underlying pathways leading to vulnerability.

This study utilised a narrative literature review methodology, using Google Scholar as the primary source, to analyse the concepts of organisational vulnerability in the context of disaster risk studies. The review focused on relevant documents published between the years 2000 and 2022.

The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of organisational vulnerability, which arises from both inherent weaknesses within the organisation and external risks that expose it to potential hazards. The inherent weaknesses are rooted in internal vulnerability pathways such as organisational culture, managerial ignorance, human resources, and communication weaknesses that compromise the organisation’s resilience. The external dimension of vulnerability is found in cascading vulnerability pathways, e.g. critical infrastructure, supply chains, and customer relationships.

As the frequency and severity of disasters continue to increase, organisations of all sizes face heightened vulnerability to unforeseen disruptions and potential destruction. Acknowledging and comprehending organisational vulnerability is a crucial initial step towards enhancing risk management effectiveness, fostering resilience, and promoting sustainable success in an interconnected global environment and an evolving disaster landscape.

The Ethiopian economy is mainly based on the rain-fed agriculture practiced by smallholder farmers. The sector is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. This study aims to examine the determinants of adaptation strategies to climate change among the smallholder farmers in Adama District, Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect quantitative data using questionnaire with 351 randomly selected smallholder farmers. To collect qualitative data focus group discussions, key informant interviews and field observations were also used. Triangulated with thematic analysis, descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression model were used for the analysis.

The result indicated that the majority of the smallholder farmers use at least one climate change adaptation strategy in their local areas though the strategy is generally weak. In this regard, some of the dominant climate change adaptation activities identified in the study area are using improved crop varieties, planting trees, watershed management, adjusting planting date and terracing. The result from binary logistic regression model showed that age and sex of household head, as well as their education, family size, access to agricultural extension services and training on climate change significantly influence the practices of adaptation measures.

This study would help the practitioners to modify the existing weak adaptation activities by introducing advanced and technological-based adaptation strategies to the rural farming communities.

This study aims to present the climate change effect on soil moisture regimes in Mexico in a global 1.5°C warming scenario.

The soil moisture regimes were determined using the Newhall simulation model with the database of mean monthly precipitation and temperature at a scale of 1: 250,000 for the current scenario and with the climate change scenarios associated with a mean global temperature increase of 1.5°C, considering two Representative Concentration Pathways, 4.5 and 8.5 W/m² and three general models of atmospheric circulation, namely, GFDL, HADGEM and MPI. The different vegetation types of the country were related to the soil moisture regimes for current conditions and for climate change.

According to the HADGEM and MPI models, almost the entire country is predicted to undergo a considerable increase in soil moisture deficit, and part of the areas of each moisture regime will shift to the next drier regime. The GFDL model also predicts this trend but at smaller proportions.

The changes in soil moisture at the regional scale that reveal the impacts of climate change and indicate where these changes will occur are important elements of the knowledge concerning the vulnerability of soils to climate change. New cartography is available in Mexico.

This paper aims to build a theoretical model of the impact of farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures on the agricultural output to analyze the impact of farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures on agricultural output.

Based on the field survey data of 808 farmers households in three provinces (regions) of the Loess Plateau, this paper using the endogenous switching regression model to analyze the effect of farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures on agricultural output.

Soil erosion has a significant negative impact on agricultural output, and soil erosion has a significant positive impact on farmers’ adoption of soil and water conservation measures. Farmers adopt soil and water conservation measures such as engineering measures, biological measures and tillage measures to cope with soil erosion, which can increase agricultural output. Based on the counterfactual hypothesis, if farmers who adopt soil and water conservation measures do not adopt the corresponding soil and water conservation measures, their average output per ha output will decrease by 2.01%. Then, if farmers who do not adopt soil and water conservation measures adopt the corresponding soil and water conservation measures, their average output per ha output will increase by 12.12%. Government support and cultivated land area have a significant positive impact on farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures.

The research limitation is the lack of panel data.

Soil erosion has a significant negative impact on agricultural output, and soil erosion has a significant positive impact on farmers’ adoption of soil and water conservation measures. Farmers adopt soil and water conservation measures such as engineering measures, biological measures and tillage measures to cope with soil erosion, which can increase agricultural output.

The conclusion provides a reliable empirical basis for the government to formulate and implement relevant policies.

The contributions of this paper are as follows: the adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures and agricultural output are included into the same analytical framework for empirical analysis, revealing the influencing factors of farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures and their output effects, enriching existing research. Using endogenous switching regression model and introducing instrumental variables to overcome the endogenous problem between the adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures and agricultural output, and to analyze the influencing factors of farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation measures and its impact on agricultural output. Using the counter-factual idea to ensure that the two matched individuals have the same or similar attributes, to evaluate the average treatment effect of the behavior of soil and water conservation measures, to estimate the real impact of adaptation measures on agricultural output as accurately as possible and to avoid misleading policy recommendations.

The Sertão, located in the Northeastern region of Brazil, is the most populous semi-arid region in the world. The region also faces the highest rates of poverty, food insecurity and climate risks in this country. Basic economic activities, such as extensive livestock and dairy farming, tend to be mainly affected by the increasing temperatures and recurrent droughts taking place in the past decades. This paper aims to analyze farmers’ responses to climatic variability in the Sertão.

Analyses are based on farm-level data of the Agricultural Census 2006 and on historical climate data gathered by meteorological stations. The climate impacts and the effectiveness of adaptive strategies are compared between three groups of farms, which discriminate different levels of social and environmental vulnerability. Four production functions are modeled (milk, cattle, goat and sheep) accounting for sample selectivity bias.

In response to increasing temperatures, farmers tend to shift their activities mainly to cattle and dairy farming. But the overall productivity tends to reduce with the recurrence of droughts. Decreasing precipitation affects mainly the production of milk of smallholder family farmers and the cattle herd of non-family farmers.

Analyses do not account for short- and medium-run productive impacts of extreme droughts, which usually have devastating socioeconomic effects in the region.

Smallholder family farmers are the most vulnerable group who deserve more social and technical intervention, as they lack basic social and technological resources that can greatly improve their productivities and overcome the impacts of decreasing precipitation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ health perception and demonstrate its relevance in product and process design in early stages of new product development.

A dried mango was used as a case study involving three countries: Indonesia, China and the Netherlands. Data were collected from nine focus groups (n=53 participants) and were content-analysed to acquire in-depth insights.

Four themes of health perception emerged, namely, nutrition, naturalness, taste and well-being, which were all expressed on different levels of abstractness. Participants’ health perception of dried mango varied, it is related to the product category it is compared with, e.g. candy or fresh fruit, and the eating context, e.g. position in the diet either as a snack or a meal. In extension participants mentioned product and process characteristics. Application of the insights into product and process design was performed through iterative interactions between consumer scientists and food technologists. The development of two product concepts was elaborated to transform the insights into technical product and process specifications for a natural dried mango product.

This transformation suggests that iterative interactions are necessary to achieve relevant product and process characteristics in the simultaneous design of the technical product and process specifications based on consumer perceptions.

The study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-provided benefits on employees' intention to leave in different age cohorts during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Informed by the psychological theories of ageing, the authors propose three age-cohort-specific hypotheses in three motivational domains: security and health benefits, flexible work arrangement and education-related benefits.

The authors use a large survey of employees in Estonia (n = 7,209) conducted in 2020 and test the association of specific benefits and their interactions with age on employees' intention to leave.

The results show that older cohorts are generally less prone to leave their jobs. Benefits that employers could use during the COVID-19 crisis generally had negative associations with the intention to leave, but age-specific differences were negligible; only the perceived provision of flexible work arrangements reduced the younger cohort's intention to leave relatively more.

This study is one of the few that allows us to make inferences regarding the benefits preferences amongst the working population during an unprecedented health crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of pensionomics as a prospective tool for pension evaluation. This paper suggests a paradigm shift – a multi-disciplinary synthesis of differing perspectives in evaluating pension’s overall performance based on past work on pension evaluation – incorporating non-economic variables with significant impact on economic growth and social development.

This paper suggests a new analytical tool called “Pensions Consistency (PC) Index” that identifies the level of consistency and the strengths and weaknesses within any pension system. The new conceptual framework focusses on building inter-sectoral and holistic policies able to respond to the new multi-dimensional dynamic environment.

The consideration of pensionomics concept as an evaluation tool for pension schemes provides insights that are helpful in explaining performance differentials. Taking definition, classification and evaluation as a guiding principle, the new conceptual framework can be a useful point of reference for the overall evaluation of pension schemes, revealing deficiencies that traditional evaluation methods cannot detect. The multi-disciplinary approach focusses on building inter-sectoral and holistic policies that are able to respond to the multi-dimensional uncertainties of the new dynamic environment.

The heterogeneity and complexity in event dynamics are systemic in the sense that the impact is far from linear. The idiosyncratic nature of unexpected and unpredictable events is rather a result of multi-dimensionality based, among others, on magnitude, frequency, timing, intensity and impact. It is plausible to argue that crisis episodes can destabilize critical systems of economic activity, producing economic spillovers that can directly or indirectly affect the sustainability of pension schemes. If the calculation of direct economic impact is readily traceable, the estimation of indirect economic impact can be an onerous task.

Pensionomics places the concept of retirement in a multi-disciplinary context. Pensionomics overcomes theoretical and empirical limitations encountered by the path-dependency perspective, developing a new research agenda to study pension schemes under historical, cultural, social, political, economic, political and environmental prism. Integrating diversified data, techniques, perspectives and concepts, pensionomics’ objective is to connect natural and man-made events with social protection mechanisms for the development of a dynamic social protection framework where individual, community and society needs are met effectively and efficiently by implementing tailored policies, closely related to their specific context.

The concept of retirement has evolved constantly, transforming societies and shaping both income and non-income dimensions of well-being. Pension entitlement turned gradually from a political discourse to a human right discourse. Pension schemes have extended the scope of insurance coverage beyond labour markets and the lifecycle, supporting the broader needs of entire population. Furthermore, pension schemes are widely acknowledged as drivers of economic growth: they enhance labour productivity; foster smooth consumption; and create a stable economic environment for investment and innovation. Current expectations require pension schemes to adopt proactive and reactive policies to examine options for mitigation or for modification of potential consequences in anticipation of exceptional events.

This paper suggests a paradigm shift, a multi-disciplinary approach called pensionomics, and this “multi-disciplinary” focus builds a new analytical framework to evaluate pension’s overall performance based on past work on pension evaluation, incorporating non-economic variables with significant impact on economic growth and social development. PC-Index introduces a comprehensive evaluation tool to study the coverage, performance, efficiency, effectiveness, current trends and future possibilities of pension schemes.