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In December 2008, as the financial and economic crisis continued on its devastating course, a new scandal erupted. After the 1998s failure of Long-Term Capital Management, Madoff's fraud once again discredits the hedge funds industry. This scandal is, however, of a different kind. Indeed, Madoff's firm is not a standard hedge fund but a developed Ponzi scheme. By explaining Madoff's system and exploring the reasons for its collapse, this paper draws risk management lessons from this fraud, especially for operational risk management, due diligence processes, and the use of quantitative replication, regulatory, and standardizing approaches of the hedge fund industry.

Rural tourism has emerged as one of the potential economic contributors to the country’s economic growth. To this extent, tourism stakeholders are aware of the rural tourism destination competitiveness where the development should be aligned with the objectives to achieve destination competitive advantage. Given the importance of studying factors that contribute to the development of rural tourism competitive advantage, the present study aimed to propose a research framework by identifying six predictors from the local community based on their experiential knowledge.

Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire survey where 144 respondents comprising local communities from Kampung Semadang – Borneo Heights, Sarawak, Malaysia – were involved. To assess the developed model, SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) was applied based on path modelling (measurement model assessment) followed by bootstrapping analysis (structural model assessment).

Interestingly, the findings revealed that the communities believed economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts significantly contributes to the development of rural tourism competitive advantage. Additionally, communities from Kampung Semadang viewed that both community knowledge and support for tourism greatly affect the development of rural tourism destination competitive advantage. Surprisingly, there was no significant relationship between stakeholder involvement and rural tourism competitive advantage.

From a practical point of view, the findings of the study provide valuable information to tourism stakeholders and policy planners about the importance of tri-dimensional tourism impacts, as well as community knowledge and support in the development of rural tourism destination competitive advantage. In line with policy development or planning for rural tourism development, the tourism stakeholders should pay more concern on the tri-dimensional impacts, the importance of community knowledge about tourism and gaining the community support for tourism development to achieve the goal of competitiveness.

There is lack of study in investigating the development of rural tourism competitive advantage with a holistic framework. This paper studies the intended or unintended economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts triggered by the tourism activities. This study has also investigated the local communities’ knowledge and supports toward tourism as the community efforts determine the success of a destination management, especially in the rural area. Stakeholder involvement was also examined as the collaboration among relevant parties to create competitive advantage is essential to achieve sustainable rural tourism.

The aim of this study is to understand the effect of a firm's position in a supply chain in its industry on the attitude of the firm toward green strategies through empirical data analysis. This study aims to answer the following research questions: Do the environmental uncertainties a firm faces differ with the firm's position in the supply chain when going green?, Would the motivation of a firm for going green vary with uncertainties it faces in the supply chain? and Would green-related practices a firm accepts or executes vary with the firm's position in the supply chain?

The case study method was utilized in this study. The main objects are firms in the high-tech industry of Taiwan, and 12 firms were selected for in-depth investigation. The unit of analysis was a firm. Face-to-face in-depth interviews, approximately 90-105 minutes for each, were conducted with each of the 12 cases. The respondents were middle- to high-level managers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Additionally, second-hand information was acquired regarding each case through channels such as firm web sites, documents, and media reports. These integrated data were later utilized in the single-case and cross-case analysis stages.

In this study, firms of Taiwan's high-tech industry are divided into the upstream (raw material supplier), midstream (original design manufacturers/original equipment manufacturer), and downstream (brand company) categories. It is first found the uncertainties a firm encounters when implementing green practices are related to its position in the supply chain. The closer a firm is to the upstream of the supply chain, the higher the competitive uncertainty. In contrast, the closer a firm is to the downstream, the higher the demand uncertainty. Furthermore, the internal and external driving forces of firms in promoting green practices are related to the types of uncertainties the firms encounter in the supply chain. A firm's internal driving force is positively associated with the demand uncertainty it faces, however, negatively with the competition and supply uncertainties. On the other hand, a firm's external driving force is positively associated with the competition and supply uncertainties it faces, however, negatively with the demand uncertainties. Additionally, the association between firm willingness to promote green practices and its position in the supply chain is explored. It is found that, for firms located in the downstream of supply chain, it emphasizes more on the practices of green design, purchase, and internal environmental management. If a firm is located in the midstream of supply chain, it will focus more on the practice of green manufacturing and logistics.

This study has expanded the discussion of green supply chain management. It establishes the relationship between the uncertainties and the major driving forces of firms for implementing green practices. This approach is rare in previous literature. Furthermore, past literature has suggested that a specific relationship exists between driving factors and firm practices. The author believes that such a relationship must be based on the position of firms in the supply chain; thus, the author has identified the relationship between supply chain position and green practices.

Construction is a highly dynamic environment with numerous interacting factors that affect construction processes and decisions. Uncertainty is inherent in most aspects of construction engineering and management, and traditionally, it has been treated as a random phenomenon. However, there are many types of uncertainty that are not naturally modelled by probability theory, such as subjectivity, ambiguity and vagueness. Fuzzy logic provides an approach for handling such uncertainties. However, fuzzy logic alone has some limitations, including its inability to learn from data and its extensive reliance on expert knowledge. To address these limitations, fuzzy logic has been combined with other techniques to create fuzzy hybrid techniques, which have helped solve complex problems in construction. In this chapter, a background on fuzzy logic in the context of construction engineering and management applications is presented. The chapter provides an introduction to uncertainty in construction and illustrates how fuzzy logic can improve construction modelling and decision-making. The role of fuzzy logic in representing uncertainty is contrasted with that of probability theory. Introductory material is presented on key definitions, properties and methods of fuzzy logic, including the definition and representation of fuzzy sets and membership functions, basic operations on fuzzy sets, fuzzy relations and compositions, defuzzification methods, entropy for fuzzy sets, fuzzy numbers, methods for the specification of membership functions and fuzzy rule-based systems. Finally, a discussion on the need for fuzzy hybrid modelling in construction applications is presented, and future research directions are proposed.

The aim of this paper is to present a purchasing portfolio model for determining purchasing strategy at the component level of a product to support business strategy, addressing weaknesses in the often cited Kraljic‐type models. The work draws on Fisher's model to match supply strategy to product nature. However, Fisher's model was criticised very recently by Lo and Power in this journal because it is unclear how the “leagile” option should fit into it. This paper addresses this issue.

The new portfolio model is based on the literature, particularly Fisher's seminal work. It is then applied to two case studies; an electric boiler manufacturer and an elevator manufacturer, both in South Korea. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to position purchased components in the model.

Different purchasing strategies should be assigned to different components according to their impact on the competitive priorities. As the electric boiler is a functional product, while the elevator is an innovative product, the case studies show how this can vary across the two product‐types identified by Fisher.

The new model has been tested on only two case studies, which limits the ability to generalise the findings. Future work will use the lean and agile purchasing portfolio model in research and knowledge exchange activities with other industrial partners to further develop and test its efficacy.

The new model captures the finding of Fisher and others that products should be classified as functional or innovation to determine their suitability for lean or agile supply respectively. However, this classification is extended here to the component level and with the addition of the leagile and non‐strategic supply options, and it depends on the impact a component has on the four competitive priorities; cost, quality, time and flexibility.

This study aims to explore the moderation effect of environment uncertainties (supply, competition and demand) in the relationship between a firm’s drivers (internal and external) and practices (purchasing, design and manufacturing, logistics and internal management) when going green.

The questionnaire survey was utilized in this study. The survey was distributed to 981 electronic manufacturing companies, with 174 valid responses collected (a response rate of 17.74 per cent). Confirmatory factor analysis and regression models were then conducted to test the result.

The result indicates that both the internal and external drivers have significant influence on the adoption of green-related practices when firms go green. It is further confirmed that the practice of green purchasing is significantly influenced by the moderator of environmental uncertainty. Moreover, supply uncertainty has the most significant influence on numerous green practices, such as green purchasing, internal management and green logistics.

This paper measures the drivers, practices and environmental uncertainty of firms going green from multiple perspectives. It provides guidance to practitioners on how to choose appropriate practices in accordance with the uncertainties they are facing.

Fire safety is a major concern of most maintenance managers in Hong Kong, especially since many recent, serious fires. To maintain a building at an acceptable fire safety level, the building fabric (structural fire protection means), as well as the building services (fire services installations), should be kept to good and efficient standards. However, maintenance budgets do not always meet ever‐increasing needs. Priorities must be set for different aspects of maintenance works, including fire safety. Priorities setting is normally based on the professional knowledge and experience of the maintenance managers, whose attitudes may affect the priority setting, as well as the decision making. Describes a study to investigate the attitudes of maintenance professionals of different backgrounds on the priority setting of various fire safety attributes. It was found that the professionals’ backgrounds do influence their priority setting. Nevertheless, they all perceived that structural means of escape and maintenance planning are important areas.