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The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of social capital on human capital; the effect of social capital on transaction costs; the influence of social capital, human capital and transaction costs on empowerment; the indirect effect of social capital on empowerment through human capital; and the indirect effect of social capital on empowerment through transaction costs in Bangli Regency.

The population in this research is all wood carving business in Bangli Regency, in all districts some 366 business units. The number of respondents surveyed were 191 business units in all sub-districts. The sampling technique used is stratified random sampling, with strata of business area. Inferential analysis is preceded by using factor analysis techniques to obtain factor scores on each latent variable, followed by path analysis to answer the research objectives.

Based on the analysis, the following conclusions are drawn: social capital has a positive and significant impact on human resources; positive social capital and significant positive to transaction costs; social capital and human resources have a positive and significant effect while transaction costs and no significant positive effect on empowerment; human resources partially mediate the influence of social capital on empowerment; and transaction costs do not act as a variable, mediating the influence of social capital on empowering small woodcraft industry in Bangli Regency.

This study is one of the few to investigate the role of social capital, human capital and transaction cost on empowerment of small industries, especially wood carving in Bangli District. This small woodcraft industry is famous for its uniqueness that characterizes Balinese carving ornaments. But lately, the productivity of handicrafts wood carving, especially in Bangli District, fluctuates tend to decline. Social capital, in addition to human capital and technology, also plays an important role in the production process. Social capital equals other physical capital and can increase productivity and economic efficiency. Higher social capital owned by individuals or groups can reduce transaction costs; thus economic activity can run efficiently. Social capital is the information, trust and norms of reciprocity inherent in social networks.

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of local political uncertainty on the asymmetric cost behavior (i.e. cost stickiness) for listed firms in China.

In this study, the authors manually collect the turnover data of prefecture-city officials as a measure of exogenous fluctuations in political uncertainty and obtain firm-level financial information from the China Stock Market Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. To perform the analysis, the authors augment the traditional cost stickiness model by including the interaction terms of the prefecture-city official turnover, and firm-level and prefecture-city level control variables.

The authors find that political turnover leads to a higher degree of cost stickiness, implying that firms retain slack resources when political uncertainty is high. Moreover, the effect of political turnover on cost stickiness is more pronounced for firms residing in regions with weaker institutional environments, and firms that are privately owned and with smaller size. The authors further provide evidence that policy uncertainty and the threat of losing political connection are two underlying channels. Overall, this study documents that the local political process is an important channel that influences corporate operational decisions.

This study provides the first piece of evidence on the relation between political uncertainty and cost stickiness at the local government level. Moreover, the authors propose and demonstrate two underlying channels through which political uncertainty affects firms' asymmetric cost behavior.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the economic impact of investment in different animal welfare–enhancing flooring solutions in Swedish dairy farming.

The authors developed a bio-economic model and used stochastic partial budgeting approach to simulate the economic consequences of enhancing solid and slatted concrete floors with soft rubber covering.

The findings highlight that keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floor surfaces with soft rubber coverings is a profitable solution, compared with keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floors without a soft covering. The profit per cow when kept on a solid concrete floor with soft rubber covering increased by 13%–16% depending on the breed.

Promoting farm investments such as improvement in flooring solution, which have both economic and animal welfare incentives, is a potential way of promoting sustainable dairy production. Farmers may make investments in improved floors, resulting in enhanced animal welfare and economic outcomes necessary for sustaining dairy production.

This literature review indicated that the economic impact of investment in specific types of floor improvement solutions, investment costs and financial outcomes have received little attention. This study provides insights needed for a more informed decision-making process when selecting optimal flooring solutions for new and renovated barns that improve both animal welfare and ease the burden on farmers and public financial support.

This study aims to examine the impact of implementing target costing and continuous improvement techniques in industrial companies operating in southern Palestine on achieving sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The study mainly assesses the level of application of these techniques by Palestinian industrial companies (PICs). Furthermore, it evaluates the extent to which the integration of these two methods can impact SCA, by producing cost-effective and innovative products that meet customer demands and needs, while simultaneously achieving continuous development of the company and an SCA.

A descriptive analytical approach was used to study the target costing and continuous improvement techniques employed by industrial companies in southern Palestine. A questionnaire was administered to 415 companies in the southern West Bank to collect data on the application of target cost and continuous improvement and their impact on SCA, measured through market share, differentiation and cost reduction. Control variables, such as company age, size (measured by the number of employees) and industrial sector classification were also included in the study model.

The findings of the study revealed that the PICs apply target costing and continuous improvement at a high level. Furthermore, all dimensions of achieving SCA were found to be achieved at a high level, with market share being the most prominent. The study also found that the integration of the target costing and continuous improvement had a positive impact on achieving SCA in the PICs. However, the study found no impact on company size, age or industrial sector on achieving a competitive advantage in terms of market share or other results.

The current study was limited to the application of strategic management methods to companies within the industrial sector only. This may constitute a limitation because it neglected other sectors. Likely, another limitation was the difficulty of obtaining the quantitative numbers needed for some quantitative variables that pertain to that type of industrial companies, which are mostly family companies that could not be regulated by the local companies' law to disclose their financial statement.

If industrial companies have ambitions to reduce production costs from the planning and design stage to set the target selling price. It is based on the understanding and awareness of customers' desires while maintaining the quality of products according to the best methods of improvement and innovation; therefore, this can be achieved by using the target costing and the continuous improvement techniques through reviewing the current study and its results.

The current study sought to link two methods, simultaneously and complementary, with each other of the strategic methods of managerial accounting, which helps the companies to offer their best to attract customers, develop the product or service and maintain their continuity in a changing labor market that enables it to achieve sustainable and competitive advantage.

This study is unique in that it explores the impact of the integration of target costing or continuous improvement techniques (Kaizen) on achieving SCA in Palestine industrial companies. While previous studies have examined either target costing or continuous improvement techniques separately, this study enhances the integration of these two methods to achieve SCA.

There is abundant literature analyzing the determinants of banks’ profitability through its main component: the net interest margin. Some of these determinants are suggested by seminal theoretical models and subsequent expansions. Others are ad-hoc selections. Up to now, there are no studies assessing these models from a Bayesian model uncertainty perspective. This paper aims to analyze this issue for the EU-15 countries for the period 2008-2014, which mainly corresponds to the Great Recession years.

It follows a Bayesian variable selection approach to analyze, in a first step, which variables of those suggested by the literature are actually good predictors of banks’ net interest margin. In a second step, using a model selection approach, the authors select the model with the best fit. Finally, the paper provides inference and quantifies the economic impact of the variables selected as good candidates.

The results widely support the validity of the determinants proposed by the seminal models, with only minor discrepancies, reinforcing their capacity to explain net interest margin disparities also during the recent period of restructuring of the banking industry.

The paper is, to the best of the knowledge, the first one following a Bayesian variable selection approach in this field of the literature.

This paper analyzes the cost structure of the municipal waste collection in Japan. Since the municipality in Japan is responsible for dealing with the garbage generated by households, there is plenty of data regarding municipal waste in comparrison to private firms. Nevertheless, there is little research available which analyzes the end-of-life product logistics of municipal waste. This research aims to reveal some structural features of the end-of-life product logistics cycle. Based on more than 1,800 samples, this paper statistically shows that both waste collection and waste processing have a strong scale economy. In addition, this paper will also prove that the consignment to the private entity has made the cost of waste management cheaper in Japan.

Sustainable transport has become a new paradigm offering efficient, equitable, and pro-environment transport services. Many intermodal freight systems, especially those for port-to-rail networks, consist of multiple routes starting from and ending at the same port in order to exploit economies of scale. It is of interest to railway operators, therefore, to improve the efficiency of the system by finding the optimal fleet size (the number of cars assigned to a route) and frequency for each route. This paper proposes a model which determines the optimal frequency of each route under the total fleet size constraint for the one-to-many distribution. Trains carry items from one port to their destinations on their predetermined routes. This paper focuses on situations in which items from one port are transported to many destinations via railroads. The tradeoffs between transportation and inventory costs determine optimal frequency under the total fleet size and capacity constraints. The optimal frequency and fleet size of each route are calculated and then updated at the end of each step of the model. The model that we have developed in this paper is validated by port-to-rail freight data from actual shipments in Korea. The results of the analysis show that the proposed model can provide a more reliable and realistic representation of the real one-to-many distribution than the other alternatives which are commonly used. This study not only forms the theoretical basis of an effective and rational freight operation, but it also contributes to the assessment of the existing and planned logistics systems.

Satisfying the gastronomy experience of tourists becomes the most important strategic aim in the hospitality and tourism industries. This study attempts to prove that there is a distinct and specific market segment related to gastronomy from the overall number of tourist arrival of Jeonju City. Furthermore, this study investigates the different factors that affect the overall experience of tourists. The focus of the study is Jeonju City, a popular gastronomy destination in South Korea.

Survey questionnaires were distributed to 680 tourists in Jeonju City during two survey periods. Descriptive statistics and regressions were utilized to treat the data. The predictors that affect the overall experience of tourists were identified through the different literature. The hypotheses were formulated and tested to examine the relationship between the assessments of the distinct gastronomy-tourist market and tourists' overall experience.

The results indicate that there are 17.20% of the respondents indicated that their main reason for traveling was for the food. Descriptive statistics revealed that local food satisfaction, destination image perceived quality, perceived value, tourist expectations, and costs and risks have a positive and significant influence on tourist overall experience.

The findings of this study could provide guidelines for both the hospitality and tourism industries of the country, and tourist destination operators to further positioned approaches to satisfy gastronomy tourists in the “new normal”.

Environmental issues have become an important concern in modern supply chain management. The structure of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) networks, which considers both forward and reverse logistics, can greatly improve the utilization of materials and enhance the performance of the supply chain in coping with environmental impacts and cost control.

A biobjective mixed-integer programming model is developed to achieve the balance between environmental impact control and operational cost reduction. Various factors regarding the capacity level and the environmental level of facilities are incorporated in this study. The scenario-based method and the Epsilon method are employed to solve the stochastic programming model under uncertain demand.

The proposed stochastic mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is an effective way of formulating and solving the CLSC network design problem. The reliability and precision of the Epsilon method are verified based on the numerical experiments. Conversion efficiency calculation can achieve the trade-off between cost control and CO₂ emissions. Managers should pay more attention to activities about facility operation. These nodes might be the main factors of costs and environmental impacts in the CLSC network. Both costs and CO₂ emissions are influenced by return rate especially costs. Managers should be discreet in coping with cost control for CO₂ emissions barely affected by return rate. It is advisable to convert the double target into a single target by the idea of “Efficiency of CO₂ Emissions Control Reduction.” It can provide managers with a way to double-target conversion.

We proposed a biobjective optimization problem in the CLSC network considering environmental impact control and operational cost reduction. The scenario-based method and the Epsilon method are employed to solve the mixed-integer programming model under uncertain demand.

This study examines the adoption drivers of scale-appropriate mechanization in Nepal's maize-based farming systems. The authors also assess the contribution of scale-appropriate mechanization to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of zero hunger (SDG2) and no poverty (SDG1).

Propensity score matching and doubly robust inverse probability-weighted regression adjusted methods were applied to estimate the effects of mini-tiller adoption. These methods control the biases that arise from observed heterogeneities between mini-tillers users and nonusers.

The study findings show that farm size, labor shortages, draft animal scarcity, market proximity, household assets and household heads' educational level influence the adoption of mechanization in Nepal. Mechanized farms exhibited enhanced maize productivity, profits and household food self-sufficiency. Reduced depth and severity of poverty were also observed. Nevertheless, these effects were not uniform; very small farms (≤0.41 ha) facing acute labor shortages benefited the most.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing nations like Nepal may wish to expand their emphasis on scale-appropriate mechanization to improve farm productivity and household food security, reduce poverty and contribute to the SDGs.

This first-of-its-kind study establishes the causal effects between scale-appropriate farm mechanization and SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG2 (zero hunger) in a developing nation.