Knowledge management for food supply chain synergies – a maturity level analysis of SME companies

Abstract

Despite the considerable number of papers addressing knowledge management (KM) aspects in supply chains, many research issues in the area are still neglected. One of the main research gaps in this field concerns the maturity level of KM practices adoption by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper addresses this research gap by developing a framework to support the analysis of the maturity level of KM adoption in an SME context. The framework is applied in a multiple case study developed to investigate the extent to which SMEs operating in the food sector are deploying KM practices to support more sustainable initiatives. By relating KM maturity levels, perspectives and processes to sustainable practices concerning food waste and by-product synergies, the paper makes an original contribution to advance theory and practice in the area. The paper also points out potential barriers that companies face to implement sustainability-related KM practices.     

Measuring university-based research in Europe: competing indicators and underlying assumptions

Modern societies have a growing need for information and numbers for governing social life. Numbers have the ability to represent a complex reality in a simplified and linear form, easily communicated. Far from being the product of a mere technical process, numbers are the result of a process that “is fundamentally social – an artifact of human action, imagination, ambition, accomplishment” (Espeland, W.N., and Stevens, M.L., 2008. A sociology of quantification. European journal of sociology, 49 (3), 401–436, p. 431). In the modern policy-making climate, numbers become key mechanisms for simplifying, classifying, comparing and evaluating. Along with this, the fields of visibility of evaluative objects, meanings and understandings (Dean, M., 2010. Governmentality. Power and rule in modern societies. 2nd ed. London: Sage) are re-framed consistently with what Clarke, J. (2004. Changing welfare, changing states. New direction in social policy. London: Sage) terms a ‘performance/evaluation nexus’ that links effort, values, purposes and self-understanding to measures and comparisons of outputs (Ball, S.J., 2012. Performativity, commodification and commitment: an I-Spy guide to the neoliberal university. British journal of educational studies, 601, 17–28). In this paper, we focus on the field of higher education (HE), where numbers, in the form of performance indicators, benchmarks and headline targets, are frequently used to strategically orient the sector towards the objectives and goals of the Bologna Process and of the overall Europe 2020 agenda (Waldow, F., 2014. From taylor to tyler to no child left behind: legitimating educational standards. Prospects, 45 (1), 49–62). We aim to offer a comparative overview of the complex spectrum of metrics, provided at the supranational level, within the field of higher education by focusing on the European Research Area (ERA) in order to map and analyse some of the crucial issues in play. A second ambition of this paper is to move from a mapping and analytical perspective to a deconstruction of a specific subset of research metrics, with the aim of challenging the ‘self-evident truths’ and the dominant conventional wisdom that define current European metrics in order to bring into question whether they contribute to restructuring the universities’ research environments, affecting research policies and procedures. Performance indicators are posited to be‘conceptual technologies’, encompassing theoretical and normative assumptions that shape the objects they aspire to measure.     

Traces of the Second Demographic Transition in Four Selected Countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Union Formation as a Demographic Manifestation

Using data from the first round of the national Gender and Generations Surveys of Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and from a similar survey of Hungary, which were all collected in recent years, we study rates of entry into marital and non-marital unions. We have used elements from the narrative of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) as a vehicle to give our analysis of the data from the four countries some coherence, and find what can be traces of the SDT in these countries. The details vary by country; in particular, latter-day developments in union formation patterns did not start at the same time in all the countries, but in our assessment it began everywhere before communism fell, that is, before the societal transition to a market economy got underway in 1990.

Early traces of the Second Demographic Transition in Bulgaria: a joint analysis of marital and non-marital union formation, 1960-2004

We explore trends in first-union formation in Bulgaria from 1960, using data from the national Gender and Generations Survey of 2004. We analyse jointly the transition into cohabitation and directly into marriage. The standardized marriage rate falls dramatically from the early 1980s; the corresponding rate of entry into cohabitation has already increased from the early 1960s but (surprisingly) falls moderately toward the end of our period. Cohabitation also tends to last progressively longer in more recent periods. The analysis shows that a pregnancy leads to a dramatic increase in the rate of both kinds of union formation: the increase is by a factor of almost 20 for marriage formation and about 10 for entry into cohabitation, ceteris paribus. Our findings suggest that, in Bulgaria at least, some manifestations of the Second Demographic Transition can be detected as early as the 1980s.     

New labour rights indicators: Method and trends for 2000–15

This article describes a new method for constructing indicators of freedom of association and collective bargaining (FACB) rights based on the coding of violations in nine textual sources, including six from the ILO, and texts from national legislation. The indicators were constructed for 185 ILO member States for five years between 2000 and 2015 and launched in 2015 by the Center for Global Workers’ Rights at Penn State University, together with the Global Labour University. Following a Resolution by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 2018, the method provides the basis for Sustainable Development Goal indicator 8.8.2 on labour rights.     

Determinants and barriers to lean implementation in food-processing SMEs – a multiple case analysis

This study explored contextual or determining factors and their impacts on lean manufacturing in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in food-processing industries. In order to get an in-depth insight into the real situation at the work floor, this study adopted a multiple-case-study research approach. The inherent characteristics of food industries, such as mandatory quality assurance requirements, low shelf life of food products, and the extremely volatile demand and supply presented barriers to lean manufacturing adoption. In addition, the challenges of ‘change’ in an SME environment are distinct from those faced by large organizations. The small size of the plant, the traditional setup, and inflexible layout make it difficult to implement lean manufacturing in food-processing SMEs. The knowledge of contextual factors influencing lean manufacturing adoption in food processing SMEs will be a contribution to current knowledge. Many studies have explored lean constructs and tools, while far fewer have explored the crucial element of actually implementing these. The study will also help practitioners to anticipate potential obstacles and take proper measures to deal with them during lean implementation.     

Who Really Wins? Efficacy of a Croatian Youth Gambling Prevention Program

This paper reports on the development and pilot evaluation of a Croatian school-based youth gambling prevention program “Who really wins?”. The program is aimed at minimizing risk and enhancing protective factors related to youth gambling. A short-term evaluation of the program was conducted with a sample of 190 first and second year high-school students (67.6% boys, aged 14–17 years; average age 15.61). An experimental design with two groups (Training vs. No Training) and two measurement sessions (pre-test and post-test sessions) was used to evaluate change in problem gambling awareness, cognitive distortions, knowledge of the nature of random events as well as in social skills. Results showed significant changes in the post-test sessions, which can be attributed to changes in the Training group. We observed a decrease in risk factors, namely better knowledge about gambling and less gambling related cognitive distortions. Immediate effects on protective factors such as problem solving skills, refusal skills, and general self-efficacy were not observed. Findings also show program effects to be the same for both boys and girls, students from different types of schools, for those with different learning aptitudes, as well as for those at different risk levels with regard to their gambling, which speaks in favour of the program’s universality. The program had no iatrogenic effects on behaviour change and shows promise as an effective tool for youth gambling prevention. Future research and a long-term evaluation are needed to determine whether the observed changes are also linked to behavioural change.     

The Impact of Economic Crisis on Happiness

There is a common belief that economic crisis will lead to a decrease in subjective wellbeing. Previous studies indicate that income is correlated with happiness and unemployment with unhappiness. The relationship between increased income and happiness is well documented while the impact of decreased income has been less explored. The aim of this paper is to study how the economic downfall in Iceland, followed by reduced income and increased unemployment, affects happiness as well as to explore which groups are most vulnerable to changes in happiness and which are most resilient. The study is a longitudinal, nationally representative postal survey which assessed 5,918 individual’s aged 18–79. A total of 4,092 (77.3%) answered again in 2009. The relationship between economic factors and happiness was explored using multiple linear regression to find out how much they explain of the happiness variance and the changes in happiness, together with demographic factors, health and social relationships. Results indicate that income and unemployment did not predict happiness but financial difficulties did. A decrease in happiness was detected after the collapse. The change in happiness from 2007 to 2009 was normally distributed, 40% had the same score in both years and an equal number increased as decreased. The explored factors did not explain the changes in happiness. The economic crisis had a limited affect on happiness. Those with financial difficulties were hardest hit. Changes in happiness need to be studied further since they are not well explained by the factors which influence cross-sectional levels of happiness.     

Local union leaders’ satisfaction with grievance procedures

We develop a model of local union leaders’ satisfaction with their grievance proce-dures drawing from the job characteristics model and agency theory. The model is tested with OLS regression and LISREL estimates based on a survey of local union leaders in British Columbia. Results show that local union leaders are more satisfied with their grievance procedures when local officials have more autonomy in decision making; their local size is smaller; the grievance filing rate is low; grievance issues are perceived as important; the grievance resolution rate is high; a greater propor-tion of grievances are settled in the early steps; and the union success rate is high. In addition, grievance procedure satisfaction is multifaceted and each facet has its own unique variance and a different combination of significant predictors. This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We thank Dev Jennings for his helpful comments on an earlier version.     

Comparing criminal justice responses to violence against women in Canada and China

Canada and China are two very different countries in terms of their socio-economic and political contexts; however, neither country is immune to the social problem of violence against women. This paper compares the criminal justice responses to violence against women in Canada and China in order to explore the pathway of responses to violence against women in different cultural contexts, and discusses the implications for addressing violence against women on an international horizon.