Search results

The purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate the method for grasping a defined set of objects in an unstructured environment. To this end, the authors propose the method of integrating convolutional neural network (CNN)-based object detection and the category-free grasping method. The considered scenario is related to mobile manipulating platforms that move freely between workstations and manipulate defined objects. In this application, the robot is not positioned with respect to the table and manipulated objects. The robot detects objects in the environment and uses grasping methods to determine the reference pose of the gripper.

The authors implemented the whole pipeline which includes object detection, grasp planning and motion execution on the real robot. The selected grasping method uses raw depth images to find the configuration of the gripper. The authors compared the proposed approach with a representative grasping method that uses a 3D point cloud as an input to determine the grasp for the robotic arm equipped with a two-fingered gripper. To measure and compare the efficiency of these methods, the authors measured the success rate in various scenarios. Additionally, they evaluated the accuracy of object detection and pose estimation modules.

The performed experiments revealed that the CNN-based object detection and the category-free grasping methods can be integrated to obtain the system which allows grasping defined objects in the unstructured environment. The authors also identified the specific limitations of neural-based and point cloud-based methods. They show how the determined properties influence the performance of the whole system.

The authors identified the limitations of the proposed methods and the improvements are envisioned as part of future research.

The evaluation of the grasping and object detection methods on the mobile manipulating robot may be useful for all researchers working on the autonomy of similar platforms in various applications.

The proposed method increases the autonomy of robots in applications in the small industry which is related to repetitive tasks in a noisy and potentially risky environment. This allows reducing the human workload in these types of environments.

The main contribution of this research is the integration of the state-of-the-art methods for grasping objects with object detection methods and evaluation of the whole system on the industrial robot. Moreover, the properties of each subsystem are identified and measured.

Taking into account retailers' critical position in the value chain, their sector's economic significance and environmental externalities, in addition to the institutional agenda, this paper aims to explore the drivers influencing retailers to shift to more sustainable business models.

The paper utilises the institutional competing logic, including in-depth interviews with major supermarket retail chains and one expert group discussion. The data gathered in Germany and Lithuania were complemented by desk research analysis, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and management reports.

The paper provides empirical insights into how multiple drivers through institutional competing logic are brought about influencing the shift to more sustainable business models. The results show that retail chains in both countries implement their sustainability based on triple environmental-legal-financial drivers. However, different types of retail chains–namely premium retailers, typical retailers and discounters–implement their sustainability discourse differently.

Because of the chosen research approach, the results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

Interestingly, retailers “shift” their responsibility to the consumers rather than encourage themselves to make more sustainable choices. The authors observe a more passive and responsive role of retailing chains because of the inherent trade-off between revenue growth and sustainable consumption.

The original contribution lies in exploring how retail chains adapt institutional competing logic and are influenced by multiple drivers when implementing their sustainability activities. In addition, the authors propose a conceptual model for retailers' sustainability management, as well as formulate three research propositions.

Scholars frequently address the dyadic relationships between leaders and followers without observing the simultaneity of leadership and followership roles, particularly evident in middle managers. Their implicit and explicit challenges are the foci of this paper.

The authors aimed to contribute to the interface of comparative international entrepreneurship and international marketing by exploring the micro-foundations and micro-processes of network bricolage aimed at international market entry among the entrepreneurs of small biotechnology firms. The research questions of the study are (1) How do the international entrepreneurs of small firms act and use their domestic and/or international networks for new market entry? (2) How are the micro-foundations and micro-processes of networking similar or different between individuals from different countries?

A qualitative research design was used to investigate six cases from different countries of origin, looking at the micro-foundations and micro-processes underlying international market entry undertaken by entrepreneurs from Canada, Finland and New Zealand.

The micro-foundations for network bricolage by international entrepreneurs were taken to involve features of the country of origin, including market size and location, and the usefulness of the official language of the nation. The micro-processes were taken to involve the international entrepreneur’s network bricolage actions (i.e. collaborating and generating, obtaining and applying, reaching and maintaining, and seeking and reviewing), while encompassing also the location of their networks (domestic and/or international) and the operational domains these belonged to (R&D, funding, sales channel and customer). The study categorised three types of international entrepreneurs undertaking new market entry, illustrating cross-national differences: (1) sales-channel-oriented seekers, (2) funding-oriented riders and (3) customer-oriented hunters.

The study contributes to research on comparative international entrepreneurship and international marketing. This findings show that national-level micro-foundations influence the actions of network bricolage, the importance of various operational domains and the location of the network ties used. This main contribution is a conceptual model based on our cross-national investigation of international entrepreneurs’ networking actions. The authors reveal the micro-foundations and micro-processes relevant to international entrepreneurs’ network bricolage for new market entry, and present examples of international entrepreneur types emerging from our cross-national setting.

The purpose of this research is to contribute to knowledge-building on microenterprises in emerging economies, by assessing the determinants that drive their use of accounting systems.

A probabilistic model was developed to determine the likelihood that a micro-firm would adopt an accounting registry system as a function of a series of contingencies and personal characteristics of their owners/managers. Data from the Microentrepreneurship Survey (EME), from the National Institute of Statistics of Chile for 2017 was used.

The findings suggest that access to external funds, the size and the use of technology strongly influence micro-firms' adoption of accounting systems.

Despite the richness and scope of the data, direct measurements of entrepreneurial orientation and environmental uncertainty, both central variables of the contingency theory, were missing. Hence, duly justified proxies were applied. It is also likely that there would be other variables that also influence the probability of using accounting tools.

The study contributes to a better understanding of microenterprises, and the factors that determine the use of accounting systems. The results highlight that public policies aimed at fostering microenterprises should facilitate access to technology and external funds. Consistent with previous studies, the authors’ findings highlight the importance of training owner/managers on issues related to their business.

This paper contributes to theory by arguably being the first study to confirm that contingency theory does explain the adoption of accounting systems in microenterprises in emerging countries.

This study examines the inter-linkages between Bitcoin prices and CEE stock markets (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Croatia).

The dynamic contemporaneous nexus has been analyzed using both the multivariate DECO-GARCH model proposed by Engle and Kelly (2012) and quantile on quantile (QQ) methodology proposed by Sim and Zhou (2015). Our study is implemented using the daily data spanning from 6 September 2012 to 12 August 2019.

First, the findings show that the average return equicorrelation across Bitcoin prices and CEE stock indices are positive, even though it is found to be time-varying over the research period shown. Second, the Bitcoin-CEE stock market association has positive signs for most pairs of quantiles of both variables and represents a rather similar pattern for the cases of Poland, the Czech Republic and Croatia. However, a weaker and primarily negative connectedness is found for Hungary and Romania, respectively. Furthermore, the interconnectedness between the co-movements in the Bitcoin market and stock returns changes significantly across quantiles of both variables within each nation, indicating that the Bitcoin-stock market relationship is dependent on both the cycle of the stock market and the nature of Bitcoin price shocks.

The evidence documented in this study has significant implications for divergent economic agents, including global investors, risk managers and policymakers, who would benefit from a comprehensive knowledge of the Bitcoin-stock market relationship to build efficient risk-hedging models and to conduct appropriate policy reactions to information spillover effects in different time horizons.

This paper is the first study employing both the multivariate DECO-GARCH model and QQ methodology to shed light on the nexus between Bitcoin prices and the stock markets in CEE countries. The DECO model uses more information to compute dynamic correlations between each pair of returns than standard dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) models, declining the estimation noise of the correlations. Besides, QQ approach allows us to capture some nuanced features of the Bitcoin-stock market relationship and explore the interdependence in its entirely. Therefore, the main contribution of this article to the related literature in this field is significant.

本研究旨在探討比特幣的價格與中東歐股市(匈牙利、捷克共和國、波蘭、羅馬尼亞和克羅地亞) 之相互聯繫.

研究使用恩格爾與凱利(2012)(Engle and Kelly (2012)) 提出的多變量DECO-GARCH模型及Sim 與Zhou(2015)(Sim and Zhou ( 2015)) 研製的分位數-分位數方法來分析動態同期的聯繫。我們的研究使用由2012年9月6日至2019年8月12日期間取得的每日數據來進行.

首先、研究結果顯示、跨比特幣價格與中東歐股價指數的平均回報當量關聯是正相關的，即使在研究期間被發現是隨時間而變化的。第二、比特幣與中東歐股市之聯繫在大多數兩變數分位數對而言出現正相關跡象，而且，這聯繫在波蘭、捷克共和國及克羅地亞而言表現一個頗相似的模式。唯就匈牙利而言、這聯繫則較弱、而羅馬尼亞則主要是負聯繫。研究結果亦顯示: 比特幣市場內的聯動與股票回報間之內在關聯會在每個國家內跨兩個變數的分位數而顯著地改變，這顯示比特幣-股市關係是取決於股市的週期和比特幣價格衝擊的本質.

本研究所記載的證據、對不同的經濟行為者而言極具意義 (這包括國際投資者、風險管理經理和政策制定者)，因他們會受惠於對比特幣-股市關係的全面認識，他們可建立有效的風險對沖模型、及在不同時間範圍對資訊溢出效應進行適當的政策反應.

本文為首個研究使用多變量DECO-GARCH模型和分位數-分位數(QQ)方法、來解釋比特幣價格與中東歐國家之股市的關係。這DECO模型使用比標準動態條件關係模型更多資訊，來計算每對回報間之動態關係，這能減少估測雜訊，而且，QQ方法讓我們可以取得比特幣-股市關係的一些細微特徵及全面地探索其相互依賴性。因此，本文的主要貢獻是在這學術領域內有關的文獻上.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the direct influence of the mechanism of good corporate governance (GCG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on financial performance as well as through earnings management as a mediating variable.

The data used in this research are secondary data involving 102 companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange for the period 2014. The data used in this study were analyzed using partial least square and carried out with the help of software WarpPLS 5.0.

The results show that the mechanism of GCG and CSR has a positive effect on financial performance as well as the CSR on financial performance.

The results also show partial mediation of earnings management on impact of GCG mechanisms on financial performance and full mediation of earnings management on impact of CSR on financial performance.

The concept of Sustainability-Oriented Service Innovation (SOSI) has been recently suggested from a conceptual reflection approach in an attempt to integrate innovation and sustainability in services, being an emerging field of innovation in services. This study aims to propose a scale to measure Sustainability-Oriented Service Innovation from the perspective of the company. Because the whole is different from the sum of its different parts, we need to better understand the synergy between sustainability and innovation for the future of tourism companies.

Upon a literature review, we propose a scale and explore its dimensionality with data from 268 to 256 Spanish hotel and travel agency managers, respectively. The dimensionality of the scale for measuring Sustainability-Oriented Service Innovation is similar in hotels and travel agencies.

Five factors emerge from the principal component analyses carried out: two dimensions referred to technological and non-technological innovation, respectively, and three dimensions labelled as economic, social and environmental sustainability.

To guide managers towards their operations, the proposed scale is expected to inspire models to assess the impact of SOSI practices in such a highly competitive industry and to identify the most influencing dimensions on the future performance of the tourism company.

To the best of our knowledge, no scale has been presented so far that brings together the dimensions of technological and non-technological innovation, as well as sustainability from a Triple Bottom Line approach.

Organisational learning drives tourism organisations towards more sustainable tourism. Digital transformation also provides opportunities for sustainable tourism development. This study aims to combine these perspectives and explore how digital transformation enables organisational learning to contribute to sustainable tourism, following organisational learning theory (OLT).

Based on a critical realist paradigm, this study focuses on developing an in-depth understanding of organisational learning in tourism organisations. Thirty qualitative interviews with tourism organisations participating in an executive development programme (EDP) show how tourism organisations create, retain and transfer knowledge.

This study demonstrates that the EDP initiates knowledge creation through content transmission and exchange, triggers knowledge retention through utilisation of digital technologies and reinforces digitalisation through data value creation. Furthermore, this study enables knowledge transformation as implementation, which contributes to the three pillars of sustainable tourism and facilitates the development of networks encouraging sustainable tourism.

This study identifies approaches that enable economic, social and environmentally sustainable tourism development by facilitating collaborations via digital transformation, digital technologies that guide guest streams, online mobility offers and online environmental awareness campaigns that reduce environmental impacts. Thus, this study strengthens OLT and has implications for organisational learning and tourism policymakers.