Pablo Catalan and Elena Berger
Alternative fuels for transportation are gaining momentum in the global market. Ethanol has been the most used biofuel as an additive and as a substitute for gasoline in a number…
Abstract
Alternative fuels for transportation are gaining momentum in the global market. Ethanol has been the most used biofuel as an additive and as a substitute for gasoline in a number of countries. Current technology to produce ethanol based on sugar and starch crops creates price imbalances in the food market and cannot supply a sustainable industry of ethanol in the long term. Second generation technologies based on cellulosebased feedstocks use non‐edible crops and have a positive energy balance. Notwithstanding, they are not yet economic at the industrial level, requiring investment in Research and Development (R&D) to help overcome technological barriers. Many countries recognise the value of collaboration to increase benefits and reduce costs of research, and some of them have in place policy instruments to promote this practice. Given the policy relevance, multidisciplinary characteristics of biofuels, and increasing incentives towards international cooperation, the monitoring of the evolution and patterns of international collaboration in R&D is in place. We map the evolution of the global scientific activity of research on cellulosic ethanol. We carry out a bibliometric analysis by building a publication dataset drawn from the ISI Thompson Science Citation Index database covering the period between 1970 and 2006. We identify the most productive institutions and countries, their historical evolution and interaction patterns.
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Gerard Gibson, Elena Apostolaki and Melissa Blackie
Monsters, from ghouls and zombies to shoggoths and Cthulhu, have always fascinated humans and have a prominent presence in cultural production. This is made clear by how much…
Abstract
Monsters, from ghouls and zombies to shoggoths and Cthulhu, have always fascinated humans and have a prominent presence in cultural production. This is made clear by how much people enjoy Halloween events and dressing up as their favourite monster or the most recent trend of horror themed escape rooms, that include haunted houses, a zombie apocalypse or Lovecraftian monsters. Monstrous creatures represent the fears and desires of society and often embody the allure of danger, transgression and power. Monsters have long been used to construct certain images of the different/unconventional and thus represent anything diverse as the Other. Monsters, however, can be employed to invert or even overturn this relationship by empowering the Other and thus provide us with a more critical view on society in regard to our values, fears and attitudes. The stories and folklore about monsters and the monstrous that incite fear and remind us to always check under our beds before we sleep have also found their way into our everyday lives. Within the mainstream media, criminality is indicative of moral corruption, and is attributed with notions of monstrosity. These monsters do not have claws, instead, they are unpredictable, different and deviate from social and cultural norms. Like the mythical creatures in folklore, monstrosity in its human form reminds us to fear the future, the unknown, Others and society. The monstrous is centrally defined by its unfixedness, its resistance to conformity or to convenient schematic identification. It is somatically and intellectually uneasy, a restless disturbing embodied thought that unsettles, and whose greatest value to us is its very indeterminacy. This chapter illustrates the shifting shapes of the monstrous, their makers, and offers insight about what we can learn from studying these cautionary noetic chimeras. Drawing on the diversity of our academic backgrounds, ideological perspectives and the research from our individual chapters, we address the contemporary narrative of the figure of the monster. Rather than an essay style examination, our chapter explores this narrative through a question and answer format. The flexibility of this format allows readers an intimate glimpse into the ways in which the monstrous can be conceptualised and understood in various frameworks.
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Federico Brunetti, Chiara Rossato, Paola Castellani and Elena Giaretta
This paper aims to answer the call for greater humanization of the corporation, introducing aphorisms as a new tool for developing management awareness, creativity, and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to answer the call for greater humanization of the corporation, introducing aphorisms as a new tool for developing management awareness, creativity, and multiple-perspective mind-set.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper elaborates on a theoretical base to suggest a new tool for management development.
Findings
A firm is not only a technical system but rather a community of people, and due to increasing environmental complexity, humanities can provide managers with great help. In this line of thought, aphorisms are an under-considered literary genre that can prove helpful in humanizing the corporation.
Practical implications
Aphorisms can assist management in several ways: they help to understand what the organization stands for and to focus organizational values; they contribute to define corporate identity to people inside and outside the organization; they favor open-minded examination of problems from multiple perspectives, giving way to unexpected possibilities; and they generate critical dialogue within the management team about strategic decisions.
Originality/value
Although several arts and disciplines have already been considered in management literature, as far as the authors know, this is the first paper attempting to introduce aphorisms in the management toolbox.
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Elena Pessot, Andrea Zangiacomi, Cinzia Battistella, Valerie Rocchi, Alessandro Sala and Marco Sacco
This paper aims to study the extent of the transformation of European manufacturing companies towards the factory of the future (FoF) and related concepts, e.g. Industry 4.0 and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the extent of the transformation of European manufacturing companies towards the factory of the future (FoF) and related concepts, e.g. Industry 4.0 and digitalisation.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative survey design was used to investigate the areas, patterns and elements for implementing FoF. A total of 92 responses from manufacturing firms of Alpine regions were collected and analysed, followed by in-depth interviews with a subset of respondents to identify common challenges, drivers and opportunities for the transformation.
Findings
Manufacturing companies are gaining awareness on their needs and gaps in the FoF path, the implications on business strategy and the rates of innovation and technology adoption. Nevertheless, they still need to shape their organisational structures (e.g. from highly centralised to more collaborative ones) and nurture their managerial capabilities in operations and supply chain management, and customer relationships, only partially based on FoF technologies.
Research limitations/implications
This study aims to contribute to recent literature and practice of FoF (and related concepts) by depicting a picture of the possible areas of intervention, main issues and gaps (especially in terms of skills, supply chain and customer relationships) of manufacturing companies in their digital transformation. The qualitative research design and its scope represent the main limitations.
Originality/value
This paper provides a systemic overview for FoF by encompassing the technological, strategic, managerial and organisational perspectives of digitalisation in manufacturing and integrating the insights from a multi-sectorial and multi-dimensional analysis.
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In the contemporary media landscape, gender violence has achieved great visibility. However, the media still struggle to represent the complexity of violence perpetrated by men…
Abstract
In the contemporary media landscape, gender violence has achieved great visibility. However, the media still struggle to represent the complexity of violence perpetrated by men against women in its various forms – femicide, domestic violence (DV), intimate partner violence and violence against women. The narratives that represent such violence as an expression of individual deviance or as a crime of passion are still the most widespread both in fictional and factual products. This chapter will look at a case study by applying a multiperspective methodology of femicide and DV in an Italian town. In particular, the exemplary case study presented here was constructed by analysing newspaper articles, social networks and one television broadcast. The first part of the chapter is dedicated to the analysis of literature on femicide, DV and gender violence in relation to studies and research on media coverage, with particular reference to Italian studies. The second part presents the methodology applied in the research. The third part presents the outcomes regarding the analysis of the narrative, highlighting the frames that characterise it. Finally, the fourth part shows the conclusion that can be derived.
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Johannes C. Bauer, Marc Linzmajer, Liane Nagengast, Thomas Rudolph and Elena D'Cruz
Many marketplace examples suggest that using gamification in the online retail shopping context boosts sales and positively affects customer loyalty. Nevertheless, more research…
Abstract
Purpose
Many marketplace examples suggest that using gamification in the online retail shopping context boosts sales and positively affects customer loyalty. Nevertheless, more research is needed to understand the effects of digital games on consumer behavior and their underlying psychological mechanisms. Therefore, this article explores how combining games and monetary rewards impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
To test our hypotheses, we designed two online laboratory experiments to stimulate an online shopping situation, as gamification in online retailing has the potential to affect an important set of outcomes for service firms throughout the consumer decision process (Hofacker et al., 2016).
Findings
The results of two lab experiments demonstrate that playing a shopping-related game without monetary participation incentive positively influences all three relational outcomes because games enhance consumers' enjoyment of the overall shopping experience. However, our findings also show that monetary rewards used to incentivize game participation diminish these effects. Gamification loses its positive effects if games are combined with monetary rewards, as consumers no longer play games to derive inherent enjoyment, but rather the extrinsic motivation of receiving a discount. We draw managerial implications about how gamification effectively and profitably fosters strong customer relationships and thus increases customer lifetime value and equity.
Research limitations/implications
This research is the first to investigate the combined effects of gamification and price discounts that require consumers to play the game in order to receive the discount. Focusing on an online shopping context, this article contributes to research on motivation by providing new and more nuanced insights into the psychological process underlying the gamification effects on consumer' long-term attitudes (i.e. satisfaction) and relational behaviors (i.e. positive WOM and loyalty) toward a retailer.
Practical implications
Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for marketers that explain how gamification can be a profitable and efficient tool to foster strong customer relationships. Retail managers should use gamification as a less costly alternative to typical price discounts.
Originality/value
Two laboratory experiments investigate how the separate and combined use of games and price discounts affects consumers' satisfaction, positive WOM intentions and loyalty. Playing a shopping-related game increases satisfaction with the retailer and positive WOM intentions as well as loyalty. Monetary rewards used to incentivize game participation eliminate the positive effects of gamification.
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Giacomo Negro, Balázs Kovács and Glenn R. Carroll
Using a novel measure incorporating stylistic and acoustic data on recorded music from 1967 to 2017, we search for trends in the evolution of musical diversity in 125,340 albums…
Abstract
Using a novel measure incorporating stylistic and acoustic data on recorded music from 1967 to 2017, we search for trends in the evolution of musical diversity in 125,340 albums. We find that temporal patterns of diversity differ for stylistic and acoustic data. We also find that the patterns differ dramatically by genre. Some genres, such as blues, jazz, and pop-rock, decrease in diversity over time; most other genres increase in diversity. The causes of these different trends present a puzzle for future research. We also find different patterns for recordings that made the Billboard 200 charts compared to all recordings, suggesting an association between selection processes driven by consumer popularity and diversity. Moreover, associations of diversity and industry structure found in prior research do not hold when we analyze data beyond the smaller sample of the more popular recordings found in Billboard. These findings have implications for many prior studies based exclusively on best-selling recordings
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Elena Fedorova and Elena Meshkova
This paper aims to examine the relationship between monetary policy and market interest rates. This paper examines the efficiency of interest rate channel used in monetary…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between monetary policy and market interest rates. This paper examines the efficiency of interest rate channel used in monetary regulation as well as implementation of monetary policy under low interest rates. This paper examines and reviews the scientific literature published over the past 30 years to determine primary research areas, to summarize their results and to identify appropriate measures of monetary policy to be used in practice in changing economic environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews 94 studies focused on the relationship between monetary policy and market interest rates in terms of meeting the goals of macroeconomic regulation. The articles are selected on the basis of Scopus citation and bibliometric analysis. A major feature of this paper is the use of text analysis (data preparation, frequency of terms and collocations use, examination of relationships between terms, use of principal component analysis to determine research thematic areas). Using the method of principal component analysis while studying abstracts this paper reveals thematic areas of the research. Thus, the conducted text analysis provides unbiased results.
Findings
First, this paper examines the whole complex of relationships between monetary policy of central banks and market interest rates. Second, this research reviews a wide range of literature including recent studies focused on specific features of monetary policy under low and negative rates. Third, this study identifies and summarizes the thematic areas of all the researches using text analysis (transmission mechanism of monetary policy, efficiency of zero interest rate policy, monetary policy and term structure of interest rates, monetary policy and interest rate risk of banks, monetary policy of central banks and financial stability). Finally, this paper presents the most important findings of the studied articles related to the current situation and trends on the financial market as well as further research opportunities. This paper finds the principal results of studies on significant issues of monetary policy in terms of its efficiency under low interest rates, influence of its instruments on term structure of interest rates and role of banking sector in implementation of transmission mechanism of monetary policy.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation of the review is examining articles for the study period of 30 years.
Practical implications
Central banks of emerging economies should apply the instruments and results of the countries' monetary policies reviewed in this paper. Using text analysis this paper reveals the main thematic areas and summarizes findings of the articles under study. The analysis allows presenting the main ideas related to current economic situation.
Social implications
The findings are of great value for adjusting the monetary policy of central banks. Also, these are important for people because these show the significant role of monetary policy for the economic growth.
Originality/value
Using text analysis this paper reveals the main thematic areas (transmission mechanism of monetary policy, efficiency of zero interest rate policy, monetary policy and term structure of interest rates, monetary policy and interest rate risk of banks, monetary policy of central banks and financial stability) and summarizes findings of the articles under study. The analysis allows defining the current ideas relevant to the monetary policy of developing countries. It is important for central banks because it examines the monetary policy problems and proposes optimal solutions.
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The present study investigates the connection between company investments in intellectual capital (IC) and how they translate into financial value. The aim is to test the impact…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study investigates the connection between company investments in intellectual capital (IC) and how they translate into financial value. The aim is to test the impact of intangible assets on the firm value and its sustainable growth.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs computation models to determine the sustainable growth rate (SGR) and the firm value (FV), and by using the ordinary least squares (OLS) model through a linear regression assesses the relationship between the dependent variables and expenditures on intangibles like R&D, IT programs and patents. A sample of 42 companies has been selected out of the 78 listed at Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), based on the appropriateness of the information disclosed in the financial reports for the period 2016–2019.
Findings
The results show that intangibles classified as innovative competences (R&D and Patents) do not have a positive impact on SGR and FV in listed companies from Romania. Moreover, R&D has a negative and significant effect on FV, while IT Programs have a positive and significant impact on FV, but not on the SGR. Variables categorised as economic competencies (Brands, Shares held in associates and jointly controlled entities) and firm structure-specific variables (Leverage, Firm Performance) seem to have a significant effect on SGR and FV. Shares held in associates and jointly controlled entities is the variable that can have the biggest impact when it comes to FV for companies listed at BSE.
Research limitations/implications
Due to non-disclosure of specific information by some companies, or lack of investments in intangibles the sample had to be reduced and does not cover all listed companies.
Practical implications
Companies listed on the Regulated Market from the Bucharest Stock Exchange should maintain their scale of liabilities at a reasonable level when financing intangible assets in order to ensure corporate long-term and sustainable development. Also, these companies should maintain awareness about the importance of intangible assets and invest more in specific sub-components, in order to sustain competitive advantage. Recognizing the roles of intangibles, managers need to develop strategies to invest in profitable intangibles by reasonably allocating their limited resources, in order to achieve sustainable growth and increase company success.
Originality/value
Studies concerning the relation between investments in intangibles and sustainable growth rate and firm value of listed Romanian companies are very scarce. This paper reveals new research, never before undertaken, concerning expenditures on intangibles by Romanian companies and the valuation of such investments on Bucharest Stock Exchange.
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Irina Tsvetkova, Evgenia Zhelnina, Tatiana Ivanova and Natalia Gorbacheva
The chapter is devoted to analysis of the structure of regional identity. Topicality of this issue is caused by the processes of social differentiation of regions. The purpose of…
Abstract
The chapter is devoted to analysis of the structure of regional identity. Topicality of this issue is caused by the processes of social differentiation of regions. The purpose of the research is to describe the factors of regional identity. Regional identity is predetermined by natural, geographical, socio-cultural, ethnic, and socio-political factors. Regional identity is viewed as a complex dynamic structure. It is analyzed on the basis of application of concepts of constructivism and symbolic capital. The authors come to the conclusion that dynamics of regional identity are determined by individuals’ evaluation of the conditions of the territory for satisfying the needs and implementation of life plans. This aspect is analyzed from the positions of the concept of constructivism. It is also concluded that dynamics of regional identity depends on attractive image of the territory and realization of its uniqueness. This aspect of regional identity is viewed as a symbolic capital, which stimulates the development of territory.