Adoption of labor-enhancing technologies by specialty crop producers

2015 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 514-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Karina Gallardo ◽  
Michael P. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Apple Industry ◽  
Extension Educators ◽  
Organic Systems ◽  
Specialty Crop ◽  
Crop Agriculture

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold, first: to define the profile of adopters of labor-enhancing technologies (e.g. platforms) identifying factors – such as operations size, mix of fruits grown, apple operation location, principal operators socio-demographics – and second: to estimate the efficiency threshold for platform adoption during apple harvesting to be financially feasible considering future increases in farm labor wages. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a mixed-mode survey in January-February 2010. Data were analyzed using a bivariate probit model, considering that the decision to adopt platforms was related with the orchard planting system. The authors conducted simulation scenarios to estimate the efficiencies – harvest – platforms must achieve in order to be economically feasible. Findings – In total, 11 percent of the 316 apple operations covered by the survey used platforms. Orchard operations most likely to invest in planar structures are relatively large, produce high-value varieties, use organic systems, and have relatively young and educated operators. Similarly, operations producing high-value fruit such as “Honeycrisp” and controlled or patented varieties and relatively large operations are more likely to invest in platforms. The results of the comparison of the cost of harvesting apples using platforms vs ladders under several production assumptions indicate that platforms must increase labor productivity by at least 13 percent in order to be adopted by the industry. Research limitations/implications – This study caveat is the lack of inclusion of production and marketing uncertainties in the estimation of future apple harvest costs. Further research to deeper analyze these issues is needed. Practical implications – The authors present information on the profile of mechanization adopters, so extension educators and engineers could concentrate efforts on them to increase adoption levels. In addition the authors provide a threshold of efficiencies for harvest platforms associated with cost savings compared to manual harvest. Social implications – Enabling the adoption of mechanization technologies by specialty crop industries would decrease the dependence on labor, decreasing labor uncertainties and facilitating the production of high quality produce to satisfy the needs of consumers. Second, it will end an era of importing poverty, given that the specialty crop industry has long benefited from seasonal migrant workers. It will improve rural American communities to shorten pools of farm workers, giving them access to permanent jobs with higher salaries. Originality/value – The contribution of this study is to improve understanding of the degree of mechanization, financial feasibility of current existing technologies, and barriers to greater mechanization by the Washington apple industry. Given the similar labor challenges faced, in general, by the US specialty crop agriculture, results could be applicable to the entire industry.

The development of farm labor market in rural China

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Che ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Linhui Yu
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Land Rental ◽  
Land Reallocation ◽  
Land Size

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine key determinants of farm labor market development in rural China. Design/methodology/approach – Probit, Logit, and IV-Probit model are used to provide pertinent empirical analysis. Findings – Analysis of survey data establishes three facts about the farm labor market in rural China: first, households with high farm endowment are more likely to hire farm labor; second, because of the mismatch between farm ability and land size created by egalitarian land reallocation, households with more land reallocations are more likely to participate in farm labor market to adjust such mismatch; third, land rental market and farm labor market seem to be complementary. These results are robust to alternative model specifications, subsamples, alternative dependent variables, and additional controls. Welfare analysis demonstrates that the farm labor market is conducive to agricultural output. Originality/value – The main contribution of this study is to lay out stylized facts in terms of the development of farm labor market using a unique survey data set.

Predictors of loneliness among the left-behind children of migrant workers in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cut Maghfirah Faisal ◽  
Sherly Saragih Turnip
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Parental Presence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Emotional Loneliness ◽  
Children Of Migrant Workers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare loneliness between the left-behind children of migrant workers and the non-left-behind ones, and identify the most significant predictors of loneliness among the left-behind children. Design/methodology/approach Incidental sampling was performed to select 629 participants aged 11–16 from 5 schools in the rural areas of Karawang and Lombok in Indonesia. They filled in paper-and-pencil self-report inventories. Findings Left-behind children were significantly lonelier than their counterparts were. Emotional loneliness was more affected by parental absence compared to social loneliness. Left-behind children would be more susceptible to experience loneliness if they had more access to entertainment gadgets, experienced less support and intimacy from friends, had been left by their migrant parents more than once, were female, had low self-esteem, experienced emotional difficulties and rarely communicated with their parents. Research limitations/implications Qualitative research was needed to provide more elaborative explanation about the findings. Practical implications Parents needed to consider the psychological cost and benefit of working abroad to their children. Governments could intervene by limiting the duration and frequency of work among the migrant workers. Social implications Some beneficial implications to prevent and reduce loneliness among left-behind children were provided, such as by maintaining the frequency and quality of communication with the children, motivating and guiding the children to interact with their peers and spend less time on entertainment gadgets, as well as encouraging the children to engage in several positive activities to enhance their self-esteem. Originality/value This study enriched the understanding about complex relationship between parental presence and adolescents’ mental health despite the fact that adolescents seemed to be more interested in relationships with peers.

Do the heterogeneous determinants of life satisfaction affect differently across borrowers of diverse credit sources? A propensity score approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 1142-1158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiken Das ◽  
Manesh Choubey
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Propensity Score ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Ordered Probit ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Ordered Probit Model ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Credit Access ◽  
Physical Assets

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the non-monetary effect of credit access by providing an econometric framework which controls the problem of selection bias. Design/methodology/approach The study is conducted in Assam, India and uses a quasi-experiment design to gather primary data. The ordered probit model is used to evaluate the non-monetary impact of credit access. The paper uses a propensity score approach to check the robustness of the ordered probit model. Findings The study confirms the positive association of credit access to life satisfaction of borrowers. It is found that, in general, rural borrower’s life satisfaction is influenced by the ability and capacity to work, the value of physical assets of the borrowers as well as some other lenders’ and borrowers’ specific factors. But, the direction of causality of the factors influencing borrowers’ life satisfaction is remarkably different across credit sources. Research limitations/implications The study argues to provide productive investment opportunities to semiformal and informal borrowers while improving their life satisfaction score. Although the results are adjusted for selection and survivorship biases, it is impossible with the available data to assess which non-income factors explain the findings, and therefore this limitation is left to future research. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature of rural credit by assessing the probable differences among formal, semiformal and informal credit sources with respect to non-monetary impacts.

Credit constraints and labour allocation decisions in rural Burkina Faso

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Porgo ◽  
John K.M. Kuwornu ◽  
Pam Zahonogo ◽  
John Baptist D. Jatoe ◽  
Irene S. Egyir
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Credit Constraints ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Multinomial Logit Model ◽  
Farm Households ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
On Farm ◽  
Allocation Decisions

Purpose Credit is central in labour allocation decisions in smallholder agriculture in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour allocation decisions in rural Burkina Faso. Design/methodology/approach The study used a direct elicitation approach of credit constraints and applied a farm household model to categorize households into four labour market participation regimes. A joint estimation of both the multinomial logit model and probit model was applied on survey data from Burkina Faso to assess the effect of credit constraint on the probability of choosing one of the four alternatives. Findings The results of the probit model showed that households’ endowment of livestock, access to news, and membership to an farmer-based organization were factors lowering the probability of being credit constrained in rural Burkina Faso. The multinomial logit model results showed that credit constraints negatively influenced the likelihood of a farm household to use hired labour in agricultural production and perhaps more importantly it induces farm households to hire out labour off farm. The results also showed that the other components of household characteristics and farm attributes are important factors determining the relative probability of selecting a particular labour market participation regime. Social implications Facilitating access to credit in rural Burkina Faso can encourage farm households to use hired labour in agricultural production and thereby positively impacting farm productivity and relieving unemployment pressures. Originality/value In order to identify the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour decisions, this study examined farm households’ decisions of hiring on-farm labour, supplying labour off-farm or simultaneously hiring on-farm labour and supplying family labour off-farm under credit constraints using the direct elicitation approach of credit constraints. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine this problem in Burkina Faso.

Service productivity as mutual learning

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 296-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Grönroos ◽  
Katri Ojasalo
Keyword(s):  
Open Systems ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mutual Learning ◽  
Context Learning ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Service Production ◽  
Service Productivity ◽  
Internal Efficiency

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the mutual learning implications for service productivity of the characteristics of service and service production. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper. The starting point is, first of all, that productivity as a management concept should help a firm to manage its economic profit, and secondly, that service organizations are open systems, where the customers participate as co-producers and are exposed to the firm’s production resources and processes. Unlike in manufacturing, to understand productivity in service organizations as a means of managing profit, cost effects and revenue effects of changes in the productions system cannot be separated. Due to the interaction between customers and the firm’s resources during service production, dialogical collaboration between them develops. This enables mutual learning. Findings – Given the social dynamics in service production processes, four learning processes that influence service productivity are identified. Two processes enhance the organizations’s internal efficiency (cost savings), and two enhance its external effectiveness (perceived quality, revenue generation); two are organization-driven, two are customer-driven. Research limitations/implications – The mutual learning model demonstrates how the service provider by learning from the dynamics of service encounters in many ways can manage the productivity of the organizations’s processes. It shows that learning enables improvement of service productivity through effects enhancing both internal efficiency and external effectiveness. Originality/value – In a productivity context, learning has not earlier been studied as a mutual learning phenomenon.

Inter‐ethnic and labour‐community coalitions in class struggle in Taiwan since the advent of temporary immigration

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Tierney
Keyword(s):  
Support Groups ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Community Coalitions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Illegal Migrants ◽  
Temporary Migrant ◽  
Temporary Migrants

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse the class dimensions of racism in Taiwan against temporary migrant workers and migrants' efforts to build inter‐ethnic and labour‐community coalitions in struggle against racism.Design/methodology/approachAn important source of data for this study were the unstructured interview. Between September 2000 and December 2005, more than 50 temporary migrants and their support groups in Taiwan were interviewed, specifically about migrants' experiences of racism and their resistance strategies. These interviews were conducted face‐to‐face, sometimes with the assistance of translators. Between 2001 and 2007, some 70 people were interviewed by telephone, between Australia and Taiwan.FindingsIn Taiwan, temporary migrants suffer the racism of exploitation in that capital and the state “racially” categorize them as suitable only for the lowest paid and least appealing jobs. Migrants also suffer neglect by and exclusion from the labour unions. However, migrants have succeeded, on occasions, in class mobilization by building powerful inter‐ethnic ties as well as coalitions with some labor unions, local organizations and human rights lobbies.Research limitations/implicationsThe research raises implications for understanding the economic, social and political conditions which influence the emergence of inter‐ethnic bonds and labour‐community coalitions in class struggle.Practical implicationsThe research will contribute to a greater appreciation among Taiwan's labour activists of the real subordination of temporary migrant labour to capital and of the benefits of supporting migrants' mobilization efforts. These benefits can flow not only to migrants but also to the labour unions.Originality/valueA significant body of academic literature has recently emerged on temporary and illegal migrants' efforts to engage the union movements of industrialized host countries. There is a dearth, however, of academic research on the capacity of temporary migrants to invigorate union activism in Asia, including Taiwan.

A novel design space concept for design of concrete foundation supporting chemical reactors

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osama Bedair
Keyword(s):  
Design Space ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Space Representation ◽  
Chemical Reactors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Gas Recovery ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Numerical Finite Element ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Reactor Models

PurposeThis paper presents a novel concept for design of concrete support system for chemical reactors used in refineries and petrochemical plants. Graphical method is described that can be used to size the concrete base and piling system. Recommendations are also provided to optimize the parameters required for the design. The procedure is illustrated for design of two reactor models commonly used in gas recovery units.Design/methodology/approachDesign space representation for the foundation system is described for chemical reactors with variable heights. The key points of the design graph are extracted from the numerical finite element models. The reactor load is idealized at discrete points to transfer the loads to the piles. Bilateral spring system is used to model the soil restrains.FindingsThe graphical approach is economical and provides the design engineer the flexibility to select the foundation parameters from wide range of options.Practical implicationsThe concept presented in the paper can be utilized by engineers in the industry for design of chemical reactors. It must be noted that little guidelines are currently available in practice addressing the structural design aspects.Originality/valueA novel concept is presented in this paper based on significant industrial design experience of reactor supports. Using the described method leads to significant cost savings in material quantity and engineering time.

Does foreign direct investment influence R&D activity in the host country? Evidence from Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Van Ha ◽  
Mark J. Holmes ◽  
Gazi Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Direct Investment ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Direct Investment ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Innovation Activity ◽  
Heckman Selection Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Domestic Firms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Local Firms

PurposeThis study focuses on the linkages between foreign direct investment and the research and development (R&D) and innovation activity of domestic enterprises in Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThe Heckman selection model approach is applied to a panel dataset of nearly 7,000 Vietnamese firms for the 2011–2015 study period to investigate the impact of foreign presence on the R&D of local firms through horizontal and vertical linkages. Probit model estimation is employed to examine how foreign investment influences the innovation activity of local companies.FindingsWhile there are a small number of firms carrying out R&D activities in Vietnam, foreign or joint domestic–foreign venture firms are less inclined than domestic firms to undertake R&D. Domestic factors that include capital, labor quality, location and export status of firm have a significant effect on the decision of domestic firms to participate in R&D activity. Only forward linkages and the gross firm output are found to have an impact on the R&D intensity of domestic enterprises, while other factors appear to have no significant influence on how much firms spend on R&D activities.Practical implicationsIn order to promote the R&D activity of domestic firms, policy should focus on (1) the backward linkages between local firms in downstream sectors with their foreign suppliers in upstream sectors, and (2) the internal factors such as labor, capital or location that affect the decisions made by domestic firms.Originality/valueGiven that foreign investment may affect R&D and innovation activity of local firms in host countries, the impact is relatively unexplored for many emerging economies and not so in the case of Vietnam. The availability of a unique survey on Vietnamese firm technology and competitiveness provides the opportunity to address this gap in the literature.

State legitimacy and tax compliance among small and medium scale enterprises: a case study of Dodowa district, Ghana

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Gyamfi Ababio ◽  
Arthur Gnonsio Mangueye
Keyword(s):  
Sample Selection ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Medium Scale ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Sizable Proportion

Purpose Improving tax compliance would drive the needed development in Ghana. Small and medium scale enterprises (SME) constitute a sizable proportion of the Ghanaian economy but its contribution to tax revenue is below expectation. This study aims to determine whether SME's perception of state legitimacy affects tax compliance. Design/methodology/approach A structured questionnaire was administered to 200 SMEs randomly drawn from Dodowa in the Shai-Osudoku District of Greater Accra Region. Descriptive statistics and the Probit model with sample selection were used to analyse the data. Findings The study found that SME's perception of government legitimacy exerts a significant negative effect on reducing profit to avoid tax liability (ß = −0.0305, p < 0.05). Other factors such as education and fear of fines and penalties were also found to reduce the likelihood that the firm would reduce profit to avoid high tax liability. Still, tax knowledge had a positive effect on this behaviour. Practical implications This study would help deepen policymakers' knowledge of how to improve tax compliance among SMEs in Ghana. Originality/value The originality of this work is that it explicitly models the role of fiscal exchange theory in explaining tax compliance among SMEs in Ghana by using robust methodology.

The effects of brand equity and failure severity on remedy choice after a product recall

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Raithel ◽  
Alexander Mafael ◽  
Stefan J. Hock
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Brand Equity ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Product Recalls ◽  
Product Recall ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Managerial Decision Making ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Failure Severity

Purpose There is limited insight concerning a firm’s remedy choice after a product recall. This study aims to propose that failure severity and brand equity are key antecedents of remedy choice and provides empirical evidence for a non-linear relationship between pre-recall brand equity and the firm’s remedy offer that is moderated by severity. Design/methodology/approach This study uses field data for 159 product recalls from 60 brands between January 2008 to February 2020 to estimate a probit model of the effects of failure severity, pre-recall brand equity and remedy choice. Findings Firms with higher and lower pre-recall brand equity are less likely to offer full (vs partial) remedy compared to medium level pre-recall brand equity firms. Failure severity moderates this relationship positively, i.e. firms with low and high brand equity are more sensitive to failure severity and then select full instead of partial remedy. Research limitations/implications This research reconciles contradictory arguments and research results about failure severity as an antecedent of remedy choice by introducing brand equity as another key variable. Future research could examine the psychological process of managerial decision-making through experiments. Practical implications This study increases the awareness of the importance of remedy choice during product-harm crises and can help firms and regulators to better understand managerial decision-making mechanisms (and fallacies) during a product-harm crisis. Originality/value This study theoretically and empirically advances the limited literature on managerial decision-making in response to product recalls.

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