New Products

A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.

Comparative study between the effect of television advertising, social media of instagram, and brand image in the decision of purchasing new product

Television advertising is one of the most effective methods used by companies to introduce and give information about a product to their target consumers. However, as technology advances in the early 2000s, the number of internet users in the world and Indonesia has increased annually. There are currently 160 million Indonesian people who are actively using social media, whose spending 3 hours 26 minutes using social media and 3 hours 4 minutes watching television. The current study was carried out in investigating the effect of television advertising, social media, and brand image on consumers' decision in purchasing new products. In this case, the researcher collected data from 250 respondents who used aromatherapy wind oil throughout Indonesia. The results of this study are expected to be used to improve the manufacture of advertising media plans that will be used by companies in the current digitalization era. The results of this study indicated that the role of television advertising greatly influences purchasing decisions compared to Instagram social media for a new product.

A Novel Approach of Product Recommendation using Utility Based Association Rules

An exorbitant source of data is easily available but the actual task lies in using this data efficiently. In this article, the aim is to analyse the significant information embedded in the customer purchase behaviour to recommend new products to them. Our proposed scheme is a two-fold approach. First, the authors retrieve various product correlations from the vast library of user transactions. Based on these product correlations, utility based association rules are learned which depict the customer purchase behaviour. These rules are then applied in a recommender system for novel product suggestions to the customers. With improved utility based mining the paper tries to incorporate the usefulness of an item set like cost, profit or any other factor along with their frequency. In this paper the authors have deployed the rules discovered from both the conventional Frequent Item Set Mining and Improved Utility Based Mining on an e-commerce platform to compare the accuracy of the algorithms. The obtained results establish the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.

STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP: EXPLORATION, EXPLOITATION, AND AMBIDEXTERITY PRACTICES IN CRAFT BREWERIES FROM UBERLÂNDIA, MG

ABSTRACT Purpose: This paper aims to understand the configuration of strategic entrepreneurship practices of exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity in craft breweries from Uberlândia, MG. Originality/value: Strategic entrepreneurship enables the comprehension of entrepreneurial phenomena from an organizational perspective. Furthermore, this research is conducted in an emergent industry in Brazil, with few studies in the field of management that consider the idiosyncrasies of craft breweries. Design/methodology/approach: We conducted a qualitative multicase study with three craft breweries from Uberlândia, MG. Twelve interviews were performed, and the set of empirical data collected were analyzed through narrative analysis technique. Findings: We identified several strategic entrepreneurship practices in the craft breweing sector. First, exploration practices were found in some radical innovations, such as the pioneering nature in the production of craft beers in Uberlândia, the creation of new products, and in the setting of new business models. Second, exploitation practices were also identified in incremental innovations that enabled business development. Hence, ambidexterity relied on the balance of exploration and exploitation practices, as innovative endeavors enabled the creation and development of new products and access to new markets. Thus, strategic entrepreneurship practices reflect the initiatives of entrepreneurial agents that seek to promote organizational innovations in terms of quality improvements, new production and marketing strategies, and the adoption of new technologies. Therefore, strategic entrepreneurship reflects and contributes to innovation possibilities, strategic renewals, and the competitiveness of craft breweries, revealing the analytical power of this theoretical approach for the study of entrepreneurial phenomena.

Simulation optimization of an inventory control model for a reverse logistics system

Nowadays, companies are recognizing their primordial roles and responsibilities towards the protection of the environment and save the natural resources. They are focusing on some contemporary activities such as Reverse Logistics which is economically and environmentally viable. However, the integration of such an initiative needs flows restructuring and supply chain management in order to increase sustainability and maximize profits. Under this background, this paper addresses an inventory control model for a reverse logistics system that deals with two separated types of demand, for new products and remanufactured products, with different selling prices. The model consists of a single shared machine between production and remanufacturing operations, while the machine is subject to random failures and repairs. Three stock points respectively for returns, new products and remanufactured products are investigated. Meanwhile, in this paper, a modeling of the problem with Discrete-Event simulation using Arena® was conducted. Regarding the purpose of finding, a near-optimal inventory control policy that minimizes the total cost, an optimization of the model based on Tabu Search and Genetic Algorithms was established. Computational examples and sensitivity analysis were performed in order to compare the results and the robustness of each proposed algorithm. Then the results of the two methods were compared with those of OptQuest® optimization tool.

The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality

We build an endogenous growth model with automation (the replacement of low-skill workers with machines) and horizontal innovation (the creation of new products). Over time, the share of automation innovations endogenously increases through an increase in low-skill wages, leading to an increase in the skill premium and a decline in the labor share. We calibrate the model to the US economy and show that it quantitatively replicates the paths of the skill premium, the labor share, and labor productivity. Our model offers a new perspective on recent trends in the income distribution by showing that they can be explained endogenously. (JEL D31, E25, J24, J31, O33, O41)

New Social World: The Great Power of the Network

At the early beginning of the 21st century, it was impossible to imagine how fast the Internet would develop. It was also not obvious that the worldwide network would actually become available in all parts of the planet, and the network itself would become the basis for the birth and development of new global products - social networks, communications, and services. According to the International Telecommunication Union, the Internet and new digital products along twenty years have almost completely absorbed the population of developed countries (87%) and are growing rapidly in developing countries (47%)[1]. The affordable cost of communication for the majority of the population together with free communication services create the basis for the emergence of not only new products but also a constant increase in the number of digital services, which quite recently could only be obtained offline. Together with large digital government services, commercial networks, communicators, and services are creating a new social structure capable of independent machine learning and development. The work aims to show that much faster than it was supposed new digital products will intertwine with each other, forming a new social platform, which is called a New Social World. The analysis of sociological works on this topic together with an analysis of practical research on the Internet and new digital products confirms this assumption. Despite strict user agreements, global online monitoring, constant online control and full access to the data of each user, more and more people become users of social networks and services, and most social network users become loyal users of other new products and services, easily switching on digital consumption and consumption of real products and services provided online. The new social reality, generated by the powerful interweaving of the world's digital products and services will forever change the sociocultural and media world. An urgent and constant study of this phenomenon is necessary since the ways of its further development are unpredictable both in relation to the existence of traditional, social, national identification and with the existence of traditional state institutions and states.

Recent Development of Biomass Conversion using Ionic Liquid-based Processes

The amount of biomass products generated globally increases year after year. Nature produces lignocellulose, which is largely constituted of three components in the following order: cellulose (34–50%), hemicellulose (15–35%), and lignin (5–30%). A promising conversion method known as biomass conversion employs a liquid media-based process to address the issue of an abundance of biomass as waste. Converting biomass with ionic liquid (IL) can address not only environmental issues caused by the abundance of biomass waste but also generate new energy sources or new products with economical selling value. IL can be employed as a green catalyst, solvent, or electrolyte, as well as in a number of conversion processes. In general, 1-alkyl-3-methyl-imidazolium-based cations are the most commonly used IL types for biomass conversion. The conversion conditions are relatively mild, consisting of a low temperature of around 95-220 °C, 1 atm, for 10–240 minutes. This paper review is expected to be a significant reference in the future for the development of other biomass conversion processes.