Animal Welfare and Major Food Retailers

This paper offers an exploratory review of how some of the major US and European food retailers have publicly addressed animal welfare. The findings reveal that six interlinked themes, namely, strategic corporate commitment, animal welfare as good business policy, a focus on supply chains, policies on specific categories of animals and animal products, antibiotics, and auditing, illustrated the food retailers’ approach to animal welfare. The authors raise a range of issues about the retailers’ approach to animal welfare, including the aspirational nature of their commitments, the emphasis on regular audits, the role of external assurance in the reporting process, pressure from animal welfare campaigns, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper offers an accessible review how some of the major US and European food retailers have publicly addressed the issue of animal welfare. Keywords: animal welfare, animal welfare statements, food retailers, supply chain, audit, external assurance

Challenges to Accessing Credit Financing from Financial Institutions by the Urban Based Street Vendors: Experience from Dar Es Salaam – Tanzania

This study assessed challenges to accessing credit financing from Financial Institutions by the urban based street vendors in Dar es Salaam - Tanzania and recommends strategies for ensuring effective access to this crucial service. The study utilised mixed methods approach design and data were collected through interview, questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), review of secondary data, and observation techniques based on the purposive and random sample size of 104 respondents. The quantitative data were analysed descriptively by using Statistical Packages of Social Science (SPSS) while the Qualitative data were analysed content-wise by using MAXQDA software. Findings show that generally vendors were incapable of sufficiently accessing financial support from the financial institutions due to a number of reasons. These reasons include the vendors’ inability to comply with the established procedures for accessing financial support, lack of financial information relating to when, how and where to acquire the financial service, vendors’ inability to afford collaterals against the credit financing as well as too high loans interest rates. Another one is lack of relevant documents by the vendors required for accessing credit financing. In order to resolve the challenges, the researchers recommended equipping vendors with relevant credit financing information, prioritising provision of group loans to vendors as well as organizing the street vendors into groups. Other strategies to consider would be reduction of loan interest rates by the institutions, eliminating bureaucracy in accessing credit as well as engaging in business policy advocacy in favour of the vendors to access financial support.

Industry 4.0 and Business Policy Development: Strategic Imperatives for SME Performance

Industry 4.0 presents companies with new prospects to renovate industrial manufacturing processes and increase value creation, has promised several optimizing strategies for improved business performance. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between innovation capability and employee capability on organizational performance among Small and Medium Scale industries entrepreneurs. Following a positivist research philosophy with a quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive study design, the study addressed three direct and two indirect relationships in the model. The research followed the expectation Resource-Based View Theory to test the theoretical model. Following stratified random sampling, this research using 384 SME entrepreneurs from the Selangor state of Malaysia. The study applied Smart PLS-SEM to analyze the data. The results show that SME firms' innovation capability and employee capability positively correlate with business performance. The study also shows the partial mediation effect of technology change on innovation capability and business performance and employee capability and business performance. Research extends practical and theoretical implications to the stakeholders of SMEs and businesses.JEL Classification: L25, L26, L29How to Cite:Govindarajo, N. S., Kumar M, D., Shaikh, E., Kumar, M., & Kumar, P. (2021). Industry 4.0 and Business Policy Development: Strategic Imperatives for SME Performance. Etikonomi, 20(2), 213 – xx. https://doi.org/10.15408/etk.v20i2.20143.

Chronological association of public face mask usage with the progression of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in a medium-sized Texas city

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought many public health issues to the forefront. One area of interest is the use of face masks for disease spread reduction. This observational study aims to survey the trend of public mask usage in Amarillo, TX over two months during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that public mask usage would decrease during the data collection period due to “COVID Fatigue” in the region studied. For two hours per week, customers entering a local supermarket were counted and recorded as mask-wearing or not mask-wearing. The percentage of customers wearing masks over time was characterized. The regional COVID-19 incidence rate was analyzed alongside this mask usage trend. A decrease in mask utilization was confirmed throughout May and June before policy interventions in July. Mask utilization was highest with a peak of at 35.5% in May before a decrease to a floor of 13.9% in June. A significant increase in mask utilization following a state mask mandate and private policy change was captured. The mandate alone was not enough to cause a 100% compliance rate in the population and the individual store policy change was what preceded the most significant increase. A strong negative correlation between mask usage and active Coronavirus cases in Amarillo was observed. This study revealed a trend of decreasing compliance with mask utilization over time. The findings suggest that the best method in increasing public compliance is a combination of both public health policy and private business policy implementation.

An Expedient Approach Towards Statistical Analysis of Formalin Business Policy Using Design of Experiment in a Petrocomplex Plant in India

Due to civilization, solvent-based paints are abundantly used for painting. Typical solvents include raw Methanol, Ethanol, cellosolve, Amylacetate, and Xylene. After painting, these huge raw solvents are emitted into the atmosphere, which continuously pollutes our environment. Global environment consciousness induced scientists to use aqua-based paints as it never emits harmful material in the atmosphere. Formaldehyde is one of the major components used to produce aqua-based thermosetting resin adhesives, used worldwide in the paints and panel industries. Perceiving the current state of formaldehyde production, development, applications in industrial sectors and demand in the trading industry, a new approach has been envisaged to revitalize the quality of formalin/formaldehyde in petrocomplex plants by the unique design of experiment model based on the collected data. The superiority of formalin depends on some primary constraints such as specific gravity, acid value and solid content of the product. The parameters which control the primary quality measuring constraints are methanol flow-rate, air-supply, and temperature during the reaction process. Based on these three inputs and three output parameters a statistical optimization analysis has been explored with the help of Box-Behnken design by exploring the robustness of soft computing tool (RSM) from an industrial engineering perspective with the overall desirability of 0.744.

The New Progression Model of Entrepreneurial Education—Guideline for the Development of an Entrepreneurial University with a Sustainability Approach

Entrepreneurship is becoming understood as a set of competencies needed for many professions and, as a result, requires to be integrated into higher education even in such seemingly distant areas as, e.g., public administration, sport, agriculture, tourism, etc. Therefore, there is a need for research-based guidance on how to introduce and develop entrepreneurial education as an enabling approach to the transition in higher education that could serve as an integral part of a paradigm shift towards an entrepreneurial university. This paper aims to support that transition and to address related challenges by the presentation of a new progression model, which provides guidelines for the development of courses at the tertiary level with an entrepreneurial university approach. The construction of the new applicable model is central to the purpose of this study and based on a systematized literature review. Additionally, the input–process–output–outcome framework, originally constructed for the evaluation of educational programs, was adapted to the incorporation of an overall framework into the new model. In the results, the paper redefines some of the relevant core terms, such as “entrepreneurial education” and its “progression model”. The research outcomes offer broad practical and theoretical applicability to a range of stakeholders—educators, students/learners, industry/business, policy makers, and researchers.

Logistic Business Policy and Strategy: Women's Opportunities and Participation in The Warehouse Industry

Departing from a condition in which the number of women involved in the warehouse sector industry is still low, even though culture in Indonesia does not hinder their involvement, there are opportunities to participate, and the existence or existence of women in this industry is not contradictory, so this study aims to determine how high the level of women's participation in the warehouse sector industry, as well as to find out what factors influence their involvement. This study uses a quantitative approach with an explanatory and survey research format. Data was collected by distributing questionnaires to 70 respondents who were determined purposively. In addition, interviews were also conducted with several respondents as well as documentation and observation techniques. Data processing was carried out using percentage techniques and multiple linear regression techniques with the help of the SPSS (Statistical Program for the Social Science) program The results of this study are as follows: 1) women's participation in the warehouse sector industry is still at a low level; 2) culture, existence and opportunities have an effect either partially or simultaneously on women's participation; 3) while the opportunity variable has the most significant effect on women's participation; 4) there are a small number of other variables that are not involved in this study which also influence women's participation in the warehouse sector industry.

Dynamic Adaptation Method of Business Process Based on Hierarchical Feature Model

With the continuous complexity and frequent changes in business application scenarios, companies urgently need to establish a flexible business process management mechanism that includes dynamic rules, in which dynamic adaptation methods of business processes play a vital role. Aiming at the problem that the current methods only use the preset process template and the decision-making database, it cannot respond quickly to business changes and reconfigure the business process. This research proposes a dynamic adaptation method of business process based on the hierarchical feature model, builds a hierarchical feature model of complex processes, then establishes a hierarchical business policy set to achieve an agile response to business emergencies. By constructing a mapping model, the feature model is associated with the BPMN model to realize the rapid execution of the reconfiguration process model. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by process examples and the developed business process dynamic adaptation tool.

Competition law and digital ecosystems: Learning to walk before we run

The paper analyzes the challenges faced by competition authorities with respect to the digital sector. Borrowing insights from the business policy literature and from the economic literature, the paper first analyzes the specificities of digital firms (multi-sided platforms and ecosystems) with respect to their development and competitive strategies. Building on this foundation the paper explores some of the challenges of applying traditional competition analysis to competition in the business sector. We then discuss a number of issues relevant to competition law enforcement in the digital sector starting with the role of data, competition within ecosystems and between ecosystems, consumer biases, and the role of gatekeepers. We conclude with a research agenda for economists and competition authorities.