Sustainable Management of Environmental Risks in Agricultural Production: Ensuring the Right to Food

The current research is about the sustainable management of environmental risks in agricultural production to ensure the right to food. In a globalized world, agricultural production is determined by external economic, environmental, social, legal, and political factors, as well as internal factors depending on each State’s conditions. Environmental risk factors, particularly, the growing climate change and its negative effects or the occurrence of a global pandemic, restrict agricultural industry development and create uncertainty in guaranteeing people’s right to food. Agricultural production is the first right to food material guarantee. Ensuring agricultural production is ensuring people’s right to food, their food security or at least the minimum necessary to avoid hunger. The aim is to systematize environmental risks sustainable management concepts and characteristics applied in agricultural production to guarantee the right to food. The environmental risk’s sustainable management entails an efficient use of financial and economic resources in agricultural production to prevent or reduce the environmental risk identified impact. The research establishes some general points of environmental risks sustainable management in agricultural production to guarantee the right to adequate food. The following research methods and techniques were selected: the theoretical-legal and document analysis.

Towards advancing African management scholarship

Purpose This paper aims to address the main arguments put forward in Grietjie Verhoef’s article and contribute to a wider debate among management scholars on the role of indigenous theories. It challenges the view of African management as illusory and points to the rising support for indigenous theories as indicative of the weakening of the unquestioned dominance of universal theories. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes a conceptual and critically reflective approach, underpinned by a 360-degree evaluation of pertinent literature and theoretical arguments. Findings This paper reveals an underlying symmetry and interconnectedness, anchored on a shared communal ethos, among Afrocentric management concepts, specifically Ubuntu, Ekpe and Igbo apprenticeship systems. This symmetry points to an underlying indigenous management theory that begs to be further conceptualised, evidenced and advanced. Research limitations/implications This paper affirms Verhoef’s demand for Ubuntu, Ekpe, Igbo apprenticeship system to be more rigorously developed and theoretically coherent and urges scholars to intensify effort towards advancing the conceptual and empirical foundations of African management. Echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless counsel, this paper calls on critics of African management to join the effort to bring about the change they wish to see in African management theorising. Social implications This paper disavows the alleged effort to impose a single “African management” model or perpetuate the “colonial/indigenous” binary divide but equally cautions against an effort to veto scholarly striving for a common identity, to learn from history or not embrace collective amnesia. As examples from the USA and Europe show, diversity, even heterogeneity, needs not to preclude the forging of a commonly shared identity complemented with appropriate sub-identities. Originality/value This paper links the African management-centred themes addressed by Verhoef to the wider debate among management scholars about lessening the dominance of universal theories and allowing space for context-resonant indigenous theories. It calls on African management scholars to invest the premium and intensified effort towards building a more robust and coherent body of indigenous theory that will have the capacity and efficacy to inform, explain and advance organisational practice and outcomes across Africa.

ДІДЖИТАЛІЗАЦІЯ ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВА НА ТРАНСПОРТІ В УМОВАХ ПАНДЕМІЇ COVID-19

The article seeks to explore opportunities for further entrepreneurship development and its intensification in a pandemic setting, in the transport sector in particular, which is associated with the constant search for and implementation of new ideas, technologies, goods, services, manufacturing methods, etc. to retain a business. An emphasis is put that in modern realia as never before, the effective functioning of any company demands for continuous improvement, renewal, reorganization, finding new pathways to manage and run a successful business. It is noted that this approach is based on the latest concept that assumes significant changes in entrepreneurship in the transport industry and will foster further business development. In addition, the study reveals that the application of digital platforms is viewed as the newest tool that has the potential to boost the transport industry growth. However, despite objective reasons, there is still a lack of proper justification for the need to use digital technologies in transport. It is noted that the Industry Development Strategy 4.0 designed by the Ukrainian Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs interprets digital transformation as social or technological changes associated with the penetration of digital technology into all areas of human interactions. The essence of these transformations is to find new approaches and management concepts to resolve classic business challenges. The purpose of this article is to verify the feasibility of transport entrepreneurship based on digital platforms. The study provides insights into the benefits and specifics of digitalization in the context of Covid restrictions adjusted the needs of business acceleration. To attain the research objectives, the tools of information and marketing communications were used as well as the outcomes of marketing research to summarize information on the development of courier delivery and taxi services in Ukraine. Based on the analysis of entrepreneurship in the transport industry, the essential characteristics of digital platforms for taxi service have been discussed. It is argued that a customer focus makes the basis of any successful digital strategy. However, according to the study findings, transport companies need a single comprehensive perception of their customers to develop cooperation and offer a personalized approach to them. The summary concludes that digitalization is aimed at retaining the contact between the consumer and the producer to balance twofold interests: on the one hand, to the producer it will result in profit growth, and on the other – the consumer will be able to get the enhanced service quality, thus managing a close relationship between these two market actors, even in the quarantine realia.

GROSS MARGIN AS A CATEGORY FOR EVALUATING THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC SERVICE PROVISION

Contemporary management concepts in public organisations emphasize the adaptation and implementation of selected management methods tested in commercial sector organisations. They are used to improve the processes of providing public services and to ensure savings, especially in terms of the level of costs. One such instrument is variable cost accounting, which, through the gross margin value, allows to assess both the ability of an organisation to provide specific services and to ensure the widest possible range of services, as well as to identify those who are responsible for the functioning of selected responsibility centres. The study attempts to present an algorithm of conduct ensuring the effective use of variable cost accounting in the process of improving the operation of public organisations.

Project management and logistics

Project management concepts, principles and techniques are commonly used for the completion of an extremely broad range of projects including roads, bridges, buildings, software packages and events. In the management of planned events the same principles apply. Even events held on a regular basis will be complex, given the broad range of uncertainties that exist, as well as the differences from one year to the next in terms of stakeholder activities, attendees’ behaviours, marketing requirements, and a broad range of other contingencies. Hence, events will benefit from the application of a project management approach. Furthermore, events critically depend on progress that is made with careful planning and preparation prior to the actual staging of the event. Accordingly, project management has become an essential element in the event manager’s toolkit.

Comprehensive Evaluation of BIM Calculation Quantity in Domestic Construction Engineering Based on Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation

Nowadays, with the leap-forward development of computer technology and the transformation of information technology management concepts, China’s construction industry is quietly entering the era of refined management. Accurate estimation and cost control have become among the key considerations of the construction industry. For the calculation of engineering quantity, there are already many software devices that can be used for the calculation of engineering structure quantity, which means that the incorrect operation of personnel has been reduced to some extent, improving the work efficiency and measurement accuracy. The purpose of this paper is to solve the problems of computational missing, computational errors, inefficiency, data loss, and repetitive system in traditional computing based on the advantages of BIM computing system, which provide a reliable basis for cost forecasting and control. At the same time, using BMI calculation system to solve the problem of steel reinforcement in construction engineering, as well as the use of personnel, the existing calculation software still needs a lot of time and energy. We proposed a comprehensive evaluation study of reinforcement calculation in domestic construction engineering BIM calculation system based on a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. This paper first summarizes the BIM calculation system of construction engineering, uses fuzzy comprehensive evaluation system as an important evaluation index system in domestic construction engineering BIM calculation system, through the judgment of various factors affecting the actual effect of the calculation system, and uses the fuzzy evaluation system combined with a case to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed research. Therefore, through the above research and experiments, it is concluded that the research method of this paper solves many problems in the process of engineering structure reinforcement calculation and provides a good reference method for the establishment of comprehensive evaluation system of reinforcement calculation, as well as providing an effective validation for the widespread use of BIM technology in the construction industry. Finally, it is also beneficial for users to comprehensively evaluate the BIM calculation system of the construction industry and provide a basic reference condition for different industries to use and choose BIM calculation systems.

FH&P RATING MODEL AND ITS APPLICATION WITHIN THE SLOVAK SPA ENTERPRISES

The aim of the paper is to propose a suitable structure of the newly designed Financial Health & Prediction (FH&P) rating model, and by putting it into practice in Slovak spa enterprises, to contribute to the development of financial management concepts for spa facilities operating in the field of tourism. The quantification of individual dimensions of the FH&P rating model was based on the calculation of selected ten key financial ratio indicators and prediction models. The values (in different units of measure) were converted to points using compiled transformation tables which formed the final score of the FH&P rating model and subsequently the proposed A-FX rating. Based on the results, Kúpele Bojnice, Inc. (SE03), Špecializovaný liečebný ústav Marína, s.e. (SE21) and Kúpele Nimnica, Inc. (SE07) received the best rating. This innovative model provides financial managers actual, simple and understandable overview of the financial health of a spa company and its future financial perspective. With a several adjustments, the FH&P rating model is easily applicable in any economic sector of Slovakia.

Using blockchain technology to extend the vendor managed inventory for sustainability

Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) is changing the way traditional enterprise management concepts work. One of the most dominant IT achievements is the Blockchain Technology. This technology enables the distributed collaboration of stakeholders for their interactions while fulfilling the security and consensus rules among them. This paper has focused on the application of Blockchain technology to enhance one of traditional inventory management models. The Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) has been considered one of the most efficient mechanisms for vendor inventory planning by the suppliers. While VMI has brought competitive advantages for many industries, however its centralized mechanism limits the collaboration of a pool of suppliers and vendors simultaneously. This paper has studied the recent research for VMI application in industries and also has investigated the applications of Blockchain technology for decentralized collaboration of stakeholders. Focusing on sustainability issue for total supply chain consisting suppliers and vendors, it has proposed a Blockchain based VMI conceptual model. The different capabilities of this model for enabling the collaboration of stakeholders while maintaining the competitive advantages and sustainability issues have been discussed.

BRAND MANAGEMENT IN STRATEGIC ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT

Branding is an integral part of an enterprise's marketing activities and can be analyzed in various aspects. Brand management – is the process of creating and managing a brand that is based primarily on the sale of goods. The main components in this process are brand ideas, market analysis, strategy development, organization of an advertising company. In addition, to date, branding policy is one of the elements of marketing, it determines the positions of other types of policy, because today the role of brand for the enterprise is a determining factor of competitiveness and survival of the enterprise in the market. When forming a brand, it is necessary to formulate problems related to needs, supply and demand, as they fully reflect the specifics of the functioning of the product market. The process of brand management is differentiated into blocks; methods for determining the brand value of an enterprise are proposed. The prerequisites for changing brand management are related to the processes and cycles that occur in the economy such as: globalization of business, development of scientific and technological progress, changes in the external environment and society, and even the expansion of market boundaries, so a comparison of the dynamics of brand- enterprise management; brand management concepts are compared. The strategic brand management process is important for creating and maintaining brand equity. Developing a strategy that successfully supports or enhances brand awareness, strengthens brand associations, emphasizes brand quality and use, is part of brand management. In today's world, in order to maintain a competitive position, every leader must first and foremost consider the value of his or her brand in developing its strategy and pay attention to branding and find key points for winning the position.