New Normal in the Construction Industry a Covid-19 Effect

Construction is one of the oldest and major industries in the world that makes substantial contribution to the national economy and provides employment to a great number of individuals. In the early part of year 2020, COVID-19 pandemic arises that has turned into a worldwide catastrophe, evolving at high speed and scale. The impacts on the construction industry have been sudden and wide-ranging. This outbreak changes the usual daily activity and ‘The New Normal’ is introduced. Construction companies are moving forward, with strict regulations that end up as the new normal for the industry. This study explored the adaption to this new normal in Nueva Ecija, Philippines and seeks out if there’s a relationship between adaption to new safety protocols and the category also the number of workers in a company. Survey was done for data collection. SPSS 25 software was used for data analysis. Result reveals that although the percentage of adaption to new normal is great, still there are areas that needs improvement. In addition, the company’s category and the number manpower does indeed has correlation on the adaption to new normal. This study is essential to ensure responsible, healthy, safe operations, and serve as protection of workers.

Digitalisierung im deutschen Maschinen- und Anlagenbau/Study on Digitalization in the German Mechanical Engineering Sector

Das stetig zunehmende volatile Marktumfeld verlangt unter anderem nach hoher Effektivität der eigenen Produktion, um international wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Die zur Steigerung der Anlagenverfügbarkeit beitragende Digitalisierung von Produktionsanlagen findet im Maschinen- und Anlagenbau dennoch nur zögerlich Anwendung. Auf Basis einer Unternehmensbefragung wurden die Anforderungen an digitale Nachrüstlösungen analysiert, Diskrepanzen zu bestehenden Systemen abgeleitet und Bedarfe sowie mögliche Lösungen bei der Digitalisierung von Produktionsanlagen aufgezeigt.   The continuously increasing volatile market environment calls for a high level of efficiency in a company‘s production system to remain internationally competitive. Although the digitalization of production facilities contributes to an increasing plant availability, it is only hesitantly applied in the mechanical and plant engineering sector. Based on a company survey, the requirements for digital retrofit solutions are analyzed, discrepancies with existing systems derived, and demands as well as possible solutions for the digitalization of production plants presented.

THE IMPACT OF STRUCTURAL CHANGES ON CORPORATE REAL ESTATE OWNERSHIP: EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY

Although real estate resources represent a high percentage of the corporate assets of non-property companies, their future role is unclear. Longevity and difficulty in revising property-related decisions clash under dynamically changing environmental conditions. This makes it necessary to consider the ownership strategy and its altering role in order to avoid inefficiencies and not to hinder companies in mastering structural change successfully. In a first step, data from a telephone company survey (CATI) among 69 corporate real estate managers of German companies are grouped by performing a two-step cluster analysis according to the degree to which they are affected by structural change. The resulting clusters are then tested regarding differences in their ownership strategy. The empirical analysis shows that firms highly affected by structural change exhibit a higher willingness to decrease the proportion of ownership. The decline in real estate assets is particularly evident in the office segment and in increased acceptance of sale-and-rent-back solutions. First hints show that structural change and associated new business requirements change the relevance of CRE ownership. To avoid competitive disadvantages, especially European firms should scrutinize their high ownership ratios.

ORGANISATIONAL ANTECEDENTS OF INNOVATION PERFORMANCE: AN ANALYSIS ACROSS 32 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

While innovation studies generated a great number of insights regarding the conditions under which innovation performance occurs, there are two main points of criticisms. First, many studies focus on a narrow conception of innovation (namely product innovation). Second, many studies are based on data from the manufacturing sector. The present analysis aims to overcome these criticisms by analyzing a broad indicator of innovation across multiple sectors. Hypotheses are formulated guided by organizational learning theories of innovation. These hypotheses are tested using data from the third European Company Survey.

Powering Jobs: the Employment Footprint of Clean Cooking Solutions in Kenya

Background Delivering clean cooking access to 1.2 billion people who cook with charcoal, kerosene and firewood may have a strong localized employment impact. With the challenge of a rapidly expanding youth population and growing job scarcity in sub-Saharan Africa, understanding the impact of clean cooking on employment as well as the skills gap is timely. However, there is little definitive data on clean cooking jobs. Recognizing this data gap, we sought to conduct a study focused specifically on employment from the clean cooking sectors in Kenya, covering liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), bioethanol, biogas and electric cooking solutions. This study provides an initial baseline and early estimate of clean cooking sectors’ direct formal and informal employment based on one year of company survey data, expert interviews, available literature, and local focus group discussion.Results In Kenya, the clean cooking sector provided about 19,000 direct, formal jobs and potentially 15,000 to 35,000 direct, informal jobs in 2019. While the clean cooking sector provided many jobs, the level of compensation and retention is low. In the LPG and electric cooking sector, sales and distribution are the biggest part of the workforce, while for bioethanol and biogas, manufacturing and assembling is important. The majority of the direct, formal workforce is reported to be skilled. Management, finance and legal, and product development and research are the most difficult skills to recruit for. Women’s participation is lower than 30% in the clean cooking sectors. Managerial positions have higher women’s participation than non-managerial ones. Conclusion This research exercise establishes a baseline for understanding the employment impact of the clean cooking sectors. However, a massive data gap persists. Our study shows that while the clean cooking sectors, especially LPG, are already providing tens of thousands of jobs, further studies are critically needed to map the employment impact of delivering universal clean cooking access.

A public-private collaboration initiative for innovative Earth Observation (EO) technologies and methodologies for investigating climate change impacts by means of an inter-disciplinary approach: the OT4CLIMA project

<p>The OT4CLIMA project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, within the PON 2014-2020 Industrial Research program, “Aerospace” thematic domain, aims at developing advanced Earth Observation (EO) technologies and methodologies for improving our capability to better understand the effects of Climate Change (CC) and our capability to mitigate them at the regional and sub-regional scale. Both medium-to-long term impacts (e.g. vegetation stress, drought) and extreme events with rapid dynamics (e.g. intense meteorological phenomena, fires) will be investigated, trying a twofold (i.e. interesting both “products” and “processes”) technological innovation: a) through the design and the implementation of advanced sensors to be mounted on multiplatform EO systems; b) through the development of advanced methodologies for EO data analysis, interpretation, integration and fusion.</p><p>Activities will focus on two of the major natural processes strictly related to Climate Change, namely the Carbon and Water Cycles by using an inter-disciplinary approach.</p><p>As an example, the project will make it possible the measurements, with an unprecedented accuracy of atmospheric (e.g. OCS, carbon-sulphide) and surface (e.g. soil moisture) parameters that are crucial in determining the vegetation contribution to the CO2 balance, suggesting at the same time solutions based on the analysis and integration of satellite, airborne and unmanned data, in order to significantly improve the capability of local communities to face the short- and long-term CC-related effects.</p><p>OT4CLIMA benefits from a strong scientific expertise (14 CNR institutes, ASI, INGV, CIRA, 3 Universities), considerable research infrastructures and a wide industrial partnership (including both big national players, i.e. E-Geos and IDS companies and well-established italian SMEs consortia, i.e. CREATEC, CORISTA and SIIT, and a spin-off company, Survey Lab) specifically focused on the technological innovation frontier.</p><p>This contribution would summarize the project main objectives and show some activities so far carried out.</p>

Employee participation and representation in Central and Eastern Europe

Using data from the 2013 European Company Survey, this article presents a study of employee involvement and participation (EIP) in decision-making in 12 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, a context that is rather less studied but interesting because of its political past and its current emerging economic status. The study explores how these countries can be clustered according to positive employee attitude towards employee representation (ER) and EIP in decision-making. It examines the association between these two components and the effectiveness of the ER body, as well as whether there are differences between country clusters. Finally, the article examines how the degree of EIP in decision-making is related to ER body effectiveness. This research contributes to prior work by seeking to understand EIP in decision-making in an understudied sample of CEE countries and provides an insightful classification.

Estimating Outcomes and Impacts from Innovation Programs: The Case of Air Force and Navy SBIR/STTR Programs

The Air Force and Navy recently commissioned economic impact studies of their Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which provide funding to U.S. small businesses to promote technological innovation. The studies focused on Phase II contracts completed during the 2000 to 2013 period. These were the first comprehensive economic impact surveys of any federal agency SBIR/STTR programs. The studies provided conclusive information on the outcomes of well over 90% of the Phase II contracts. IMPLAN software was applied to company survey results to estimate overall impacts on the U.S. economy. Analysis revealed that both programs have had impressive national economic impacts. However, these studies significantly understate their contribution to the national economy because a substantial portion of the total economic outcomes will occur in the future. This paper demonstrates a conservative, statistically based methodology for estimating the future sales that can be expected from already-funded Air Force and Navy SBIR/STTR projects after the date of the company surveys. Application of this methodology shows that, for projects that have not yet generated product sales, an estimated additional 10% will eventually result in commercial products. For projects with products that have already reached the marketplace, total product sales will eventually be 83% greater than the totals reported at the time of the surveys. With the addition of the missing future sales, the total economic impact from the Air Force and Navy programs will ultimately be 51% greater than was reported. The new analysis estimates that every dollar invested in Air Force and Navy SBIR/STTR Phase II projects will eventually return $22 in economic activity.