Circular Business Model Innovation and Its Relationship With Business Performance in Brazilian Industrial Chemical Companies

This study aimed to analyze the relationship between circular business model innovation and business performance in Brazilian industrial chemical companies. This is a quantitative study carried out through a survey with Brazilian industrial companies. Based on a homogeneity analysis (Homals), the results showed that the high degree of innovation in business models from the adoption of circular economy (CE) strategies in the analyzed companies confirms that a significant change leads to superior performance, especially in market, production, economic and financial, and social.

A System Innovation Approach for Science-Stakeholder Interface: Theory and Application to Water-Land-Food-Energy Nexus

The Water-Food-Energy Nexus can support a general model of sustainable development, balancing resources with increasing economic/productive expectations, as e.g., in agriculture. We synthesise lessons from Greece's practical and research experience, identify knowledge and application gaps, and propose a novel conceptual framework to tackle these challenges. Thessaly (Central Greece), the country's driest region and largest agricultural supplier is used as an example. The area faces a number of water quantity and quality issues, ambitious production-economic objectives, continuous (historically) drought and flood events, conflicts, administrative and economic issues, under serious climate change impacts. A detailed assessment of the current situation is carried out, covering all these aspects, for the first time in an integrated way. Collaboration gaps among different stakeholders are identified as the biggest impediment to socially acceptable actions. For the first time, to our knowledge, the Nexus is set as a keystone to develop a novel framework to reverse the situation and achieve sustainable management under socially acceptable long-term visions. The proposed framework is based on Systems' Theory, innovation, uses a multi-disciplinary platform to bring together all relevant stakeholders, provides scientific support and commitment, and makes use of technological advances for the system's improvement.

Model of monitoring of oil soil pollution and its termination

The assessment of impact of oil production economic activities on land pollution in Russia contributes to evolutionary management decision making. Oil industrial pollution affects negatively flora and fauna. Thus, its important to identify the level of its exposure and danger, the site of contamination. A system approach is needed. When studying the environment, its necessary to consider the presence of risk situations and stochastic irreversible changes. Its essential to identify the nature and type of soil contamination with petroleum products using high-tech tools, intellectual procedures. The work considers modeling of such situation, forecasting and identification of oil contaminants. The submodel of optimal termination of monitoring is also considered. Ending monitoring of environmental optimization will result in lower monitoring costs, since monitoring oilcontaminated environments is an expensive and complex technological mechanism, often requiring satellite data. The proposed algorithm for modeling and system analysis is based on situational modeling. Evolutionary modeling allows to adapt the procedure (methodology) of forecasting and assessment to environmental risk factors. It increases the accuracy (formalization and evidence) and completeness of conclusions, the efficiency of situation analysis, which affects manageability of risk both for the oil complex and for individual enterprise in the industry. The results of the research may be used for development of software tools, in particular expert and predictive systems. Situational models are needed when oil companies are solving multi-criteria and multifactor problems.

Measurement and spatial difference of agricultural green development level in Guangxi

Green development of agriculture is the foundation of the entire green development. As a big agricultural province, promoting the green development of agriculture is conducive to promoting the high-quality development of agriculture and rural revitalization in Guangxi. This paper firstly analyzes the domestic and foreign scholars' research on the green development of agriculture, combined with the relevant policy theory, constructs the index system from the three aspects of green production, economic benefits and living standards, and then uses the entropy method to calculate the index weight and the comprehensive score of the green development of Agriculture in Guangxi, it analyzes the development trend of agricultural green development in Guangxi from 2010 to 2019 and the spatial differences of agricultural green development in 14 cities of Guangxi in 2019 afterwards. Finally, the following conclusions are drawn: the agricultural green development in Guangxi is on the rise from 2010 to 2019, but the development of green production is still in stagnancy; the overall level of Guangxi's agricultural green development in 2019 is relatively low, the best comprehensive developed cities are Guilin and Yulin, while the Hechi got the worst comprehensive score. According to the above conclusion, Guangxi should increase investment in science and technology to promote green agricultural production, focus on the overall development of the city to achieve regional coordination, give full play to the linkage effect of the city, and encourage well-developed cities to drive the development of surrounding cities.

Development of Communicative Foreign Language Competency in Management Students for Effective Business Communication

Managers have to coordinate various production, economic, technical, and social tasks in order to achieve common goals. As a result, they need to be able to communicate with a wide net of diverse contacts in this country and abroad. Therefore, intercultural communication plays a very important role in the business sphere. The present research featured the development of communicative competency in students of management for effective business communication. Readiness for business communication in a foreign language is an important indicator of professionalism. The authors defined the concepts of communication, effective business communication, and communicative competency. They focused on the interdisciplinary approach to the development of competencies in future managers as part of such disciplines as Management, Organization, Personnel Management, Economic theory, World Economy, and Business Foreign Language. The competency of business foreign language communication is both the purpose of training and a quality indicator. The article introduces an effective technology of developing the communicative competency in students that major in management. It is an interdisciplinary complex of interactive methods, techniques, Internet sources, and training tools.

The End of Western Economic Growth Theory

Economics is a science that studies how the economy grows, so the theory of economic growth is the most important theory of economics. In the real market economy society, people achieve the goal of economic growth through two kinds of economic activities: production and transaction. Then a correct economic growth theory must be one that can explain both production and transaction economic activities. Just like Newton’s law of universal gravitation in physics, it can explain the motion law of all objects. For a long time, we have been dominated by the western economic growth theory of western mainstream economics. It is not difficult to find that it has a fatal defect, which can only explain production economic activities but not transaction economic activities. So it can’t explain the Chinese economy, and it can’t explain the western economy. The new economic growth theory proposed in this paper makes up for the defects of western economic growth theory, and it is the terminator of western economic growth theory. This is a revolution of new economics to traditional western economics.

Used Tires as Fuel in Clinker Production: Economic and Environmental Implications

This work analyzes how gases emitted during the manufacture of clinker vary in a cement plant using two types of fuel: petroleum coke and unusable tires (UTs). This study is based on a case study using real time data on more than 40 process variables. Gases are analyzed from two points of the production process: from the sintering kiln, where the main focus of emissions to the atmosphere is by chimney, and from the preheater. The variation of CO and NOx depending on the oxygen and fuel type is studied. The SO2 levels are also analyzed and a decrease was observed when using the UTs. The quality of the clinker is compared according to the fuel type. The results are analyzed, on the one hand, by the quality of the clinker, determined by the content of the majority (C3S, alite) and minority (free CaO) phases, and, on the other hand, by the kiln sintering temperature, the most influential parameter in the productive process. It is verified that the clinker quality is maintained regardless of the type of fuel used. Therefore, the use of UTs as fuel could generate important economic and environmental benefits for cement companies.

Phytophthora Diseases in Ghana: Threats, Management Options and Prospects

Ghana’s agricultural economy is largely dominated by the crop subsector with much focus on the production of tree, arable and vegetable crops. Nevertheless, Phytophthora spp. are major threat to the production of these crops contributing significantly to yield reduction. In this review, the main focus will be to look at the threats the pathogen poses to production, economic importance of Phytophthora diseases, highlights some Phytophthora diseases with limited research in the country but have the potential of affecting crop production, management options and the prospect of developing and deploying biological control strategies considered environmentally friendlier and devoid of human health risks to reduce the effect of this pathogen on crop production as well as reducing the dependency on chemical control option.