Operation decision of logistics service supply chain: considering interruption probability in emergencies

PurposeTo remedy the inherent defect in current research that focuses only on a single type of participants, this paper endeavors to look into the situation as an evolutionary game between a representative Logistics Service Integrator (LSI) and a representative Functional Logistics Service Provider (FLSP) in an environment with sudden crisis and tries to analyze how LSI supervises FLSP's operations and how FLSP responds in a recurrent pattern with different interruption probabilities.Design/methodology/approachRegarding the risks of supply chain interruption in emergencies, this paper develops a two-level model of single LSI and single FLSP, using Evolutionary Game theory to analyze their optimal decision-making, as well as their strategic behaviors on different risk levels regarding the interruption probability to achieve the optimal return with bounded rationality.FindingsThe results show that on a low-risk level, if LSI increases the degree of punishment, it will fail to enhance FLSP's operational activeness in the long term; when the risk rises to an intermediate level, a circular game occurs between LSI and FLSP; and on a high level of risk, FLSP will actively take actions, and its functional probability further impacts LSI's strategic choices. Finally, this paper analyzes the moderating impact of punishment intensity and social reputation loss on the evolutionary model in emergencies and provides relevant managerial implications.Originality/valueFirst, by taking both interruption probability and emergencies into consideration, this paper explores the interactions among the factors relevant to LSI's and FLSP's optimal decision-making. Second, this paper analyzes the optimal evolutionary game strategies of LSI and FLSP with different interruption probability and the range of their optimal strategies. Third, the findings of this paper provide valuable implications for relevant practices, such that the punishment intensity and social reputation loss determine the optimal strategies of LSI and FLSP, and thus it is an effective vehicle for LSSC system administrator to achieve the maximum efficiency of the system.

Non est mea pigra senectus: Old Women and Folk Medicine in Greco-roman Literature

This paper will examine the old-woman healer figure through Greco-Roman literary sources. First, I will discuss briefly the social reputation of old women in comparison with senex and the creation of a negative stereotype around them. After that, I will focus on the triple relation between woman, old age, and medicine in order to show the reputation of old women as skilled healers. Finally, I will analyse the use of different treatments close to magic, like enchantments and purifications, and the healings of some specific illnesses, such as love, to conclude with a brief overview of the political and social attitude towards them.

Impact of Corporate Attributes on Human Resource Disclosure Practices, Evidences from Commercial Banks of Bangladesh

The present study intends to investigate the impact of corporate attributes in disclosing Human Resource information from the lens of Stakeholder theory. A sample of 100 annual reports of 20 commercial banks operating in Bangladesh for five years starting from 2015 to 2019 has been considered for this research. Content analysis and multiple linear regression have been used to meet the objectives. The results reveal that large firms disclose more information due to higher social reputation and greater accountability towards stakeholders. Further, human resource cost and human resource disclosures (HRDs) are positively related. It implies that corporations that invest more in human capital disclosure it in the annual report to let people know about it and enhance their credibility. The findings also demonstrate a negative relationship between HRDs and the firm’s age, which implies that, to be trustworthy, reliable, and retain public confidence, young firms disclose more information. In contrast, established firms tend to disclose less information. The findings of the study may exert remarkable contribution in devising corporate policy and setting measures of regulatory and accounting standard-setting bodies.

“The Courtroom of World Opinion”: Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises

What role does the international audience play in nuclear crises? Scholars of nuclear crises and deterrence have treated nuclear crises as dyadic interactions between two sides. However, states do not only interact with each other during a nuclear crisis. They also signal to a third actor—the international audience. There are two reasons for this. First, states care about their international social reputation and want to be perceived as responsible and legitimate actors. Second, there are material benefits to states maintaining a good social reputation with the international audience, which possesses the leverage to reward, condemn, and sanction. States thus attempt to leverage this power of the international audience to apply diplomatic pressure on their adversary during nuclear crises. They also engage in costly signaling and strategic restraint to ensure that the international audience considers their actions legitimate during the crisis. I use original qualitative evidence from the Kargil War (1999) between India and Pakistan to demonstrate this dynamic. Incorporating the international audience as a critical third actor during nuclear crises has important academic and policy implications for the study of nuclear crises and their management. ¿Qué función cumple el público internacional en las crisis nucleares? Los estudiosos de la disuasión y las crisis nucleares han tratado dichas crisis como interacciones diádicas entre dos lados. No obstante, los Estados no solo interactúan entre sí durante una crisis nuclear. También hacen señas a un tercer actor: el público internacional. Esto se debe a dos motivos. En primer lugar, los Estados se preocupan por su reputación social internacional y desean que se los perciba como actores responsables y legítimos. En segundo lugar, existen beneficios materiales para los Estados que mantienen una buena reputación social con el público internacional, el cual tiene influencia en la recompensación, la condena y la sanción. Por tanto, los Estados intentan aprovechar este poder del público internacional para aplicar presión diplomática en su adversario durante las crisis nucleares. También emplean un envío de señas costoso y restricciones estratégicas para garantizar que el público internacional considere sus acciones como legítimas durante la crisis. Utilizo pruebas cualitativas originales de la guerra de Kargil (1999) entre India y Pakistán para demostrar esta dinámica. La incorporación del público internacional como un tercer actor fundamental durante las crisis nucleares presenta importantes implicaciones académicas y políticas para el estudio de las crisis nucleares y su manejo. Quel rôle le public international joue-t-il dans les crises nucléaires? Les chercheurs se consacrant à la dissuasion et aux crises nucléaires ont traité les crises nucléaires comme étant des interactions dyadiques entre deux camps. Cependant, les États ne se contentent pas d'interagir l'un avec l'autre lors d'une crise nucléaire. Ils émettent également un signal à l'attention d'un acteur tiers, le public international. Il y a deux raisons à cela. D'une part, les États se soucient de leur réputation sociale internationale et souhaitent être perçus comme des acteurs responsables et légitimes. Et d'autre part, le maintien d'une bonne réputation sociale auprès du public international présente des avantages matériels pour les États puisque ce public dispose de l'influence nécessaire pour récompenser, condamner et sanctionner. Les États tentent donc de tirer parti de ce pouvoir du public international pour exercer une pression diplomatique sur leur adversaire lors de crises nucléaires. Ils s'engagent également dans un signal coûteux et dans une retenue stratégique pour veiller à ce que le public international considère leurs actions comme légitimes durant la crise. Je m'appuie sur des preuves qualitatives originales issues du conflit de Kargil (1999) entre l'Inde et le Pakistan pour démontrer cette dynamique. L'intégration du public international comme troisième acteur essentiel lors de crises nucléaires a d'importantes implications politiques et de recherche pour l’étude des crises nucléaires et de leur gestion.

Chetan Bhagat: Recent Readings: Mental conflicts of Indian women in One Indian Girl

This chapter is written to have a look at Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl from cerebral angle to acknowledge a deviation in Indian Women’s demeanor and behaviour. Indian women’s mind is full of conflicts and confusion. They have to deal with social stereotypes. Our society believes that girls can make a successful career either or a successful home. Can’t do both together. What an astonishment! We give wings to our daughters but then she is told that she has to build a nest. So she has to forget to fly. Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl offers a female’s anima – her goals and inclination in her thoughts and geared up to flare up and ensue at even the slightest pierce. Radhika Mehta cogitates a maiden who is a sturdy backer of feminist ideology however she has to confront the pre-determined norms of Indian society that have been set below patriarchal society because of which she has to go through numerous sorts of torments and distress. This narrative is generally about Radhika, the proponent, unveiling the exceptional elements of a modern-day Indian woman. Radhika’s social reputation influences society to a great extent that she turns into a vulnerable target of many known and unknown conditions which vexed her unfulfilled objectives of not getting bodily love and appreciation. Radhika’s unfulfilled dreams take her foundation within side the discrimination meted to her in her formative years and youth. It is a first-character narrative through the protagonist whose internal voice (named ‘Mini-me’) constantly expresses her internal feelings and the mental conflicts occurring in her thoughts.

Research on the cooperative mechanism of government and enterprise for basin ecological compensation based on differential game

Ecological compensation is an important means of basin pollution control, the existing researches mainly focus on the government level ignoring the important role of enterprises. Therefore, this paper introduces enterprises into the process of ecological compensation. Firstly, suppose the ecological compensation system composed of government and enterprises, the government is in the dominant position. The ecological compensation input of the government and enterprise will produce social reputation, and the ecological compensation of enterprise will also produce advertising effect. Consumer demand will be affected by social reputation and advertising effect. Then, the compensation strategies of the government and enterprise are analyzed by constructing the differential game model. The research shows that under certain conditions, the cost-sharing mechanism can realize the Pareto improvement of the benefits of government, enterprise and the whole system. Under the cooperative mechanism, the benefit of the government, enterprise and the whole system is optimal. Finally, the validity of the conclusion is verified by case analysis, and the sensitivity analysis of the relevant parameters is carried out. The conclusion can provide reference for government to establish sustainable watershed ecological compensation mechanism.

An Artificial Intelligence Empowered Cyber Physical Ecosystem for Energy Efficiency and Occupation Health and Safety

Reducing energy waste is one of the primary concerns facing Remote Industrial Plants (RIP) and, in particular, the accommodations and operational plants located in remote areas. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to attack the health of workforce, managing the balance between energy efficiency and Occupation Health and Safety (OHS) in the workplace becomes another great challenge for the RIP. Maintaining this balance is difficult mainly because a full awareness of the OHS will generally consume more energy while reducing the energy cost may lead to a less effective OHS, and the existing literature has not seen a system that is designed for the RIPs to conserve energy usage and improve workforce OHS simultaneously. To bridge this gap, in this paper, we propose an AI Empowered Cyber Physical Ecosystem (AECPE) solution for the RIPs, which integrates Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), artificial intelligence, and mobile networks. The preliminary results of lab experiments and field tests proved that the AECPE was able to help industries reduce the corporate annual energy cost that is worth millions of dollars, optimise the environmental conditions, and improve OHS for all workers and stakeholders. The implementation of the AECPE can result in efficient energy usage, reduced wastage and emissions, environment-friendly operations, and improved social reputation of the industries.

Commonshare: A New Approach to Social Reputation for Online Collaborative Communities

Reputation systems are a popular feature of web-based platforms for ensuring that their users abide by platform rules and regulations and are incentivized to demonstrate honest, trustworthy conduct. Accrual of “reputation” in these platforms, most prominently those in the e-commerce domain, is motivated by self-interested goals such as acquiring an advantage over competing platform users. Therefore, in community-oriented platforms, where the goals are to foster collaboration and cooperation among community members, such reputation systems are inappropriate and indeed contrary to the intended ethos of the community and actions of its members. In this article, we argue for a new form of reputation system that encourages cooperation rather than competition, derived from conceptualizing platform communities as a networked assemblage of users and their created content. In doing so, we use techniques from social network analysis to conceive a form of reputation that represents members’ community involvement over a period of time rather than a sum of direct ratings from other members. We describe the design and implementation of our reputation system prototype called “commonshare” and preliminary results of its use within a Digital Social Innovation platform. Further, we discuss its potential to generate insight into other networked communities for their administrators and encourage cooperation between their users.

Trust in Pandemic-Induced Online Learning: Competitive Advantage of Closure and Reputation

As a response to the Philippine government’s prolonged community quarantine measure to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, educational institutions have shifted their mode of teaching and learning towards distance education despite resistance from various sectors. This paper examines the ways an educational provider taps elements of its social capital such as closure and reputation, to establish enforceable trust from clients and their network to enroll in online learning; in addition, it explores the factors that clients consider in deciding to enroll their children in online distance learning. This study is informed by James Coleman’s and Ronald Burt’s conceptions of closure, trust, and reputation. It employs a case study approach, focusing on a Philippine Catholic parochial high school. Results show that closure is demonstrated through the school’s dense social network with parents, students, and the community through the Catholic church. Closure and the school’s intergenerational and social reputation facilitate the creation of trust, which increased senior high school enrolment, contrary to the pattern of private schools closing down due to insufficient enrolment. This study contributes to the literature in online distance education, by focusing on aspects of the social structure that function as resources for people and organizations to achieve their interests.