Testing the Unemployment Hysteresis for G-20 Countries

In this chapter, the authors analyze the validity of unemployment hysteresis for G-20 countries, namely Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, and USA for the 1960–2014 period. For this purpose, they examine the stationarity of the unemployment rates by using ADF unit root test and Fourier ADF (FADF) unit root tests. FADF unit root test is a recently introduced test whose power is not affected by the number, location, and form of the breaks. The results of the tests show that the unemployment hysteresis is valid for some of the countries.

Reverse Logistics in E-Retaling

Consumers mostly prefer internet for reasons such as accessing product immediately, convenience, time saving. However buying products without observing physically causes some troubles. This situation results in return of the purchased product. The return process that is going to be experienced by the customer who wants to return or change his/her product is important for the companies. Managing return process without troubles is going to affect loyalty, satisfaction, revisiting, repurchasing, consumers messages, which are going to be get across to his/her environment. Because of these reasons, it is imperative for the companies to pay attention to the reverse logistic activities that they will undertake for the end consumers. The aim of this chapter is to indicate the importance of reverse logistics in e-retailing.

Corporate Supply Chains and the Challenge of Labor Standards

The global manufacturing network facilitates the complex and opaque supply chains, comprising multiple levels of subcontracting which provide an easy scope for modern slavery through unfair labor practices. Global supply chains accommodate around 20% of total workforce. But, it is estimated, at any given moment that approximately three out of every thousand people on the planet are suffering in some form of forced labor, which is more prevalent in the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for around 56% of the global total. Further, about 90% of the forced labor are exploited in the private economy. However, most of the successful corporates along with the governments understand the need to combat this global menace through strong legislation. The chapter attempts to analyze the major legal provisions of the prevailing labor standards framework in India, along with the pertinent case laws.

Budgeting as a Tool for Sustainable Development

Corporations are profit-oriented organizations. If they do not have enough profit, they cannot survive. The expectations and forecasts have a key role in decision making. Thorough those expectations and forecasts, a scenario is developed. If a scenario contains financials, it means that a budget is prepared. Budget is a kind of financial simulator of a business. Budgeting is a vital tool in financial management for sustainable development. Budgeting also maintains the effectiveness of capital and resource of the company. There is diversity in the budgets of each sector or each industry. Manufacturing, logistics, airlines, construction, hospitality, and others have sectoral differences in budgeting. In this chapter, objectives of budgeting, budgeting methods, steps in budgeting, sectoral differences, relationship between budgets, and strategic planning are discussed.

Analysis of Design Alternatives of End-of-Life Products Under Fractional Yields

In this chapter, an advanced remanufacturing-to-order and disassembly-to-order (ARTODTO) system is considered to evaluate various design alternatives of end-of-life (EOL) products to meet products, components, and materials demands. There are uncertainties about the quantity, quality, and variety of returned EOL products, and these uncertainties lead to fractional disassembly yields. Since the main input to the system is EOL products, their quantities to be acquired is important, and should be determined such that they satisfy all the demands. The designs are evaluated based on four criteria: total profit, procurement cost, purchase cost, and disposal cost using goal programming (GP). A numerical example using EOL dryers is considered to illustrate the implementation of the proposed model.

An Interdisciplinary Inquiry Into Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Research in the last two decades has broadened venues from optimizing operations for a specific organization to critically examining the entire supply chain from the perspective of sustainability. The term sustainability has been used in varying meanings in different disciplines. With this chapter, the authors propose to bring together an interdisciplinary framework for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). SSCM will be studied through literature surveys on the axes of both natural sciences, and social sciences, with an overarching goal of policy implications. Unlike quantitatively oriented natural sciences, integrating perspectives from the social sciences into a firm's overall sustainability strategy is still seen as a large undertaking by firms and can impede its sustainability. More practical and scholarly research needs to be conducted in this area, especially in terms of assessment and evaluation mechanisms.

Sustainable Brand Personality Traits for Business-to-Business Markets

The impact of globalization and technological advancements on businesses is increasing, making innovation and differentiation essential for survival in competitive markets. Branding is a useful tool for business differentiation, which can be achieved by a strong brand personality. Sustainability, as a strategy integrated with branding, offers the opportunity to gain competitive advantage. Associating sustainability practices with brand personality and integrating them into the brand is important, especially for business-to-business (B2B) brands. However, research on B2B branding is still scarce. Drawing on the tenets of social identity theory, this chapter explains brand personality traits from a sustainability perspective for B2B brands. Based on a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, brand personality traits are identified for B2B markets concerning the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability. This analysis will support B2B managers aiming to promote an image of sustainability for their brands in an increasingly competitive industrial market.

Lean and Sustainable Warehousing

This chapter depicts a picture of sustainable warehousing from the perspective of the time-phased impact of warehouses on economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability. The authors present sustainability issues in warehouses within three levels: macro, meso, and micro. In the macro level, they review the effect of warehouse location and construction on sustainability. In the meso level, they discuss how to deal with warehouse layout problem, the effects of aisle, and material handling equipment choices on sustainability. Last, they briefly present what warehouse managers can do for sustainable warehousing in a short amount of time. Hence, the authors aim to provide a holistic approach to make warehouses sustainable. Last but not the least, they also present supportive and strengthening theoretical and practical studies to resolve barriers in front of sustainable warehousing.

Sustainability Reporting on Labor Practices

The aim of this chapter is to understand what is being reported in sustainability reports, specifically on labor practices. It examines which items, to what extent, are disclosed in sustainability reports with regard to employees. Using GRI guidelines, sustainability reports of Turkish banks are examined. The results of the content analysis show that the most focused indicators are related to workforce composition, training, and education, while the least focused indicators are related to suppliers' labor practices. The authors infer that although organizations are willing to be committed to sustainability, their efforts are still limited. In addition, organizations in the sample seem to be dedicated to sustainability in order to conform to the regulations and reduce risks for investors in this stage.

Evaluation of Financial and Economic Effects on Green Supply Chain Management With Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

This chapter aims to analyze the financial and economic effects on green supply chain management of the food and beverages industry. For the research purpose, the fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy MOORA methods are used for the integrated model construction. The main stages of the green supply chain are considered as the dimensions and the selected performance measures are listed as a set of criteria for each dimension. Accordingly, 21 food and beverage companies listed in Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) are employed to measure the performance of green supply chain processes. It is concluded that low pollution is the most important criterion whereas alternatives has the least weight. Reverse logistic is also second most significant criterion which means that these companies give importance to reduce their costs. It is also found out that there is not a certain correlation between green supply chain management performances with the profitability of the firms. However, it can be seen that bigger firms have higher green supply chain management performance than the smaller firms.