Search results for "Strategy"

Intellectual capital reporting: A knowledge tool to coordinate a group of regional non-profit organisations

2017

Whilst many organizations worldwide have stopped disclosing Intellectual Capital (IC), to the best of our knowledge, the only longstanding NPO still measuring, managing and reporting its IC is a large Italian non-profit organization (NPO), ANPAS Piemonte. The main aim of the article is thus to investigate the reasons why ANPAS Piemonte continues to deal with IC, to examine the determinants of this choice, the costs and the benefits management gets from IC measurement, management and reporting. In other words, the paper aims to explore the intellectual capital (IC) reporting process from an internal, managerial point of view. The paper employ a case study methodology to address its aim, and …

Gold Nanoclusters: Atomically Precise Gold Nanoclusters: Towards an Optimal Biocompatible System from a Theoretical–Experimental Strategy (Small 27/2…

2021

Six Sigma in small- and medium-sized enterprises: a Black Belt project in the Swedish steel industry

2014

Many big companies around the world have solid Six Sigma infrastructures and it is easy to find in literature successful case studies. Conversely, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) generally suffer lower attention in the literature. This happens because SMEs have only recently approached the methodology; they have weaker connection with the academia; or they do not rigorously pursue the frameworks. This paper is based on a Six Sigma project in a Swedish medium-sized company that produces steel tubes mainly for hydraulic applications. The project focused on the improvement of warehouse activities related to cutting processes. This Black Belt project was part of a Six Sigma education …

Simplified technique for constitutive analysis of SFRC

2014

Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) has become widespread material in areas such as underground shotcrete structures and industrial floors. However, due to the absence of material models of SFRC reliable for numerical analysis, application fields of this material are still limited. Due to interaction of concrete with fibres, a cracked section is able to carry a significant portion of tensile stresses, called the residual stresses. In present practices, residual stresses used for strength, deflection and crack width analysis are quantified by means of standard tests. However, interpretation of these test results is based on approximation using empirically deduced relationships, adequacy o…

A numerical solution that determines the temperature field inside phase change materials: application in buildings

2013

The use of novel building materials that contain active thermal components would be a major advancement in achieving significant heating and cooling energy savings. In the last 40 years, Phase Change Materials or PCMs have been tested as thermal mass components in buildings, and most studies have found that PCMs enhance the building energy performance. The use of PCMs as an energy storage device is due to their relatively high fusion latent heat; during the melting and/or solidification phase, a PCM is capable of storing or releasing a large amount of energy. PCMs in a wall layer store solar energy during the warmer hours of the day and release it during the night, thereby decreasing and sh…

REVIEWERS

2015

"Reviewers " Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 21(8), pp. I–V

Linee guida per la valutazione della resilienza delle foreste Mediterranee ai cambiamenti climatici [Guidelines for assessing the resilience of Medit…

2017

We have defined optimal management models for improving or strengthening the resilience of forest environments: in particular, five best management practices aiming at improving the Mediterranean forests resilience with reference to the desertification risk. The 5 Best ManagementPractices are: BMP1 - Actions favoring mixing of species and hydrogeological stability of forests; BMP2 - Renaturalization of forest plantations; BMP3 - Remedial measures and restoration of degraded forests; BMP4 - Actions aimed at enhancing complex structural forests; BMP5 - Actions favoring connectivity in agro-forestry systems. The best management practices have been then applied adapting them to 16 different int…

Marketing strategy, social responsibility, and value chain in the agri-food system

2020

The agri-food sector has changed significantly over the years, moving from a simple production system to a more and more industrialized one. For agents/operators involved in this sector, ensuring product quality and environmental externalities has become the key point to gaining a competitive advantage. In this context, corporate social responsibility (CSR) fits perfectly. This study analyzes the influence of CSR practices on the economic performance of a random sample of 130 agri-food companies in Italy. The results of an analysis of multiple linear regression models show that the economic performance (measured through value added and income) of agri-food enterprises seems to be influenced…

New evidence on accelerator performance based on funding and location

2020

Seed accelerators (SAs) appear as a more advanced version of business incubators. These for-profit organizations in exchange of equity, help setting new start-ups by providing mentoring and funding during its first months. Due to their emergent nature, the impact and expectations of SAs remains largely unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to throw new light on this field by empirically assessing for the first time the performance and prospects of these organizations through a survey of 116 SAs.,A model based on the Business Incubators literature is built with four categories covering size, location, age and profitability variables, leading to two hypotheses to be tested empirica…

Efectos del desarrollo sostenible percibido por el consumidor. Una propuesta de modelo de hipermercados en Ecuador

2020

Resumen El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar la incidencia del desarrollo sostenible sobre la cadena de efectos: valor percibido - capital de marca - lealtad. Para ello, se propone un modelo teórico de relaciones que se contrasta a partir de una muestra de 317 clientes de hiper mercados en Ecuador. Los resultados, aplicando una metodología exploratoria y confirmatoria, combinada con regresión por mínimos cuadrados parciales, mostraron que tanto las acciones de desarrollo sostenible como el valor percibido son pilares maestros sobre los que se puede apoyar la estrategia minorista. Ambas se muestran como variables clave por su naturaleza, en cuanto son multidimensio nales, y por su alcanc…