With intensifying demands for sustainability in higher education—particularly tied to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—universities remain central to fostering responsible consumption and climate action. However, a significant gap persists in quantifying how effectively higher education institutions (HEIs) contribute to SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). The extant literature has largely relied on qualitative evidence or limited case studies, lacking comprehensive, data-driven comparisons across nations. This study addresses the existing gap in the literature by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess how efficiently European universities bolster sustainable consumption and climate initiatives. Drawing on secondary data from the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings and the Sustainable Development Report, this method provides new insights on how HEIs coordinate with their countries' broader sustainability objectives. Our results show differences in efficiency among universities across 24 European countries, shaped by unique national contexts and policies. The study results can be used by university administrators and policymakers, who aim to improve the university contributions to achieving UN SDGs.
In: Gasper , D , Shah , A & Tankha , S 2019 , ' The Framing of Sustainable Consumption and Production in SDG 12. ' , Global Policy , vol. 10 , no. Supplement 1 4 , pp. 83-95 . https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12592
This paper examines the processes of formulation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) – 'Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns' – and its targets and indicators. We argue that business interests have steered its narrative of sustainable growth. The outcome of the SDG 12 negotiations reflects a production- and design-centered perspective that emerged in the 1990s and has a business-friendly regulatory approach and faith in solutions through new technologies. We show how the targets and indicators emerged in debates between national governments, UN agencies, civil society and private sector organizations – and how they reflect both the political process and technical and practical considerations in translation of a broad concept into the SDG format. While the emergence of SDG 12 as a standalone goal stems from a push by developing countries to build pressure on developed countries, and its presence may open space for attention to this area in the future, many of its targets were watered down and left vague. The indicators to measure progress on the targets further narrow the scope and ambition of Goal 12, whose current content does not adequately reflect earlier more transformative conceptualizations of Sustainable Consumption and Production.
AbstractThis paper examines the processes of formulation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) – 'Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns' – and its targets and indicators. We argue that business interests have steered its narrative of sustainable growth. The outcome of the SDG 12 negotiations reflects a production‐ and design‐centered perspective that emerged in the 1990s and has a business‐friendly regulatory approach and faith in solutions through new technologies. We show how the targets and indicators emerged in debates between national governments, UN agencies, civil society and private sector organizations – and how they reflect both the political process and technical and practical considerations in translation of a broad concept into the SDG format. While the emergence of SDG 12 as a standalone goal stems from a push by developing countries to build pressure on developed countries, and its presence may open space for attention to this area in the future, many of its targets were watered down and left vague. The indicators to measure progress on the targets further narrow the scope and ambition of Goal 12, whose current content does not adequately reflect earlier more transformative conceptualizations of Sustainable Consumption and Production.
This paper examines the processes of formulation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12)–'Ensure SustainableConsumption and Production Patterns'–and its targets and indicators. We argue that business interests have steered its nar-rative of sustainable growth. The outcome of the SDG 12 negotiations reflects a production- and design-centered perspectivethat emerged in the 1990s and has a business-friendly regulatory approach and faith in solutions through new technologies.We show how the targets and indicators emerged in debates between national governments, UN agencies, civil society andprivate sector organizations–and how they reflect both the political process and technical and practical considerations intranslation of a broad concept into the SDG format. While the emergence of SDG 12 as a standalone goal stems from a pushby developing countries to build pressure on developed countries, and its presence may open space for attention to this areain the future, many of its targets were watered down and left vague. The indicators to measure progress on the targets fur-ther narrow the scope and ambition of Goal 12, whose current content does not adequately reflect earlier more transforma-tive conceptualizations of Sustainable Consumption and Production.
In: Hendlin , Y H 2021 , ' Surveying the Chemical Anthropocene Chemical Imaginaries and the Politics of Defining Toxicity ' , Environment and Society: Advances in Research , vol. 12 , no. 1 , pp. 181-202 . https://doi.org/10.3167/ARES.2021.120111
Faced with the non-optional acceptance of toxic chemical artifacts, the ubiquitous interweaving of chemicals in our social fabric often exists out of sight and out of mind. Yet, for many, toxic exposures signal life-changing or life-ending events, phantom threats that fail to appear as such until they become too late to mitigate. Assessments of toxicological risk consist of what Sheila Jasanoff calls "sociotechnical imaginaries," arbitrations between calculated costs and benefits, known risks and scientifically wrought justifications of safety. Prevalent financial conflicts of interest and the socially determined hazards posed by chemical exposure suggest that chemical safety assessments and regulations are a form of postnormal science. Focusing on the histories of risk assessments of pesticides such as DDT, atrazine, PFAS, and glyphosate, this article critically reviews Michel Serres's notion of "appropriation by contamination."
In: Hackett , C & Moffett , L 2016 , ' Mapping the Public –Private Law Divide: A hybrid approach to corporate accountability ' , International Journal of Law in Context , vol. 12 , no. 3 , pp. 312-336 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000239
Images of oil-covered seabirds or radioactive fallout from nuclear disasters easily evoke concerns over the risks to personal integrity and environmental degradation. The energy-extraction industry, like others, is profit-driven – a competitive enterprise, with little regard for the social impact of its activities beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) rhetoric. CSR is neither a precautionary measure nor a remedial framework. Outsider stakeholder influence from government is limited and CSR is written on companies' terms. What emerges is a distortion between companies' responsibility and accountability for breaches. We propose a hybrid form of accountability that incorporates public international law to ensure the state, as a guardian of society, plays a more definitive role. This will require more binding obligations on states and companies beyond the current soft-law principles, to curtail jurisdictional constraints and forum shopping of large corporations, through an international court of reparations to guarantee effective remedies for victims.
In: Hoang , D & Jones , B 2012 , ' Why do corporate codes of conduct fail? Women workers and clothing supply chains in Vietnam ' , Global Social Policy , vol. 12 , no. 1 , pp. 67-85 . https://doi.org/10.1177/1468018111431757
Despite criticisms of their derivation and implementation, corporate codes of conduct (CoCs) continue to dominate debates on Corporate Social Responsibility and the informal regulation of worker exploitation and abuse by 'sweatshops' supplying northern multinational corporations (MNCs). Through analytical interrogation of existing literature and empirical evidence from Vietnamese case studies, two propositions are made to clarify the poor performance of CoCs. It is argued, firstly, that the extent of the control of MNCs over their subcontracting suppliers is misconceived and over-estimated because supply chains function more like networks than the hierarchies assumed by 'principal-agent' preconceptions. Conceptualizing such relationships instead as networks of conflicting political and economic imperatives amongst various sets of actors generates a second proposition derived from our case studies. The factory workers, their subcontractor employers, intermediary vendors and even the MNCs seeking CoC commitments, have convergent interests in violating key aspects of the codes and deceiving their auditors. The analysis evaluates the residual value of CoCs in light of these constraints and the options for improving labour regulation, with particular reference to the plight of disadvantaged women workers.
In: Kibbeling , M I 2010 , ' Creating value in supply chains : suppliers' impact on value for customers, society and shareholders ' , Doctor of Philosophy , Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences , Eindhoven . https://doi.org/10.6100/IR692053
This dissertation deals with the question how suppliers contribute to creating value in supply chains. The last decades have been characterized by increased specialization of business activities and, consequently, firms have outsourced between 50% and 80% of their business activities to suppliers. Accordingly, purchasing and supply management receives growing interest from both managers and academics. Traditionally, the focus of purchasing and supply management was on attaining superior cost reductions from suppliers. However, today companies increasingly acknowledge suppliers as a source of competitive advantage. Suppliers not only determine the firm's cost position, they are also crucial for matters such as innovation, reduction of their ecological footprint and improved customer value propositions. Suppliers thus have become important facilitators of value creation processes necessary to effectively compete in a global market. Despite the value potential of suppliers, the understanding of how suppliers contribute to the value creation processes of a firm is still poorly defined. The first challenge is to define the concept of value. In this dissertation we have explained that the value concept can be differentiated into three sub concepts i.e. customer value, societal value and shareholder value. Firms need to respond to ever changing customer demands. Also, firms need to compete for the acquisition of scarce (natural and social) resources, and are expected to operate in a sustainable and socially responsible manner. Next, shareholders and investors want to see satisfactory financial returns. Business practitioners thus face an intriguing challenge how to cope with the complexity and dynamics of satisfying different stakeholder requirements and expectations in parallel. Today, firms cannot cope with these challenges individually. They need to do this in close collaboration with the partners that make up their supply chains. In this dissertation, we investigate how firms create value together with their suppliers. For this purpose we use insights from the resource dependence theory, the resource-management view and the stakeholder theory. Inspired by stakeholder theory, we have identified three important stakeholder groups: customers, society and shareholders. Next, we have used the resource management theory, a recent offspring of the resource-based theory, to describe the mechanisms through which a firm creates value and satisfies these three stakeholder groups. Finally, with the resource dependence theory we have described the role of suppliers in the efforts to create value. Accordingly, the central research question in this dissertation is: What is the impact of suppliers on the ability of a focal firm to satisfy its customers, society and shareholders? We investigate this research question by means of three studies, each representing a different stakeholder perspective, theoretical focus and research objective. In the first study we examine how firms realize customer satisfaction through market orientation and innovativeness. The second study examines the effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and innovativeness on a focal firm's CSR reputation and customer satisfaction. The third study addresses the shareholder perspective by looking at the interaction effects of market orientation, CSR orientation and supplier orientation in relation to current and expected financial firm performance. The research objective and research question calls for a unique research design that examines multiple parties operating in a supply chain. By means of a survey, data were collected from three members along a coherent supply chain: a supplier, a focal firm and a customer. In total 88 sets of these supply chains have been used for this research. The results contribute to the understanding of value creation in supply chains. Creating Customer Value through Market Orientation and Innovativeness The objective of the first study was to understand how suppliers enable a focal firm to realize customer satisfaction by means of market orientation and innovativeness. We have introduced the concept of a supplier's end-user orientation to describe the supplier's processes and activities directed at satisfying the customer of the focal firm (in this study referred to as the end-user) through continuous needs assessment. By doing so, the first study aimed to understand whether a supplier's end-user orientation and a supplier's innovativeness increase customer satisfaction, either directly or indirectly. The research question of the first study was: What is the impact of a supplier on the ability of a focal firm to achieve customer satisfaction through market orientation and innovativeness? Based upon our research results, the direct effects of market orientation on customer satisfaction seem rather limited. Within the focal firm, market orientation clearly is a driver of innovativeness. Our results show that the focal firm's market orientation and the supplier's end-user orientation do not relate to each other. Neither did we find a relationship between a supplier's end-user orientation and a supplier's innovativeness. However, a supplier's innovativeness positively contributes to the focal firm's innovativeness and the focal firm's innovativeness positively contributes to customer satisfaction. In conclusion, it seems that a market orientation is primarily an enabler of innovativeness at the level of the individual firm, rather than at the level of supply chain relationships. Next, supplier innovativeness acts as a driver of a focal firm's innovative response to its customers. The first study thereby stresses the strategic relevance of developing relationships with innovative suppliers, especially when the focal firm seeks opportunities to strengthen its innovative capabilities. Creating Societal Value: Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovativeness The second study of this dissertation examined the question how firms realize societal value through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and innovativeness. Societal value is a difficult concept to grasp because it encompasses considerations of governments, consumers, action groups and local communities. For the purpose of this dissertation, we assess societal value by an evaluation of the focal firm's CSR reputation by the customer. The study was aimed at assessing whether, and to what extent, CSR drives innovation, both at the individual company level and at the supply chain level. The positive effects of CSR on the firm's innovation processes had been suggested by other researchers, but were not empirically investigated yet. We expected that the CSR orientation and innovativeness would affect both customer satisfaction and the firm's CSR reputation at the customer. The research question of the second study therefore was: What is the impact of a supplier on the ability of a focal firm to act socially responsible and foster its CSR reputation and customer satisfaction? The results suggest that CSR orientation and innovativeness are strongly related, within both the focal firm and the supplier firm. Adopting a CSR orientation raises the focal firm's CSR reputation which, similarly to the firm's innovativeness, accounts for increased customer satisfaction. Also in this study we found that a supplier's innovative capabilities foster the focal firm's innovative capabilities. However, we did not find a relationship between supplier's CSR orientation and the focal firm's CSR orientation. During our analysis, we found an unexpected negative relationship between a supplier's CSR orientation and a focal firm's innovativeness. Although this relationship warrants more research, it seems that managing for supplier CSR compliance only, does not allow for an exchange of information, knowledge and new ideas, as is often seen with rigid supplier codes of conduct. While the direct effect is negative, the indirect effect via a supplier's innovativeness turns out positive. The indirect relationship seems to allow for a richness of information and exchange of new ideas that benefit the focal firm. With respect to the research question underlying the second study, we may conclude that adopting a CSR orientation, both internally and externally, may work out positively on the firm's innovativeness. CSR orientation impacts the focal firm's CSR reputation in a direct way. Firm Performance: Managing for Multiple Stakeholders The third study of this dissertation combined insights from the first two studies to examine market orientation, CSR orientation and supplier orientation in relation to a firm's current and expected financial performance. The concept of a focal firm's supplier orientation was introduced to describe the focal firm's activities directed at developing and operating an excellent supply base. Based upon stakeholder theory, we examined the interaction effects of market orientation, CSR orientation, and supplier orientation on innovativeness and financial performance. The research question of the third study was: What is the impact of multiple orientations at a focal firm and its suppliers on the ability of a focal firm to achieve current and expected firm performance? The results of the third study showed that external orientations mediate – instead of interact – at the level of the individual firm. That is, they affect each other instead of influencing the impact on innovativeness or performance. We found (again) that the external orientations affect the individual firm, while innovativeness connects supply chain partners. The answer to the third research question is that two variables influence superior firm performance: a focal firm's supplier orientation impacts current performance, and a focal firm's innovativeness affects expected future performance. Supplier's innovativeness fosters focal firm's innovativeness and indirectly affects expected future performance. It thus seems that a firm's collaboration with suppliers will support the firm to achieve financial returns today, as well as achieving good financial results for the future. General Outcomes Based upon the outcomes of the three studies, we are able answer the overall research question of this dissertation: What is the impact of suppliers on the ability of a focal firm to satisfy its customers, society and shareholders? On the one hand, we found no evidence for a direct impact of suppliers on the value created for the different stakeholders targeted. On the other hand, we found positive evidence for a supplier's impact on the focal firm's ability to respond to different stakeholders. Three observations are essential for reflecting on the overall research question. Firstly, in each of the studies we found that supplier's innovativeness is a key driver of the focal firm's innovativeness. Through innovativeness, the focal firm is able to serve customers better and realize superior financial performance. The results thus seem to suggest that a supplier's innovativeness increases the focal firm's ability to deliver value to customers, society and shareholder. Because the effects of the supplier are input for the focal firm, the results assign a crucial role to the focal firm to enable, facilitate and leverage supplier's innovativeness. Secondly, we have found that the attitude of the focal firm towards its suppliers, i.e. the focal firm's supplier orientation, affects the firm's current financial performance. The role of suppliers and supply management thus seems important and is twofold. The firm's supply management practices allow a firm to realize superior firm performance today. At the same time these suppliers are a source for innovation that can anticipate future developments and assure future performance. Thirdly, our findings suggest where we should not search for added value in supply chain relationships. The results indicate no relationship between a focal firm's market orientation and a supplier's end-user orientation; neither do we see that CSR-oriented firms relate to CSR-oriented suppliers. In contrast to the concept of strategic fit suggested by other researchers, we found that market orientation, CSR orientation and supplier orientation seem more relevant for innovation within the firm rather than in buyer-supplier relationships. We may conclude that a combination of external orientations and supplier's innovativeness allow a firm to realize value for customers, society and shareholders. Contribution to academic research The dissertation theoretically contributes to academic research in several ways. The first theoretical contribution stems from the use of three complementary theoretical perspectives: the resource dependence theory, the resource management view and the stakeholder theory. Especially the resource management view has proved valuable to explaining how firms create value for customers, society and shareholders. The research results provide an extension of the resource management view with two additional considerations. The first extension is the further specification of the external orientations that guide internal resource management practices. Firms benefit from adopting multiple external orientations, such as market orientation, CSR orientation and supplier orientation. These external orientations foster different qualities of the firm and thereby jointly increase overall firm performance. The second extension of the resource management view, based on our results, is that while individual external orientations are an internal driver of innovativeness, our results have demonstrated another, external, driver of focal firm's innovativeness, i.e. supplier's innovativeness. The second contribution to academic research relates to the pivotal role of innovativeness in the research results. The results build a strong case for the concept of open innovation. The central idea behind open innovation is that knowledge has become so widely distributed that firms cannot afford to rely entirely on their own resources for their innovation strategies. The results demonstrate that, next to internal sources of innovation, external sources of innovation help to attain competitive advantage. Supplier's innovativeness emphasizes the role of suppliers in the concept of open innovation. The third theoretical contribution is to the field of purchasing and supply management. The results have shown that suppliers do not directly affect the customer. Suppliers, though, prove to be valuable to the innovation processes of the focal firm. Also, a supplier orientation has shown a valuable concept for boosting a firm's current performance. The research results show that a value-orientation in purchasing and supply management contributes to realizing current and future firm performance. Implications for practitioners For business practitioners our findings emphasize the importance of innovativeness in satisfying customers and in achieving superior performance. A firm's innovativeness is driven by two sources: internal as well as external sources. Internally, innovativeness is triggered by a firm's external orientations such as market orientation and CSR orientation. Externally, a firm's innovative capability is affected by the innovative capability of the suppliers the firm lines up with. We briefly explain the internal and external sources for innovation. Our results have shown that combining different stakeholder perspectives and requirements in business activities positively contributes to overall firm performance. Although market orientation has become fashionable among practitioners, CSR orientation and supplier orientation are not yet common practice. Based on the outcomes of this dissertation, we recommend investing in CSR as a driver of innovation. Next, supplier relationship management is essential to increase the competitiveness of the firm. The results of the dissertation suggest it is worth pursuing all these different stakeholder orientations at the same time. If firms want to actively pursue an innovative strategy, it is vital to initiate relationships with suppliers that have superior innovative capabilities. Establishing relationships with innovative suppliers may require a different attitude with regards to supplier selection and supplier relationship management. Firms seem better off establishing sophisticated selection processes that are not primarily driven by achieving lowest transaction costs. Rather, firms should prefer to cooperate with suppliers that are innovative and that are willing to share skills, and abilities. Next, after contracts have been put in place, practitioners need to continue their efforts to enable suppliers to share their best and most up-to-date knowledge with the focal firm. A contract, however, will not assure the supplier's best efforts. Not only purchasing and supply management, but all disciplines that potentially benefit from supplier knowledge, have to invest in the buyer-supplier relationship. As our research has demonstrated, new ideas from suppliers are an important external trigger for developing more innovative customer solutions, environmentally friendly business processes and, hence, a solid basis for future firm performance.
In: Janssen , I I 2011 , ' Adaptive decision making in multi-stakeholder retail planning ' , Doctor of Philosophy , Built Environment , Eindhoven . https://doi.org/10.6100/IR712686
The decision where to locate new retail facilities is increasingly more a multi-stakeholder decision instead of a single-actor decision. In the past, the Dutch Government had a strong hand in determining the program and location for new shopping centres. Since the introduction of the newest national policy document on spatial planning, the so called "Nota Ruimte", the Dutch government decided to relax restrictions for all retail categories to be located at peripheral locations. Furthermore, with this new policy the responsibility for planning decisions was delegated to local governments. This change in retail planning policy gave room to real estate developers (often cooperating with retail firms) to initiate peripheral retail development. Thus at the present time, planners, retailers and developers, as main actors involved in retail planning, meet each other at the local policy level, to decide on the location of new retail developments. Previous studies assumed that stakeholders involved in location decisions make independent, sequential decisions. However, since location decisions are made in a larger context of stakeholder interactions, stakeholders have become jointly responsible for the full development process. Nevertheless, the decision behaviour of these stakeholders is neglected within location decision literature. The aim of this study is: (i) to reveal preferences for retail location options of different stakeholder groups, and (ii) to measure the degree in which these preferences are influenced by the preferences of other stakeholders. For this second purpose, the concept of adaptive behaviour is defined as the phenomenon that a decision maker adjusts his/her preferences in accordance with the preferences of other decision makers in order to reach consensus. It is supposed that adaptive behaviour plays a role since stakeholders interact during negotiations and influence each other's viewpoints in order to reach agreement. To meet both purposes an experimental research approach was used. Three stakeholder groups (local governments, developers and retailers) were invited to participate in a Web-based conjoint choice experiment. Before discussing the experiment, the main part of this study, the first chapters of this thesis give a theoretical foundation of the retail planning problem, the retail planning process and multi-actor decision making in general. Chapter 2 of this thesis starts with an explanation of the retail location decision problem. It discusses how retail planning policy in the Netherlands has shifted from a restrictive to a relaxed policy that allows new retail developments to be located at peripheral locations. It also shows that decentralization of planning responsibilities is coherent with more general shifts in planning views. Furthermore, it argues that retail planning decisions have to be made in a very dynamic, constantly changing, decision environment. Consumer behaviour is changing fast, leisure has become more important (often combined with shopping), and the importance of internet as retail channel has increased. On the supply side, increases of scale and internationalization of retail firms have changed the demand for retail property. Finally, market dynamics had a big influence on investor behaviour. Although the interest from institutional investors in shopping centres as an investment asset grew, the financial crisis led to a slowdown of investment and development activities. Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the processes regarding retail planning decisions from both the planner's and developer's perspective. To understand the course of decision making, insight in formal planning procedures and legal instruments is needed. The most important aspect in this perspective is that, since retail planning policies have been decentralized and relaxed, local and regional governments are now in the middle of revising their structure plans with retail being part of it. In the meantime, several new peripheral retail developments have been initiated which anticipate deregulation. Three of these initiatives were discussed in this chapter. These case studies showed the importance of agreement about the best retail structure for a particular area to get new peripheral retail plans that fit this approved retail structure. Missing consensus will certainly lead to frustration during the development process. Moreover, the case studies showed that even if private and public stakeholders jointly agreed on a plan proposal, the political decision making process that follows may frustrate plan development. Subsequently, in Chapter 4 the concept of multi-actor decision making is discussed in more detail. It explains that negotiations on retail plan proposals ought to be joint (cooperative) decisions although decision entities may also show non-cooperative behaviour. During the negotiation process the preferences of each decision maker may be influenced by interactions with other decision makers. When showing cooperative behaviour stakeholders adjust their preferences to reach consensus. This adaptive behaviour is the focus of this study. Preferences can also be influenced by interactions that are not preceded by real actions between the negotiators, such as interactions by media, other stakeholders that are not the negotiators (like pressure groups), or experiences with former interactions. To explain why decision makers may adapt their preferences, different reasons are discussed based on a literature review. These reasons include differences in power positions, interests and perceptions. Choice modelling is proposed to be a suitable approach to measure retail location preferences and adaptive behaviour of stakeholders. It can deal with multiple discrete attributes and can be applied to multi-stakeholder settings. In the next part of the thesis, the research approach to measure preferences and adaptive behaviour, the data-collection and data-analysis are discussed. In Chapter 5 it is first argued that traditional conjoint experiments and choice modelling techniques have to be extended in order to collect data on adaptive behaviour. It is explained how adaptation and context variables can be derived from the data collected with choice experiments. Each respondent had to choose the most preferred alternative (retail plan) from sets of alternative retail plans. The experiment consists of two parts. In contrast to the first part of the experiment, in the second part the preferences of the other stakeholders were added to the decision context. The context variables could be derived by measuring the differences in preferences between the first and the second part of the experiment. The adaptation variables were obtained by assuming positive additional attribute effects for the alternatives chosen by the other stakeholders and negative attribute effects for the other choice alternatives. These adaptation variables measure the degree that preferences of decision makers are affected by the preferences of other the stakeholders. Based on these principles, a Web-based conjoint choice experiment is developed as described in Chapter 6. Three stakeholder groups (local governments, developers and retailers) were invited to participate in a Web-based conjoint adaptation experiment. Stakeholders were asked which retail plan alternative they prefer for expanding the existing retail structure of the imaginary city "Shop City". Expansion of retail supply was possible in three retail categories (Toys and Sporting Goods, Home Electronics & Media, Fashion) and a Restaurant. These four categories represented the attributes of the experimental design. The levels for each category represented possible locations for expansion of these retail categories; 1) adjacent to a sport stadium, 2) an expansion of a furniture strip and 3) the inner city. The choice options reflect typical current retail developments, in nature and size, in the Netherlands. The data-collection procedure and the response have been discussed in Chapter 7. Every respondent had to make two times fifteen choices. Tests with students showed that this number of choices was good to handle without becoming indifferent. A total number of 170 respondents (67 developers, 67 local governments and 36 retailers) made 5100 choices, which was a good base for model estimations. Although the number of retailers that took part in the experiment was relatively small, it reaches the number that was aimed for, resulting in satisfying modelling results. Based on the characteristics of the respondents we can conclude that they were a good representation of the stakeholder groups in practice. The analysis of the results that are discussed in Chapter 8 provides interesting insights that help to explain retail planning decisions. Results show that adaptive behaviour plays an important role in these decisions. Tests showed that for all three stakeholder groups the models including adaptation variables performed significantly better than the models without adaptation variables. Except for some developer's models, including context variables did not lead to significantly better model estimations In general, the results reflect the background of the stakeholders. The group of developers appeared to be the most adaptive. Developers facilitate with their development plans market demand and are willing to adapt their viewpoint to the opinion of the other stakeholders. Retailers turned out to be the most persistent in their viewpoints. They represent market demand and as such do not allow their preferences to be influenced by choices of developers nor local governments. Finally, local governments behave somewhere in between. Almost all adaptive behaviour that was estimated was cooperative, implicating that in general stakeholders are willing to positively adapt their viewpoint to the preferences of others. In general, negative part-worth utilities did not turn positive, but became less extreme, potentially increasing the level of consensus. Regarding the preferences of the different stakeholders concerning the different retail plan options it can be concluded that these are typical for the current Dutch retail market. All stakeholder groups believed that Fashion should not be located at a peripheral retail location. This suits with the general opinion that buying clothes is considered to be a recreational shopping activity and for that reason, Fashion should be located in the inner city shopping areas. Peripheral locations are regarded to be the location for goal-oriented shopping motives. With respect to the location of the retail categories Toys & Sporting Goods and a Restaurant, stakeholders appeared to be rather indifferent. For the developers, however, the most preferable option for locating the Restaurant was the furniture strip. All stakeholders reject the option of locating the retail category Home Electronics & Media near a sports stadium. The group of developers prefer to locate this retail category at the furniture strip while the retailers and local governments are indifferent in locating this retail category at the furniture strip or the inner city. In general, it seems that although retail planning legislations in the Netherlands has been relaxed, public as well as private stakeholders still show conservative opinions in locating non-food branches other than furniture out of the city centre. Including adaptation variables significantly improved the model estimations. The models' performances could even be improved more by taking heterogeneity in consideration. It was found that Mixed Logit models, taking into account taste differences, performed significantly better than standard MNL models, Furthermore, models including variables indentifying subsamples performed significantly better than models without. To conclude, this study showed that extending traditional choice experiment enables researchers to capture behavioural aspects like adaptive behaviour within multi-stakeholder decision models. The results of the experiment do not explain why stakeholders adjusted their preferences, although a literature review gave some suggestions. Future research could explore these motives underlying adaptive behaviour by applying in-depth interviews, for example. Finally, future research could focus on the way information about preferences and adaptive behaviour in retail planning can be used as input for new location decision models that cover several negotiation steps.
In: Hemels , S 2021 , Tax reactions on entrepreneurial philanthropy : The case of the Netherlands . in H Peter & G Lideikyte Huber (eds) , The Routledge Handbook of Taxation and Philanthropy . 1st edn , Routledge , London , pp. 465-475 . https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003139201
Companies and corporate foundations have become important players in philanthropy. For many companies, philanthropy is part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy. They brought their entrepreneurial customs, values and expectations into the world of philanthropy. This gave rise to new forms of philanthropy next to the conventional form of donations. These developments lead to several questions related to tax incentives, including gift deduction, for charitable donations and charities. Many of those questions are at the top of the charitable agenda in the Netherlands. The Netherlands struggles to fit entrepreneurial forms of philanthropy into its system for gift deduction and charities. This chapter discusses the general business rationales for corporate philanthropy. It also gives a brief overview of corporate philanthropy in the Netherlands and discusses problems which have been encountered in the Netherlands in relation to deductibility of corporate gifts, donations of shares, donations to for-profit entities and program-related investments, solutions that have already been found and solutions that are proposed. In addition, the chapter discuss the threats a proposal for an EU Directive on a common corporate tax base (CCCTB) entails for an EU level playing field of corporate giving and competition for corporate donations.
Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in most current sustainability metrics. It is time for these metrics to be expanded to critically assess firms based on the sustainability impacts of their public policy positions. To enable such assessments, firms must become as transparent about their corporate political responsibility (CPR) as their corporate social responsibility (CSR). For their part, rating systems must demand such information from firms and include evaluations of corporate political activity in their assessments of corporate environmental responsibility.
In: Quinn , M & Ruane , H 2018 , ' The evolution of presentational changes to Corporate social responsibility disclosures: An historic analysis of an electricity company ' , Revista de Ciências Empresariais e Jurídicas , vol. 30 , pp. 7 .
een studied extensively, little research has been done from a longitudinal perspective. This paper explores the presentational changes in CSR disclosures in the annual reports of an electricity company over the period from 1986 to 2017 using themes and methods drawn from extant research. The analysis shows changes are in general reflective of external factors such as legislation, economic crises, CSR frameworks and the organisation's competitive environment. A more stable level of CSR reporting is apparent since about 2010, and the levels are substantially higher in more recent years
In: Schot , J , Kanger , L & Verbong , G P J 2016 , ' The roles of users in shaping transitions to new energy systems ' , Nature Energy , vol. 1 , no. 5 , 16054 , pp. 1-7 . https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.54
Current government information policies and market-based instruments aimed at influencing the energy choices of consumers often ignore the fact that consumer behaviour is not fully reducible to individuals making rational conscious decisions all the time. The decisions of consumers are largely configured by shared routines embedded in socio-technical systems. To achieve a transition towards a decarbonized and energy-efficient system, an approach that goes beyond individual consumer choice and puts shared routines and system change at its centre is needed. Here, adopting a transitions perspective, we argue that consumers should be reconceptualized as users who are important stakeholders in the innovation process and are shaping new routines and enacting system change. We review the role of users in shifts to [Au:OK?] new decarbonized and energy-efficient systems and provide a typology of user roles.
In: Arsel , M , Hogenboom , B & Pellegrini , L 2016 , ' The extractive imperative in Latin America ' , The Extractive Industries and Society: an International Journal (print) , vol. 3 , no. 4 , pp. 880-887 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.014 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.014 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.014 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.014 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.014
One of the main features of contemporary development politics in Latin America is the prominent role of the state. Another feature is the intensification of natural resource extraction. This extractivist drive is especially pronounced in the countries that are part of the 'turn to the left', which have at the same time played host to alternative development approaches. While Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have become emblematic of these processes, their impact can be felt across much of the region. These changes have emerged within a particular context in which the electoral successes of the leaders in power have been underwritten by promises to eradicate what has been seen as the two cardinal sins of neoliberal policies: poverty and inequality. Eschewing aggressive redistribution, they have sought to achieve redistributive extractivism accompanied with largely expanded expenditure for social policies. An 'extractive imperative' was thus borne as natural resource extraction came to be seen simultaneously as sources of income and employment generation and financing for increased social policy expenditure. According to this imperative, extraction needs to continue and expand regardless of prevailing circumstances, with the state playing a leading role and capturing a large share of the ensuing revenues.