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This study aims to calculate the value-added of processed cassava products and make efforts to increase value added product benefits as recommendations for improvement. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Hayami method are integrated to find the best solution as several alternative strategies proposed to increase value added product. Data was collected through purposive sampling method which it interviewed four respondents to obtain data about Hayami's method and distributed questionnaires to five experts to fulfill the AHP analysis. This study was conducted in one of the business units that has the potential to drive the people's economy in West Sumatra Indonesia is processed cassava products. The cassava business unit in this case study has five types of 5 main products. The problem in this study is the existence of constraints on marketing and production, the uncertainty of raw material prices. There are still many expired products, and this business still uses simple equipment technology for product processing. This affects the level of value added and profit maximization received. This study found that the strategy in alternative one is the best alternative because it has the most significant evaluation weight value compared to the other alternatives. This strategy emphasizes that business units buy raw materials directly from farmers. The further study is suggested to adopt multiple case studies by selecting the same business unit clustering to obtain the main criteria for increasing value-added product of cassava processing business units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents results from the evaluation of the Teach for Bulgaria (TFB) program, which is part of the Teach for All global network. TFB activities have relevance for a variety of fast-track pathways to the teaching profession. The evaluation is based on a quasiexperimental assessment of teacher performance through student value-added scores. Value added is estimated using the full datasets from successive standardized state examinations in Bulgaria after grades 4, 7 and 12. We found that TFB had most significant impact in mathematics and natural sciences which tends to be stronger in smaller schools and schools with disadvantaged students. The teacher recruitment system designed by TBF was also quite good in predicting teacher performance in mathematics and natural sciences but was not predictive of value added in humanities and language teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to develop the concept and methodology of formation of technological integration of manufacturing enterprises in the Russian Federation in the context of priority scientific and technological development of the Russian economy. The basic methods of research are the key provisions of the management theory, organization theory and modern theories of technological development. The methodological bases are system, structural and functional, process and resource approaches. In the process of research there was used a wide range of research methods: description, generalization and abstraction, classification, argumentation, logic and comparison. The theoretical results of the study are the development of the conceptual provisions of the technological integration development and its impact on the performance of manufacturing enterprises. It is shown that the scientific concept of technological integration development contributes to the development of intelligent production technologies, ensuring the transition to deep processing of raw materials. It is proved that the concept of technological integration offers a clear set of tools to simplify and shorten the transition to the level of high technological redistribution based on the state of the resource base, using the existing and new economic relations within and outside the industrial complex. There is proposed a structural and functional approach to technological integration, with the help of which it is possible to identify global trends and future challenges in the field of science and innovation, taking into account critical technologies and technological road routes for industrial enterprises, research centers and government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays there is a trend of movement of many enterprises from product-driven business models towards networked service-centered business models for increasing their revenues and creating sustainable service ecosystems. A service ecosystem is a socio-technical complex system that enables service-based cooperation between entities. It consists of a nesting of infrastructures, institutions, service systems, and contexts. This paper discusses about the definition of the main architectural elements of service ecosystems and existent modeling approaches to achieve a required quality based on specific properties. It begins with the identification of the main challenges in this domain and addresses solutions that facilitate analysis and design of service ecosystem models including ecosystem infrastructure and knowledge repositories. It compares several definitions of ecosystems and related concepts used to provide service innovation and co-creation of value. Decision making in co-creative ecosystems is distributed both horizontally and vertically. Furthermore, lines of authority and governance structure are less distinct than in traditional views of business organizations. Joining an ecosystem requires interoperability knowledge. Under this perspective the paper discusses about knowledge management in an open context addressing specific ontological relationships between concepts. The importance of interoperability models has been recognized in the context of ecosystems and several levels have been introduced and defined. Among these can be mentioned conceptual, behavioral, semantic, communication and connection. The last part of the paper pays attention and analyses existent methods and tools for service ecosystem engineering. It discusses about and ecosystem architecture framework and a modeling methodology for creation of agile services engineering platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The property market, especially in apartment products, has in recent years shown unstable conditions and has a downward trend between new supplies, new absorption and occupancy rates. Property corporations have market challenges and business competition that require a business strategy to win the competition through the value added offered. The purpose of this study is to measure the value added that can be given by the corporation in the apartment product into a property business strategy. This research involves property corporations classmates, owning apartment products, listed as a go-public company and doing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the same year on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The data collection in this descriptive research is done through observation, interview and documentation study. The research findings show the most dominant value added influencing business strategy is increased flexibility and value enhancement besides other less dominant value added such as cost reduction, risk control, marketing, productivity improvement and cultural change. While the business strategy chosen by all of property corporations involved in this research have a business strategy to attract investors, retain investors and increase investor wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its specific determinants, during the previous decades, retail has been characterized by distinct competitiveness, concentration, consolidation and globalization. Diversification of the retail market has led to the saturation of the supply, which imposed the need for searching of sources of competitive advantage and creation of values in other domains besides those classically considered as retail. Companies are trying to change their business in order to find new ways of accessing to customers. Internationalization and consolidation of retail was reversed upside down the appearance of traditional retail. Fast and efficient operating procedures and new technologies are considered as permanent challenges for retailers. The term of supply chain management is relatively new in professional literature. First time it was mentioned in 1982. Supply chain represents a set of institutions involved in the process of goods transfer from the place of production to the place of consumption. Retail is the last link in the supply chain. Successful management of the supply chain will result in significant savings and increased customer satisfaction. Retail is responsible for equalizing the individual needs of customers with the size of supply produced by a large number of producers. Managing to the supply chain of agricultural-food products should take into reconsideration only strategic suppliers within the value chain. Without close interaction with other supply chain members traders cannot fully realize their role in the supply chain. Entities involved in retail of agricultural and food products resort to managing the supply chains in order to face increased market insecurity and complexity, as well as competitive situations trying to reduce level of supplies across the entire value chain. Products' value chain describes the full range of activities needed to bring the product from production, transportation, processing and retailing to the final consumer. It has been expanded by series of combinations that involve engagement of equipment, labour, knowledge and skills, raw materials for the production of an agricultural or food product. Efficient managing of supply chain of agricultural and food products should support the customers' satisfaction. Retailers operate at the point closest to customers, so they are in the best position to answer the questions when, where and how customers want certain goods. Supply chain management in retail of agro-food products represents a challenge in the phase of implementation and execution. It should be emphasized that traders of agro-food products which want to be successful, and understand the importance and functioning of supply chain management have to use the capabilities of all supply chain members in order to be more successful and profitable. The value chain of the agricultural and food products is consisted of all members of supply chain that are active in the process of the value creation and products delivery to the final customers. Trade with agrofood products is resulting the value added, creating the assumptions of the competitive advantage at the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architecture plays an important role in an urban regeneration. The Urban development reflects an economic development. Environmental sustainability and sustainability of cities as well is nowadays a frequently questioned issue. There has been a case study carried out in the area of architecture in the Slovak Republic. The reason was a lack of a comprehensive view of the architecture in the Slovak Republic and insufficient support of this sector at the national level. There has been a survey - personal interviews conducted with the owners of architectural ateliers and studios. According to interviews, the value chain and the main value added activities have been described. The goal of this paper is to argue why and how value chain needs to integrate the social and environmental aspect of sustainable economic advantage. Architecture forms the environment, regions, cities, architecture completes the landscape. The architecture value chain in comparison with the other value chains of the other sectors has close links with the external environment. Architects develop their activities in line with their customers. Architectural studios and ateliers are mainly located in economic active places, or in the "natural" centers of the region. The primary source of uniqueness and added value is the human factor, the architects themselves. Every single part of the value chain of the internal environment can be a source of uniqueness. Paper describes more deeply the important sources of added value along the value chain. Paper also describes how the solving of the main problems as the intellectual property protection etc., of the architecture in the Slovak Republic can promote the value added of this industry. The explaining the importance of the architecture and defining the main value added of this sector should promote and produce the changes at the national level in this sector, mainly in the area of legislation and finally encourage operating in this sector and consequently promote the urban regeneration, sustainability of the cities and economic development as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A time study project is conducted to analyze the effects of a canning factory's production floor designs. Several factors are considered in this study, including production times, safety, and financial aspects. Four team members observed the process of conducting the time study using the "Stopwatch Method" and the "Real-Time Camera." Both methods were used independently to ensure higher accuracy. The original floor plan was used to calculate the production times while considering the losses from machine downtime. Then, the times are compared to a newly designed floor plan. With the stopwatch, the team collected data times implemented into the mathematical equations to determine digital evidence without peripheral distractions. After the mathematic calculations were completed, the team moved to the video of the entire process during an actual production time during 1st, 2nd, and 3rd shifts. The video showed the amount of time wasted when employees and maintenance. It is also seen several risks of losing workers due to forklift traffic. The team brainstormed a new floor plan to be implemented. After calculating and comparing the two floorplans, the new floor plan indicated that rerouting the walkway allowed for less downtime, a shorter distance between work areas, and a higher level of safety and production. The new design would enable machine operators to move faster between locations and reduce the number of cans lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important factor behind an increase in the output growth rate, which is identified with economic growth, is an increase in the productivity of factors of production, including the labour factor. In the context of agriculture, the external factor, i.e. agricultural policy, may be distinguished among sources of labour productivity growth. The opportunity for assessing the relevance and efficiency of implemented programmes becomes therefore significant. The aim of the study is to estimate the average treatment effect of investment subsidies on gross value added. The study uses FADN data on individual farms for 2007-2013. The propensity score matching method is a research tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statement of the problem. The formation of the knowledge economy is one of the trends of recent decades, when there is the increasing role of knowledge and information in the world economic system. The main mechanism of functioning of the «new» economy is the market of intellectual property, where the income is intellectual rent. Intellectual rent is an important structural element in the development of modern economy based on knowledge, as there is a gradual replacement of natural-resource rents that makes intelligent income is a determining factor of social development. The ability to generate innovations and to obtain excess profits at the expense of appropriation of the intellectual rent is of great importance to create and maintain competitive advantages of the company in a "new" economy. Thus, in today's economy intellectual rent takes on a special role in long-term socio-economic development of the country and its regions, as is one of the indicators of optimal use of factors of production and sustainability of existing rent relations. The purpose of the study. The article is aimed at studying and systematization of methodical approaches to assessment of intellectual rent. Methods. The article makes use of empirical methods in the study of intellectual rent, General scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, and methods of statistical information processing. Insights and results. The article summarizes the various methodological approaches to assessment of intellectual rent, and also conducted cross-country comparison of intellectual rent in the last five years. The authors modified the methodological approach to the assessment of intellectual rent, based on the allocation of added value for innovative enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern economy in general and agribusiness sector in particular, is characterized by the struggle for customers using a variety of instruments, among which the product quality certainly occupies a key place. The relationship between quality and price is an important parameter for making decision on purchasing by all fastidious customers. This suggests the conclusion that in order to gain competitive advantages, enterprises need to offer the high quality products at an affordable price. If we bear in mind that production costs are an important price component, the price competitiveness could be realized only if the enterprise achieves the cost leadership. The costs caused by activities that are associated with the quality management have a significant share in the total costs, which directly affect the ability to achieve competitiveness through the cost leadership, i.e. through optimizing and reduction of the total enterprise costs. The aim of the paper is to highlight the importance of the quality cost management in the agribusiness sector aiming at acquiring and maintaining the competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of a pioneering effort to explore implications of farmers' demographics and multifunctional agriculture (MFA) using a census survey in New England region show most farmers are over 35, male, and well-educated. Over one-half of survey respondents choose MFA as a strategy to diversify farm activities and income, although gross farm income does not have a significant influence on MFA. Most of the MFA farmers have smaller operating acreage, are younger generation, and have higher education level. Agricultural policies need to offer heterogeneous training and support to meet the needs of farm families to achieve the highest satisfaction and prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the indexes to the health of any economy is the performance of the companies operating within it. An analysis of health and the rate of recovery after the global crisis of the EU Member States' economies is conducted by the authors of the article by studying indicators such as turnover, gross value added, the share of wages in value added. The study concerns the level of indicators for the period 2008- 2013 for EU 28, highlighting the situation of Romania and Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-operatives are important organisational forms assumed to be risk averse and lacking foresight and capabilities to add value. New generation coops challenge these assumptions but the picture of innovation and entrepreneurship in them is incomplete. Our exploratory case studies of producer co-ops suggests the use of science-informed growth strategies, quite sophisticated governance mechanisms that utilise co-op ownership structures and voting rights, and broad education activities that have economic and social benefit for the co-ops, its member firms, and the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global economy has a strong impact on every company's performance and activity. The challenge is how to assess the value added company is creating every year. The main issue rising from this concept is the difficulties to calculate and measure value added in a correct manner. Many scientists investigate value added concept and accentuate that not all enterprises are able to define and measure value added correctly, many of them do not focus on the knowledge evaluation. Other researchers emphasize that knowledge management plays a vital role in value creation of every enterprise and this index must be included in value added calculation and measurement methodology. Although the questionable aspect is still under discussion, many researches and investigations are slightly changing the attitude towards assessment of value added of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supply chain activities of the coffee agroindustry in Indonesia involve several stakeholders, namely farmers, collectors, processors, and distribution to consumers. The government has established a project management office (PMO) to build a sustainable ecosystem related to the supply chain. Sustainable supply chain activities are economic, social, environmental, and technological management activities. The purpose of this study is to analyze the supply chain mechanism, measure and assess the sustainable supply chain performance index in the agroindustry using SCOR-AHP (Supply Chain Operations Reference-Analytical Hierarchy Process). Furthermore, identify the supply chain of agroindustry, analysis of added value, measurement, and assessment of sustainable supply chain performance index in agroindustry, using the Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) technique. The results of the analysis are used for developing a web-based decision-making system model in measuring and evaluating performance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of knowledge economy intangible assets importance as the source of competitive advantages is growing rapidly. Intellectual capital (IC) is regarded as the part of companies' resources so the return on it should be also measured in monetary form. However existing studies show poor development of methods for measuring value created or added by company's intellectual capital. This could be explained by its vague nature that imposes numerous limitations on value-based management. The main aim of this paper is to research the intellectual capital transformation into the company value based on a public information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Proceedings of the Conference on the Economy of Integrations (ICEI) 2011 is the property of University of Tuzla, Faculty of Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the period 1959-1997 a diverse set of academic researchers and economists developed a new view on business strategy that emphasized resource efficiency rather than the generally accepted competitive forces. The researchers discovered the intellectual capital. In the late 1990s the problems encountered in trying to put into practice the prevailing IC models and methodologies led to the development of new methodologies and an alternative theoretical paradigm. Among the most popular concepts of that period were Value Added Intellectual Capital (VAICTM) and Calculated Intangible Value (CIV). The first one was invented in 1993 by Prof. Dr. Ante Pulic, University professor and businessmen, who started to investigate into the changes in current economy and widely presented in the years 1998-2001. The latter was developed and popularized in the year 1997 by Thomas Stewart. Both represent so called group of the applications of the models and methods based on the analysis of the monetary values of the companies. CIV measures the monetary value of IC or IC stock, VAICTM describes how a company's IC adds value to the company. Since 1998 results of the application of the models and further analysis of the results have been presented at numerous scientific conferences throughout the world. Indeed, the researches using the same methods did not get identical results, though analyzing the same industry and testing the same hypothesis. The author aims to provide comparative analysis of the findings stated in the research papers all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of transformations the financial factors can be prejudiced and the market value of the company does not reflect its fundamental value it is important to scrutinize other "resources" of the firm, to define, the non-financial basis for growth. And according to the Knowledge management approach, we can regard the Intellectual Capital (IC) of the Firm as an estimation basis for growth of these resources. The strategic changes models of large companies tend to be the context items, i. e. depending from the various key components. The value as the result of constant strategic changes becomes the complicated intellectual parameter, which is managed and defined by the multi-level combination of interactions of different groups of stakeholders. Accordingly the authors of the article make an attempt to consider the Intellectual Value Based Management concept. At a whole this article covers the results of the research of the Intellectual value of the large Russian companies. Particularly the authors use the panel data to investigate the different growth factors of the intellectual value. According to the topic of the research, the authors analyze the potential for growth of large Russian trading companies through evaluation of its Intellectual Capital. The main idea of the research was to compare the contribution of fundamental and non-fundamental factors (that is, companies IC) which create the company Value proposition. And the main hypothesis was: the components of the company IC create more value than fundamental factors. The empirical study included the analysis of panel data regarding fundamental factors (e.g. Sales, Return on Assets) and such components of IC as Human Capital, Process Capital, Client Capital, Innovation Capital and Network Capital. The authors use a range of proxy variables (the so-called subcomponents of IC) to assess the contribution of each component of IC to the process of company value creation. The groups of proxy variables were the following: the existence and the efficiency of corporative training programs for employees; the efficiency of assets usage; the mature and the structure of the Board of directors; the process capital; measures for future growth; the client capital; relations with the stakeholders. To clarify the crucial idea of the research it is necessary to regard each sub-component of IC. The research covered three time periods (five years period, six years period, one forecasted cross-section). Due to the fact that Russian market could not be named among world highly investigated markets it is of great importance to scrutinize it through the analysis of the Intellectual capital accrued in the corporative sector of the economy. The results of this research can be used to explain some phenomena of Russian market development, and the research model can be used to evaluate the potential for growth of different companies (in primary importance - the potential of developing countries which tend to be "a locomotive" for the further recovery of the World economy). According to the results the main drivers for company's growth are factors of the following groups of proxy variables: the existence and the efficiency of corporative training programs for employees; the efficiency of assets usage; the process capital; measures for future growth; the client capital; relations with the stakeholders. The main hypothesis of the research was accepted, and consequently the authors proved through the empirical analysis that the components of IC create more value and can be regarded as growth drivers for the long-term development of the company and the creation of the sustainable competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents abstracts of several studies related to entrepreneurship. Wei Diane Shao, Carolyn J. Fausnaugh and Ashley Lye examined small businesses to gain an understanding of how café owners understand and implement their business concept. Jose Mata explored the effects that founding conditions have on the survival of new firms. J. Robert Baum and Stefan Wally examined the effects of entrepreneurial orientation and decision processes upon strategic decision-making speed. Igor Filatotchev examined inter-links between experience of founders, board selection strategy, and short-term performance measured in terms of share offer underpricing. David P. Spicer and Eugene Sadler-Smith described the development and validation of a measure that is designed to assess the way in which managers perceive their organizations' orientation to learning in terms of higher-order and lower-order levels of learning. Johan Wiklund and Frederic Delmar untangled the causal relationships between growth motivation and growth by using a large longitudinal data set and repeated measures. Andrea Lanza focused on the identification of effective entrepreneurial behaviors in hostile environments.

For an assembly line, one of the main concerns is how they distribute operations in order to achieve takt times. Nowadays the complexity of assembly operations don't allow the company to maintain a work balance which affects the inequity of the work stations' time and also generates non value added activities that is reflected in the total cycle time. The manufacturing plant of this study manually produces bus chassis, and has two assembly lines: urban chassis (UC) and foreign chassis (FC). Currently, the total of value added activities in the production process is 43%. The purpose of this research paper is to increase this value to 58% and balance the workload so each station operates within their assigned takt time (25 minutes UC and 250 minutes FC). In order to achieve this paper's main objective, the research team used a Lean Six Sigma approach and DMAIC methodology. The activities completed were the reduction or elimination of non value added activities to generate a balancing proposal and validate it through simulation. This paper is relevant for operations management professionals since it represents one of the most studied issues in manufacturing assembly lines, and provides an integrated approach combining different tools to solve this problem in a multinational company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract for the article "Innovative Marketing and Performance of Selected SMEs in Delta State Nigeria" by Uzezi Philomena Omodafe and Ireneus C. Nwaizugbo is presented.

While significant research has focused on the activities venture capitalists engage in that may add value to their portfolio companies, this work has not examined how these activities affect the entrepreneur-venture capitalist relationship. Accordingly, in this paper, we introduce the perceived investor support construct by adapting the perceived organizational support model from the organizational behavior literature to the firm level. We examine how both value added activities such as referrals and capital investment in new ventures influences entrepreneurs' perceptions of investor support. We test our hypotheses in a multisource longitudinal dataset of the portfolio companies of a state-supported venture capital fund. We find that while value added activities contribute positively to perceptions of investor support, capital contributions from the venture capital fund do not have a significant effect on perceptions of investor support. Finally, we find that capital raised from investors other than the focal venture capital firm is negatively related to perceived investor support. From our findings we suggest that the perceived investor support model adapted here provides a useful framework for predicting the trajectory of venture capitalist-entrepreneur relationships. This theoretical contribution suggests that venture capitalists can retain valued portfolio companies by engaging in value added activities that draw the firm closer while limiting the firms' exposure to competing investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]