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This article examines ‘the economics of singularities’ by Lucien Karpik, which is a sociological theory explaining the functioning of markets for a specific type of goods, labeled as ‘singularities’, defined according to three criteria: the plurality of qualities, quality uncertainty and the primacy of quality. According to Lucien Karpik, singularities complement the typology of goods traditionally used by economists, consisting of homogeneous and differentiated goods. He argues that singularities represent a ‘blind spot’ of what he calls ‘neoclassical economic theory.’ According to him, while neoclassical economic theory is adequate for studying homogeneous and differentiated goods, an autonomous framework is indispensable for studying singularities. In this article, we propose a comprehensive overview of the economics of singularities, and we formulate a critique of Karpik’s positioning in relation to neoclassical economic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption of international standards and investment in research and development (R&D), can be seen as two possible paths to support enterprises’ sustainable innovation and technological progress. This study argues that some aspects of R&D investment and certification to international standards are connected by identifying common factors that influence standards certification and business investment in R&D and examining the potential associations between the two. First, we examine the relationship between standards certification and R&D investments in European firms and identify enterprise characteristics that potentially affect each of the two concerns, focusing on differences and similarities. The analysis uses data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys collected in 2018 and 2019 in selected European countries. We analyse the share and characteristics of firms that applied international standards and R&D expenditures. The probit regression results reveal a positive correlation between R&D expenditures and certification. Other factors affecting the probability of certification include size, export focus and industry. Bivariate probit regression allows us to identify common factors affecting both R&D expenditures and certification, showing significant variations between different forms of entrepreneurship. Subsidiaries of larger companies have a greater chance of being certified and investing in R&D. In contrast, sole proprietorships are significantly less active in both cases. Mentioned factors affects firms’ capabilities to develop sustainable innovation and adopt new sustainable technologies.

The significant expansion of student testing has not generally been linked to educational outcomes. We investigate how different testing regimes—providing varying information to parents, teachers, and decisionmakers—relate to student achievement. We exploit PISA data for two million students in 59 countries observed from 2000–2015. Removing country and year fixed effects, we investigate how testing reforms affect country performance. In low- and medium-performing countries, more standardized testing is associated with higher student achievement, while added internal reporting and teacher monitoring are not. But, in high-performing countries, expansion of standardized internal testing and teacher monitoring appears harmful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joining a technical standards alliance is becoming increasingly crucial for latecomer enterprises’ innovation catch-up in today's fast-paced technological environment. This study investigates the influence of latecomers’ ambidextrous innovation on technical standards alliances while highlighting the importance of alliance routines. A structural equation model is used to analyse a sample of 118 latecomer members and 45 technical standards alliances in China's strategic emerging industries. Several novel findings are reported. First, latecomers’ two types of innovation catch-up and the three dimensions of alliance routines promote alliance performance, all of which positively impact alliance performance. Second, alliance routines have different effects on latecomers’ Ambidextrous innovation catch-up. All three dimensions of the alliance routine promote utilisation innovation catch-up, whereas behavioural logic and interactive consensus hinder exploration innovation catch-up. Third, utilisation innovation completely mediates between alliance practice and performance, whereas exploration innovation only plays a partial mediating role. This study presents specific recommendations for latecomer enterprises and technical standards alliances.

Previous research links organic purchasing motivations to personal and family health. We conduct a national survey to explore whether this preference intensifies when preparing family meals, especially during Thanksgiving. We find that approximately 83% of consumers change their consumption habits for Thanksgiving, with a notable preference for organic products. Results from the choice experiment indicate willingness to pay premiums for Thanksgiving-themed items, especially those with USDA-certified organic or certified naturally grown labels. These findings underscore policy initiatives that strengthen consumer understanding of organic certifications and support producers in securing them, capitalizing on the seasonal demand surge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the impact of large language models (LLM) on the fake news phenomenon is analysed. On the one hand decent text‐generation capabilities can be misused for mass fake news production. On the other, LLMs trained on huge volumes of text have already accumulated information on many facts thus one may assume they could be used for fact‐checking. Experiments were designed and conducted to verify how much LLM responses are aligned with actual fact‐checking verdicts. The research methodology consists of an experimental dataset preparation and a protocol for interacting with ChatGPT, currently the most sophisticated LLM. A research corpus was explicitly composed for the purpose of this work consisting of several thousand claims randomly selected from claim reviews published by fact‐ checkers. Findings include: it is difficult to align the respons‐ es of ChatGPT with explanations provided by fact‐checkers; prompts have significant impact on the bias of responses. ChatGPT at the current state can be used as a support in fact‐checking but cannot verify claims directly.

This article discusses the issue of assessing the quality of cluster management by utilizing Internet customer feedback about companies that are members of clusters. Due to the growing number of Internet users, companies pay greater attention to the opinions published about them. Consumers are also increasingly willing to share their opinions and thoughts about the products they use. As a result, it has become possible to analyze the quality of services and products provided by an enterprise based on Internet opinions. In this article, we analyze the quality of cluster management as reflected in the European Cluster Excellence Initiative (ECEI) label, as measured by sentiment analysis of Internet opinions. The paper proposes a method for the identification and evaluation of Internet sources used in the opinion sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis of Internet opinions of cluster and in-cluster business customers was performed, and the results were compared with the level of the ECEI label, which was awarded to the analyzed clusters. The conducted research showed convergences between formalized systems of management quality assessment and the level of opinions expressed on the Internet. The results testify that sentiment analysis can complement the evaluation of cluster management quality.

El objeto de esta investigación son los procesos de calidad aplicados en la Administración Portuaria de Veracruz, misma que es la encargada de proporcionar infraestructura y servicios portuarios, con un modelo logístico eficiente, que favorezca la optimización de los costos en las cadenas de valor de las mercancías, generando mayor rentabilidad para el puerto y sus socios comerciales. Se realizó una investigación entre el personal de mando de la APIVER y el personal externo que labora en el recinto portuario, en el cual se aplicó un cuestionario mediante una aplicación de Google, para darnos cuenta del nivel de conocimiento que cuentan con los procesos de calidad.

COVID-19 highlighted the weaknesses in the supply chain. Many have argued that a more resilient or robust supply chain is needed. But what does a robust supply chain mean? And how do firms' decisions change when taken that approach? This paper studies a very stylized model of a supply chain, where we study how the decision of a multinational corporation changes in the presence of uncertainty. The two standard theories of supply chain are just-in-time and just-in-case. Just-in-time argues in favor of pursuing efficiency, while just-in-case studies how such decision changes when the firm faces idiosyncratic risk. We find that a robust supply chain is very different specially in the presence of systemic shocks. In this case, firms need to concentrate on the worst-case. This strategy implies a supply chain where the allocation of resources and capabilities does not correspond to the standard theories studied in economics, but follow a heuristic behavioral rule called "probability matching." It has been found in nature and in experimental research that subjects appeal to probability matching when seeking survival. We find that a robust supply chain will reproduce this behavioral outcome. In fact, a multinational optimizing under uncertainty follows a probability matching which leads to an allocation that is suboptimal from the individual producer point of view, but rules out the possibility of supply disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management in TQM implies that it‘s a management approach, not just a narrow quality control or quality assurance function. Some principles and practices of TQM may differ among firms and industries, but there is unanimous agreement as to the importance of organizational culture in implementing TQM. Accordingly the objective of the paper is to empirically investigate the relationship between organizational culture and the implementation of TQM. This study limited to public companies in Algeria. The sample of study consisted (107) executives and managers who are working under functional heads. We used convenience sampling in selecting the subjects. The instrument used in the study was a survey questionnaire. The Correlation analysis explained a positive moderate relationship between organizational culture and implementation of TQM (r=0.580, p=0.000) that is culture of a (Algerian public companies) is positively related to the implementation of TQM.

Widely explored in literature, yet it is unclear which food quality cues consumers find most relevant. The increasing consumers’ concern for sustainability aspects in their food buying decisions warrants special attention to environmental-social aspects as food quality indicators. Consequently, this study explores consumer evaluation of food quality and highlights the role of environmental-social cues in food quality evaluation. A cross-national perspective was adopted, using a sample of 761 consumers from Belgium and Romania. Exploratory factor analysis reveals six factors that contained food quality cues perceived as similar by consumers. The first factor, named “Environmental-Social”, comprises cues related to environmental protection and social equity. Regression analyses indicate a set of variables that can predict the perceived relevance of environmental-social cues in food quality evaluation. The present study contributes to understanding of consumer food quality evaluation by extending the analysis to a large number (59) of food quality cues. From a practical stance, the study can guide managers’ efforts to enhance environmentally sustainable behavior based on the relevance of environmental-social cues in consumers’ food quality evaluation.

Many people do not purchase products that would appear to benefit them. For example, the price of an efficient cookstove can be less than a few months’ savings on fuel. If liquidity constraints, present bias, and poor information on fuel savings and stove durability are barriers, then combining a free trial, time payments, and the right to return the stove at any time should increase sales. In a randomized trial, this offer increases uptake of an efficient charcoal-burning stove in Kampala, Uganda, from 4% to 46%. We provide additional evidence that both liquidity constraints and imperfect information were important barriers.

Background: Having efficient quality management system (QMS) is vital for improving organization’s business. In that context, good knowledge of QMS characteristics and their interrelations with organizational business results is very important.

This paper develops new estimates of export quality, based on bilateral data, which are far more extensive than previous efforts. The data cover 166 countries and more than 800 products over the period 1962–2014. The analysis finds that, within any given product line, export quality on average converges rapidly across countries. However, there is also significant cross-country heterogeneity in the growth rate of quality. Institutional quality, liberal trade policies, foreign direct investment inflows, and human capital all promote quality upgrading, although their impacts vary across sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a significant potential to improve the benefits from public procurement through a better understanding of drivers in company success at the micro-level, an area that has received little study to date. To increase these impacts on innovation and markets, policy makers have opened procurement to innovation, including the strategic incorporation of formal standards in calls for tenders. Consequently, companies offering innovative solutions should have higher chances to be successful in public tenders. In addition, companies who engage in standardization activities at standards development organizations may have a competitive advantage in submitting tenders. Examining the case of Germany, this paper empirically investigates the effects of German manufacturing companies' innovation activities and their engagement in national standardization on the receipt of contracts within domestic procurement competitions. The results of our empirical analyses based on German companies surveyed within the framework of the Community Innovation Survey show that being successful in product innovation and being engaged in standardization are significant positive predictors of companies' success in public procurement. With implications for policy-makers and practitioners, this shows that public procurement is indeed open for solutions from companies active in innovation and standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the hypothesis that firms engaging customers in value co-creation tend to display more innovativeness. As such, it is one of the few quantitative studies on the link between these two concepts. Customer engagement in value co-creation was operationalized as a multiple scale following the DART framework by Prahalad and Ramaswamy. The DART acronym denotes four salient dimensions of enabling co-creation: Dialog, Access, Risk and Transparency. The applied innovativeness metric was revenue share from new and modified products. Data were collected from 432 managers of manufacturing and service SMEs. Statistical data analysis methods included EFA, CFA and multiple regression modeling.

R&D stands for Research and Development and while research is essential for new product development in biotechnology, the development and its integration with research (the transfer from research to development) is underexplored. Without efficient and successful process development, biotech companies would not sustain in the long run as process development is a necessary condition en route to industrial commercialization. Based on qualitative interviews with 31 biotech companies and experts, we test a framework with technological, operational and organizational boundary conditions influencing the transfer between product and process development. Our results uncover two additional dimensions: relational and market determinants. We further identify uncertainties in the transfer and investigate if standardization can mitigate these uncertainties and eventually facilitate the integration of product and process development. We find that standardization is a beneficial mechanism for successful integration of the front end of process development activities. The present investigation contributes to the understanding of standards as a knowledge and technology transfer instrument for complex and critical development activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an alternative approach to defining the management concept. The proposed methodology relies on the identification of tools supporting the given concept. The author assumed that the identification of tools’ evolution gives clearer insights into circumstances of constant development of—by its nature—a more general concept. The tools’ classification resembles a phylogenic tree and is based on the idea of an affinity diagram. To provide the proof for such reasoning, the total quality management (TQM) concept was chosen. This proposition can be useful for better understanding origins and the development of management thought. It clarifies relationships among methods constituting frameworks of quality management.

This paper presents an analysis of quality, customer satisfaction and business performance in food industry. The main objective of the research is to determine the influence of quality on customer satisfaction and on business performance and competitiveness. In particular, this paper answers the following research question: Does the quality of a product result in a satisfied customer and thereby in a well-performing business? Customer satisfaction is defined as the satisfaction of the customer with a product and the business performance as a capability to generate profit. Therefore, satisfaction was examined by the means of a survey using questionnaires, and the performance was measured by financial data. We managed to find a correlation between the main factors, although partial results were due more factors mostly statistically insignificant.

Agricultural industries are heavy users of water, which can be especially concerning in times of drought. One way to address agriculture's impact during droughts is to use recycled water for irrigation, but little is known about how consumers will respond to information disclosing that a food product was produced with recycled water. On the positive side, irrigation with recycled water is environmentally friendly. On the negative side, there is an “ick” factor that might repel consumers. We conducted a framed field experiment to evaluate consumers' responses to California and French wines made from grapes produced with recycled, conventional, and an unspecified type of water for irrigation. We find that consumers prefer not to know; their willingness to pay is greatest when the wine is made from grapes irrigated with an unspecified type of water. There is a discount for conventional irrigation water for both California and French wines, but it is statistically significant only for the California wines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effects of increased transparency on prices in the Bertrand duopoly model. Market transparency is defined as the proportion of consumers that are fully informed about the market and thus not captive to one firm. We consider two main cases of strategic interaction, prices as strategic complements and as strategic substitutes. For the former class of games, conventional wisdom concerning prices is confirmed, in that they decrease with market transparency. Consumer welfare always increases with higher transparency but changes in firms’ profits are ambiguous. For the latter class of games, an increase in market transparency may lead to an increase in one of the prices, which implies ambiguous effects on both consumer welfare and firms’ profits. An example with linear demand for differentiated products is also investigated. The results of the paper shed light on the mixed evidence concerning the effects of the Internet on retail markets and may illuminate some of the ongoing related public policy debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental management standards (EMS) are important voluntary management tools that aim at reducing the environmental impact of firms’ activities. From ethical motivations through increasingly high pressure from regulatory authorities to expected financial returns, reasons to adopt an EMS are manifold. While they all certainly matter, it is still unclear from the literature which firm-specific organisational capabilities and structural characteristics significantly drive adoption. Using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) on two samples of French firms, we identify firm-specific factors associated with the early or late adoption of ISO 14001-type EMS and we test whether adoption increases labour productivity. We find that adopters are moderately large manufacturing firms that rely on ISO 9001 standards or Total Quality Management. In addition, according to the first sample, early adopters tend to be more technologically complex firms that are active in the European market. These differences are attenuated in the second sample, which may be biased towards more innovative firms. Both samples however concur with the conclusion that, whether early or late, adoption is associated with a higher labour productivity compared to non-adoption. This result still holds when we use fully interacted linear models instead of PSM, and seems to be consistent over time. Thus, implementing EMS might provide win-win opportunities to adopters, without giving any premium to “early birds”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a unified treatment of truthful disclosure (persuasion) games, providing a joint framework that nests, among other models, unraveling theory, costly disclosure, uncertainty about information endowment and multi-dimensional disclosure. We show the existence of (at most) a unique equilibrium that is reasonable given a commonly used signaling refinement, and provide a constructive proof of the equilibrium strategy and beliefs. We use the model to examine the following question: can the sender benefit from a regulation that commits to disclosing more precise information? We show that the sender is worse off if an unconditional reduction in discretion induces a more informative equilibrium. Conversely, mandating disclosure of unfavorable information may increase the sender’s ex ante payoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An organization must decide which of two proposals to fund. In evaluating the proposals, the organization relies on the agents applying for funding to produce evidence about the merits of their own proposals. When the organization can fund all proposals, each agent engages in an independent game of Bayesian persuasion with the organization, choosing information strategies that maximize the probability of producing evidence in favor of funding. When the organization has limited capacity to implement proposals, the game becomes one of competitive Bayesian persuasion. Producing favorable evidence is not enough to secure funding; an agent must also produce more-favorable evidence than the other agent. We show that an organization’s limited capacity leads agents to produce more (Blackwell) informative evidence than they do when the organization is unconstrained. We fully characterize the unique equilibrium under unlimited and limited capacity, and show that unless the prior strongly favors accepting both proposals, the funding organization is better off when its capacity is limited. The analysis highlights similarities between competitive Bayesian persuasion games and all-pay auctions and generalized Colonel Blotto games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at identifying the importance and relevant practices related to international standards for environmental management system (EMS) in the countries of the Visegrad Group (including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary). A review of mainstream literature on EMS will be conducted followed by document-based research as well as statistics database used as the methodological approach. Data will be gathered through the evaluation of Eurostat database and ISO Surveys. The international comparison facilitates the evaluation of current implementation of EMS as well as contributes to the identification of the main possibilities and limitations for its development. The implementation of EMS according to the ISO 14000 and EMAS can help companies to find solutions that support processes of environmental changes with the purpose to improve corporate innovativeness and competitiveness. This work is limited to the evaluation of statistical data. Further, the detailed empirical research based on case study approach and indepth semi-structured interviews is needed to explain the difficulties experienced and benefits accrued during implementation of EMS. This article contributes to existing literature on corporate sustainable development by applying environmental management systems to the practices of entrepreneurs that have a goal of environmental sustainability.

This study reports the findings for an analysis using the computer program NAADSM (North American Animal Disease Spread Model) and a supply-driven social accounting matrix to examine the impact of a hypothetical foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in a relatively isolated part of the United States, Utah, under various levels of livestock traceability. The analysis demonstrates that a significant regional economic impact in Utah would result from an FMD outbreak but that improved levels of traceability would be very important in helping to reduce the negative economic consequences of the outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In health care, many aspects of the delivery of services are subject to regulation. Often the purpose of the regulated health care system is to encourage providers to keep costs down without skimping on quality. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of price regulation and free choice on quality in physiotherapy organised by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland for the disabled individuals. We use the difference-in-differences method in our effort to isolate the effect of the regulation and for this task we have defined the regulated and non-regulated firms and their quality before and after the regulation. The variables needed in the econometric modelling were collected from several registers as well as by carrying out questionnaires on the firms. We show that price regulation decreased quality in physiotherapy statistically significantly and the mechanism was unable to incentivise firms to invest in quality. Most likely, our results are caused by cost reduction associated with price regulation. It seems that cost reduction was carried out through quality reductions in physiotherapy instead of increasing productivity. The result is sensible because comparable quality information is not published to support patient choice in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses how the functioning and performance of food chains are affected by the way stakeholders are embedded in the chains, by the coordination modes, and by the kind of governance. Second, by depicting six relevant agro-food chains, attention is raised on the kind of the stakeholders that participate in the chain and on the role of each with a special focus on possible drawbacks of an effective functioning of the supply chains. The chains outlined are (i) supply chains driven by a large retailer; (ii) supply chains driven by a global processing company; (iii) supply chains driven by a cooperative; (iv) supply chains for geographical indications; (v) short supply chains; and (vi) supply chains driven by a specialized high quality retailer. Special consideration is given to the positioning of farmers in each of the six chains and to the outcomes they get. It is shown how: (i) going spot on the marketplace may leave them with difficult market access and no bargaining power; (ii) being embedded in supply chains framed in the context of a captive governance may result in a squeeze of their profits as well as in unreliable market access; and (iii) supply chains are populated by reciprocal and pooled relationships and ruled by a more relational kind of governance, beside potentially bringing advantages in terms of decision power and economic benefits, also raises difficulties and drawbacks due to complexity of functioning, heterogeneity of stakeholders, and ambiguity of the nature of relations among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]