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Byline: Rupesh Kumar Pati, Prem Vrat, Pradeep Kumar Strict environmental regulations and the ever-increasing shortages in the availability of natural resources are making reverse logistics an area of growing importance. From the manufacturer's point of view, this paper proposes a linear programming optimisation model for the Indian paper industry with two different sources of raw materials (i.e., wood and wastepaper). The objective of the model is to minimise the paper supply chain cost, which includes costs of collection, transportation, segregation and disposal (for recycled paper), inventory, and manufacturing. The inclusions of environmental cost and cost of quality added a new dimension to the said model, which was not explored earlier in the supply chain context. To know the behaviour of the system under different scenarios, sensitivity analysis, shortage analysis and finally, indifference curve analysis have been performed on the model. The model will help the manufacturer make strategic decision under different shortage scenarios of the paper supply chain.

Byline: Benjamin Armstrong-Haworth We currently rely on fossilised energy to power society. This comes at a cost, not only in financial terms, and not only to us as human beings, but also in non-financial and non-human terms. Among the concerns of green economists are the cost of energy as opposed to its price, high levels of direct and indirect consumption, the need for a redistribution of energy resources, and engendering a greater respect for the power of energy to change the world. To address the issues associated with energy such that an environmentally and socially just economic system can be developed, an action plan is required. The intention of this paper is to reflect on perceptions of and responses to energy issues, and to develop the elements and direction of an action plan for the energy sector in a green economy.

Byline: Said Assar, Imed Boughzala Public e-procurement is the use of electronic means for publishing, processing, exchanging and storing all the information related to institutional purchases in public organisations. It requires complex technological tools, which must comply with legal and organisational constraints. In France, such tools have actually been deployed and used in all public institutions since 1 January 2005. The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the functional and legal requirements for public e-procurement in France, and to present a general evaluation of eight deployed e-procurement platforms using an empirical methodology. The functionalities and general characteristics of the studied platforms are sketched and compared on the basis of commercial and technical data.

Byline: Steve Mandel Traditional cost-benefit analysis is based on a number of assumptions found in neo-classical economics. The paper argues that these assumptions could be considered to be deeply flawed. It suggests that these assumptions include a belief in perpetual growth and result in a particular bias against sustainability. This paper questions those assumptions and indicates what needs to be changed for CBA to become a useful tool for a green approach to policy-making.

Byline: Michael Briguglio Malta joined the European Union in 2004 and carried out vast changes in its environmental legislation during the process. Environmental NGOs have been key actors in this regard. This paper verifies whether Malta's EU accession has helped empower such organisations. The paper argues that EU accession has enhanced empowerment of ENGOs. This has occurred as a result of EU-driven policy and legislative reforms, leading to the institutionalisation of various ENGOs - especially if conservationist, but not if local or radical - through their participation in environmental reform. In addition, lobbying opportunities for ENGOs within EU institutions have increased. However, various factors constrain the ENGOs' empowerment, including neo-liberal ideology; political pressure from other lobby groups; and economic pressures. It should be qualified that empowerment has effected ENGOs differently, with conservationists gaining most, followed by sustainable development, radical and local ENGOs respectively.

Byline: Michael Briguglio, Diana Aquilina This paper analyses the social impact of liberalisation of plastic bottles in Malta, wherein the system of returnable glass bottles has effectively been replaced by a system of disposable plastic bottles. The paper applies concepts such as Ulrich Beck's (1992) 'risk society', and Michael Cahill's (1994) 'consumer society' to the issue under research. A quantitative survey administered in two Maltese localities shows that whilst there is a wide-ranging opposition towards the plastic bottles system, at the same time, most respondents are not ready to make financial contributions for a better environment. Such perceptions are compared with those of European counterparts.

Byline: Sanjay Mohapatra, Anuj Jindal The information technology (IT) industry has a vital role to play in abating the threat of climate change and global warming. Green IT is defined for the purpose of this paper, as a specific set of initiatives that IT companies are taking to optimise their resource-utilisation, with the aim of becoming environmentally sustainable. The literature suggests that there are many Green IT frameworks available that can help companies to develop their Green IT strategies. It was also observed that Indian IT services companies, specifically that small and medium scale companies, operate in a different environment and that existing frameworks are not suitable for them. This paper proposes a more suitable Green IT framework using a sample of IT services companies in Bhubaneswar, India. The small and medium scale IT companies were defined as those which are not listed on any stock exchange - unlisted. An extensive framework was then developed and tested with six unlisted IT services companies in Bhubaneswar.

Byline: Deborah Ruggieri The crash of the financial markets 2008 has prompted numerous debates about the causes of the crisis and its impacts. However, the question of how the crisis is affecting men and women differently has tended to be marginalised. This paper proposes a framework for characterising and monitoring the main arguments which have emerged with regard to the role of gender in the crisis, both in the media and in gender research. It also examines the political responses to the crisis, especially the stimulus packages and the predictable impacts of planned austerity programmes, from a gender perspective. The paper argues that it is not only the impact of the crisis which has a gender dimension but also that main causes of the crisis have an important gender dimension. It concludes by highlighting the role of gender in the global financial architecture and proposing more extensive research in this area.

Byline: Vinca Bigo Care work, such as that carried out by 'angelic' nurses, mothers, and other carers, is treated in a dualistic fashion: it is both idealised and poorly valued. The puzzling phenomenon before us is something of a paradox. The objective of this paper is to explain this hitherto unaddressed phenomenon. The explanation provided for the apparent contradictions draws on particular mechanisms inherent in the patriarchal system under which this paradoxical phenomenon occurs. Though the paper centres on care, nature is also both widely idealised and taken for granted. Thus, what is true of 'care' in our analysis is in more than one way also a story about 'nature'.

Byline: Ram N. Roy, Nick Cordery This conceptual paper contrasts wine production in the three most important regions of New Zealand. Some of the key issues faced in one of these regions are then identified through published data, personal interviews, data analysis and discussion. The broad objective of this paper is to suggest some qualitative and quantitative solutions to mitigate the problems identified. The issues discussed are: should growers and wine producers go for a collective procurement approach to buy some of their prime inputs; should producers/exporters consider changes in wine packaging to reduce the supply chain cost and should there be more emphasis on exporting wine in bulk rather in bottles? The paper identifies potential packaging alternatives and suggests that a clustered procurement model and a scientific transport model can reduce the supply chain cost.

Byline: Ali Douai This paper argues that the epistemological and intellectual space of green economics is or should be located where ecological economics, even in its socio-economic perspective, still fails to provide a coherent conceptual framework such that environmental problems could be analysed in a holistic and inclusive way. Based on explanations of this failure, this paper provides a brief but structured research proposal which is based on the potential convergence between various heterodox 'schools' and which espouses explicitly Green Economics' aims.

Byline: Sanjay Kumar Singh, B.S. Sahay The paper aims to investigate the antecedents of business excellence in global corporations across industry. The literature reviewed and its content analysis has given a very clear message about the role of leadership who are intelligent emotionally in making a corporation successful across the globe. It says that leader's emotional intelligence plays a dominant role in designing organisations in such a way which will result into effective financial and psychological health of the organisation. As the model developed and depicted in the manuscript is conceptual in nature, it needs to be empirically validated before using it for the business excellence. Moreover, the proposed conceptual model can be used when the concerned organisations are engaged in designing organisational architectures. The research paper offers a fresh approach to look at the leadership developmental agenda of the companies.

Byline: Arivalan Ramaiyah, Jeya Chandra Malar Jayaprakash, Ahmad Nurulazam Md. Zain The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for researchers who intend to conduct research on service quality in education sectors. This paper is written based on the literature review conducted in the area of service quality. Limited studies have been conducted in the area of service quality at higher education in Malaysia. Understanding the service quality expectations and perceptions of the students from the institution of higher learning is important to determine the strength and weaknesses in providing quality of services to its students. This paper highlights the various service quality dimensions used by the researchers to measure the service quality in different types of institutions. It also includes the discussions on the most common methods used to measure the service quality by prominent researchers. It is expected that this paper would provide a good insight to researchers who are planning to conduct research on service quality in education sectors.

Byline: Jayanthi Ranjan, Vishal Bhatnagar The paper presents the techniques, process and application of electronic CRM (e-CRM) using data mining (DM) techniques. The increase in the competition in every sector of the business has forced the business organisation to become a brand of universal acceptance. This is possible only when the accessibility of the organisation product is to every common people. The e-CRM has provided the means for the business organisation to achieve this. The e-CRM with the application of the DM tools can help better analyse the customer data which will enchase the profitability of the organisation and also helps to improve the relationship of the customers with the firms. The paper demonstrates the ability of the DM to automate the process of searching the mountain of customer's related data to find patterns that are good predictors of behaviours of the customers which help achieve successful e-CRM in the web domain. The paper gives an idea of how DM capabilities can increase the profitability of the firms by effective e-CRM.

Byline: Antony Drew, Anton Kriz Understanding Chinese business practices and relationships has become increasingly important for international firms. One of the common threads for international firms is the importance of a special relational aspect of Chinese markets, called guanxi. The impact of guanxi on value chain management is under-researched but increasingly gaining attention. This paper takes a more novel approach by reviewing guanxi in terms of its institutional rather than simply its often-cited cultural implications. It adopts and adapts the ecocultural framework of John Berry and incorporates Robert Trivers theory of reciprocal altruism in an attempt to shed light on the practice of guanxi in eight Chinese related polities. The eight polities are investigated using a qualitative methodology. The design of the study incorporates two phases with focus groups and an online survey. The study acknowledges that the institution of guanxi has important implications for all polities researched but it remains an essential and powerful force in the mainland Chinese polities of Shanghai and Beijing. Subsequently, the relational dynamic of guanxi remains an essential element in value chain management in Chinese contexts, particularly for chains operating on the mainland. As the paper also contends, this has important implications for both Chinese and Western firms.

Byline: Sarah Skinner This paper explores the appropriateness and effectiveness of using a market-based governance system, in the form of the renewable obligation (RO) in the UK, to drive the uptake of electricity from renewable technologies. The paper will argue that neoclassical thinking around markets makes key assumptions on efficiency, effectiveness and equity that are not suitable for emerging renewable electricity technologies. The workings of the RO and the planned addition of a feed-in tariff (FIT) will be critiqued using alternative assumptions of the market under a green economic framework (Kennet and Heinemann, 2006). The paper discusses what a green economics vision of the structure of renewable electricity in the UK could be.

Byline: Miriam Kennet, Naomi Baster, Michele Gale, Oliver Tickell This paper introduces this special issue on the 'Economics of climate change' and describes contemporary policy attitudes in the economics of climate change, it explores features and differences in some examples from a variety of economic policy approaches in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference. These include market based incentives, technological innovations, de-carbonisation and natural resource accounting as well as proposing that life style changes are necessary. The paper explains the significance of reaching agreement at the Copenhagen Conference and critiques some of the policies being suggested, (mainly in Europe) and some neo-liberal approaches to the economics of climate change. It puts forward a set of Green Economics policy ideas which are holistic, complex and multi-disciplinary and take a longer term perspective.

Byline: Miriam Kennet In the clamour to be green, it is often forgotten that women are more likely to be poor and earn less than men in all countries of the world. They have much less political, economic and institutional representation and are less present on the boards of the world's companies. If green economics means social and environmental justice, then gender must be included in all claims to be 'green'. This paper explores the gendered aspects of three formative aspects of the aims of green economics – poverty prevention, climate change prevention, and economic practise and reform. Highlighting gender absence, gender blindness, and gender justice, the paper explores how women are more likely to be victims of environmental change and of the economic crisis and it suggests how rebalancing of the structure of economics towards gender balance could possibly benefit everyone.

Byline: Simmy M. Marwa, Kay Hooi Keoy, S.C. Lenny Koh The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent East Africa Community (EAC) business schools' are inching closer to a world class business school status. The paper is informed by a review of literature on world class universities/business schools (WCU/WCBS). Attributes of excellence of WCU/WCBS are identified and used as a yardstick to gauge EAC business schools' performance. An exploratory web analysis of EAC business schools is then undertaken to establish gaps between these schools and WCBS. Opportunities for improvement are identified and recommendations made to embed a culture of excellence that catapults the schools towards excellence. Nonetheless, impediments requiring immediate attention still stand in the way of EAC business schools' path to excellence, particularly skill shortages and poor research track record. Embracing the suggested improvements, thus offers the schools' real opportunities to focus their quality initiatives towards excellence.

Byline: Jayanthi Ranjan, Vishal Bhatnagar The purpose of this paper is to present value drivers and their alignment with business operation from the Data Mining (DM) perspective. The paper also presents the benefits to any enterprise that will be generated by aligning the business with value drivers from the DM perspective. DM is the extraction of previously unknown and hidden information from large data records. Its tools can help to find the hidden value drivers of any business domain. They provide the hidden patterns and predictive information that experts may miss. Value drivers help business executives to better concentrate on key business factors that are of prime importance in any organisation. The value drivers and the DM tools together help to find useful and unknown information.

Byline: Simmy M. Marwa, Graham K. Rand, Kay Hooi Keoy, S.C. Lenny Koh Purpose – The paper explores how SERVQUAL may be applied to sustain service quality gains in the insurance industry. Design – The paper is informed by a review of literature on sustaining service excellence. The attributes/elements of service quality excellence based on the SERVQUAL framework are identified and used as a yardstick to gauge the performance of a new merger: the APA Insurance Company. Opportunities for improvement are identified and a model recommended for fortifying a culture of excellence. Findings – While APA Insurance has recorded considerable improvements in service quality, opportunities for improvement exist that the company should focus on as it sustains the gains made. Implications – Insurers are ill prepared to waste resources on initiatives whose outcomes cannot be sustained overtime. Every effort must therefore be made to sustain the service quality gains made while pursuing new opportunities, more so given the prevailing global economic crisis. Originality – The paper offers useful insights on growing service excellence in the insurance industry.

Byline: Mohammad Marufuzzaman, Kazi Badrul Ahsan, Ke Xing Supplier selection, one of the most important issues of a company, must be systematically considered from the decision makers' perspectives. For this reason, the supplier selection process were evaluated by researchers for many years in a large framework comprised of various experimental and analytical techniques and successful applications were done in various sectors. In this paper, supplier selection is considered a multicriteria decision problem and a model is proposed by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The evaluation criteria are developed and used successfully in the proposed model. A detailed step-by-step implementation method is presented in this paper and a case study based on an apparel manufacturing organisation is conducted to prove the validity of the method.

Byline: Qingyou Liu, Guorong Wang, Yan Yang This paper presents a novel approach to analyse the safety and reliability issues on the crude oil unit in processing heavy oil. Based on the discussions of the corrosion mechanism, it uses fault tree analysis to identify the key factors that may lead to failure of crude oil unit when processing heavy oil. It has found that factors such as temperature, consistence, relatively move speed and material, critically affect the corrosion rate of the naphthenic acid. In order to explore the relationships between the identified factors and the corrosion rate of the naphthenic acid, this paper uses artificial neural networks to identify such normally non-linear relationships. Laboratory experiments have been conducted to collect data of the corrosion rate using different materials in different temperatures, consistence and velocity. The analyses show that the proposed research method is sound and can be used in safety and reliability analysis of crude oil unit in processing heavy oil.

Byline: Suiran Yu, Jing Tao China is expanding its bioethanol production to power its growing economy. However, food security concerns must be addressed when developing bioethanol industry because production of biofuels and food are closely related. This paper aims to deliver an updated picture of Chinese bioethanol program to aid the dialogue between different stakeholders. This paper reviewed China's short history regarding policy, practice and research of bioethanol production and then analysed on the opportunities and challenges of bioethanol implementation in China. It is concluded that China is having a difficult time on balancing crop use for food, feed, and fuel and domestic technology of non-grain bioethanol production, which is on preliminary stage. Suggestions for a successful bioethanol implementation were proposed. Government support and technology improvement of non-grain bioethanol production and investments in infrastructure and facilities for feedstock logistic are essential. The cooperation between industries should be reinforced to promote the biofuel market.

Byline: Aija Tapaninen, Marko Seppanen, Saku Makinen Annually, billions of Euros are spent globally on developing a range of green technologies, including bio-heating technologies, as part of a push into the renewable energy market. This paper considers customer perceived barriers to the adoption of wood pellet heating technology. Theoretically, the paper is based on diffusion and innovation decision theory and utilises two different theoretical frameworks: 'perceived characteristics' and 'basis of competition'. Customers' perceived barriers were collected through a survey (sample size N = 154) of Finnish housing expo attendance in 2007. The innovation adoption of wood pellet heating systems was observed to be at the rather early stages in Finland. The results somewhat contradict theoretical expectations concerning evolution of the basis of competition. The results also indicate that while other perceived characteristics were present, trialability and observability were not found in our analysis. Lacking the trial is usually typical of long-commitment investments such as bio energy systems.

Byline: R.D. Prasad, R.C. Bansal, M. Sauturaga With nearly 90% of all the life cycle costs (LCC) of a wind power plant being upfront, the financial and economic viability of electricity generation from wind energy is dependent on the level and extent of energy content in wind prevalent at a particular site and also on the payment expected for power generated. This paper presents a brief overview on the economics of wind energy conversion systems (WECS). This paper also presents an economic analysis on two cases: 1 for a wind turbine alone installed at Vadravadra site in Gau Island in Fiji; 2 for a hybrid of wind-diesel configuration. A number of economic related parameters were calculated for the two cases. RETScreen software was also used to perform economic analysis on the wind turbine installed at the site and it was compared with the economic analysis done using cash flow.

Byline: Xiang Deng, Yang Jiang, Xiaolu Chen Since 1978, the Chinese Government has drafted a series of laws, regulations, tech-standards and governmental planning to create a primary legal environment for the development and use of renewable energy (RE). This paper introduces the basic framework of the RE Law and the corresponding regulations in China. A number of problems have been identified with the current regulations in practice such as the incentive incompatibilities, policy mismatch and incompleteness of the implementation system. The purpose of this paper is to seek agreement to the introduction of new legislations to promote RE development and utilisation. This paper recommends that there is a need to raise the consciousness of developing and utilising RE in the whole society: to refine or replenish corresponding laws and regulations; to coordinate relationship between relevant regulations or policies; to establish a legislative enforcement mechanism integrating government administration, public participation and social counterweight; and to evaluate implementing situation of laws and policies and revise legal measures promptly.

Byline: Arvind Chel, G.N. Tiwari, Avinash Chandra This paper investigates the sizing and costing methodology for a stand-alone photovoltaic (SAPV) power system based on the number of sunshine hours available in the world. The sizing and costing of the PV system for the electrical load of 3.65 kWh/day was presented in this paper for different continents of the world. The unit cost of electricity generated from the PV system was determined based on their life cycle cost analysis. The capital cost and unit cost of electricity for the SAPV systems were evaluated as $9,198/kWp and $0.6/kWh respectively for India. The total CO2 emission mitigated by the PV power system in its lifespan was estimated at 63 tons which correspond to the carbon credits of $2,048.

Byline: R.D. Prasad, R.C. Bansal, M. Sauturaga In most of the villages in interior of Fiji and also in the remote islands of Fiji, electrical energy is provided through the diesel generator (DG) set. Since the cost of diesel price is increasing, renewable energy sources for electricity generation are becoming an attractive option. Of the many renewable energy sources there are many places in Fiji where there is good wind resource. However, due to the intermittent nature of wind, to have a reliable source of electricity for an isolated/remote site, battery storage as well as hybrid system should be considered. This paper presents the optimum configuration of wind-diesel hybrid with battery storage for Vadravadra Village in Gau Island in Fiji for different loads. The optimum configuration is worked out using HOMER software in terms of the levelised cost of energy (LCOE). The paper also presents how to have a successful hybrid system in remote villages.

Byline: Dauw-Song Zhu, Bruce Chien-Ta Ho, Cheng-Tsung Lu, Sheng-ling Xu The aim of this paper is to investigate determinants which affect online players' satisfaction. 514 valid questionnaires are collected as the analysis data from Taiwanese online players. Based on the factor analysis and multiple regressions, the authors classify online game designing attraction as seven types (the smooth and kind art style, the game of comfortable and matching story, copious and complete story structure, whole and agreeable special effect, the difference between controlling role, the convenience of players' interaction and consuming security in game). Results indicate that different kinds of player behaviours (the tendency of experience game and developing society) would have a significantly moderate effect between the attraction of designing OLG and players' satisfaction. Also, this paper finds player behaviours and life styles have a significantly moderate effect between online game designing attraction with players' satisfaction simultaneously.

Byline: I.E. Nikolaou, K.I. Evangelinos In recent years, academics and corporate analysts have suggested that the business world should incorporate sustainable development into their decision making, given that it is considered key to their long-term viability. The corporations which implement such strategies are usually labelled sustainable. In this paper, a number of definitions of corporate sustainability, each with different meanings, are presented; this variety has been transferred from the macroeconomic level (where this concept originated) and can now also be found at the microeconomic level. In order to clarify this ambiguity in meaning, the existence of which underlines the need to create a general definition, this paper has two aims: (1) to present a mapping for categorising the current definitions of corporate sustainability and tracing their origin and (2) to choose the most predominant definition and examine the opportunities, challenges, conflicts and efficient conditions which arise to develop a general definition of corporate sustainability.

Byline: Adekunle Sabitu Oyegoke, Malik M.A. Khalfan, Peter McDermott, Michael Dickinson The study focuses on managing risk and uncertainty in construction project due to the owner dissatisfaction in project outcome and dynamism within agile construction environment. The aim of the paper is to examine the agility gap created by risk and uncertainty in the supply chain processes through procurement routes. The paper identifies some areas in supply chain processes which are prone to greater risks and uncertainty and proposes an agile management principle based on the concept of integration and fragmentation in product development and execution processes respectively, resulting in agile specialists' involvement. The paper is based on extensive literature review and a comprehensive single case study of 3-office block complex in Finland. The paper concludes that the involvement of the agile specialists mitigates against risks and uncertainty, enhances the project quality and permits a modular approach to design that permits the use of experts' knowledge in design and construction. The proposed model serves as an agile management tool in preventing both predictable and unpredictable external and internal project changes through the early involvement of agile specialists and their integrated attributes in product development through to construction and project startup.

Byline: Federica Cucchiella, Massimo Gastaldi, Arunachalam Subramaniam, Tom Page In recent years, the supply chain has attracted much attention from researchers because effective management of the supply chain enables a firm to gain a competitive advantage within the marketplace. Furthermore, the development of the new technologies has created increased complexity over the management of supply chain. Nevertheless, such technologies cannot eliminate every source of uncertainty and their connected risks in the network. For this reason, in this paper, a methodology is put forward, based on the theory of real options which can be applied to protect the supply network from risks that it faces. The paper considers the increasing relevance of the supply chain on business performance. In addition, it examines the sources of uncertainty inside the supply chain for every source of uncertainty, the associated risks are identified and links among them and real options are examined. Finally, the paper concludes with an useful framework identifying the type of possible options a firm can take in order to protect it from the risks growing from every source of uncertainty.

Byline: Samir Dani, Rajesh Ranganathan This paper provides an insight into developing a proactive approach to predict risks and manage uncertainties that may potentially disrupt the supply chain. This paper considers the concepts of agility and scenario planning for managing risks proactively. A conceptual model has been presented which brings together the two concepts in a process model for identifying and managing supply chain risks. The model is further described by applying it to a case depicting supply chain disruption.

Byline: Luo Yafei, Tang Wen This paper attempts to research and summarise the system of competition rules for the Olympic market according to the Olympic Charter, the host city contract, the candidate city report, intellectual property protection laws, and related academic literature. Additionally, this paper tries to analyse the challenges and opportunities that Chinese enterprises face in the competitive Olympic market to familiarise these enterprises with the rules, allows them to study these experiences for their own future development, as well as maintain a sustainable and healthy developing market. Most importantly, this paper analyses rules-making and their application in reforming the competition rules of the Olympic market in terms of their conformation to widely accepted international regulations.

Byline: Jie Wu, Liang Liang, Dexiang Wu, Feng Yang In this paper, an extended tool of DEA, namely cross efficiency evaluation method, was used to measure the performance of the nations in the Summer Olympic Games of Sydney 2000. The model in the paper considered two inputs (GNP per capita and population) and a single output (the weighted sum of amounts of medals won). The advantages of the proposed model rest on the fact that it provides for a unique ranking of the participants and eliminates the unrealistic weight schemes without requiring the elicitation of extra weight restrictions. The average cross efficiencies were calculated and were compared to those originated from the radial efficiency method and other previous works. Also, cluster analysis technique was used to select the more appropriate targets for poorly performing countries to use as benchmarks.

Byline: Bogumila Igielska Climate variability has been observed over a long period of time and is considered a natural process occurring on Earth. Climate change, however, is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere in addition to natural phenomena. Global climate governance requires a broad area of measures and policies to be implemented worldwide to tackle this problem. The following paper gives a brief overview of the existing climate mitigation instruments and policies. It delivers an analysis of the three main groups of policy instruments – mandatory regulation, economic instruments and voluntary approach. The study argues that no instrument can be chosen as a single mechanism to solve environmental problems. It also points out several conditions and circumstances that need to be taken into consideration to obtain a successful implementation of those policy instruments. The paper critically investigates traditional instruments. It discusses issues such as design, political and social acceptability, provision of incentives for improvements in environmental performance and (cost) effectiveness. Finally, the study concludes that the process of policy implementation should take into account the problems and obstacles that may stand in the way of the planned solutions and without a deep analysis of which the (cost) effectiveness of a policy will never be achieved.

Byline: Jack Reardon Global warming has put green economics in an uncomfortable position. Should we support nuclear energy, long considered an anathema, as a temporary expedient? Or should we resist nuclear energy's seductive appeal as a palliative for global warming? Is green economics forced to choose between the lesser of two evils – global warming and nuclear energy? Or is there a more palatable alternative consistent with our moral beliefs, our stated principles and concern for humanity? The objective of this paper is to develop a green economics position on nuclear energy. This is essential given the renewed interest in nuclear energy in the USA and Europe as part of a judicious mix to improve energy security and attenuate global warming. Schumacher (1989) wrote a generation ago, 'When a thing is intelligible you have a sense of participation; when a thing is unintelligible, you have a sense of estrangement' (p.89). The goal of this paper is to make nuclear energy 'intelligible' in order to formulate a green position on nuclear energy. Section one of this paper will briefly discuss the urgency of global warming and section two, the fundamentals of nuclear energy. The third and fourth sections discuss the pros and cons of nuclear energy respectively; and the final section develops a position on nuclear energy consistent with the principles of green economics.

Byline: Kit F. Pun, Kwai S. Chin, Henry C.W. Lau Faced with the dynamic competition in regional and global marketplaces, many trading firms have shifted from conventional business operations towards an e-business paradigm. They are expanding their business operations with Supply Chain Management (SCM) initiatives in order to sustain competitive advantage. This paper discusses the e-business paradigm, the SCM initiatives and the changing roles of trading firms, incorporating the empirical findings of a recent study in Hong Kong. The study acquired industry practitioners' views on their SCM and e-business practices in response to the challenges of globalisation and the trend on digitising their businesses. It explores the need for adopting a collaborative approach for SCM operations in the trading industry. Based on a simple analysis with mean and standard deviation, the study aimed at identifying the key determinants such as drivers, obstacles and perceived benefits. The paper contributes to the study of the traditional versus emerging roles of trading firms in Hong Kong.

Byline: Xin Zeng, K.L. Choy, Harry K.H. Chow In this paper, we compare three RFID implementation strategies in the inventory management of a retail store. The three strategies are: pallet-level tagging, which deals with fixing RFID tags on pallets only; case-level tagging, which is for fixing RFID tags on cases only; the combined tagging strategy, which is for fixing RFID tags onto both pallets and cases. The objective of this paper to perform a trade-off study between the investment resulting from implementing RFID tagging using these different strategies and the visibility of the inventory level, based on a simulation model. Through using the simulation model, we develop a better understanding of the conditions under which RFID implementation strategies are cost effective.

Byline: Amit Rai Dixit, P.K. Mishra In the real-world manufacturing, the requirement of number and the attribute of product may not be known exactly at the time of designing the manufacturing cell. The design of manufacturing cell requires to identify machine groups and part families in Cellular Manufacturing (CM) system. The success of a CA system is sensitive to fluctuations in the demand for products and the product mix. A large number of papers on manufacturing cell design have been published so far, but very few of them have considered random product mix constraint at the design stage. Little work has been reported which incorporated real-life production parameters like operation sequence, production volume, batch size, material handling capacity, processing time, setup time, machine capacity and cost factors. Considerations of these important parameters make the cell formation problem more complex, but realistic. This paper presents a new formulation of the part family/machine cell formation problem that addresses the dynamic nature of the production environment by considering a multiperiod forecast of product mix and demand during the formation of part families and machine cells. The computational procedure of the algorithm has been illustrated by an example. Numerical results indicate that the proposed methodology is flexible, efficient and may be effective even for industrial problems.

Byline: Malik M.A. Khalfan, Peter McDermott, Xianguang Li, Mohammed Arif, Mukesh Kashyap Recent innovative procurement initiatives are challenging traditional ways of procuring construction projects. These initiatives are intended to empower clients to exercise more control over the supply chain and generate more cooperation among project participants. The initiatives aim to integrate the supply chain, create greater trust, introduce a pain and gain culture, and reuse the knowledge on succeeding projects. This paper, with examples from the UK construction industry, presents how clients are integrating the downstream supply chain members. Critical factors in integrating suppliers and manufacturers were identified and the benefits of innovative procurement resulting in the integration of downstream supply chain members were analysed in detail through two case studies. The paper concludes that through clients' initiatives, there is a great potential to utilise the expertise and knowledge of suppliers and manufacturers at the outset of a project to achieve effective planning and delivery of the whole project, with greater supply chain integration.

Byline: Augustine C. Odinma, Sergey Butakov, Evgeny Grakhov, Felix Bollou The enterprise network is the lifeblood of any Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) with more than one site or supply chain partner. It enables access to business information and allows for profitable and effective communication flows between employees in different enterprise sites. Network enterprise network equipment are mature and ubiquitous, but the quality of services provided by similar networks varies from city to city and from country to country. In particular, the quality variation gap between most of the cities in some developing nations and their counterparts in advanced nations is very wide. This is due to the lack in developing nations of an adequate IT infrastructure, which is taken for granted in developed nations. Planning an enterprise network in a developing nation is almost like planning it in the middle of a desert. This paper briefly discusses the architecture of an enterprise network. It examines the barriers to planning, designing and implementing an enterprise network in some developing nations. This paper also compares the services between a typical city in a developing nation and that in an advanced nation and offers some recommendations for creating an enabling environment for improvement.

Byline: Marko Kohtamaki, Teemu Kautonen The application of the transaction cost economics based governance framework as a tool for developing sourcing strategy has received limited attention in the literature so far. Synthesising previous literature and analysing multiple-case study data from 16 subcontracting partnerships in the Finnish metal and electronics industries, this paper develops a conceptual framework defining and empirically illustrating the subdimensions constituting each of the commonly discussed governance mechanisms: price, authority and social governance. In so doing, the paper provides a conceptual basis for future research, and a basis for the development of a management tool for structuring the process of developing a coherent sourcing strategy.

Byline: Amit Mitra, Laura Campoy Modern day organisation of major sporting events involving large number of participants, organisers and spectators invariably require a significant level of Information Systems (IS) support. Whilst planning and developing some of the IS infrastructure might be based upon past experiences yet implementing and ensuring a fit between expectations and experience of IS use is dependent on obtaining local conditions. The Commonwealth Games (CWG) held in Manchester in the year 2002 was no exception. It was successfully staged, bringing glory and honour to various actors involved at different levels of organisation. The primary objective of this paper is to explain success by deconstructing perspectives of key actors responsible for ICT infrastructure development and delivery within CWG 2002. Contrary to many public sector projects, successful IS/IT implementation at CWG was an imperative. In most similar situations, scope of evolutionary development is limited. This paper begins to analyse the evolution of success at the point where CWG had been successfully concluded. This paper argues that contrary to popular expectations of fixed goals and objectives, it was the evolutionary creation of solutions that were a serious contributor of eventual success of CWG. Using an Actor Network Theory (ANT) framework, this paper demonstrates the important role that perceptions of success tend to play within such large scale implementation of IS/IT. It is expected that organisers, scholars of IS success, public sector specialists and the like, would then be able to discern the role of alignments of actor networks for large organisational challenges like the CWG. Names of subjects have been changed to preserve anonymity.

Byline: Federica Cucchiella, Massimo Gastaldi It is widely accepted in literature that an increase in uncertainty should have an inhibiting effect on investment results. This paper shows that the concept of a negative 'uncertaintyinvestment' relationship is not always correct. In fact, the uncertainty can actually have a positive impact on investment by means of the real options approach. In this context, this paper deals with a theory useful to increase the performance of a Supply Chain (SC) operating in today's business environment full of uncertainty. Focusing the attention on a specific network two factors are assumed as the main sources of uncertainty: demand and technology change. A switch option is used to develop a new framework to quantify and maximise the expected Net Present Value (NPV). A numerical example and a sensitivity analysis of the option value are finally presented.

Byline: Maged Ali, Laurence Brooks, Sarmad Alshawi Cultural dimensions are often identified as a crucial influence on the success/failure of Information Systems (IS), specifically Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Prior research proposed a cultural dimensions framework for the management of CRM systems implementation in a multinational environment (Ali and Alshawi, 2005). This paper assesses that framework through a comparative case study in a large multinational organisation in two countries. The study examined the implementation of CRM systems within the one organisation in both Egypt and the UK. Following observation, document analysis and interviews, a Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) analysis was used to determine themes for each case study. Using Structuration Theory (ST) (Giddens, 1979; 1984) as a lens (Orlikowski, 2000; Walsham, 2002), cultural dimensions which may impact CRM systems implementation were derived. The paper concludes by proposing a revised framework of cultural dimensions for the management of CRM systems within multinational organisations.

Byline: M.M.A. Khalfan, A.S. Oyegoke, P. McDermott, M. Dickinson The overall aim of the study is to examine the problems associated with the prevalent procurement routes, subsequent changes in supply chain management and introduction of alternative procurement routes which are innovative and agile in their nature. The trend in the UK seems to favour an integrated supply chain from the outset of a project, resulting into a transition from rigidity to agility within the development process. Client's role within the whole process is quite crucial and this paper shows the practical contribution of public sector clients in initiating as well as implementing innovative procurement routes that integrates the supply chain. The study is conducted via extensive literature review covering policy documents and a case study. The paper presents the techniques used by the public clients such as aggregation of demand to get aggregated supply result in agility and integration among supply chain participants and subcontractors along side the main contractors. The paper concludes that innovative procurement and supply chain integration have contributed towards agility of the involved participants within the construction industry in the detailed mentioned case study. The study can be beneficial to all the stakeholders especially the client in managing supply chain.

Byline: Jayanthi Ranjan For companies maintaining direct contact with large numbers of customers, a growing number of channel-oriented applications (e.g. e-commerce support, call centre support) is creating a new data management challenge: that is effective ways of integrating enterprise applications in real time. To learn from the past and forecast the future, many companies are adopting Business Intelligence (BI) tools and systems. This paper argues that in order to support firms that are service oriented and desperately seeking customer loyalty and retention, it is necessary to revisit the BI concept that integrates and consolidates information in an organisation. To support the argument, the paper presents a case scenario to illustrate the role of BI in the supply chain.

Byline: Liang-Chieh (Victor) Cheng Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a latest breakthrough technology that can be applied to significantly enhance Supply Chain Management. Seeking to maximise its potential applicability, this paper examines in detail the implementation of RFID in intra-organisational logistics operations and how the formation of 'RFID islands' can facilitate the incorporations of this new technology into a supply chain network system. This paper first examines how an automated RFID system allows firms to achieve high level of inventory visibility and information transparency which leads to system responsiveness and agility. Logistics efficiencies improved by RFID technology and necessary costs are then critically assessed. The research proceeds to develop a method to operationalise RFID's Return on Investment (ROI), and then incorporates the ROI calculation into a RFID roadmap toward a large scale, Business-to-Business implementation. It concludes that substantial efficiencies, strong scale economies and strategic planning for the RFID systems can help firms to harvest competitiveness in innovative supply chain operations and logistics performance enhancement.