Search

Funding: Open access funding provided by Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) contribute to vital neighborhoods by building communities of citizens and acting as intermediaries between citizens and organizations. We investigate how NPOs’ engagement in social and systemic integration is shaped by neighborhood characteristics, and how it relates to the organizational practices of managerialism and organizational democracy. We combine survey data with administrative data from a representative sample of NPOs in a major European city. To measure the effect of neighborhood on organizational integration, we separated the city into 7,840 grid cells characterized by population, per capita income, share of immigrant population, and density of organizations. Findings indicate that managerialism positively relates with systemic integration, as organizational democracy relates with social integration. Neighborhood characteristics, however, are not related with NPOs’ engagement in integration. Our findings contribute to research on urban social cohesion by illuminating the interplay between NPOs’ organizing practices, local neighborhoods, and contributions to both forms of integration. Publisher PDF

PurposeIncreasingly complex societal challenges call for new, innovative solutions that social hybrid business models can provide. Social supermarkets (SSMs) are one example offering access to affordable food to people living in poverty while reducing food waste of nearby retailers. Finding the “right” location is an essential part of this retail marketing strategy. However, limited research has attempted to investigate the specific conditions of locational planning for hybrid and nonprofit retail organizations. This paper illustrates the case of Austria where SSMs are well established.Design/methodology/approachA GIS-based white space analysis was carried out to identify potential neighborhoods or rural areas for new social supermarkets with sufficient nearby demand, supply and no existing SSMs. The empirical parameters for this spatial analysis can be transferred to European countries with similar ecosystems. The authors collected a unique data set of 79 (2014) and 88 SSMs (2019) and 4,665 (2014) and 4,211 (2019) food retailers as (potential) suppliers to SSMs. To determine demand, the authors relied on small-scale integrated wage and income tax data and unemployment rates (2011) from Statistics Austria.FindingsOverall, Austria has very good spatial access to grocery stores, including to SSMs. SSM access increased especially in the capital of Vienna between 2014 and 2019. The GIS-based white space analysis identified several other regions where residents have a high demand for affordable food with sufficient potential suppliers of surplus food but no SSM yet. Neighborhood-level findings are released as part of a publicly accessible spatial decision support system.Originality/valueThe methodology allowed a specific definition of the key areas of relevance by matching the demand for SSMs, calculated as the number of people with low incomes in the respective regions in Austria, with the supply of SSMs, calculated as the amount of potential food loss prevention by nearby retail stores. These parameters have proven to help in identifying the white spaces and therefore can be used in Austria and other European countries with similar ecosystems.

The social investment perspective has become a prominent topic in both social policy discussions and theoretical considerations regarding welfare state change. Empirical evidence on how this perspective has affected welfare state provision is much scarcer—and sometimes contradictory. This article aims to assess whether welfare state benefits increasingly have incorporated elements of social investment, and what has triggered the reforms made to the benefits. To achieve these aims, we examined two poverty relief benefits in Austria, namely, unemployment assistance and social assistance. We scrutinized changes made to these benefits from 2000 onwards. To identify their (potentially changing) contributions towards social investment, we applied a framework that considers the economic aims of the paradigm (while neglecting other aims). According to this framework, a social investment benefit intends to improve the human capital of its recipients, enhance their employability, and/or enhance their employment integration. The findings suggest that the three elements of social investment were particularly relevant in reforming social assistance. However, the changes implemented were incoherent and do not support the hypothesis of an ever-increasing significance of social investment. The main triggers for reform were the political ideologies of (changing) governments. These ideologies determined the direction of changes made to both social assistance and unemployment assistance. If social investment thus ought to be more than just a theoretical concept or a nonbinding policy recommen dation, modifications made to welfare state benefits would need to follow a more coherent path. Regarding poor relief benefits, Austria has not pursued such a track (yet).

Hintergrund. Körperliche Bewegung gilt als ein Schlüsselfaktor für die Gesundheitserhaltung im Alter, wobei die COVID-19-Pandemie, wie Studien zeigen, zu einer Reduktion der körper-lichen Aktivität beigetragen hat und es nun Überlegungen bedarf, wie eine (Re-)Aktivierung der älteren Bevölkerung gelingen kann. Ein Ansatz ist hierbei zu fragen, welche Faktoren körperliche Aktivität bereits vor der Pandemie positiv beeinflusst haben, um diese durch In-terventionen gezielt anzusprechen. Fragestellung. Ziel der vorliegenden Untersuchung ist es, in einer multivariaten Analyse jene wichtigen Faktoren körperlicher Aktivität zu identifizieren, um so (Re-)Aktivierungschancen aufzuzeigen. Material und Methode. Die hierfür durchgeführte Analyse mittels multipler logistischer Re-gression stützt sich auf Daten einer standardisierten, repräsentativen Telefonbefragung (n = 2.042) der 60-jährigen und älteren Bevölkerung im österreichischen Bundesland Niederös-terreich, die im Frühsommer 2019 durchgeführt wurde. Ergebnisse. Ein positiver Gesundheitszustand sowie motivationale Faktoren erhöhen die Chance auf regelmäßige körperliche Aktivität. Die soziale Komponente sowie die Überzeu-gung, dass Sport der Gesundheit guttut, steigern ebenfalls die Wahrscheinlichkeit, Bewe-gung zu machen. Soziodemografische Faktoren abseits des Einkommens konnten im Modell hingegen nicht als signifikante Prädiktoren identifiziert werden. Schlussfolgerungen. Um die (Re-)Aktivierungschancen zu erhöhen, bedarf es Maßnahmen, welche die körperliche Aktivität als Mittel zu unterschiedlichen Zwecken älterer Menschen begreifen.

Residualization refers to the process whereby publicly subsidized rental housing moves towards a position in which it provides only a safety net for low-income households. In this paper we quantify residualization based on the income profile of households in the below market rates (BMR) rental sector. Various residualization indicators for 12 European countries from EU-SILC data are calculated. First, we explore the effect of the size of the BMR sector and the cost of alternative tenure types on residualization. Second, we investigate if there are similar trends of residualization from 2005 to 2016. We find that decreases in the share of the BMR sector are associated with significant increases in residualization. Increases in rent differences between the BMR and market rate rental sector are related to larger degrees of residualization. We further observe a rising level of residualization for most countries. However, countries with allocation systems that aim at broader income groups still display the lowest degree of residualization.

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag betrachtet die Einsamkeitsentwicklung vor und in den ersten Monaten der Covid-19-Pandemie vor dem Hintergrund sozioökonomischer Lagen älterer Menschen. Hierfür werden Varianzanalysen mit Daten aus Niederösterreich aus zwei Surveys (vor und während der Covid-19-Pandemie) durchgeführt. Die Analysen zeigen, dass es sich bei älteren Menschen nicht um eine homogene Gruppe handelt, das Einsamkeitsniveau also bereits vor der Pandemie divergent ausgeprägt war und sich diese bestehenden Unterschiede während der Pandemie mit geringer Variation weitgehend auf einem etwas höheren Niveau erhalten haben.

Über Armut zu forschen, und damit Armut zu beschreiben und zu messen, ist ein schwieriges Unterfangen, auch weil es sich bei »Armut« um ein Konzept handelt, das – z. B. in der Alltagssprache – unterschiedliche Bedeutungen aufweisen kann (vgl. dazu auch Jacobs 1995).

Increasingly, the estimation of household equivalence scales relies on subjec-tive data. This approach challenges not only traditional methodology, but alsoprovides systematically lower estimates of household needs compared to othermethods. I offer a novel take on this puzzle and argue that the failure to accountfor private wealth in subjective measurement is part of the explanation of whyhousehold financial needs appear to be low. Wealthy survey respondents claimto be satisfied with less income, as they can draw on their asset buffer to main-tain a given living standard. Capitalising on SOEP survey data, I find that thefinancial needs of a household comprising five members relative to a referencehousehold might be underestimated by up to 20% if wealth is not accountedfor. Equivalence scales are central to poverty and inequality measurement, thedesign of social transfer systems and many other applications. Therefore, it iscrucial to account for asset ownership when drawing on estimates that rely onthe subjective methodology.

Old-age loneliness is a global problem with many members of the scientific community suspecting increased loneliness in the elderly population during COVID-19 and the associated safety measures. Although hypothesized, a direct comparison of loneliness before and during the pandemic is hard to achieve without a survey of loneliness prior to the pandemic. This study provides a direct comparison of reported loneliness before and during the pandemic using 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) on a pre- and a peri-pandemic sample of elderly (60C years) individuals from Lower Austria, a county of Austria (Europe). Differences on a loneliness index computed from the short De Jong Gierveld scale were found to be significant, evidencing that loneliness in the elderly population had in fact risen slightly during the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated safety measures. Although the reported loneliness remained rather low, this result illustrated the effect of the “new normal” under COVID-19. As loneliness is a risk factor for physical and mental illness, this result is important in planning the future handling of the pandemic, as safety measures seem to have a negative impact on loneliness. This work confirms the anticipated increase in loneliness in the elderly population during COVID-19.

Entwickelte Wohlfahrtsstaaten stehen aktuell vor schwierigen demografischen, ökonomischen und finanziellen Herausforderungen. Ein vielfach vorgeschlagener Weg, um mit diesen Herausforderungen umzugehen, ist die Etablierung von Sozialinvestitionsstaaten. Wiewohl diese Option zur Reformierung traditioneller Wohlfahrtsstaaten generell positiv rezipiert wird, bleibt unklar, was Sozialinvestitionen genau sind. Aufgrund divergierender Abgrenzungen kommen empirische Studien zur Entwicklung von Sozialinvestitionen zu mitunter unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen. In diesem Artikel schlagen wir eine Konzeptualisierung von Sozialinvestitionen vor, die wir aus der ökonomischen Humankapitaltheorie ableiten. In diesem Sinn definieren wir sozialpolitische Maßnahmen, welche die Beschäftigungsfähigkeit von Personen erhöhen (wollen), Menschen nachhaltig in den Erwerbsarbeitsmarkt integrieren (wollen) und/oder in das Humankapital von (zukünftigen) Arbeitskräften investieren (wollen), als sozialinvestive Maßnahmen. Wir zeigen Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede unseres relativ engen Abgrenzungsvorschlags mit in der Literatur bislang verwendeten Konzeptualisierungen auf und leiten auf dieser Basis Stärken und Schwächen unseres Ansatzes ab.

This paper focuses on the issue of food waste from a retail and store operations perspective, with the aim to identify the root causes of food waste occurrence at a retail store level across different store formats and product categories. To achieve this, we first conducted case studies, including semi-structured interviews with store managers. This exploratory research involved 28 cases across dominant retail store formats (i.e., super- and hypermarkets and discount and convenience stores). The results along with secondary data research underlie a process simulation modeling approach that quantifies the impact of selected root causes of food waste by considering the dependencies between them. Finally, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 food waste experts to confirm findings of the case studies and simulations and to delineate the practical implications of our research and the related solutions. Our findings show that the root causes of food waste are related to undesirable customer behavior and erratic demand, inefficient store operations and replenishment policies, and elevated product (quality) requirements of both retail organizations and customers. Root causes and their impacts differ across store formats and product categories. Furthermore, the interdependencies between the root causes in the different spheres of responsibility and influence (i.e., customers, the store, and the parent organization) are evident. The paper contributes to the literature by providing detailed understanding of retail operations related to the occurrence of food waste across store formats at a product-category level and revealing pathways for preventing and reducing the occurrence of food waste at a retail store level.

Die Bekämpfung von Armut und sozialer Ausgrenzung ist auf Ebene der Europäischen Union (EU) schon lange Thema, mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunktsetzungen und – vor allem im Hinblick auf die aktuelle Anzahl von gefährdeten Menschen – nur mäßigem Erfolg. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es zunächst, die von Institutionen der EU gesetzten bisherigen Aktivitäten im Bereich der Bekämpfung von Armut und sozialer Ausgrenzung zu skizzieren. Danach wird dargelegt, wie die beiden Benachteiligungsformen aktuell gemessen werden – und wie erfolgreich die Mitgliedstaaten der Union bis dato in ihrer Bekämpfung gewesen sind. Schließlich werden prinzipielle Widersprüche bei den europäischen Anstrengungen zur Bekämpfung von Armut und sozialer Ausgrenzung aufgezeigt, und es wird kurz umrissen, mit welchen aktuellen Initiativen die EU der Sozialpolitik im Allgemeinen und der Armutspolitik im Besonderen künftig eine bedeutsamere Rolle zuschreiben möchte.

Food waste is a major problem in industrialized nations, and thus a better understanding of this phenomenon and its inherent complexity is imperative. As gatekeeper to the food supply chain, the retail and wholesale sector is a crucial actor in the pursuit of minimizing food waste. The authors draw on the perspective of marketing as exchange to provide a holistic exploration of food waste in retail and wholesale stores while taking account of the interconnectedness of the entire food supply chain. Through 32 semi-structured interviews with store managers, the authors shed light on the issues of food waste and its human reality. The findings reveal the questionable ethics of discarding food, the societal, regulatory and systemic constraints leading to the occurrence of food waste in stores, and the resulting moral burden on store managers. Building on these factors, the authors outline public policy recommendations along the areas of education and law and provide managerial recommendations for the better management of food waste. Keywords: food waste, food, exchange systems, retail, well-being

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of key supplier relationship management (KSRM) – understood as an aggregated supply chain management (SCM) process in the upstream direction – on the overall level of the execution of SCM within organizations. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is developed from a theoretical framework and proposes the capability to do KSRM as a mediator between internal and external SCM resources and SCM execution. A survey of 174 managers representing different supply chain stages is used to test the model through variance-based structural equation modelling. Findings – The findings reveal that external SCM resources directly affect the capability to do KSRM. Nevertheless, internal resources show a considerable indirect impact through external resources and can thus be considered an indirect determinant. The capability to do KSRM in turn impacts upon the level of SCM execution, measured in terms of the integration of business processes, directly and substantially, as well as mediating the effect between SCM resources and the level of SCM execution. Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper is to empirically demonstrate the potential of KSRM for enhancing the level of SCM execution within organizations and consequently the level of integration in supply chains, leading to higher customer and shareholder value.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the complexities of regularly implemented as well as irregularly occurring – sometimes improvised – instore logistics processes related to products which are declared unsaleable; and second, to identify the challenges and opportunities in managing instore logistics processes related to unsaleable products in grocery stores. Design/methodology/approach – The authors apply an embedded case study approach. Within each case, i.e. dominant store format, the authors investigate the instore logistics processes of 32 retail and wholesale stores and focus further on those processes related to products declared unsaleable. The case study research methodology comprises in-depth interviews with store and category managers, point of sale observations and secondary data research. Findings – The authors identified four different specific instore logistics processes depending on the residual product value of unsaleable products. The analysis of these processes suggests that establishing more efficient return, disposal, recycling, and most importantly, redistribution processes leads to various benefits such as cost savings, more effective and efficient operations, better use of resources and waste reduction, while at the same time supporting charitable institutions and people in need. Originality/value – The contribution of this research are: first, to provide a better understanding of different ways of seeing and handling unsaleable products; and second, to reveal the significant importance of focusing on instore logistics beyond the point of sale with respect to the economic, ecological and social benefits to retailers, wholesalers and their stakeholder groups.

So far, research on the causes of over-indebtedness in Europe has predominantly focused on the characteristics of individuals or households. This article investigates to what extent country-level factors are associated with a European household’s risk of being over-indebted. We examine variables that reflect policies aimed at combating over-indebtedness (the average level of economic literacy prevalent within a country and its classification into a specific debt-discharge regime) and variables that reflect other welfare-state policies (a country’s affiliation to a specific employment regime and a summary measure referring to the net replacement rate in the case of long-term unemployment). The results, which are based on multilevel logistic regression analyses of European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data for 27 European countries, suggest that all four country-level factors matter. This particularly applies to the variables reflecting other welfare-state policies, thus underlining the relevance of the design of social policy in fighting over-indebtedness.