The mediating effect of environmental and ethical behaviour on supply chain partnership decisions and management appreciation of supplier partnership risks

Green supply chain management and environmental and ethical behaviour (EEB), a major component of corporate responsibility (CR), are rapidly developing fields in research and practice. The influence and effect of EEB at the functional level, however, is under-researched. Similarly, the management of risk in the supply chain has become a practical concern for many firms. It is important that managers have a good understanding of the risks associated with supplier partnerships. This paper examines the effect of firms’ investment in EEB as part of corporate social responsibility in mediating the relationship between supply chain partnership (SCP) and management appreciation of the risk of partnering. We hypothesise that simply entering into a SCP does not facilitate an appreciation of the risk of partnering and may even hamper such awareness. However, such an appreciation of the risk is facilitated through CR’s environmental and stakeholder management ethos. The study contributes further by separating risk into distinct relational and performance components. The results of a firm-level survey confirm the mediation effect, highlighting the value to supply chain strategy and design of investing in EEB on three fronts: building internal awareness, monitoring and sharing best practice.

Financial viability appraisals for site-specific planning decisions in England

In England, appraisals of the financial viability of development schemes have become an integral part of planning policy-making, initially in determining the amount of planning obligations that might be obtained via legal agreements (known as Section 106 agreements) and latterly as a basis for establishing charging schedules for the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). Local planning authorities set these policies on an area-wide basis but ultimately development proposals require consent on a site-by-site basis. It is at this site-specific level that issues of viability are hotly contested. This paper examines case documents, proofs of evidence and decisions from a sample of planning disputes in order to address major issues within development viability, the application of the models and the distribution of the development gain between the developer, landowner and community. The results have specific application to viability assessment in England and should impact on future policy and practice guidance in this field. They also have relevance to other countries that incorporate assessments of economic viability in their planning systems.

When enough is not enough: information overload and metacognitive decisions to stop studying information

People are often exposed to more information than they can actually remember. Despite this frequent form of information overload, little is known about how much information people choose to remember. Using a novel “stop” paradigm, the current research examined whether and how people choose to stop receiving new—possibly overwhelming—information with the intent to maximize memory performance. Participants were presented with a long list of items and were rewarded for the number of correctly remembered words in a following free recall test. Critically, participants in a stop condition were provided with the option to stop the presentation of the remaining words at any time during the list, whereas participants in a control condition were presented with all items. Across five experiments, we found that participants tended to stop the presentation of the items to maximize the number of recalled items, but this decision ironically led to decreased memory performance relative to the control group. This pattern was consistent even after controlling for possible confounding factors (e.g., task demands). The results indicated a general, false belief that we can remember a larger number of items if we restrict the quantity of learning materials. These findings suggest people have an incomplete understanding of how we remember excessive amounts of information.