Accounting for the economic risk, caused by variation in disease severity, in fungicide dose decisions: exemplified for Mycosphaerella graminicola on winter wheat

A method is presented to calculate economic optimum fungicide doses accounting for the risk-aversion of growers responding to variability in disease severity between crops. Simple dose-response and disease-yield loss functions are used to estimate net disease-related costs (fungicide cost, plus disease-induced yield loss) as a function of dose and untreated severity. With fairly general assumptions about the shapes of the probability distribution of disease severity and the other functions involved, we show that a choice of fungicide dose which minimises net costs on average across seasons results in occasional large net costs caused by inadequate control in high disease seasons. This may be unacceptable to a grower with limited capital. A risk-averse grower can choose to reduce the size and frequency of such losses by applying a higher dose as insurance. For example, a grower may decide to accept ‘high loss’ years one year in ten or one year in twenty (i.e. specifying a proportion of years in which disease severity and net costs will be above a specified level). Our analysis shows that taking into account disease severity variation and risk-aversion will usually increase the dose applied by an economically rational grower. The analysis is illustrated with data on septoria tritici leaf blotch of wheat caused by Mycosphaerella graminicola. Observations from untreated field plots at sites across England over three years were used to estimate the probability distribution of disease severities at mid-grain filling. In the absence of a fully reliable disease forecasting scheme, reducing the frequency of ‘high loss’ years requires substantially higher doses to be applied to all crops. Disease resistant cultivars reduce both the optimal dose at all levels of risk and the disease-related costs at all doses.

The power of purchase: addressing sustainability through public procurement

This article focuses on sustainable development and public procurement and reflects on the significance of questioning the goals sustainable public procurement seeks to achieve. While it is recognised that developing appropriate legal frameworks and regulatory tools for environmental, social and economic quality assurance is important, achieving sustainable procurement nevertheless remains political. With the forthcoming adoption of new European Union Public Procurement Directives, the article provides a timely reminder that for sustainability to be integral to good procurement, the power of purchase must capture a paradigmatic shift from doing things better to doing better things.

The influence of environmental policy on the decisions of managers to adopt G-SCM practices

This article explores the reasons that affect the decisions of managers of firms to adopt management practices in order to green their supply chain management. Under the context of environmental policy, the relationship between policy instruments (‘command and control’, market-based, and self-regulated) and the decisions of managers to adopt green supply chain management (G-SCM) practices is examined. The results show that in some cases the environmental legislation, market-based instruments and self-regulated incentives could play a critical role in the decisions of managers to adopt some specific G-SCM practices, while in other cases environmental policy instruments have not seemed to affect the decisions of managers regarding some other G-SCM practices.

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.

Self-construals, Symbolic and Hedonic Preferences, and Actual Purchase Behavior

The study explores the influence of the independent and interdependent self-construals on actual purchase behavior and the mediating role of consumer preferences for symbolic and hedonic meanings. Data were collected through a survey of about 1,000 respondents. Results indicate that independent consumers draw on the self/hedonic- and status-symbolic resources of clothing in the construction and expression of their identities. Regarding the interdependent consumers, they show no interest in clothing affiliation and status symbolism. The degree of preference for status-symbolic meaning mediates all effects of the independent and interdependent self-construals on actual purchase behavior; self-expressive/hedonic preferences mediate two of the three effects of the independent self on actual purchase behavior when accounting for suppression effects, whereas the expected mediation of preference for affiliation meaning is not supported.

GM food purchase intentions: linking the theory of planned behaviour with consumer trust and stated choice

After the “European” experience of BSE and further food safety crises consumer trust is playing an increasingly important role in political and marketing decision making. This also relates to the area of consumer acceptance of GM food. This paper integrates consumer trust with the theory of planned behavior and a stated choice model to gain a more complete picture of consumer decision making. Preliminary results indicate that when GM products offer practical benefits to consumers acceptance may increase considerably. Furthermore, both trust and perceived benefits contribute significantly to explaining the level of acceptance.

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.