The development of a neo-industrial organisation methodology for describing and comparing structural and behavioural characteristics of construction supply chains

The model draws from theories of industrial economics and supply chain literature, and is an attempt to advance the construction supply chain field through the development of an industrial organisational methodology to describe construction supply chains.
Empirical studies have examined the industrial organisation of other industries, typically forming descriptions based upon vertical integration and horizontal market concentration. A review of the trends in the supply chain literature indicate there is a need to develop a model to describe the industrial organisation of the construction industry through supply chain structure. The merging of the supply chain concept with the industrial organisation model as a methodology for understanding the structural characteristics is an important contribution to construction economic theory. The paper begins to develop a language for describing the structure and behaviour of supply chains specific to the construction industry and is so doing suggests a neo-industrial organisation approach.

Construction supply chain economic policy implementation for sectoral change : moving beyond the rhetoric

The improvement of the performance of the construction industry through the improved performance of the supply chains that make up the various sectors is a difficult task and one that has had considerable international debate (London, 2005). The idea of using the supply chain concept as a normative model to improve firm behaviour and thus ultimately industry performance through the development of supply chain clusters or integrated supply chains has been discussed in many public sector policy documents and in the academic research community since the late 1990s (London, 2005). However it has been difficult to see any real examples where this concept has had any major impact – or where the improvements have been measured and/or monitored.

A reflexive capability model for sustainable e-business environments in construction supply chains

Despite the increasing significance of e-business worldwide and construction market leaders developing innovative e-business applications, the widespread uptake in the Australian construction industry is lagging. There has been considerable literature related to e-business adoption focusing on drivers and barriers to adoption. However, there has not been an investigation that has applied fundamental supply chain theory concepts. In this paper a reflexive capability model for the individual firm in relation to e-business is developed which relies upon merging economic and social practices through an industrial organization economic theoretical lens and social science theories of communication. The reflexive
capability model proposed within this paper describes a framework for theorization of the different degrees of e-business adoption exhibited by individual firm’s and accounts for social-cultural, organisational-structural, communicative and economic (market and supply
chain) barriers, influences and pressures to adopt e-business.The model is proposed for the construction supply chain to enable awareness, engagement and realization of e-business technology and achieve long term construction e-business sustainability.

Construction supply chain management : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Increased food energy supply is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity

Background: The major drivers of the obesity epidemic are much debated and have considerable policy importance for the population-wide prevention of obesity.

Objective: The objective was to determine the relative contributions of increased energy intake and reduced physical activity to the US obesity epidemic.

Design: We predicted the changes in weight from the changes in estimated energy intakes in US children and adults between the 1970s and 2000s. The increased US food energy supply (adjusted for wastage and assumed to be proportional to energy intake) was apportioned to children and adults and inserted into equations that relate energy intake to body weight derived from doubly labeled water studies. The weight increases predicted from the equations were compared with weight increases measured in representative US surveys over the same period.

Results: For children, the measured weight gain was 4.0 kg, and the predicted weight gain for the increased energy intake was identical at 4.0 kg. For adults, the measured weight gain was 8.6 kg, whereas the predicted weight gain was somewhat higher (10.8 kg).

Conclusions: Increased energy intake appears to be more than sufficient to explain weight gain in the US population. A reversal of the increase in energy intake of 2000 kJ/d (500 kcal/d) for adults and of 1500 kJ/d (350 kcal/d) for children would be needed for a reversal to the mean body weights of the 1970s. Alternatively, large compensatory increases in physical activity (eg, 110–150 min of walking/d), or a combination of both, would achieve the same outcome. Population approaches to reducing obesity should emphasize a reduction in the drivers of increased energy intake.

Increasing the Supply of Entrepreneurship in APEC: A Scorecard Approach.

This study employs the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Model to examine the entrepreneurial environment of fourteen APEC economies, members of the GEM Consortium. If “the positive and statistically robust link between entrepreneurship and economic growth has been indisputably verified” (Audretsch et al. 2002), then the supply of entrepreneurship is critical for sustained economic activity in a country. We exploit the GEM 2002 dataset in a “Scorecard Approach” to compare and contrast the level of entrepreneurial framework conditions within these APEC economies.

Modelling money demand for a panel of eight transitional economies

In this article, we estimate money demand functions for a panel of eight transitional economies, using quarterly data for the period 1995:01 1995 to 2005:03. We find that real M1 and real M2 and their determinants, namely real income and short-term domestic interest rate, are cointegrated, both for individual countries as well as for the panel. Long-run elasticities suggest that consistent with theory, real income positively and nominal interest rate negatively impact real money demand. Our test for panel Granger causality suggests short-run bidirectional causality between M1 and M2 and their determinants. Finally, our tests for stability of the money demand functions reveal more cases of unstable money demand functions when M2 is used as a proxy for money demand.

Structures, processes and performance of corporate and business ethics in supply chains

The objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a conceptual framework of firms' corporate and business ethics in supply chains in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance. A framework is outlined and positioned incorporating an ethical frame of reference in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM). A number of areas and sub-areas of firms' corporate and business ethics are framed in the context of supply chains. The introduced framework should be seen as a seed for further development and refinement in the field of SCM. It provides opportunities for further research of ethical concerns in supply chains.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but
ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an
interdisciplinary research agenda.