The interplay of strategic and internal green marketing orientation on competitive advantage

This paper seeks to clarify and refine the relationship between strategic and internal green marketing and firm competitiveness. Despite the significance of corporate environmental strategy to firms adopting a triple-bottom line performance evaluation, there is insufficient focus on strategic green marketing and its impact on a firm’s competitiveness. This study fills the gap by providing a comprehensive view of strategic green marketing and its impact on competitive advantage. Findings also reveal the moderating role of internal green marketing actions towards the development of a sustained competitive advantage. Specifically, the findings build on contemporary green marketing literature suggesting that a significant interplay between strategy and people exists which enhances the creation of competitive advantage. This in turn increases financial performance. Finally, this research uses an updated approach to build on current literature concerning the drivers and outcomes of strategic green marketing. This provides managers with nuanced insights about environmentally-driven competitive advantage

Performance evaluation of optical DQPSK using saddle point approximation

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Green marketing orientation: Conceptualization, scale development and validation

As green marketing becomes an essential tool for sustainable business strategy, companies are adopting green marketing practices to achieve better business performance. However, no research has yet operationalized all the organizational facets that are necessary to become a green marketing oriented company. To address this omission, following the literature in measurement theory, this investigation reports a series of 4 studies and develops a scale to capture the holistic approach of green marketing. This study introduces the construct of green marketing orientation, which comprises three dimensions: strategic green marketing orientation, tactical green marketing orientation and internal green marketing orientation. The scale shows internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. Directions for future research and managerial implications of the new construct are discussed

Complex networks and simulation strategies: An application to olive fruit fly dispersion

In this work a study for the role of different environmental factors to the evolution of olive fruit fly, via an appropriate network of population traps is given. More explicitly, the olive fruit fly is a parasitic insect that infests olive groves in many countries. Through the use of a network of traps a simulation model was developed and used to simulate the dispersion of olive fruit fly inside a real olive grove for different environmental factors, such as different starting areas of olive fruit fly presence, different temperature sets as well as different drifting distances. Results showed that the level of infestation of the grove was not dependent on the limited areas the olive fruit fly emerged but on the drifting distance a fly could travel per day

Pilot scale study of chlorination-induced transport property changes of a seawater reverse osmosis membrane

A pilot-scale study was performed to assess variations of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane water permeance (A) and salt retention (Robs) induced by chlorination and to compare them with those observed at the lab-scale. A chlorination protocol was adapted to expose only the surface active layer (an aromatic polyamide)of a composite RO membrane to consecutive free chlorine doses ranging from 40 to 4000 ppm h, at pH 6.9. Along the long-term filtration of seawater, performed with a 4" spiral wound RO module, we monitored the variations of A, the decrease of Robs and the rate of increase of A with time, and found themquantitatively similar to those reported in previous studies performed at the lab-scale under accelerated exposure conditions. The elemental analysis of the feed and permeate streams revealed that the rejection of divalent ions remained constant (ca. 100%), irrespective of the free chlorine dose reached, whereas the rejection of monovalent ions of the seawater (mainly sodium, chloride and bromide ions) decreased as the exposure dose increased. Overall, transposing the characterization procedure to the pilot-scale further supports that chlorination of PA, under pH conditions usually found in desalination plants (6.9 to 8.0), is controlled by the concentration of HOCl, as observed from elemental analysis of the surface by XPS

Investigation and Prediction of Spiral Wound Reverse Osmosis Membrane Performance

In this work an analytical solution for the performance of the spiral wound modules is presented for sea-water as feed. This analysis takes into account pressure losses in both permeate and brine channels, the effect of concentration polarization and the concentration gradient along the membrane. A five parameters model is introduced. These parameters are; kfb (brine friction parameter), kfp (permeate friction parameter), k1 (water permeability coefficient), k (mass transfer coefficient), k2 (solute permeability coefficient)

An observational study of Donor Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion in UK lung transplantation: DEVELOP-UK

Background: Many patients awaiting lung transplantation die before a donor organ becomes available. Ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) allows initially unusable donor lungs to be assessed and reconditioned for clinical use. Objective: The objective of the Donor Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion in UK lung transplantation study was to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of EVLP in increasing UK lung transplant activity. Design: A multicentre, unblinded, non-randomised, non-inferiority observational study to compare transplant outcomes between EVLP-assessed and standard donor lungs. Setting: Multicentre study involving all five UK officially designated NHS adult lung transplant centres. Participants: Patients aged ≥ 18 years with advanced lung disease accepted onto the lung transplant waiting list. Intervention: The study intervention was EVLP assessment of donor lungs before determining suitability for transplantation. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was survival during the first 12 months following lung transplantation. Secondary outcome measures were patient-centred outcomes that are influenced by the effectiveness of lung transplantation and that contribute to the health-care costs. Results: Lungs from 53 donors unsuitable for standard transplant were assessed with EVLP, of which 18 (34%) were subsequently transplanted. A total of 184 participants received standard donor lungs. Owing to the early closure of the study, a non-inferiority analysis was not conducted. The Kaplan–Meier estimate of survival at 12 months was 0.67 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.40 to 0.83] for the EVLP arm and 0.80 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.85) for the standard arm. The hazard ratio for overall 12-month survival in the EVLP arm relative to the standard arm was 1.96 (95% CI 0.83 to 4.67). Patients in the EVLP arm required ventilation for a longer period and stayed longer in an intensive therapy unit (ITU) than patients in the standard arm, but duration of overall hospital stay was similar in both groups. There was a higher rate of very early grade 3 primary graft dysfunction (PGD) in the EVLP arm, but rates of PGD did not differ between groups after 72 hours. The requirement for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support was higher in the EVLP arm (7/18, 38.8%) than in the standard arm (6/184, 3.2%). There were no major differences in rates of chest radiograph abnormalities, infection, lung function or rejection by 12 months. The cost of EVLP transplants is approximately £35,000 higher than the cost of standard transplants, as a result of the cost of the EVLP procedure, and the increased ECMO use and ITU stay. Predictors of cost were quality of life on joining the waiting list, type of transplant and number of lungs transplanted. An exploratory model comparing a NHS lung transplant service that includes EVLP and standard lung transplants with one including only standard lung transplants resulted in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of £73,000. Interviews showed that patients had a good understanding of the need for, and the processes of, EVLP. If EVLP can increase the number of usable donor lungs and reduce waiting, it is likely to be acceptable to those waiting for lung transplantation. Study limitations include small numbers in the EVLP arm, limiting analysis to descriptive statistics and the EVLP protocol change during the study. Conclusions: Overall, one-third of donor lungs subjected to EVLP were deemed suitable for transplant. Estimated survival over 12 months was lower than in the standard group, but the data were also consistent with no difference in survival between groups. Patients receiving these additional transplants experience a higher rate of early graft injury and need for unplanned ECMO support, at increased cost. The small number of participants in the EVLP arm because of early study termination limits the robustness of these conclusions. The reason for the increased PGD rates, high ECMO requirement and possible differences in lung injury between EVLP protocols needs evaluation

A Customer Perspective on Product Eliminations: How the Removal of Products Affects Customers and Business Relationships

Regardless of the apparent need for product eliminations, many managers hesitate to act as they fear deleterious effects on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Other managers do carry out product eliminations, but often fail to consider the consequences for customers and business relationships. Given the relevance and problems of product eliminations, research on this topic in general and on the consequences for customers and business relationships in particular is surprisingly scarce. Therefore, this empirical study explores how and to what extent the elimination of a product negatively affects customers and business relationships. Results indicate that eliminating a product may result in severe economic and psychological costs to customers, thereby seriously decreasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. This paper also shows that these costs are not exogenous in nature. Instead, depending on the characteristics of the eliminated product these costs are found to be more or less strongly driven by a company’s behavior when implementing the elimination at the customer interface

Thermodynamics of gas hydrate equilibria

Reservoir fluids are usually saturated with water at reservoir conditions and may form gas hydrates in transfer lines, which potentially may plug the system. For long subsea pipelines, methanol injection is the practical means for preventing hydrate formation and for decomposing blockages. For efficient and economical pipeline design and operation, phase boundaries, phase fractions and distribution of water and methanol among the equilibrium phases of the system must be accurately known. The system comprising reservoir fluids, water and methanol demonstrates a complex multiphase behaviour and currently no quantitatively adequate description for it has been detailed in the open literature. The problem is addressed in this thesis by a consistent application of classical equilibrium thermodynamics. At ordinary operating conditions any combination of as many as six phases can be potentially present. For the description of the vapour and all liquid phases, we use one cubic equation of state with nonconventional mixing rules developed as part of this work. Classical thermodynamics together with the cell theory of van der Waals and Platteeuw were employed for the development of a general model for the calculation of heat capacities of gas hydrates. A consistent methodology has also been developed for obtaining the potential parameters of the cell model. Thereafter, application of the model demonstrates that for nearly spherical guest molecules the classical cell theory is a strictly valid description of gas hydrates. However, complex guest molecules distort the hydrate lattice, resulting in variation of the numerical values of certain parameters of the model. This work presents an efficient algorithm for the solution of the problem of the identity of the equilibrium phases in multiphase systems where gas hydrates are potentially present. The algorithm is based on the alternative use of two equivalent forms of the Gibbs tangent plane criterion and it is believed to be more appropriate for systems involving gas hydrate equilibria than previous methods. Application of the proposed algorithm in several regions of the phase diagram of both binary and multicomponent systems shows that it can be used reliably to solve any phase equilibria problem, including the location of phase boundaries. In summary this work presents a consistent, efficient and reliable scheme for multiphase equilibrium calculations of systems containing reservoir fluids, water and methanol. Favourable results have been obtained by comparison with diverse experimental data reported in the open literature and it is believed that the proposed correlation can be used reliably for pipeline design and operation.(Greek) State Scholarships Foundatio