No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Business sustainability is a fundamental concern amongst business leaders and it is imperative that business defines an environmentally and socially sustainable path to financial prosperity. This focus on sustainable business practices has been caused by the perceived contribution of businesses to undesirable conditions such as environmental and social degradation including global warming and the global financial crises. This study suggests that a leadership style that differs from leadership that is currently causing business unsustainability is needed in order to achieve the goal of sustainable business practices. This study therefore proposes a new kind of leadership, called conscious leadership. The main contribution of the study is to increase the achievement of sustainable business practices by investigating the importance of conscious leadership in achieving this objective. Convenience sampling was used to select senior managers and directors from mainly JSE listed companies. This resulted in a total of 371 usable questionnaires (317 from listed companies and 54 from unlisted companies) being received. A quantitative approach was adopted to investigate whether conscious leadership would be related to increased sustainability competencies and more effective sustainability-related corporate governance and whether these in turn would increase sustainability behaviours which would generate sustainable business practices as measured by financial, social and environmental performance. Regression analyses were conducted to investigate the hypothesised relationships among these variables. Pearson correlations and descriptive statistics were also calculated. The empirical results showed that respondents in this study regarded conscious leadership, not as a separate construct, but as a way they governed their businesses. The empirical results showed that corporate governance and systems thinking competency had a strong interactive relationship and should therefore be cultivated within business firms. Corporate governance (including conscious leadership) and systems-thinking competency were positive influencers of employee relations, equal opportunities and workforce diversity. The empirical results however showed that corporate governance (including conscious leadership) had a negative influence on profitability. The present study cannot argue for the discouragement of corporate governance (including conscious leadership), as measured in this study, because reduced corporate governance would decrease healthy employee relations and the latter would decrease the achievement of equal opportunities and workforce diversity in these firms. A decrease in healthy employee relations would decrease profitability. The most important finding of this study is that senior managers and directors of big business firms, mostly JSE-listed companies, regarded conscious leadership as an important part of corporate governance. Corporate governance that includes conscious leadership must be developed to higher levels in business firms, so that the negative and not-significant relationships to profitability as viewed by lower and high conscious leaders respectively can be changed to positive relationships.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Doctoral research dissertation in the fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing at the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2016 / Globally, a vision exists of an economy which produces social, environmental and economic benefits, viz-a-viz three pillars of sustainable development, for all the individuals, communities and society at large. It also focuses on the development of the sustainable use of natural resources, to achieve a greater enviable society, therefore giving rise to the green economy (Bigg 2011). To make businesses sustainable, companies are increasingly focusing on green innovation, sustainable business solutions and re-inventing their business models, and expanding to untapped markets such as the bottom of the pyramid (BOP), consisting of more than four billion potential consumers (Farinelli, Bottini, Akkoyunlu & Aerni, 2011). Most research shows growth opportunities of green products in the bottom of pyramid (Olsen & Boxenbaum, 2009), and has increasingly created deliberations all over the world. Also, companies from both developed and developing countries are becoming increasingly interested in BOP. To successfully target the BOP with ‘green’ technologies, companies focus their business models on innovation, sustainability and economic profit, instead of gross margins (Prahalad & Hart, 2008). Very limited research evidence is present that links all these concepts together. And therefore, created an interest to examine how integration of green technology bring changes in business model innovation (BMI) for sustainability at BOP markets. The linkage between concepts - BMI, BOP and green technology, to bring sustainable development, has not been sufficiently explored, and especially with focus on emerging economies like South Africa and India. Therefore, the present research has three fold purposes. Firstly, to analyse and understand factors affecting the existing business models of various companies with green technologies targeting BOP markets for sustainable development. Secondly, the research brings an identification and understanding of number of key factors related to BMI, BOP markets and green technologies for sustainable development, and proposes a conceptual framework based on a series of underpinning relationships among these factors. Thirdly, it testifies the conceptualized theoretical framework on green business model innovation for sustainable development for BOP markets, among large companies. The primary objective of research study is to design a right green business model innovation across companies with green technologies for BOP markets. The secondary objective is to identify and compare the differences and similarities of green business model innovation for BOP markets of both South Africa and India. The present research undertakes a sequential exploratory mixed method approach, and is carried out in three phases: Phase 1: Exploration and study of business model innovation of identified industries/sectors with green technologies, targeting BOP segment for sustainable development, using qualitative research methods to formulate multiple cases. Phase 2: Identification of underpinning factors related to BMI, sustainable development and BOP consumers for green technologies; using qualitative methods and content analysis of results from phase 1, leading to design and development of theoretical framework of green business model innovation for South Africa and India. Phase 3: Testing of conceptualized framework of green business model innovation for sustainable development, using quantitative research methods. The present research tests underpinning factors of emerging green business model innovation for sustainable development, resulting from the qualitative phase, and is used to expand and generalize qualitative findings by using quantitative methods. The findings resulted in linking three theoretical emerging topics in the literature: business model innovation (BMI), green technology for sustainability and BOP. Four cases are developed through 33 face-to-face in-depth interviews with company top executives, using multiple case study approach. Each case comprised of sustainable business model innovation, representing comparison between South Africa and India, across four industries, namely, Energy, Banking, FMCG/Durable sectors and Cloud Computing. Qualitative content analysis and findings resulted in formation of themes and sub-themes and proposed prepositions, depicting the relationship between BMI, BOP, and green technology for sustainability. These prepositions aided in development of conceptual framework and proposed nine hypotheses. The conceptual model is quantitatively surveyed on 206 employees of large companies with focus on BOP markets. The quantitative findings supported all nine hypotheses. Therefore, indicating that integration of green technology is associated with performance of green product/service innovation and green process innovation in a company. Likewise, business model innovation variables; customer interface, infrastructure management and financial aspects, positively impacts sustainability of business model. The contribution of this thesis is in the development of green business model innovation for sustainable development, with focus on BOP markets. This adds to the contextual knowledge and empirical literature on business model innovation, green technologies and BOP markets. Theoretically, it brings better understanding of these concepts, and provides a basis of further research highlighting the importance of innovation while taking account of green economy and BOP. The findings provide marketing practitioners with better understanding of strategies that can be employed to innovate and change their own business models to incorporate green and sustainable initiative for BOP markets. / XL2018

by Chui Kar Yee, Ma Ying Ying Naomi. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-40). / ABSTRACT --- p.i / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION / Objective --- p.1 / State of the Environment --- p.2 / Environmental Awareness --- p.4 / Group Groups in Hong Kong --- p.5 / Government Action --- p.8 / Chapter CHAPTER II --- CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT --- p.11 / Sustainable Development --- p.13 / ISO14001 --- p.14 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- CASE STUDY OF GREEN BUSINESSES IN HONG KONG / Environmental Performance --- p.20 / Motivations and Benefits for Adopting Environmental Strategies --- p.25 / Environmental Hurdles --- p.26 / Consumer and Environmental Performance --- p.27 / Key Success Factor in Corporate Environmental Management --- p.30 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- CONCLUSION --- p.32 / APPENDIX / Table 1: List of ISO 14001 Certified Companies in Hong Kong --- p.34 / BILIOGRAPHY --- p.38

碳排放权和其他生产投入类似，是很像大宗商品投入的生产要素。然而，参与碳交易的公司只需要在某个时间，比如一年的结尾实现碳排放权限的减量。碳排放的另一个重要特点是不可忽略的固定交易成本。本文试图揭示参与碳交易的企业应该如何优化协调其生产以及碳排放权的采购决策，以尽量减少其在长期成本。在每个阶段，该公司基于已有的排放权，波动的市场价格和库存水平决定其排放权的购买数量和生产量。我们给出了最优的联合决策结构特征: 最优排放权采购欢是状态依赖型的(s，S)型决策。生产决策基本上是状态依赖型的基库守存决策。分解的启发式计算被发现是有效的计算研究。我们解决方法是定义一类具有一类性质的二维的函数，在一个维度上定义类似K-凸函数的性质，并在另一个维度上定义类似凸函数的性质。 / The trading of emissions permits, as an effective market-based approach for emissions control, is becoming widespread over the world. Similar to any other production input, the emissions permit is a factor of production much like commodity inputs. However, a firm participating in emissions trading has only to balance its permits at the end of a time horizon, say one year. Another key feature of permit trading is the existence of non-negligible, fixed, transaction costs. This paper attempts to shed light on how such a firm should optimally coordinate its production and permit purchasing decisions in order to minimize its total cost in the long run. In each period, the firm has to decide on its permit purchase quantities and production levels based on its on-hand permit and inventory levels as well as the market-prevalent permit price. The latter evolves as a Markov process and the firm also faces random demand. We characterize the optimal joint policy structure: an optimal purchase policy is of the state-dependent (s, S) type and an optimal production decision nearly follows a state-dependent base-stock form. A heuristic based on decomposition is found to be effective from computational studies. Our enabling technique is the identification of a class of two-dimensional functions that in one dimension it looks like K-convex and in another it is similar to convex. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Yuan, Quan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-84). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Abstract in Chinese --- p.ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Contents --- p.vi / List of Tables --- p.viii / List of Figures --- p.ix / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of the Work --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Structure of the Work --- p.4 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6 / Chapter 3 --- Formulations --- p.10 / Chapter 4 --- A New Class of K-convex Functions --- p.13 / Chapter 4.1 --- A Class of K-Convex Functions --- p.13 / Chapter 4.1 --- Convex Functions --- p.13 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- K-convex Functions in R¹ or Z¹ --- p.15 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- K-convex Functions in R[superscript n] or Z[superscript n] --- p.18 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- C²(K) Functions --- p.19 / Chapter 4.2 --- Z¹ Policies --- p.24 / Chapter 4.3 --- Appendix of Chapter 4 --- p.27 / Chapter 5 --- Optimal Policy --- p.43 / Chapter 5.1 --- A Transformation --- p.43 / Chapter 5.2 --- Policy Characterization --- p.44 / Chapter 5.3 --- Appendix of Chapter 5 --- p.48 / Chapter 6 --- Heuristic and Lower Bound --- p.57 / Chapter 7 --- Numerical Study --- p.61 / Chapter 7.1 --- Parameter Setups --- p.61 / Chapter 7.2 --- Non-monotone Trends in Optimal Policy --- p.63 / Chapter 7.3 --- Heuristic Performance --- p.65 / Chapter 8 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.72 / Bibliography --- p.74

Key words. Newsvendor Model, Inventory Model, Seasonal Product, Weather Risk, Weather Option, Weather Derivative, Weather-Conditional Rebate, CVaR, Mean-CVaR. / The first model considers the problem of hedging inventory risk for a newsvendor who sells a seasonal product. The newsvendor not only decides the order quantity, but also adopts a weather hedging strategy. A typical hedging strategy is to use an option that is constructed on a weather index before the season begins, which will compensate the buyer of the option if the actual seasonal weather index is above (or below) a given strike level. We explore the joint decision problem in mean-variance, expected utility, conditional value-at-risk (CVaR), and mean-CVaR frameworks. We analyze the impact of weather hedging on optimal order quantity. It is proven that the newsvendor may order more than in the absence of weather options. Numerical analysis on the sensitivity of the optimal order quantity, the risk premium of the option, the portfolio selection and the comparison between the weather option hedging and a particular operational hedging are presented as well. / The second model investigates the advantages of early sales of a seasonal product. To induce early sales, the newsvendor adopts a weather-conditional rebate program, which will pay rebates to the customers who buy the product in the preselling period if a specified weather condition for normal selling season is realized. For an example, a certain amount of refund will be paid to early buyer if the seasonal average temperature falls below the past-three-year seasonal average. Two conditional rebate programs with early booking and early purchasing are investigated and compared. Both of them can price differentiate within a customer among his/her post valuation on the seasonal product, and thus increase the sales. For the early purchasing program, it can further save inventory holding cost and ordering cost. The expected profit can be improved by the programs. Moreover, combined with weather derivatives, the conditional rebate program can manage the financial risk with the expected profit being still improved. / To investigate the means that firms may adopt in managing the adverse impacts of weather on their businesses, this dissertation proposes and analyzes two inventory models for seasonal products when the demand is sensitive to the weather in the season. Both models are formulated under the newsvendor context. / Gao, Fei. / "October 2007." / Adviser: Youhua Frank Chen. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: B, page: 5002. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-119). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.