Public-private partnerships for energy efficiency projects: A win-win model to choose the energy performance contracting structur

Mag 15,2019 Lascia un commento

Carbonara, N., Pellegrino, R.

Journal of Cleaner Production

Abstract : To stimulate private sector investments and promote energy efficiency, in recent years through Public Private Partnership arrangements, the public sector uses private companies, the Energy Service Company (ESCO), to perform one or more activities related to the provision of energy services, and the contractual arrangements defining the contracting parties’ obligations and rights are traditionally based on Energy Performance Contracting (EPC).

Although EPC is a valuable model for delivering public energy efficiency projects, the adoption is still far from its vast potential mainly because of two unresolved issues: the dilemma of equally sharing the benefits between the public and private parties so as assuring a win-win condition, and the lack of adequate public procedures that support the selection of the most appropriate EPC schema given certain circumstances and projects’ characteristics. The existing literature have analyzed the advantages of EPC mechanism for delivering energy efficiency projects and explored the critical success factors of EPC. However, it does not provide any solution to address the issues that hamper the adoption of EPCs in public sector.

Employee attitudes towards corporate social responsibility: A study on gender, age and educational level differences

Mag 5,2019 Commenti disabilitati

Rosati, F., Costa, R., Calabrese, A., Pedersen, E.R.G.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management

Abstract: Previous studies show that individual characteristics can influence stakeholder attitudes towards corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study analyses employee attitudes such as CSR demandingness, trust and satisfaction, to determine whether they vary according to differences in gender, age, and educational level. The analysis was carried out by surveying 153 employees of 11 Italian banks, and by performing a content analysis of the banks’ sustainability reports. The Italian banking sector was chosen because of recent financial and CSR scandals. The findings suggest that, on average, male employees are slightly more trusting in and satisfied with CSR performance than their female counterparts. Graduates are slightly more demanding, largely more trusting, and generally more satisfied than non‐graduates. Interestingly, the difference between older and younger employees is not significant. The proposed approach can be useful in designing tailored CSR activities and communication avenues by shedding light on employees’ CSR attitudes.

Auditing patent portfolio for strategic exploitation: A decision support framework for intellectual property managers

Mag 5,2019 Lascia un commento

Grimaldi, M., Cricelli, L., Rogo, F.

Journal of Intellectual Capital

Abstract: Several causes may induce firm managers to analyze the actual technology condition of patent portfolios, among which is the need of exploiting patents strategically. In this paper, the question of how to support intellectual property (IP) managers of large high technology companies in their strategic decision-making process of evaluating patents is examined. The purpose of this paper is to provide a decision support framework that suggests the suitable exploitation strategy for patents.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper proposes an audit framework able to point out whether patents are aligned to the overall business strategy, to select those that are not aligned, and to identify the most appropriate exploitation strategy for each patent of the portfolio. The framework is structured into two phases: in the first one, patents are selected through the analysis of four dimensions that characterize the value of patents effectively; in the second one, a questionnaire is distributed to IP managers in order to support their decision on patents. The paper illustrates case-based applications of the framework.

Findings

Results of applications show that the framework is able to suggest IP managers the suitable exploitation strategy on four possible alternatives (maintaining, licensing, selling, abandoning) for each patent of their portfolios.

Originality/value

The framework is an innovative and valuable tool to IP managers, and besides its structural formulation, it is appreciable in terms of application expedition and efficiency of performance.

Sharing Mobility: Lane Accommodation in Urban Road Networks with Automated Vehicles

Mag 4,2019 Lascia un commento

A. Nuzzolo, U.Crisalli, A. Polinemi

2018 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems

Abstract:This paper deals with the lane accommodation problem for road networks with Automated Vehicles (AVs), Up to now, this problem has been studied for extra-urban networks, while this study investigates the more complex urban case. It aims at contributing to the definition of sharing mobility scenarios based on the use of AVs and restrictions to the use of Conventional Vehicles (CVs) for our future cities. This paper recalls the problem of lane accommodation for AVs and presents a procedure to define a subnetwork with AV reserved lanes, which is specified by using a what-if approach. In the view of strategic planning applied to large and complex network as urban ones, and of speeding up the problem solution, such a procedure uses a commercial macro-simulation model. The model is properly specified to capture the main aspects of the presence of both AVs and CVs and AV dedicated lanes. First results of a test case application are reported to show the capability of the proposed approach.

A cluster analysis study based on profitability and financial indicators in the Italian gas retail market

Mag 4,2019 Lascia un commento

Guendalina Capece, Livio Cricelli, Francesca Di Pillo Nathan Levialdi

Energy Policy

Abstract: In the European Union, the natural gas market is increasingly being liberalized. The liberalization process is aimed at leading to lower prices and higher volumes, and hence higher consumer welfare.

This paper focuses on the changes in performance in the natural gas retail market by analyzing the profit and financial position of the companies concerned over the first three years following the market liberalization. The balance sheets of 105 Italian companies in this sector are analyzed, after which a cluster analysis is performed employing the most significant performance indexes. The companies are then analyzed within each cluster with respect to age, size, geographical location and business diversification.

The results of our analysis show that the majority of companies attained a high level of performance, although this positive outcome was mitigated by the gradual decrease of the average values of performance indicators during the period concerned. The companies that achieve the best performances belong to longstanding business groups, are medium-large sized and are located in the north of the country. Regarding business diversification, in the first two years, the specialised companies outperformed the diversified companies.

Sustainability-oriented service innovation: An emerging research field

Apr 24,2019 Commenti disabilitati business, service, Sustainability

Armando Calabrese, Carolina Castaldi , Giampiero Forte, Nathan Ghiron Levialdi

Journal of Cleaner Production

Abstract: Current environmental, social and economic sustainability challenges are increasingly becoming sources of motivation for both manufacturing and service companies when attempting to innovate their businesses. In recent years, there has been growing interest from academics, policy-makers and practitioners on service innovation as a new business logicfor companies to address societal challenges regarding sustainability. Nevertheless, research specifically focusing on service innovation in relation to sustainability is scarce and ultimately scattered across different research fields. Thereby, only limited clues are available for companies willing to address sustainability challenges through service innovation. To encourage further research in this direction, this paper systematically reviewed the available literature by investigating peer-reviewed publications (from 2004 up to and including 2015) across different fields, which jointly focus on services, innovation and sustainability. The literature review confirmed both the growing amount of research on service innovation in relation to sustainability, as well as the lack of an overarching field to clearly identify such a phenomenon. The review also revealed that three main existing research streams (service innovation, product-service system and sustainability-oriented innovation) contribute to the investigation topic, though all have specific focuses when it comes to the sustainability and innovation dimensions considered. Taking stock of the descriptive and thematic analysis of the review and the identified research gaps, the paper concludes by discussing the need for a clear recognition of the emerging field of sustainability-oriented service innovation, and by outlining several future research pathways for its further enhancement.

A chance constrained optimization approach for resource unconstrained project scheduling with uncertainty in activity execution intensity

Apr 24,2019 Commenti disabilitati optimization, scheduling, uncertainty

Lucio Bianco, Massimiliano Caramia, Stefano Giordani

Computers & Industrial Engineering

Abstract: We study the problem of scheduling project activities with precedence constraints and unlimited resources. The latter problem, with the objective of minimizing the completion time of the project and deterministic activity durations, is known to be polynomially solvable. In the case of stochastic durations, the objective becomes to determine the project makespan distribution which is a #P complete problem. The most common technique used in this case is PERT. However, it is known that PERT tends to underestimate the expected makespan of the project. In our work, we try to overcome this shortcoming by considering a stochastic formulation of the problem, exploiting the activity execution intensity as a stochastic variable, and a chance constrained optimization approach. The main hypotheses under which our model works are essentially two: one is to have a sufficiently large time horizon for the project and the second, differently to what happens for the durations of the activities in the PERT model, is to assume a Beta probability density function for the activity execution intensity variables. The first hypothesis appears to be realistic since, when time horizon is large, stochastic factors tend to come into play in every decision problems; the second hypothesis, is realistic as well, since a minimum and a maximum value exist for the stochastic variables used in our model. Experimental results and a comparison with the PERT model and a Monte Carlo simulation are presented.

Resource planning for aircraft refueling in airport parking area

Apr 23,2019 Commenti disabilitati planning, resource

Pasquale Carotenuto, Stefano Giordani, Alessio Salvatore, Andrea Bias

Transportation Research Procedia

Abstract: This paper studies a scheduling problem application for the optimization of the employees used in aircrafts’ refueling in a medium size airport. The problem is modelled as a particular resource leveling problem for which we provide a mixed integer mathematical formulation that we solve with CPLEX. The model allows to evaluate and analyse different scenarios that could be considered by the company in place of the current one in order to rearrange the available human resources used in refueling activity. Experimental results on a set of real test cases provided by an oil & gas company are discussed.

Integrating sustainability into strategic decision-making: A fuzzy AHP method for the selection of relevant sustainability issues

Mar 9,2019 Lascia un commento

Armando Calabrese, Roberta Costa, Nathan Levialdi, Tamara Menichini

Abstract

The United Nations aspirational agenda for sustainable development calls for the shared efforts of governments, business sector, society and stakeholders to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. In the business perspective, the joint pursuit of both durable competitive advantages and long-term benefits for society are not just the result of companies’ reactions to goals of institutions or demands of stakeholders. Rather, they depend on a holistic integration of sustainability in companies’ strategic decision-making.

This paper proposes an application of the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method for selecting those sustainability issues that are most relevant for creating shared value for both business and society, and that should be the focus of strategic planning and management. The integration of the ISO 26000 framework with the method permits a holistic treatment of all areas of sustainability. The paper also illustrates to managers how the method should be applied in practice through a step-by-step application to a medium-sized company operating in the water technology sector. Finally, its usefulness as a managerial tool for strategic decision-makers is discussed.

The effects of gender, age and academic rank on research diversification

Lug 2,2018 Commenti disabilitati Bibliometrics, Italy, Relatedness, Specialization

Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C.A., Di Costa, F.

Scientometrics

Abstract

In this work we analyze the combined effects of gender, age and academic rank on the propensity of individual scholars to diversify their scientific activity. The aspect of research diversification is measured along three main dimensions, namely its extent and intensity and the cognitive relatedness of the fields of diversification. Leggi il seguito

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2018 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems

Abstract