Academic literature on the topic 'Contributor'

Introduction: Large-scale human-computer systems involving people of various skills and motivation into the information processing process are currently used in a wide spectrum of applications. An acute problem in such systems is assessing the expected quality of each contributor; for example, in order to penalize incompetent or inaccurate ones and to promote diligent ones.Purpose: To develop a method of assessing the expected contributor’s quality in community tagging systems. This method should only use generally unreliable and incomplete information provided by contributors (with ground truth tags unknown).Results:A mathematical model is proposed for community image tagging (including the model of a contributor), along with a method of assessing the expected contributor’s quality. The method is based on comparing tag sets provided by different contributors for the same images, being a modification of pairwise comparison method with preference relation replaced by a special domination characteristic. Expected contributors’ quality is evaluated as a positive eigenvector of a pairwise domination characteristic matrix. Community tagging simulation has confirmed that the proposed method allows you to adequately estimate the expected quality of community tagging system contributors (provided that the contributors' behavior fits the proposed model).Practical relevance: The obtained results can be used in the development of systems based on coordinated efforts of community (primarily, community tagging systems).

Abstract   Background:           The environment of the charity sector is changing. The overall sector of licensed charities in the Netherlands grew over the past couple of years, but this trend is not caused by a growth in contributors, as the numbers show a downwards slope. Besides that, research shows that the individual’s willingness to contribute to charity declines. Next to that, it is visible that the needs and wishes of contributors to charity change. This could possibly imply that individuals are willing to engage with charity, but in a different manner. Purpose:                  The way contributors contribute to charitable organisations is evident, but how and why individuals engage is a relatively unexplored area, as previous research mainly focused on the motivations rather than the dimensions of engagement. Therefore, the research purpose of this paper is to investigate the dimensions of engagement of Dutch individuals towards DCS, whilst it adds to the existing body of literature about contributor engagement in the charity sector. Method:                   The study revolved around a positivistic research philosophy, following a sequential mixed-method research design to gather the information and insights needed. A questionnaire was used to obtain the inputs of 333 unique respondents, which was followed up by 10 semi-structured in-depth interviews to enrich the findings. To analyse the data, various techniques, such as factor analysis, correlation and multiple regression, were executed to reveal statistically significant relationships and influences among the variables. Conclusion:             The results show that the five dimensions of volunteer engagement, namely behavioural, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and social, are also applicable when investigating contributor engagement. However, the study has shown that all dimensions apart from the spiritual one have a statistically significant influence on the contributor engagement of Dutch individuals towards DCS. Further findings and a more profound understanding of the motives of interviewees revealed that the deeper motivations to engage or not engage with DCS are in line with national trends visible within the charity sector. The outcomes could contribute to DCS’ and possibly other charitable organisations’ understanding of the altering needs and wishes of contributors and the Dutch society. More specifically, the findings can contribute to the existing knowledge of the dimensions of engagement and could be utilised for marketing purposes to focus on the right areas when developing future strategies.

This research has studied the relationship between insider trading activity and its effect on the level of informational efficiency. The authors have used insider data from Finansinspektionen and data regarding stock prices, market capitalization and GDP from Thomson Reuters Datastream. The sample includes 193 companies on the Swedish stock exchange for a period of 10 years. A Variance Ratio test employed on moving sub-sample windows was used to establish the level of time-varying informational efficiency, which subsequently was used in an OLS-regression as a dependent variable. The result of the regression implies a negative effect on firm price information efficiency by insider purchasing, while selling has a positive effect. This can be concluded using a confidence level of 99%. The results are interesting since they imply an asymmetrical effect of insider trading on informational efficiency, while current insider legislation treats buying and selling by insiders equal. Thus, the results are of interest in future adjustments of laws regulating insider trading.

The thesis is called environmental management accounting as a contributor to sustainable development. The first chapter is introduction, the second business and the environment, the third environmental management accounting, the fourth techniques and the fifth conclusions. The thesis examines existing literature concerning sustainable development and its relationship with accounting, environmental management accounting theory and practice, environmental costs and full-cost accounting techniques. The thesis also introduces such concepts as sustainable development, triple bottom line and the potential financial and non-financial benefits a company may harvest from implementing environmental management accounting theory and practice.

In today’s ever-changing and chaotic world corporations are forced to develop themselves continuously to be able to survive (Kessler et al. 2007). Companies have had a need to develop new services and products to follow the evolution for a long time (Tushman & Nadler 1986), but especially during the past decades the need to innovate has become a necessary and innovating has increased its role as a critical driver of corporations’ survival and nations’ long-term economic growth (Chemmanur et al. 2014). Large companies are paying more and more attention to changing industries and it is becoming clear that the most successful corporations are those who are able to innovate most efficiently (Stringer 2000). Especially corporations in high- tech industries face problems with decreasing life cycles of products and continuous technological breakthroughs followed by a need to innovate new products all the time (Kessler et al.). The main problem in corporations’ development is that they do not have an idea about how to advance their innovative activities and as a result they tend to become stuck with existing products and technologies (Stringer 2000). Urbancová (2013) states that 21st century is based on knowledge, information and innovative economy. Since there are new business models and technologies arising all the time, companies’ own research and development (R&D) activities are not sufficient anymore (Stringer). Consequently, corporations have to move from internal R&D activities to external R&D projects (Brockhoff 1998, Ernst et al. 2005, Fulghieri & Sevilir 2009, Lantz & Sahut 2010). An external R&D project refers to the process in which a corporation acquires knowledge resources outside the company (Ito & Tanaka 2016). External R&D activity is essential especially for international corporations since there exists higher competitive pressure there compared to domestic markets (Ito & Tanaka). Popular ways of conducting external R&D have been for example joint ventures and acquisitions, but during the last decades corporate venture capital (CVC) investment has increased its reputation increasingly as an innovation enhancer, especially among big companies such as Intel and Microsoft (Chesbrough 2002, Fulghieri & Sevilir 2009). In practice things acquired from external R&D projects mean expertise, intellectual property and know-how (Ito & Tanaka). Generally CVC is defined as a process of established firms making investments in entrepreneurial firms (Chesbrough 2002, MacMillan et al. 2008). Chemmanur and Loutskina (2009) describe corporate venture capital units as subsidiaries of non- financial corporations investing their parent corporations’ funds in recent ventures. According to Hill & Birkinshaw (2014) CVC units build new skills for the corporation, simultaneously leveraging its already existing capabilities. Generally CVC investors invest in early-stage, entrepreneurial companies and obtain a minority equity stake in it (MacMillan et al.). By doing this, the parent corporation is able to monitor new emerging technologies and complementary companies that can in future become their partners (MacMillan et al.). CVC investors can also combine their capital with that of other venture capitalists to invest in firms with a lot of uncertainty (Lerner 2013). CVC investments are originally based on the venture capital (VC) investments. Venture capital firms are established to finance high-risk high-reward projects and their goal is to gain as high financial returns as possible (Gompers & Lerner 1998). According to Rind (1981), the modern venture capital era can be considered to have started after the Second World War. Gompers and Lerner and Rind state that another important act for the development of venture capital industry was the formation of the first venture capital firm (American Research and Development) in 1946. During the following decades venture capital companies achieved large gains, which led to the establishment of many new VC companies in the 1960s and 1970s (Rind 1981). The first CVC funds were established about two decades after the traditional venture capital funds in the mid-1960s (Gompers & Lerner 2000). Since 1960s the development of corporate venturing has followed that of venture capital. The development of these two can be divided into three cycles. The first wave occurred when CVC investments started to arise in 1960s. The second wave began in 1970–1980s mainly because of the fall in capital gain taxes. In 1987 as the stock market crashed, the venture capital lost its grace for a while also. The third wave of venture capital can be considered to have started in 1990s because of the boom of telecommunications and Internet-related companies. Nowadays venture capital forms a significant part of corporations’ investment portfolios and its popularity keeps increasing all the time. (Gompers & Lerner 2000, Gompers 2002, Singhal 2015.) This thesis examines the key success factors of the CVC investments as a source of parent corporation’s innovation growth. It is stated in almost all literature according to innovation that companies are forced to look for external sources of innovation to be able to keep growing and stay competitive. Especially in technology-intensive industries, firms need to innovate to retain their competitiveness (Wadhwa et al. 2016). This need can also be found in news almost daily and there is a lot of discussion about large firms’ lack of creativeness and entrepreneurial culture leading to their failure (for example Nokia’s case). The topic of this thesis is chosen because existing literature lacks an integrative study about the factors affecting the CVC investment’s ability to foster the innovativeness of the parent corporation. CVC investment’s role as a source of new innovation growth has increased during the past decades and in 2013 CVCs portion of all venture capital investments was over 10% (Weiblen & Chesbrough 2015). This may be a result of nowadays’ situation, in which large and established companies face numerous obstacles lacking the innovativeness typical to entrepreneurs and are forced to start looking for new ways to keep growing. Since there is a clear lack of research concerning the topic, this thesis will help companies to get familiar with the concept and the benefits of it as a source of innovativeness. The study focuses on an international context, not aiming to highlight any specific country or continent. Since venture capitalists tend to invest mostly in high-technology companies (Fenn & Liang 1998), the focus will be mainly on that industry. This study has examined the key factors affecting the success of CVC investments as a source of innovation growth for their parent companies. The objective of the study was to gather the main factors in the structure and goal setting of the investment affecting the success of CVC in the innovation growth in corporations by analyzing existing literature related to the topic. This study shed also light to the parent corporation’s qualities that support CVC unit’s activities. The key factors found in this thesis can be categorized to four sections: the qualities of the parent corporation, the goal setting of the unit, the compensation system of the unit and the relationship between the unit and the parent company. The key qualities in the parent corporations seem to be the ambidexterity of the corporation, a well- developed internal R&D-activities and the ability to give up the excess control. Three key factors in the goal setting of the investment were found: the clearness, the diversification and the good amount of goals. The main finding in the compensation system of the unit was that it should be performance-based to motivate the personnel to stay in the company and to work efficiently and also the long-term success should be highlighted in the system. The key factors in the relationship between the unit and the parent were the sufficient autonomy of the unit and the support of the parent in its operations. The concept of innovation was discussed in the context of organizational ambidexterity, which refers to corporation’s ability at the same time to exploit existing business and explore new territories. In this theory, innovation is divided into incremental and radical innovations. This study has examined how CVC investments are able to foster both types of innovation by either introducing new technologies and markets to the corporation, or strengthening the existing capabilities. One of the key ideas behind the innovation growth in large companies is their ability to be ambidextrous. Without this, corporations are not able to succeed over a long-time period. One of the key factors in the internal R&D activity is parent corporation’s ability to let go of the old habits to be able to create new and more innovative solutions. A well- developed and multidimensional internal R&D is essential for the parent corporation to be able to adopt the innovations and the knowledge coming from the external sources. This statement relates the findings of this study strongly to the Chesbrough’s open innovation theory presented in chapter two, since the importance of good internal R&D in the adaption of new knowledge was one of the key factors in the theory also. The most important factors in the goal setting of the unit seem to be the right amount of objectives, clearness of these objectives and suitable diversification of objectives to different kind of industries and technologies. When corporations keep the amount of their goals quite small, it is also easier for them to control them and they can be sure that the CVC units are performing effectively and appropriately. By setting clear goals corporations can ensure that units do not try to achieve wrong things but instead they will fully focus on their main goal. The importance of diversification between different industries is justified because corporation’s internal R&D units can not be able to keep an eye on all new novelties (Ernst et al. 2005), and without external sources they can miss some important and relevant new technological innovations. The importance of compensation system and the long-term time-horizon can be discussed together since there are few factors bringing them together. Since CVC units’ goals are generally set for a long-time horizon, early financial or other failures should not be seen as a failure of its activity and the managers should not be punished financially for these. If the managers of the corporation keep in mind that though CVC investments have shorter life-times than that of IVCs, the goals will be achieved later, they tend to be successful more likely than the ones worrying about the short-time performance. CVC unit’s managers’ salaries are generally based on fixed payment, sometimes with annual bonuses (Dushnitsky 2006). This kind of compensation system seems not be working good for them and the better option would be to adapt a system more related to that of IVCs (Lerner 2013). The essential thing is to find a system that really motivates the personnel to be innovative and most importantly to support their entrepreneurial activities because if the workers feel like they are not supported in their current workplace, they tend to move to places where their work is appreciated more. The relationship between the parent corporation and the CVC unit have significant influence on the successful strategic performance of them. In the best situation, parent corporation gives the CVC unit a freedom to operate, just providing support and advices when needed. An autonomous activity of the unit enables it to work flexibly in an entrepreneurial atmosphere and results in better innovative performance of parent corporation also. The CVC unit should be constructed to be multidimensional meaning that there should be few seniors who have clearly in mind the vision the parent corporation, mixed with persons with entrepreneurial experience and attitudes to enable the creative process of the unit. Though the importance of external sources of innovation is highlighted in this study, one of the findings is also that corporations should build an innovation strategy that includes both external and internal sources of innovation. When the corporation has a well adjusted combination of these two, the company is able to successfully adopt the new knowledge acquired from outside to the existing capabilities. The amount of both of these sources in the innovation strategy of the corporation remains unknown.

Abstract Disclosing how business practice can be regarded as a contributor to several forms of sustainability, this thesis is based on a minor field study enlightening how this contribution may be possible through Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR.The thesis provides the response and opinions of people who in some affirmation are engaging in or are related to social responsibility; either it may be from the academic works and earlier conducted research related to the CSR topic, or it may be from those who perform social responsibility and are the participant actors of this minor field study. These people last mentioned have all had their opinions spoken through semi – structured interviews and other data have been collected based on the methodology of Actors Approach; all empirical data is structured according to Aspers’ (2007) model of “meaning” including the tools text, visuals and practice.The analysis is divided into three parts; articulation, reconfiguration and cross-appropriation as a way to create understanding of how the study’s phenomenon can create style change (Spinosa et al 1997). Conclusions drawn from the field study are businesses implementing social responsibility do create a style change in environmental and societal aspects. Yet to what extent may differ depending on in their situation, their views of the concept, how long they have been using and promoting the concept and further in what ways their work contributes to a societal and environmental change through CSR practice. The field study has been conducted within the municipality of Kathmandu, Nepal

Thesis (M.S.)--Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2008.<br>"Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Systemic Physiology." Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-70). Also available online.

Empirical and theoretical literature on voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs) has identified numerous conditions for effectiveness. Such works are, however, primarily based on European and North American studies. Yet the Japanese experience with VEAs poses interesting challenges and opportunities for researchers. Overall, Japan's utilization of VEAs has been greater in breadth and depth than virtually any other state. Yet both this statement and understandings of environmental voluntarism depend upon careful attention to definitions. In particular, attention to the role of coercion is important to understandings of voluntarism. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the appropriate test of voluntarism is legal - any agreement not required in content or creation by law is therefore voluntary. Following this, the thesis utilizes the Japanese experience in dealing with sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide to identify major features of the two most common types of VEAs in Japan, negotiated agreements and unilateral commitments. Japan's experience with environmental voluntarism is generally regarded as highly successful despite the absence of numerous conditions specified in the existing literature for VEA effectiveness. This challenges the completeness of extant theory and contributes a negative finding for the development of future research. This thesis argues that one overlooked variable is the stability of the state's political economy. As such, the following chapter specifies the role of stability as identified by scholars of VEAs and political economy. The examination indicates that political economic stability, as a contributor to VEA effectiveness, has thus far been underappreciated by scholars of environmental voluntarism. Particular attention is paid to the role of stability in encouraging investment and making credible commitments. The following chapter addresses the stability of Japan's political economy to identify possible sources, characteristics and effects. The results and observations provided pertain primarily to large firms but share numerous commonalities with most firms in Japan. Particular emphasis is placed on four types of stability: political, policy, individual, and firm. The thesis concludes by arguing that current instability-generating trends in Japan's political economy are likely to reduce VEA effectiveness and focuses primarily on Keidanren's Voluntary Action Plan for carbon dioxide emissions reduction.<br>Arts, Faculty of<br>Political Science, Department of<br>Graduate

Content: In order to contribute to a more sustainable leather manufacturing process and leather value chain, in 2016 Smit & zoon started its own designing process of new products through the Bio-Based innovation platform. As a logical first step, answers to several key questions have been looked for: What is Bio-Based? What is renewable? Which term and method do we use to define the Bio-Based content in the Bio-Based platform? What is biodegradable? How do our current products perform? What is our vision for future products? In the process of answering these questions and guided by the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) CertifiedTM program, Material Reutilization Score (MRS) was used to obtain deeper insights into the formulation and environmental performance of our leather chemicals and treated as the basis for the design of new generation bio-based chemicals. Three main focus areas are setting the tone of current activities in the Bio-based platform: 1. increasing the renewable contents of the existing product groups; 2. smart valorization of industrial side streams from biological origin and 3. improving the biodegradability of leather chemicals. While focusing on these topics, it is well-understood that a proper balance needs to be found between cost, sustainability and performance. In the meantime, leather’s end of life scenario plays a role and needs to be looked at again. One of the first results of this focused approach is our patentpending polyphenolic syntan product, in which industrial lignins are used during the chemical conversion process to replace part of the phenol (40-50 w/w%) used in the production of otherwise 100% petro-based polyphenolic retanning chemicals. We have shown that our innovative technology is compatible with most of the industrial lignins (kraft, soda, organosolv, hydrolysis) from different origins (soft/hard wood, grass, straw). The obtained polyphenolic products have real tanning power and are suitable to be used as retanning agents for various types of leather rendering good organoleptic properties with additional added value of increased bio-based content, improved biodegradability thus a higher MRS. The improved biodegradability of these products can contribute to decrease the effluent treatment load. Moreover, these products can be tailor-made to meet low emission (low free phenol, low free formaldehyde) requirements as well. In addition to the lignin-based polymers, the quickly developing project portfolio within the biobased platform manifests that Smit & zoon is making steady steps towards a largely sustainable leather value chain by 2025. Take-Away: Bio-Based products contritbute to a sustainable leather manufacturing process and leather value chain. Both the raw material renewability and product biodegradability are important parameters to evaluate the environmental impact of leather chemicals. Smit & zoon has developed a patent-pending bio-based synthan product using industrial lignins to replace part of the petro-based phenols in the production process.

Since the late twentieth century, open source software projects (e.g., the GNU/Linux operating system, the Apache web server, Perl and many others) have achieved phenomenal success. This success can be attributed to a new paradigm of productivity in which individuals voluntarily collaborate to produce knowledge, goods and services. Benkler claims this productivity paradigm is a “new, third mode of production” particularly suited for “the digitally networked environment” (2002). In addition to its application to open source software projects, the peer production model, in different forms, has been used in areas such as science/citizen science (Silvertown, 2009), library science (Weinberger, 2007), politics (Castells, 2007; Jenkins, 2006), education (Daniel, 2012), journalism (Gillmor, 2004), and culture (Jenkins, 2006; Lessig, 2004). As peer production has flourished, merely describing successful cases has become less useful. Instead, scholars must identify the dynamics, structures, and conditions that contribute to or impede that success. In this dissertation, I focus on three management challenges at three distinct levels that impede the success of peer production. At the individual level, one significant question is how to best organize individual contributors with differing goals, experience, and commitment to achieve a collective outcome. At the practice level, peer production communities, like corporations, must often transfer best practices from one unit to another to improve performance. This transfer process poses the challenge of how to adapt and modify an original practice to make it effective in the new context. At the community level, peer production communities must learn to survive and succeed in a large ecosystem of related communities. This dissertation combines theoretical approaches in organization science with in-depth empirical analysis on a range of peer production communities to examine the mechanisms that help the communities overcome these three management challenges and succeed in peer production. The contributions of my dissertation are twofold. For scholars and researchers, my dissertation advances the theoretical understanding of the underlying mechanisms of successful peer production systems. For practitioners, my dissertation offers practical advice to build more effective peer production projects and platforms.

1. This report shows that six G20 countries (Japan, South Africa, Argentina, France, Ireland, and Mexico) and one ASEAN Member States (Singapore) have implemented a carbon tax. 2. The energy sector is the primary GHG emissions contributor in most member states, except Indonesia. However, the energy sector in Indonesia will highly contribute to the national GHG emissions considering the rise of energy demand due to economic and population growth. 3. The effectiveness of carbon tax is specific to which sectors are taxed and which sectors are exempt to a country member. Specifically, a higher emissions price may not cover a large share of emissions in the country. The high carbon tax in France only covers 35% of total emissions in its jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Japan and Singapore’s low carbon tax covers 75% and 80% of total emissions in their jurisdiction, respectively. 4. The numbers of sectoral coverage by emissions price will impact the level of revenues generated from the carbon tax. France obtained the most significant carbon tax revenue for more than USD 9.6 billion. Meanwhile, Argentina generated less than USD 1 million, likely due to tax exemptions in natural gas commodities. 5. The contribution level of carbon tax revenue to the government’s total revenue varies for each country. France and Ireland’s carbon tax revenue contributes 0.71% and 0.53% of their total government revenue, respectively. Meanwhile, the rest of the countries’ carbon tax revenue contributed less than 0.3% each to their government revenue.