80 research outputs found
Legitimate vs illegitimate: the luxury supply chain and its doppelganger
No full textPurpose – The increase in international trade, the advances in technology, the growing importance
of the emerging markets are the main factors that have contributed to the explosion of counterfeiting
experienced in recent years, estimated to be valued at about 5-7 per cent of the world trade. The luxury
industry in Italy has been particularly hard hit and most brands nowadays are urgently looking for
demand-side and supply-side strategies to track and control the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is
to provide a supply chain view of counterfeiting and illegitimate trade phenomena, in a supply chain
risk management perspective, to define and illuminate the interaction of the legitimate and the
illegitimate supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces the LISC model to represent and include
all the illegitimate trade phenomena under analysis such as pure counterfeiting, factory overruns, grey
and parallel market, supply chain infiltrations, product diversion and sale of stolen goods
Findings – The interrelations between legitimate and illegitimate supply chains are crucial to
approach counterfeiting issue and define which illegitimate trade paths are more harmful to companies
and customers.
Research limitations/implications – The first limitation of the work is that the illegitimate trade
categories defined in this paper mainly rely on data and phenomena collected from secondary sources
that have not yet been directly observed by the authors. The second one is that a specific focus on
high-end fashion industry was employed throughout this work: further analysis for evaluating the
applicability and the significance of the illegitimate trade in other industries is still pending. The final
limitation stems from the fact that it will be necessary to investigate the implications and the
applicability of the model to the illegitimate on-line trade.
Practical implications – During the course of the MI-FIDO project, the model and the selection
rules identified for illegitimate trade family classification were used as a basis for defining the rules for
anomalies detection to be included in a “track and trace” system developed the project team currently
under with a major Italian fashion brand.
Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that attempts to present a
concise and systematic approach to luxury illegitimate trade from a supply chain perspective.
Understanding which legitimate-illegitimate supply chain interactions are the most damaging will
help fashion luxury and other industries to battle the counterfeiting phenomenon more effectivel
Still in fashion?: a study on Facebook usage
No full textThe authors investigate the current state and future prospects of Facebook usage
by means of data that they have collected using a survey at an Italian University. The authors
show that usage is unaffected by how long users have used Facebook. The authors also
examine a number of plausible determinants eventually showing that age, network size, and
perceived usefulness all play an important part in explaining usage. Surprisingly, perceived
privacy does not
Legitimate vs illegitimate: the fashion supply chain and its doppelganger
No full textNo abstract availabl
The responsiveness of Italian plants: determinants and dimensions
No full textThe responsiveness of Italian plants: determinants and dimension
The responsiveness of italian small-to-medium sized plants: dimensions and determinants
No full textThis paper presents a quantitative study carried out on more than 200 manufacturing plants located in Italy. The study aimed to explore whether small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Italy are more responsive than large enterprises and determine what are the levers that these enterprises would employ to achieve their responsiveness. Logistic responsiveness has been considered a key driver of competitiveness. Several studies have suggested that company’s size is a major determinant of responsiveness and that SMEs have both strengths and weaknesses that influence their ability to promptly react to customer needs. The evidence of this study indicates that SMEs are more responsive than large companies in terms of delivery. This performance advantage is mainly the result of a rather narrow product range and a simpler product structure that allows SMEs to enjoy shorter manufacturing and assembly lead times. On the other hand, this study also shows that SMEs perform worse than large enterprises with respect to longer set-up times
Government expenditures as a citizens'evaluation of public output : public choice and the benefit principle of taxation
No full textCombining elements from the theories of public choice and benefit taxation, the author develops a framework in which private citizens can evaluate public activities. Why, and under what circumstances, do bureaucrats increase the size of the public sector and the amount of public spending in their own self interest? What does the private sector think public output should be, what is actual public output, and how does the private sector evaluate that output? The author applies the theoretical results of an attempt to answer these questions in four Central European countries (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia), using actual data for 1989-91 and projections for 1992. Interpreting indirect evidence, he shows that the private sector would prefer less government activity in all countries, from a low of 5 percent less public spending (in Poland) to a high of one-third less (in Slovenia). If those governments were to follow those guidelines, their spending-to-GDP ratios would more closely resemble the 1987-89 average for a selected group of European market economies. The author also introduces a more rigorous, if not necessarily more objective, approach to determining optimal government spending. This approach requires little information, but uses a static model and requires faith in the direction of causality for some key variables. To the extent that one can accept those limitations, the model may be a useful operational tool in public spending evaluation.Public Sector Economics&Finance,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Fiscal&Monetary Policy
Public output and private decisions : conceptual issues in the evaluation of Government activities and their implications for fiscal policy
No full textIn this essay, the author explores theoretical concepts behind the current debate on government growth, public sector inefficiency, and the role of fiscal policy with a view to raising the most important issues relevant for fiscal policy. He examines theories of public sector growth, the evaluation of benefits from government spending, and the response of the private sector to government activities. Three principal reasons have been suggested to explain public sector growth: conscious government choices, political pressure from interest groups, and the self-interest of bureaucracies. One may ask: is the growth of the public sector a response to public demand or the result of government waste and inefficiency? In terms of the agent-principal theory, bureaucrats who are supposed to serve as agents for citizens may not necessarily do so - which is where waste comes in. If bureaucrats are interested in the nonpecuniary benefits of their bureaus, they will have an incentive to maximize their activities and budgetary allocation rather than their operating efficiency. In discussing the evaluation of public programs, the author focuses on the"true"benefits, as perceived by citizens. Would a well-to-do citizen, who could afford private security guards, make the same evaluation about public security that a poor citizen would make? In general, what considerations affect a person's desire for a given amount of public spending, and what are the important parameters that analysts should take into account in their investigation? The author also explores the issues behind the private sector's response to government activities and argues against a mechanistic approach to the interaction between the private and public sector. Unless decisionmakers are relatively certain about how citizens evaluate government actions, citizens may respond in a way that nullifies the government action. The author concludes that more empirical work is needed on measuring citizens's response to public sector activities. And fiscal policy, especially on expenditures, should be modeled on a disaggregated basis to isolate hypotheses about potential private sector responses to individual public programs.National Governance,Economic Stabilization,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform
The anti-counterfeiting potential of RFID technologies in the fashion supply chain
No full textThe aim of this paper is to explore the potential of RFID technology in identifying and preventing illegitimate
trade throughout the fashion supply chain via item-level traceability in the context of the Made-in-Italy Fashion
Identity and Originality (MI-FIDO) project. We review the literature on illegitimate trade, fashion supply chain
management, and RFID anti-counterfeiting. We introduce LISC, a supply chain-based illegitimate trade
classification model that enables us to track counterfeiting, factory overruns, parallel trading, and the sale of
stolen goods and to assess the impact of each such event on companies, as well as to assess the potential of RFID
technology in thwarting these events. Finally, we present the case of Versace Group: the Firm recently launched
an anti-counterfeiting initiative with the ultimate goal of creating a “Fashion Passport” to track and certify the
authenticity their garments. The results show significant potential for RFID technology to fight illegitimate trade
in the fashion industry especially for high ticket value items
Are failproof banking systems feasible? Desirable?
No full textIn recent years, instability of the banking system has returned as a major problem in many countries, particularly in the developing world. In many cases, this instability has been so threatening to financial intermediation and the functioning of the payments system that governments have felt compelled to intervene and restructure banks, often at considerable cost to the public budget. One response to these problems has been a proposal to create failproof banking systems - to radically transform the structure, priorities, and operation of the banking and financial system. Banks would be limited to issuing deposits, holding essentially riskless portfolios, and operating the payments system. To minimize the resulting disruptions to the financial system, banks would be authorized (and encouraged) to set up holding companies and then transfer to holding company affiliates all the functions - including lending - that banks would no longer be permitted to perform. So while the failproof banking proposal would severely restrict the activity of banks, it would not restrict the activities of banking organizations that convert to a holding company form of organization. This proposal would produce major public benefits. It would assure a nation of a smoothly functioning banking and payments system, would substantially reduce the resources committed to banking supervision, would prevent bank-type regulation from expanding to the rest of the financial system, and would place banking and nonbanking organizations on a level playing field for the financial activities in which they compete. There are two major problems with the proposal. First, it might be difficult to implement because of too few riskless assets in a nation's financial system. (The author suggests several modifications that would alleviate this problem in some countries.) Second, the proposal might hurt the financial market by: (a) increasing interest rates for higher-risk borrowers, forcing them out of the market; and (b) transfering greater risk to the nonbank sector of the financial system, making it more susceptible to crisis. Although the proposal would benefit developing countries (more prone to banking instability) more than industrial countries, it would also be more difficult to implement in developing countries. And the adverse effects of the proposal would be felt more severely in the financial markets of developing countries than in industrial countries, which have deeper, more responsive financial markets.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banking Law,Settlement of Investment Disputes
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