Both connectivity and accessibility are important for regional development. Places and communities need to be connected in order to be part of the wider economy, and people need to have access to places, other communities and labour markets to fully participate in society. In contemporary society, not only physical connectivity and accessibility but also digital connectivity plays an important role in the economic and social potential of regions. The relationship between them is also an important issue. This report discusses and assesses the role of physical and digital connectivity in the socioeconomic development of rural regions. In particular, we discuss issues concerning digital connectivity and rural development in remote rural areas within the North Sea Region.
Distribution structures, as studied in this paper, involve the spatial layout of the freight transport and storage system used to move goods between production and consumption locations. Decisions on this layout are important to companies as they allow them to balance customer service levels and logistics costs. Until now there has been very little descriptive research into the factors that drive decisions about these structures. Moreover, the literature on the topic is scattered across various research streams. In this paper we review and consolidate this literature, with the aim to arrive at a comprehensive list of factors. Three relevant research streams were identified: Supply Chain Management (SCM), Transportation and Geography. The SCM and Transportation literature mostly focus on distribution structure including distribution centre (DC) location selection from a viewpoint of service level and logistics costs factors. The Geography literature focuses on spatial DC location decisions and resulting patterns mostly explained by location factors such as labour and land availability. Our review indicates that the main factors that drive decision-making are “demand level”, “service level”, “product characteristics”, “logistics costs”, “labour and land”, “accessibility” and “contextual factors”. The main trade-off influencing distribution structure selection is “service level” versus “logistics costs”. Together, the research streams provide a rich picture of the factors that drive distribution structure including DC location selection. We conclude with a framework that shows the relative position of these factors. Future work can focus on completing the framework by detailing out the sub factors and empirically testing the direction and strength of relationships. Cooperation between the three research streams will be useful to further extend and operationalize the framework.
In de context van de zeer dynamische en steeds krapper wordende arbeidsmarkt anno 2022 pleiten verschillende organisaties voor het centraal stellen op de arbeidsmarkt van vaardigheden ofwel ‘skills’. In Nederland zijn er verschillende initiatieven gericht op het ontwikkelen van een skillsmarkt, maar van het grootschalig samenbrengen van werkzoekenden en werkgevers aan de hand van skills is voorlopig nog geen sprake. Dat komt mede omdat werkgevers de meerwaarde van skillsbenaderingen vaak nog te onduidelijk vinden. In dit artikel bespreken wij eerst de fundamentele bouwstenen van skillsmatches om vervolgens vanuit het perspectief van de werkgever de meerwaarde en vereisten van skillsmatching door te nemen. Fundamenteel aan skillsmatching is het in beeld brengen van skills. Daarvoor is het belangrijk om skills te objectiveren, aan te tonen en te wegen. Die skills kunnen vervolgens gebruikt worden tijdens het matchingsproces om vraag en aanbod op de arbeidsmarkt op basis van skills samen te brengen. Dat kan lonen voor werkgevers omdat zij daarmee (1) een grotere groep van geschikte kandidaten, (2) een fijnmaziger zicht op de kwaliteit van kandidaten, (3) een verbetering van de arbeidsorganisatie en (4) een stimulans voor het leren op de werkvloer kunnen bereiken. Om dat mogelijk te maken is het van belang dat werkgevers en HR-managers hun vraag naar arbeid uitdrukken in skills, gestructureerd hun skillsmatches evalueren en in kaart welke skills zij in de toekomst verwachten nodig te hebben.