The idea that "going green" could actually be profitable, a notion put forth by economists as long as 20 years ago, remains a source of skepticism in some quarters.
"I thought, why not mimic moonshine?" explained Mr. Fireman of the eureka moment when he was driving from New York to his home here and musing about what profitable, signature notions might lie beyond the switchback roads in the hamlets of West Virginia's mountain hollows.
Size and ROA are both positively significant at the 1% level, which is consistent with the notion that larger and profitable companies are more capable of fulfilling social responsibilities.
Although Clifford has never created a school with the vocational status of those represented by APSCU, his company, SignificantFederation, has helped develop profitable education institutions around combining the notion of quality online learning with a traditional campus environment.
The very notion of Palace being a profitable, thriving and established Premier League club back in those days would have been laughable.
While that might seem the most contrarian of business plans, Red Hat is attracting blue-chip investors to the notion that free can be profitable.
Still, it boggles the mind to accept the notion that hardship is driving profitable Big Oil to either merge, as British Petroleum and Amoco have already agreed to do, or at least to consider the prospect, as Exxon and Mobil are doing.
"We export about 40% of our pipe mold production," says E. Roger Clark, chief executive, "and had a vague notion that these sales were less profitable than our domestic sales.
In 1999, when Longleaf Partners Fund returned only 2% (versus 21% for the S&P 500), a big university endowment badgered Hawkins to value companies on multiples of revenues, disregarding quaint notions such as whether they were profitable.
But Florida Crystals executives scoff at the notion that their company has weaved together a profitable and all-powerful sugar monopoly.
