Scenarios in Europe—Who uses them and why?

The authors of this article describe a study of European companies the aim of which was to review the extent of multiple scenario analysis in company planning. They describe the differences in planning between users and non-users of the system, and analyse the benefits and drawbacks of using the system.     

The Effect of Firm and Host Country Characteristics on the Choice of Entry Mode: Empirical Evidence from Spanish Firms

When investing abroad firms must choose betweengoing alone or with a partner – the so-calledownership structure decision. Additionally,firms can enter a new country by acquisitionsor by greenfield investments – the foreignestablishment mode decision. These twodecisions have traditionally been analyzedseparately in the literature on entry mode.What is more, this literature has much lessanalyzed hybrid entry modes, like partialacquisitions. The aim of this paper is toanalyze how the different factors analyzed inprior research influence the choice of entrymode when jointly taking into account fouralternative entry modes: greenfield whollyowned subsidiaries, greenfield joint ventures,full acquisitions and partial acquisitions. Theempirical analysis was carried out byestimating a multinomial logit model over asample of FDIs made by Spanish firms. Ourresults also contribute to the knowledge ofspecific patterns in the choice of entry modeby firms from late investor countries, likeSpain.     

An Empirical Analysis of Monitoring Behaviour and Private Benefits of Investors in the Spanish Market

The objective of our study is to look for anequilibrium among three factors: the privatebenefits that main shareholders can obtain fromthe firm, the social benefits derived from acertain ownership structure (such assupervision and alignment of interests) and thecosts derived from ownership concentration(such as loss of liquidity and riskdiversification). Our empirical analysis allowsus to conclude that the supervisory role ofownership is more intense in firms where thepotential conflict of interest betweenshareholders and managers is greater, andtherefore the value of the firm can beincreased through a specific composition of itsshareholders.     

A Corporate Culture Pattern to Manage Business Ethics

Within the general frame of proposals for an adequate management of business ethics, this paper is based on the vision of corporate culture as a pattern to achieve such purpose. If we consider ethics as a specific value of corporate culture, we may resort to the mechanism of cultural change and implementation in order to manage ethics. Despite the difficulties it entails in terms of time and money investment, this procedure is one of the safest ways to reach ethical values which are known, shared and then practiced by all the members of a corporation, whatever the category. From this central standpoint, and basing ourselves on our own proposal for the management of culture, we shall describe which specific steps must be taken in order to achieve a set of ethical values which are both realistic and furthermore shared by all collaborators of an organization. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Genetic Algorithm for the Weight Setting Problem in OSPF Routing

With the growth of the Internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) try to meet the increasing traffic demand with new technology and improved utilization of existing resources. Routing of data packets can affect network utilization. Packets are sent along network paths from source to destination following a protocol. Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is the most commonly used intra-domain Internet routing protocol (IRP). Traffic flow is routed along shortest paths, splitting flow at nodes with several outgoing links on a shortest path to the destination IP address. Link weights are assigned by the network operator. A path length is the sum of the weights of the links in the path. The OSPF weight setting (OSPFWS) problem seeks a set of weights that optimizes network performance. We study the problem of optimizing OSPF weights, given a set of projected demands, with the objective of minimizing network congestion. The weight assignment problem is NP-hard. We present a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the OSPFWS problem. We compare our results with the best known and commonly used heuristics for OSPF weight setting, as well as with a lower bound of the optimal multi-commodity flow routing, which is a linear programming relaxation of the OSPFWS problem. Computational experiments are made on the AT&T Worldnet backbone with projected demands, and on twelve instances of synthetic networks.     

The impact of severe stalking experienced by acutely battered women: an examination of violence, psychological symptoms and strategic responding

Stalking has been relatively understudied compared to other dimensions of intimate partner violence. The purpose of this article was to examine concurrent and subsequent intimate partner abuse, strategic responses and symptomatic consequences of severe stalking experienced by battered women. Thirty-five battered women classified as "relentlessly stalked" and 31 infrequently stalked battered women were compared. Compared to infrequently stalked battered women, relentlessly stalked battered women reported: (a) more severe concurrent physical violence, sexual assault and emotional abuse: (b) increased post-separation assault and stalking; (c) increased rates of depression and PTSD; and (d) more extensive use of strategic responses to abuse. Results underscore the scope and magnitude of stalking faced by battered women and have implications for assessment and intervention strategies.     

Don't fix it

Next to doing nothing, fixing a problem is often the worst thing you could do with it. Fix a problem but miss the context, and you still have the problem--only it's bigger, it's weirder, it costs more, and everybody's grumpy. When something comes at you with a "problem" label, use it as an opportunity to connect things up, to explore, to ask the bigger questions, to find the new possibilities. When we react to a problem, we put ourselves into a dilemma. To find fruitful and creative solutions, we need to be in a place of choice, with many possibilities. Real participation--giving people real choice--is the only way you can bring people's intelligence and life experiences to bear on the situation at hand.