Major Hazard Information Policy in the European Community: Implications for Risk Analysis

The main impetus to the development of information about major industrial hazards in the European Community comes from the so-called Seveso Directive, which defines an information network and requires the generation and transmission of information as the basis for accident prevention and risk management. This important policy development, which calls for the formal identification and analysis of major hazards and the communication of risk information to members of the public, presents new opportunities and challenges to risk analysis and research in Europe. This paper briefly reviews the accidents that gave rise to the Directive and shaped its content, and then summarizes its requirements. The status of its implementation in the EC Member States is discussed, with special emphasis given to the comparison of safety analysis practices, the Major Accident Reporting System (MARS), and risk communication. Some new research directions stimulated by the Directive are identified.     

The Seveso Directive: An Italian Pilot Study in Enabling Communication

In 1982 the Council of the European Communities issued a Directive on the Major Accident Hazards of Certain Industrial Activities, commonly known as the Seveso Directive. Besides other requirements, the Directive specifies that members of the public liable to be affected by a major accident from certain industrial activities must be informed of safety measures and how they should behave in the event of an accident. The Directive was subsequently amended in an extensive way. Upon the transposition of the Seveso Directive and its amendments into national legislations, the 12 European Member States are faced with the task of "appropriately and effectively" informing the public about major accident hazards. Delays are observed throughout the community, both in transposing the Directives and implementing public information. A pilot study on "Risk Information Needs" was commissioned and carried out at two Seveso sites in Italy in order to begin to resolve some of the problems involved in the provision of public information and to suggest appropriate guidelines. One hundred subjects answered an experimental protocol designed to assess their "information needs." This article presents the theoretical background, the pragmatic aims, and the design of the study. It also summarizes its most relevant findings and suggests some recommendations for the provision of information to the public.     

Description and Evaluation of an Approach to Implementing Programs in Organizational Settings

A broad-based approach to implementing programs is described and evaluation information is reported from two investigations of its use by program managers in educational organizations. The approach consists of a framework of program implementation factors from which implementation procedures are derived. The procedures then are used by a manager to help facilitate implementation of a program according to plan. In the first investigation, three program managers were trained in the approach to assist them in implementing a behavioral group counseling program in three public high schools. In the second investigation, a program manager was trained to help implement a case management system in an elementary school. Results of both investigations suggest that managers were able to utilize the program implementation procedures, with their respective programs being more completely implemented when the procedures were applied. Reactions aboul the approach obtained from human service program managers, following both investigations, suggest that it may be a worthwhile managerial strategy. Advantages and limitations of the approach are considered and its relationship to organizational behavior management is discussed.     

Social Amplification of Risk in the Internet Environment

This article analyzes the dynamic process of risk amplification in the Internet environment with special emphasis on public concern for environmental risks from a high‐speed railway tunnel construction project in South Korea. Environmental organizations and activists serving as social stations collected information about the project and its ecological impact, and communicated this with the general public, social groups, and institutions. The Internet provides social stations and the public with an efficient means for interactive communication and an open space for active information sharing and public participation. For example, while the website of an organization such as an environmental activist group can initially trigger local interest, the Internet allows this information to be disseminated to a much wider audience in a manner unavailable to the traditional media. Interaction among social stations demonstrates an amplifying process of public attention to the risk. Analyses of the volume of readers’ comments to online newspaper articles and public opinions posted on message board of public and nonprofit organizations show the ripple effects of the amplification process as measured along temporal, geographical, and sectoral dimensions. Public attention is also influenced by the symbolic connotations of risk information. Interpretations of risk in religious, political, or legal terms intensify public concern for the environmental risk.     

Six Propositions on Public Participation and Their Relevance for Risk Communication

New societal obligations for communicating risk information are emerging in a variety of contexts. This article draws upon the lengthy societal experience with citizen participation programs to identify how risk communication efforts may be effectively structured and implemented. Six major propositions address such themes as means/ends differences in expectations, the timing of the program, the role of credibility and trust, the need for technical and analytical resources, differing thresholds of public involvement, and limitations upon current understandings. Key conclusions for the design of risk communication programs are set forth.     

Does Communicating (Flood) Risk Affect (Flood) Risk Perceptions? Results of a Quasi‐Experimental Study

People's risk perceptions are generally regarded as an important determinant of their decisions to adjust to natural hazards. However, few studies have evaluated how risk communication programs affect these risk perceptions. This study evaluates the effects of a small-scale flood risk communication program in the Netherlands, consisting of workshops and focus group discussions. The effects on the workshop participants' ( n  = 24) and focus group participants' ( n  = 16) flood risk perceptions were evaluated in a pretest-posttest control group ( n  = 40) design that focused on two mechanisms of attitude change—direct personal experience and attitude polarization. We expected that (H1) workshop participants would show greater shifts in their flood risk perceptions compared with control group participants and that (H2) focus groups would rather produce the conditions for attitude polarization (shifts toward more extreme attitudinal positions after group discussion). However, the results provide only modest support for these hypotheses, perhaps because of a mismatch between the sessions' contents and the risk perception measures. An important contribution of this study is that it examined risk perception data by both conventional tests of the mean differences and tests for attitude polarization. Moreover, the possibility that attitude polarization could cause people to confirm their preexisting (hazard) beliefs could have important implications for risk communication.     

The Decline of Deference: The Political Context of Risk Communication

Risk communication is seen as an important adjunct to the process of siting locally noxious facilities. To understand how risk communication might function in such a process, one needs to understand the political context that gives rise to public opposition to such facilities in the first place. This analysis draws on a variety of data to describe the decline of deference, a situation in which a hostile and alienated public is mobilized primarily through ad hoc voluntary organizations, and is increasingly reluctant to defer important decisions to institutional elites. Risk communication programs must be designed to offset the trends that result in the decline of deference. This conclusion differs markedly from the conventional wisdom that risk communication is merely a device for providing information to citizens so sthat they may make more rational decisions.     

A School Feeding Supply Chain Framework: Critical Factors for Sustainable Program Design

School feeding is an established development aid intervention with multiple objectives including education, nutrition, and value transfer. Traditionally run by international organizations in low‐income settings, school feeding programs have had a substantial impact in many less‐developed countries. However, recent rethinking by the World Bank and the World Food Programme has prompted a shift toward long‐term, sustainable solutions that rely more upon local resources, local capacity, and community participation. Supply chain management, which is critical to program delivery, is vital to developing a sustainable approach to school feeding. We propose a theoretical framework that identifies the internal and external factors that shape the supply chain and connects them to the objectives and performance measures of sustainable programs. Drawing upon supply chain management theory, current school feeding practices, and expert feedback, this article contributes to development aid logistics and program transitioning with a focus on sustainable program design. It aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to school feeding and relevant supply chain issues, a framework to identify sustainability problems in school feeding supply chains, and a starting point for further research on program design.     

Credibility, Information Preferences, and Information Interests

The Seveso Directive of the European Union demands that information be provided to the public by companies and authorities about facts, risks, and behaviors related to hazardous facilities, in particular chemical facilities. On behalf of the Commission of the European Communities, a survey was run in five European countries on the credibility of various information sources. This article describes the results of the German study. 430 persons were interviewed with a questionnaire of 50 items, in particular about their perceptions and evaluations of technical risks, the credibility of sources of information about chemical risks, their preferences for receiving risk information from these sources, and their interests in receiving information. Major findings are great differences in credibility, differentiated information preferences, and strong information interests. Surprisingly, credibility played only a minor role with regard to the respondents'information preferences and interests.     

Physician career development: toward building a model

Virtually no managed care organization provides a comprehensive and integrated program for physician career development. That's the principal finding of a survey we carried out in Spring 1994 in which we interviewed several individuals who have proven instrumental in the creation of career development programs at their managed care organizations. We started our research with the hypothesis that career development programs for physicians--frequently the most highly paid category of employees and the ones often most directly involved in the delivery of health care--should parallel the mission of the organization. In many of the organizations we surveyed, the mission included clinical excellence, managerial competence, research, teaching, community service, and building shareholder equity. While each organization offered some component of career development--usually clinical improvement and management development--very few offered programs that fostered the continued professional development of physicians in other aspects of their missions. In most cases, even in organizations with stronger career development agendas, the programs were passive and were rarely linked to the overall "corporate" goal of the managed care institution. This critical disconnect makes it extremely difficult for health care organizations to develop a workable system of accountability for their career development programs.     

A survey of the empirical literature on flexible workhours: character and consequences of a major innovation

Programs of flexible workhours (flexi-time) have a reputation for broad and substantial effects in organizations. This article provides a summary evaluation of the empirical flexible workhours literature, focuses upon the characteristics of flexi-time programs, and details "hard" and "soft" effects of the intervention revealed by the literature. Despite limitations of available studies, both behavioral and attitudinal data encourage more flexi-time applications and suggest future research needs.     

Dimensions and design criteria for developing training reaction evaluations

Although there is research on training program evaluation, there is little systematic research on the design, development and use of training reaction evaluations. In order to obtain meaningful information from a program evaluation, evaluation professionals must be rigorous in the design and development of all aspects of an evaluation study, including instrumentation. The purposes of the study were to classify the dimensions of information sought using reaction evaluations and to establish design criteria for developing training reaction instruments. There were three major phases of the study: (1) classification of the dimensions and questionnaire design criteria used in reaction evaluations; (2) validation of the classified dimensions and the questionnaire design criteria by subject matter experts; and (3) assessment of a sample of training reaction instruments currently used in training programs in US corporations. The research findings were: eleven dimensions for reaction evaluation were identified and classified by purpose. Five overall design criteria, each consisting of several sub-criteria, were judged important in the design of reactionnaires. These include: introduction and directions; question format; question construction; questionnaire layout; and data analysis. It was concluded that a well-designed training reaction instrument integrates the proper application of design criteria with appropriate reaction dimensions. Most training reaction instruments used by US corporations consisted of questions representing only a few dimensions. The instruments varied in form and length. Few of them properly utilized the established questionnaire design criteria.     

Major Chemical Accidents in Industrializing Countries: The Socio-Political Amplification of Risk

Accidents in the chemical industry, such as those that took place in Seveso (1976) and Bhopal (1984), may kill or injure thousands of people, cause serious health hazards and irreversible environmental damage. The aim of this paper is to examine the ever-increasing risk of similar accidents becoming a frequent ocurrence in the so-called industrializing countries. Using figures from some of the worst chemical accidents in the last decades, data on the Bhopal disaster, and Brazil's social and institutional characteristics, we put forward the hypothesis that present social, political and economic structures in industrializing countries make these countries much more vulnerable to such accidents and create the type of setting where–if and when these accidents occur–they will have even more catastrophic consequences. The authors argue that only the transformation of local structures, and stronger technical cooperation between international organizations, industrialized and industrializing countries could reduce this vulnerability.     

IT治理与我国国防科技组织发展创新

加快信息化发展、提高信息化建设水平,进而保证国防能力稳定提高是我国国防科技组织发展与创新的重要目标,而在研究如何实现这一目标的过程中,"IT治理"问题越来越突出.本文从交易成本经济学、契约理论、嵌入理论出发,对IT治理的多层性特征等问题进行分析,试图建立IT治理的分析框架,探讨IT治理机制的特征,进而制定战略和具体执行措施,从制度上保证我国国防信息化建设的成功.     

Multicriteria decision support for global e-government evaluation

E-government refers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by governments to provide digital services to citizens and businesses over the Internet, at local, national or international level. Benchmarking and assessing e-government is therefore necessary to monitor performance and progress by individual countries and identify areas for improvement. Although such measurements have already been initiated by various organizations, they scarcely highlight the multidimensional nature of the assessment. This paper outlines a multicriteria methodology to evaluate e-government using a system of eight evaluation criteria that are built on four points of view: (1) infrastructures, (2) investments, (3) e-processes, and (4) users’ attitude. The overall evaluation is obtained through an additive value model which is assessed with the involvement of a single decision maker–evaluator and the use of a multicriteria ordinal regression approach. Specifically, the UTA II method is used, whose interactive application process is divided in two phases. Its implementation is supported by MIIDAS (multicriteria interactive intelligent decision aiding system). This research work aims at supporting potential stakeholders to perform a global e-government evaluation, based on their own viewpoints and preferences. Finally, 21 European countries are evaluated and ranked considering the latest criteria data.     

Die Einführung von Mitarbeiter/innengesprächen an österreichischen Universitäten

The introduction of staff appraisal interviews in Austrian Universities This paper addresses the issue of the obligatory introduction of staff appraisal interviews in the Austrian higher education system after the implementation the law ?UG 2002“ (University Law 2002). It focuses on the cultural change process from the old university management system to a nowadays prevalent ?management by objectives“. After the introduction of the ?UG 2002“ Austrian Universities are forced to be more competitive with one another, hence an academic market is opened. Ultimately this leads to a cultural break. This is the reason why we discuss the possibilities and limitations of the implementation of appraisal interviews and target agreements from different angles. The diverse perspectives will be a theory of communication, a theory of organizations and a psychodynamic standpoint.     

The dynamics of local and interactive effects on innovation adoption: The case of electronic commerce

Innovation adoption is determined not only by the opportunities and constraints resulting from organizations’ characteristics (local effects), but also by reaction to the adoption of their interdependent and referable others (interactive effects). This study examines the dynamics of innovation adoption by considering both local and interactive effects in early adopters relative to later adopters, and then investigates the electronic commerce adoption as an empirical example. Analysis results show that the crucial stimulating effects in the early market are focused on the nature of innovations, while those in the later market are concentrated on the practical implementation issues of innovations.     

A Risk-Based Approach to Setting Priorities in Protecting Bridges Against Terrorist Attacks

This article presents an approach to the problem of terrorism risk assessment and management by adapting the framework of the risk filtering, ranking, and management method. The assessment is conducted at two levels: (1) the system level, and (2) the asset-specific level. The system-level risk assessment attempts to identify and prioritize critical infrastructures from an inventory of system assets. The definition of critical infrastructures offered by Presidential Decision Directive 63 was used to determine the set of attributes to identify critical assets--categorized according to national, regional, and local impact. An example application is demonstrated using information from the Federal Highway Administration National Bridge Inventory for the State of Virginia. Conversely, the asset-specific risk assessment performs an in-depth analysis of the threats and vulnerabilities of a specific critical infrastructure. An illustration is presented to offer some insights in risk scenario identification and prioritization, multiobjective evaluation of management options, and extreme-event analysis for critical infrastructure protection.     

Development, application, and evaluation of an "action-reaction" planning method.

It is difficult to design and implement new public policies and programs, at least partially owing to the fact that few useful methods are available to help shape the planning, decision-making, and implementation processes required for change. Planning often tends to focus on wishful thinking rather than on a realistic assessment of the probable outcomes. In this article we describe an action-reaction approach to planning that explicitly recognizes the restrictions on program impact arising from the system in which change is being attempted. A hypothetical example shows the application of this method to the design of a health-care delivery program. The article concludes with a discussion of the long-term uses of the data base that may be compiled with this method.