Machinery of Government in Small States: Issues,Challenges and Innovatory Capacity

Small states present particular challenges to designers of political and administrative systems, and far too often their governing patterns have been imposed by former colonial powers. There are nonetheless excellent examples of efforts to design systems which are appropriate to the needs of the small states themselves. This is explored in relation to the pattern of ministries and departments, the use of executive committees, the structure and size of legislatures, head of state/head of government arrangements, and a range of other machinery-of-government issues. Consideration also is given to factors which can be exploited to develop innovative capacity in small states, and some areas for further research are suggested.     

Multi‐Case Review of the Application of the Precautionary Principle in European Union Law and Case Law

The precautionary principle was formulated to provide a basis for political action to protect the environment from potentially severe or irreversible harm in circumstances of scientific uncertainty that prevent a full risk or cost‐benefit analysis. It underpins environmental law in the European Union and has been extended to include public health and consumer safety. The aim of this study was to examine how the precautionary principle has been interpreted and subsequently applied in practice, whether these applications were consistent, and whether they followed the guidance from the Commission. A review of the literature was used to develop a framework for analysis, based on three attributes: severity of potential harm, standard of evidence (or degree of uncertainty), and nature of the regulatory action. This was used to examine 15 pieces of legislation or judicial decisions. The decision whether or not to apply the precautionary principle appears to be poorly defined, with ambiguities inherent in determining what level of uncertainty and significance of hazard justifies invoking it. The cases reviewed suggest that the Commission's guidance was not followed consistently in forming legislation, although judicial decisions tended to be more consistent and to follow the guidance by requiring plausible evidence of potential hazard in order to invoke precaution.     

Governance of Small Jurisdictions: Guest Editors' Introduction

This article introduces a symposium on the Governance of Small Jurisdictions developed from selected papers first presented at a conference at the Islands and Small States Institute of the University of Malta in November 1999. It notes the important role of the University of Malta in promoting the study of governance in small states, and recognises other leaders in the small and island states study movement including the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration which co-hosted the beginning conference.The article then considers the notions of smallness and statehood as generally used in this branch of scholarship, reflects on what small states have in common, introduces the other articles which make up the symposium, and provides a list of some 90 states with populations of under one million sorted into three categories: (i) sovereign states, (ii) states in federations, and (iii) associate states, self-governing territories and self-governing colonies.     

A Critical and Argumentative Study of the Development and Performance of the Ombudsman Institution in a Small Multiracial Society: The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

Since the end of World War II the Ombudsman institution has increasingly spread from Scandinavia to other parts of the world. Although it has worked reasonably well in developed nations, its performance is not so satisfactory in the developing nations. This article identifies and examines the problems, issues and factors that make its operation difficult and problematic in a developing democracy namely Trinidad and Tobago, and suggests some remedial measures. It also concludes that if provided with the proper environment in which to develop, grow and thrive, it is conceivable that with the passage of the time this institution will gradually and slowly emerge as a powerful force for redressing grievances and complaints against public bureaucracy and maladministration, for ensuring transparency, and for promoting and protecting human rights and democratic values. It examines various issues from both contemporary and historical perspectives. Although this article focuses on Trinidad and Tobago, references to other parts of the globe are also made for a better and comparative understanding of this institution.     

The Use of Human Experience Data in the EU Risk Assessment Process

The incorporation of human experience data (HD) into the risk assessment process is encouraged by various authorities with the aim of improving the robustness of the subsequent findings. HD, however, can present in many forms, ranging from epidemiological studies to the accumulated experiences from poison centers. This diversity of the human experience, combined with the manner in which it may (or may not) present, creates several challenges for risk assessors if they are to give available HD due weight in the RA process. An evaluation was made of how HD has been cited and used within the 64 human health RAs published by the EU to the end of 2005. In all RAs, HD had been cited to some degree. But there was no consistency between how cited data had subsequently been taken forward and used in the evaluation of different endpoints, either between the RAs authored by the same or different EU Member States. The lack of any accepted guidance for addressing the role that HD can play within the RA process appears to lead to this situation. Recommendations are provided on the scope and focus such guidance could usefully be expected to take.     

Coordination of Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Small Island Developing States: Two Case Studies

The American financial crisis which began in the second half of 2007 ultimately deteriorated into a world economic downturn. Despite hopeful signs of recovery in early 2011, there was another setback in the second half of 2011, consequent to the euro zone debt crisis. These developments posed challenges of unprecedented nature to the small island developing states (SIDS). Being prone to shocks of all kinds, such as natural disasters and volatility in prices of fuel and food, SIDS have been struggling to keep their economies afloat with their limited range of fiscal and monetary policies, success of which depended on coordination between ministries of finance and central banks. This paper seeks to examine the subject with two case studies in two regions, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.     

小团队内部知识共享的绩效评估

本文针对小团队的特点,从知识的获取、应用、传播和可持续发展等四个方面,分析了影响小团队内部知识共享绩效的主要因素,构建了绩效评估的递阶层次结构模型。给出了各评价因素的测度方法,并运用层次分析法确定了各因素的权值。最后给出了一个评价实例,表明该方法具有良好的实用性。     

Insularity and Governance: The Case of French Polynesia

Insularity, smallness and remoteness help explain specific tendencies noted in the governance of French Polynesia, a partially self-governing French overseas territory in the South Pacific, with a population of 220,000. Professional relations tend to become personalized, and impersonal and impartial procedures are hard to apply. The market for experts is small: some people are able to claim a monopoly on some type of expertise and then defend it by every means. Solidarity is vertical, not horizontal, which makes for a fragile democracy.     

The Impact of Service Quality and Service Characteristics on Customer Retention: Small Businesses and their Banks in the UK1

The recent developments in relationship marketing have increasingly focused attention on the beneficial effects of customer retention. The notion of building relationships and delivering quality service in order to encourage loyalty is perhaps of particular importance in the service sector where it is often argued that customer attraction costs are significantly higher than retention costs. Central to the idea of investment in the development of service quality and customer relationships is the belief that such investments will enhance loyalty, retention and profitability. Empirical evidence on the extent to which such links exist is still partial. This paper explores the relationship between service qualitylcustomer relationships and customer loyalty and retention using evidence from the UK banking sector and its small business customers.     

不同成长阶段下中小企业融资方式选择研究

本文通过实证研究检验了在经济转轨时期我国中小企业的融资行为符合西方成熟国家的金融成长周期理论,即中小企业的融资结构随着中小企业生命成长阶段的不同,其呈现周期变化趋势.同时,发现中小企业权益融资与债务融资的渠道多种多样,不同的发展阶段也必定有不同的来源.最后通过回归分析,对我国中小企业融资方式的选择进行了实证研究.     

Who Does the Public Trust? The Case of Genetically Modified Food in the United States

Trust is important for the perception of many types of risk, including those relating to genetically modified (GM) food. Who the public trusts in any given circumstance, however, is not well understood. In this study of public trust regarding GM food, an exploratory factor analysis with Promax rotation reveals public classification of three common institutional types-evaluators, watchdogs, and merchants. The structure of relationships among these stakeholders can act to enable or constrain public support for this new technology. Evaluators-scientists, universities, and medical professionals-are the most trusted. Watchdogs-consumer advocacy organizations, environmental organizations, and media sources-are moderately trusted. Merchants-grocers and grocery stores, industry, and farmers-are least trusted. While the federal government is seen as closest to being an evaluator, it is not highly correlated with any of the factors. The lack of trust in the organizations with the greatest resources and responsibilities for ensuring the safety of GM food should be seen as an important obstacle to the adoption of the technology.     

Consumer Risk Perceptions Toward Agricultural Biotechnology, Self-Protection, and Food Demand: The Case of Milk in the United States

This study is an econometric systems approach to modeling the factors and linkages affecting risk perceptions toward agricultural biotechnology, self-protection actions, and food demand. This model is applied to milk in the United States, but it can be adapted to other products as well as other categories of risk perceptions. The contribution of this formulation is the ability to examine how explanatory factors influence risk perceptions and whether they translate into behavior and ultimately what impact this has on aggregate markets. Hadden's outrage factors on heightening risk perceptions are among the factors examined. In particular, the article examines the role of labeling as a means of permitting informed consent to mitigate outrage factors. The effects of attitudinal, economic, and demographic factors on risk perceptions are also explored, as well as the linkage between risk perceptions, consumer behavior, and food demand. Because risk perceptions and self-protection actions are categorical variables and demand is a continuous variable, the model is estimated as a two-stage mixed system with a covariance correction procedure suggested by Amemiya. The findings indicate that it is the availability of labeling, not the price difference, between that labeled milk and milk produced with recombinant bovine Somatotropin (rbST) that significantly affects consumer's selection of rbST-free milk. The results indicate that greater availability of labeled milk would not only significantly increase the proportion of consumers who purchased labeled milk, its availability would also reduce the perception of risk associated with rbST, whether consumers purchase it or not. In other words, availability of rbST-free milk translates into lower risk perceptions toward milk produced with rbST.     

Sales Force and Competition in Financial Product Markets: The Case of Mexico's Social Security Privatization

This paper examines how sales force impacts competition and equilibrium prices in the context of a privatized pension market. We use detailed administrative data on fund manager choices and worker characteristics at the inception of Mexico's privatized social security system, where fund managers had to set prices (management fees) at the national level, but could select sales force levels by local geographic areas. We develop and estimate a model of fund manager choice where sales force can increase or decrease customer price sensitivity. We find exposure to sales force lowered price sensitivity, leading to inelastic demand and high equilibrium fees. We simulate oft proposed policy solutions: a supply‐side policy with a competitive government player and a demand‐side policy that increases price elasticity. We find that demand‐side policies are necessary to foster competition in social safety net markets with large segments of inelastic consumers.     

Control Premium in Legally Constrained Markets for Corporate Control: The Italian Case (1993–2003)*

We discuss the simple model pioneered by Barclay and Holderness (1989, Journal of Financial Economics 25: 371–395) and recently reproposed by Dyck and Zingales (2004a, Journal of Finance 2, 537–600; 2004b Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 16, 51–72) in order to measure the value of control in countries, like Italy, where transfer of control is regulated by law. We demonstrate that it is possible to broaden the application of B&;H approach to block trades followed by mandatory tender offers and we show the conditions under which we may obtain significant measures of private benefits also when voluntary tender offers are considered. In order to test for our theoretical predictions, we analyse the pricing of 27 control transactions involving the common stock of Italian listed corporations between 1993 and 2003. We find that block-transaction (tender) premium equals on average 8% of the firm’s equity value in the case of pure block-trades, 9% in the case of block trades followed by a mandatory tender offer, while it increases to 18% in the case of voluntary tender offers. The results suggest that, in the case of block trades followed by a mandatory tender offer, the acquirer does not transfer a larger portion of its surplus. This doesn’t take place in the case of voluntary tender offers, in which the raider’s bargaining power collapses. Our estimate of the control premium is sensibly lower than that presented in previous studies based on similar methodologies, providing up-to-date evidence for control stake valuation purposes and for comparison with cross country studies aiming at assessing the quality of rules devoted to minority shareholders’ protection. We also perform a cross-sectional regression analysis of private benefits of control and confirm some of the findings presented in the previous literature: particularly, we find evidence of a positive relation between the magnitude of private benefits of control and the target’s degree of stock-pyramiding. We also find that foreign acquirers and financial investors seem likely to face greater difficulties in extracting private benefits of control.     

The Challenge of Coordination in Central Government Organizations: The Norwegian Case

This paper addresses coordination problems in central government by focusing on the Norwegian case. The main research questions are: What are the experiences of civil servants concerning horizontal and vertical coordination, and internal and external coordination? What is the relative importance of structural, demographic and cultural variables for explaining variations in civil servants’ perception of coordination? The data base is a questionnaire to civil servants in ministries and central agencies in 2006. The main findings are that there are more problems with horizontal coordination than with vertical coordination; that coordination problems are bigger in central agencies than in ministries; and that a low level of mutual trust tends to aggravate coordination problems.     

Risk Perception in a Developing Country: The Case of Chile

In this work we characterize risk perception in Chile, based on the psychometric paradigm, exploring the difference between perceived social and personal risk. For this purpose, we conducted a survey including 54 hazards, 16 risk attributes, and 3 risk constructs. The survey, divided into four parts, was administered to 508 residents of Santiago, Chile. Using factor analysis, three main factors, which accounted for 80% of the sample's variance, were identified: factor 1, commonly called "Dread Risk" in the literature, explained 37% of variance; factor 2, "Unknown Risk," explained 28%; and factor 3, which we called "Personal Effect," explained 15% of the variance. On average, individuals perceived themselves as less exposed to risk and with more control and knowledge about them than the general population. OLS regression models were used to test the association of perceived risk with the three main factors. For social risk, factor 1 had the greatest explanatory power, while factor 2 had a negative sign. For personal risk, only factors 2 and 3 were significant, with factor 3 having the greatest explanatory power. Risk denial (defined as the difference between perceived personal and social risk) was associated with factors 1 and 2 only, with factor 2 having a negative sign. The difference between desired and actual regulation levels proved positive for all hazards, thus indicating that Chileans are dissatisfied with the current regulation level for all the hazards analyzed. The comparison of data at the aggregate and at the individual subject's level suggests that while the aggregate analysis overestimates the magnitude of the correlations it still reflects the tendency of the individual responses.     

The Financial Impact of FSC Certification in the United States: A Contingency Perspective

This article focuses on an important and emergent standard for sustainable operations management: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. Unlike similar certifications, its focus is on the entire upstream supply chain, reflecting the criticality of supply chain management to ensure sustainable products. We investigate the financial impact from FSC certification, offering valuable decision support for managers considering this certification. Taking a contingency perspective, we view a firm's supply chain position and its prior certification to the ISO 14001 standard as influencing the results. Drawing on signaling theory, we suggest that firms farther downstream in the supply chain realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms upstream in the supply chain. We further hypothesize that firms that were not ISO 14001 certified at the time of FSC certification realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms that did have the ISO 14001 certification. To test these hypotheses, we utilize financial data of all publicly traded firms in the United States that have obtained the FSC certification, and assess whether FSC certification leads to abnormal performance benefits considering the above contingencies. Data collected from the FSC Certificate Database and Compustat, employed in an event study, provide support for our hypotheses. Overall, our findings contribute to research on decision making in the context of sustainable operations management, and offer a plausible explanation for contradictory results in prior studies. We highlight the applicability of signaling theory to decision sciences research, and stress the need to consider contingencies in sustainability management research.     

The role of CEO emotional stability and team heterogeneity in shaping the top management team affective tone and firm performance relationship

In this paper, we aim to bridge the micro-macro divide by addressing continued calls from strategic leadership and affect researchers to examine the black box to consider how CEO characteristics relate to top management team (TMT) affective experiences, and, in turn firm outcomes. We further consider the role of one key contextual factor in this relationship: TMT heterogeneity. We predict that CEO personality, specifically, emotional stability, is positively associated with TMT affective tone. Moreover, we posit that the relationship between TMT affective tone and firm performance depends on TMT task-related heterogeneity, such that positive affective tone benefits firm performance in heterogeneous TMTs, whereas negative affective tone benefits firm performance in homogeneous TMTs. Using a novel methodology that measures key psychological aspects of the CEO and TMT, we examined 50 TMTs from publicly-traded companies to test our predictions. Our findings offer theoretical contributions to the strategic leadership, affect and diversity literatures as well as managerial applications for CEO selection and management and managing diversity in upper echelons.     

Analyzing the Efficient Execution of In‐Store Logistics Processes in Grocery Retailing—The Case of Dairy Products

In this article, we examine in‐store logistics processes for handling dairy products, from the incoming dock to the shelves of supermarkets and hypermarkets. The efficient execution of the in‐store logistics related to such fast‐moving, sensitive, and essential items is challenging and crucial for grocery retailers' sales, profits, and image. In our empirical study, we survey in‐store logistics processes in 202 grocery supermarkets and hypermarkets belonging to a major retail chain in central Europe. Using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) and simulation, we facilitate process benchmarking. In particular, we identify ways of improving in‐store logistics processes by showing the performance impacts of different managerial strategies and tactics. The DEA results indicate different efficiency levels for different store formats; the hybrid store format of the small hypermarket exhibits a comparatively worse performance in the analyzed execution of in‐store logistics processes. The process simulation analysis reveals that the strategic and tactical design of in‐store logistics processes (such as store locations/layouts, capacity management, reorder time, order period, and safety stock factors) lead to substantial service performance improvements (such as higher on‐shelf availability combined with reduced inventory obsolescence costs). The results also show marginal improvements in the performance figures when delivery delays and damage to products are reduced.     

The Management of Violence in a Conflict Organization: The Case of the Abu Sayyaf

The Abu Sayyaf is an organization which has left a trail of mayhem and murder in the southern Philippines for more than a decade. It has gained international notoriety through several high profile mass kidnappings. This article looks at how the Abu Sayyaf has managed to survive and at times prosper despite the state's efforts to eradicate it. By using organizational analysis the paper demonstrates how the Abu Sayyaf has developed structures and processes which make it such a deadly force. The organization has succeeded in gaining considerable fit with the environment in which it operates.