Does CERN procurement result in innovation?

Innovation is stated to be one of the most powerful engines for economic growth in firms, markets and nations today. It is therefore not surprising that policy-makers would like to see innovations as a benefit of publicly spent money; making innovations an additional aim of public procurement (public procurement for innovation). The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of a science organization's procurement practices on innovation. The intention is also to show how different and contradicting goals and expectations regarding public procurement are described and acted upon by the science organization and its suppliers, and to what extent the outcome of public procurement is innovation. Empirically, the study addresses how the European Organization for Nuclear Research, i.e. CERN, works with procurement; and how their procurement in turn affects CERN's suppliers. Based on a large case study in which more than 100 interviews were conducted over a time period of 8 years, the study contributes to the understanding of the limitations CERN’s procurement rules put on interaction and on innovation. The understanding of the implications of restricting interaction, but also the understanding of the reasons why these rules are put into place, and the dilemmas that follow, are all important contributions.     

Risk management in public procurement for innovation: the case of Nordic–Baltic Sea cities

State support for innovation in enterprises has been long-standing. One of the specific support measures is public procurement for innovation, which has only recently re-emerged in academic discussion as well as in the European policy discourse. While the spillovers from this type of innovation policy measure may be substantial, the complex processes underlying the support for innovation through public procurement are associated with high risks. We take an exploratory approach to determine the state of practice of risk management in public procurement for innovation at the local level. Five case studies, which were selected as representative cases of the Nordic–Baltic Sea region in Europe, were analyzed. We found that the cities were, for the most part, actively involved in risk identification; the risks are primarily being met with mixed contracting strategies rather than comprehensive risk management tools.     

Are government intentions for the inclusion of innovation and small and medium enterprises participation in public procurement being delivered or ignored? An Irish case study

It is imperative that public procurement opportunities are made equally accessible to all size businesses to ensure a fair and level competitive playing field. “Innovation,” as the creative process of exploiting new ideas, has become widely recognized as playing a central role in the economic recovery of Europe and so too are the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) who are considered as major promoters of innovation and innovative solutions. At a national level, the implementation of European Union (EU) policies on SMEs and innovation inclusion in public procurement, while of paramount importance to Irish policy-makers to ensure alignment and compliance, seems, however, to have a significant lack of monitoring and reporting mechanisms. It is found that a lack of commitment and drive from the top, a lack of robust measurements and monitoring mechanisms combined with contrasting political agendas, and a very risk averse culture have collectively added to government intentions being ignored in many instances.     

Can service innovations be procured? An analysis of impacts and challenges in the procurement of innovation in social services

This paper addresses the challenges that arise when service innovations are being promoted through public procurement. The academic and policy debate on public procurement of innovation has recently been very vivid, but it has mostly focused on procurement of technologies and tangible goods while considerably less attention has been paid to public procurement of innovation in services. By drawing on conceptual tools from the literature on service innovation and public procurement of innovation, the paper examines an empirical case of procurement of social services for substance abusers carried out by the city of Helsinki, Finland. In particular, the article analyzes whether the characteristics of services and service innovation are compatible with processes and requirements of public procurement. The article shows that service innovations can be procured, but the features of services and service innovation such as intangibility, interactivity, and difficulty to measure the impacts of new services affect the procurement process and set particular requirements for it.     

Quo vadis, Hausgemeinschaft? Zum Wandel nachbarschaftlicher Beziehungen in den östlichen Bundesländern

Before the reunification of Germany, the contact to neighbours is now often said with romantically transformed undertones, to have enjoyed a high level of stability, solidarity, human warmth, and community-mindedness. The structure of neighbourly relations in a socialistic housing block community collective is discussed in this paper, in retrospect. Furthermore, the meaning of these informal contacts is dealt with in terms of being a socialistic collective personal niche or important resource compensating the East-German economy of deficiency. A qualitative empirical study deals with the changing processes within neighbour contacts after the fall of the ?Wall“ between East and West and subsequent end of the GDR. The results indicate a number of relationships changing in housing blocks and between neigbours in the community. However, assumptions cannot be confirmed which state neighbourly relationships or contacts have been broken off with only negative results. Reasons for a change in East German neighbourhoods do not seem to be alone a result of the political turn-around. The reason for that is the particular neighbourhood structure of the so-called really existing socialism (real existierender Sozialismus) in the past times of the GDR.     

Whither e-learning? Conceptions of change and innovation in higher education

Abstract

E-learning, as an innovation, has been associated with radical change, but many of the accepted organisational strategies for managing such change have failed to deliver the expected benefits and advantages. There is a pressing requirement to understand better the nature of e-learning, as an educational innovation, and to evolve contextually derived frameworks for change which align with organisational culture and practice. This paper proposes a processual change framework for embedding e-learning, derived from a longitudinal study of four Australian universities, each adopting a different approach to implementing e-learning across their respective institutions.     

The future of human longevity--how important are markets and innovation?

In a hearing before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging, a well-respected demographer warns that there is no evidence of slowing in the long-term rise in best-practice life expectancy in developed countries. The author discusses how these findings will affect the future of Social Security and argues for a larger, more focused effort with respect to longevity research by demographers, epidemiologists, and economists.     

Reputation management: the new face of corporate public relations?

An empirical study of Fortune 500 companies suggests that “reputation management” is gaining ground as a driving philosophy behind corporate public relations. Whether the phenomenon is a trend or a fad is not clear, given the lack of consensus in defining reputation, the instability and questionable validity of reputation measures, and unanswered questions about when and how (or even whether) reputation can be “managed.” Besides reputation management, corporate public relations departments in the study embraced a wide variety of other definitions of their function, suggesting that public relations continues to have great difficulty in defining itself. While the study did not find a strong correlation between reputation and overall spending on corporate communication activities, as had a similar study the prior year, it did find some interesting correlations between reputation and specific categories of spending.     

Who are the social media influencers? A study of public perceptions of personality

Social media influencers (SMIs) represent a new type of independent third party endorser who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media. A mature public relations literature has identified the characteristics of effective spokespersons, but relatively little is known about audience perceptions of the SMI. A q-sort technique identified core perceived attributes of four sample SMIs. A better understanding of the perceived personality of SMIs provides tools for optimizing an organization's SMI capital.     

Breadth or depth? A content analysis of the use of public relations theory

In a 2003 content analysis of scholarly public relations journal articles, Sallot, Lyon, Acosta-Alzura and Jones stated that, although no dominant paradigms had yet emerged, scholarship and theory building in public relations was well on its way. Entering into this project, the authors expected to see public relations at a stage where the majority of public relations research and scholarly journal articles were focusing on a centralized body of theory as the field entered the first decade of the 21st century. The results of the study presented in this article, however, suggest that this expectation was unduly optimistic. The evidence demonstrates that, after more than three decades of scholarly efforts, it is still not the case that public relations has enough of a central focus in its research and theory building to be deemed a mature discipline.     

To click or not to click? A study of the innovation resistance of political emails

As a novel technology in the age of information, the Internet has become a fancy vehicle through which campaign messages can be delivered to prospective voters via multiple paths such as websites and emails. However, despite the effort put into making campaign messages as appealing as possible, studies show that the click-through rate of campaign emails remains relatively low. In the past, many studies concerning technology adaptation have focused on the aspect of “innovation diffusion” rather than “innovation resistance”. The aim of this study is to integrate ideas derived from the Technology Acceptance Model, the concepts of innovation resistance and the theory of ad avoidance to find the factors that influence voters' resistance of reading political emails. An online survey was conducted, in which a sample of 1012 voters in the 2009 local election in Taiwan was studied. The results showed that negative impression and perceived interruption were the factors behind people's resistance of politically-related emails. In addition, both of the above factors affected people's attitudes toward opening future political emails.     

Spaces for public orientation? Longitudinal effects of Internet use in adolescence

The article departs from an overarching research question: How does young people's engagement in different Internet spaces affect the development of their public orientation during adolescence? It analyses longitudinal panel data in order to explore how young people's public orientation develops during a phase in life (13–20) which is critical for political socialization. Data are derived from three waves of data collection among young people who were 13–17 years old at the time for the first data collection. The concept public orientation is measured by three indicators: young people's values, interests and everyday peer talk. These indicators are analysed with reference to respondents' Internet orientations, which we conceptualize as four separate but inter-related spaces (a news space, a space for social interaction, a game space and a creative space). The results primarily emphasize the importance of orientations towards news space and space for social interaction. Overall, the findings strongly suggest that orientations towards these spaces are related to adolescents' public orientation. The findings confirm the centrality of news and information in political socialization, but they also challenge the idea that social media facilities – such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging – enable forms of social interaction and creative production that have an overall positive impact on young people's public orientation.     

Virtues of SIN: can intensified public efforts help disadvantaged immigrants?

The labor market integration of immigrants is a top political priority throughout the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Social and fiscal gains, as well as sustained future labor supply make governments search for effective policies to increase employment among the mostly disadvantaged. The author studies SIN, a Swedish pilot workplace introduction program targeting these groups, using very detailed individual data and allowing for effects through several channels. The results show increased transitions from unemployment to work experience schemes and improved future employment probabilities for those who entered these schemes. A rough calculation suggests that each job year created cost about Euro 30,000.     

The picture of health? Message standardization and recall of televised AIDS public service announcements

The results of The Picture of Health demonstrate that differences exist between African Americans and Non Hispanic Whites in recall of verbal and visual themes of televised AIDS public service announcements. These differences are anchored in a complex relationship among emotions, attitudes, and opinions about the place of science and technology in society, and the “how we say it” elements used to create an individual PSA. The data suggest that effective healthcare communication campaigns require a focused thematic strategy, tactically organized to different combinations of “how we say it” elements to communicate effectively with a diverse, active audience.T.N. Walters is Assistant Professor of Journalism, Northeast Louisiana University. Lynne M. Walters, Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, and Susanna Hornig Priest are Associate Professors of Journalism, Texas A & M University.     

Who shall speak of the pain? frame violations and the making of public controversy 1

This paper focuses on the frame violations that were created as sense-makers viewed a Canadian war documentary, The Valour and the Horror. The film series aggressively challenged conventional wisdom, and resulted in a fierce battle played out publicly in a Senate Subcommittee investigation as parliamentarians, veterans, historians, journalists and film-makers clashed over whose version of the truth would prevail. We argue that controversy erupts due to frame violations, and that it unfolds in a predictable manner. The article analyses both the content of the documentary, and describes the unfolding controversy. We found that different types of frame violations resulted in different consequences, but that generally, broad revisions of conventional and deeply held frames resulted in attacks on the person who created the violations, while lesser violations elicited an attempt to tamper with the product.     

Assessment method of accessibility conditions: how to make public buildings accessible?

The enforcement of accessibility today has faced several difficulties, such as intervention in historic buildings that now house public services and cultural activities, such as town halls, museums and theaters and should allow access, on equal terms to all people. The paper presents the application of a method for evaluating the spatial accessibility conditions and their results. For this, we sought to support the theoretical foundation about the main issue involved and legislation. From the method used--guided walks--it was possible to identify the main barriers to accessibility in historic buildings. From the identified barriers, possible solutions are presented according to the four components of accessibility: spatial orientation, displacement, use and communication. It is hoped also that the knowledge gained in this research contributes to an improvement of accessibility legislation in relation to the listed items.