Integration of Critical Infrastructure and Societal Consequence Models: Impact on Swedish Power System Mitigation Decisions

Critical infrastructures provide society with services essential to its functioning, and extensive disruptions give rise to large societal consequences. Risk and vulnerability analyses of critical infrastructures generally focus narrowly on the infrastructure of interest and describe the consequences as nonsupplied commodities or the cost of unsupplied commodities; they rarely holistically consider the larger impact with respect to higher‐order consequences for the society. From a societal perspective, this narrow focus may lead to severe underestimation of the negative effects of infrastructure disruptions. To explore this theory, an integrated modeling approach, combining models of critical infrastructures and economic input–output models, is proposed and applied in a case study. In the case study, a representative model of the Swedish power transmission system and a regionalized economic input–output model are utilized. This enables exploration of how a narrow infrastructure or a more holistic societal consequence perspective affects vulnerability‐related mitigation decisions regarding critical infrastructures. Two decision contexts related to prioritization of different vulnerability‐reducing measures are considered—identifying critical components and adding system components to increase robustness. It is concluded that higher‐order societal consequences due to power supply disruptions can be up to twice as large as first‐order consequences, which in turn has a significant effect on the identification of which critical components are to be protected or strengthened and a smaller effect on the ranking of improvement measures in terms of adding system components to increase system redundancy.     

Sales and operations planning: responding to the needs of industrial food producers

This paper investigates sales and operations planning (S&OP) at four Scandinavian industrial food producers in order to explore how the use of S&OP might help leaders to deal with the challenges set by the planning environment. Variables connected to the product and market, e.g. frequency of new product development, customer service levels and supply uncertainty, were identified as particularly critical for the S&OP process. It was found that there is great potential for S&OP in the food industry, foremost to cope with the imbalances between demand and supply and to create prerequisites for a stable production process.     

On the Definition and Age-Dependency of the Value of a Statistical Life

The value of preventing a fatality or (saving) a statistical life is an important question in health economics as well as environmental economics. This paper adds new insights to several of the issues discussed in the literature. It is shown that the conventional way of measuring the value of a statistical life yields a biased estimate, in general. The major exception is the case where the estimate can be based on an infinitely short drop in the hazard rate. This is so in both life cycle models with and without actuarially fair annuities. Moreover, the claim that there are strong theoretical reasons for believing that the value of statistical life declines with age is shown to be wrong.     

Putting Peace to the Vote: Displaced Persons and a Future Referendum on Nagorno-Karabakh

Fifteen years after the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the conflictremains unresolved, and Azerbaijan remains host to one of theworld's largest per capita populations of internally displacedpersons (IDPs). Current plans for a settlement of the conflictenvision a crucial role for these IDPs, by proposing their returnand participation in a referendum to decide the future statusof the disputed territory. This article outlines several issuesthat need to be considered when arranging for such a referendum:what territory will the referendum concern, who will be eligibleto vote, what options will voters choose among, and how willthe results be determined? These issues arise from previousexperiences of peace processes that provided for referenda.In conclusion, the article argues that the referendum be arrangedin such a way as to increase uncertainty about the outcome,rather than gearing it towards one that seeks to confirm andlegitimize a solution negotiated by governments.     

To be,or not to be,that is the question: An empirical study of the WTP for an increased life expectancy at an advanced age

This study reports an attempt to measure the value of an increased survival probability at advanced ages. It turns out that the average willingness to pay for a program which would increase the expected length of life by one year, conditional on having survived to the age of 75 years, is lower than $1,500. The willingness to pay increases with a person's age, but at a low and seemingly constant rate (1–4 percent per year).     

Stress experienced by informal caregivers On conflicting demands in everyday life

Stress was defined as a conflict experienced between contradictory demands on the disposition of time and space in the life situation of caregivers. The following questions were asked: are there any family or gender related patterns to be found in the individual expressions of stress experiences? How can differences in stress experiences be explained in terms of work load, sociocultural demands related to gender and family relations, or lack of control in everyday life? What are the effects of a well developed welfare system? What are the differences between a rural and an urban setting and how do different life modes influence sociocultural demands and individual decision latitudes, creating and limiting different contributions of care? How are cultural characteristics reflected in stress experiences? The sample consists of 99 care recipients, all in intense formal care, and the person identified by the care recipient as the person in the informal network who contributed most or took most responsibility in caregiving. Stress experience among main helpers is related to area of living, main helper's gender, kin relation to the care recipient and lack of a shared responsibility within the informal network. Obtaining support in the caring situation reduces the instrumental demands and also the experience of stress. Women in urban areas had less caring commitments in the informal network but also experienced more stress. Help from public home services, however, was not found to reduce the instrumental demands and experiences of stress in all situations.     

Managing competence acquisition and financial performance: An empirical study of how small firms use competence acquisition strategies

Past research has neglected how small firms manage competence acquisition. Based on transaction cost literature, this article identifies competence acquisition management strategies and their implications for performance. We explore this issue using survey data from 842 small, knowledge-intensive firms. The results outline four aspects of competence acquisition management: (1) competence absorbers, (2) social acquirers, (3) market acquirers, and (4) nonacquirers. Furthermore, we hypothesized and found that market acquirers score higher in terms of financial performance than firms following the other strategies. The market acquirer strategy proved particularly effective under conditions of high dynamism.     

The Transformation of Gendered Work: Dualistic Stereotypes and Paradoxical Reality

The article focuses on the paradoxes of gender stereotypes: how they need to be understood in order to make sense of the situation and how at the same time and for the same reason they need to be dissolved. Three stories derived from an ethnographic study of a Swedish housing company provide insights into both the absurdity and necessity of gender stereotypes. The process of men entering traditionally female work was neither the same nor the reverse process as women entering male arenas. Totally different patterns emerged when men entered traditionally female work arenas from when women entered traditionally male ones. Also, in this transformation process, traditional dualistic gender stereotypes were present and absent, being the very ground and dissolved at the same time. The stories challenge traditional dichotomous views of gender; to highlight this, three genders are introduced. Through this narrative device of creating three genders, a paradoxical process of resistance to change and real change becomes clearer. This article regards gender stereotypes as an invisible interpretive screen enabling theoretical sense-making; such a screen is both real and not real, functioning as resistance to change and allowing change to occur at the same time. Through this paradoxical complexity, the stories become as easy to understand as they actually are from a more practical, ethnographic perspective.