The legislation of environmental disclosures in three Nordic countries—a comparison

This paper compares the legislation in Denmark, Norway and Sweden concerning what kind of environmental information firms must disclose. These three Nordic countries have great similarities regarding accounting legislation and standards. However, Denmark has chosen a different way to force firms to disclose their environmental performance compared with Norway and Sweden. Danish firms must deliver separate ‘green accounts’, while Norwegian and Swedish firms are bound to report on environmental issues in the administrative report. The Norwegian and Swedish firms' information mainly addresses the financial consequences of environmental impact and the Norwegian legislation is also found to be more extensive than the Swedish legislation. The information from the Danish firms addresses society in general. The comparison indicates some interesting topics for further analysis, e.g. how the extensive demands in Norway for information about products' impacts when discharged may be fulfilled. As a background for this comparison, an outline of the discussions about voluntary versus regulated environmental information is given as well as an overview of some international standards and recommendations concerning firms' environmental disclosures. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

Managing Cultural Diversity in Collaborations: A focus on management tensions

Abstract

This article explores the management of cultural diversity in public and not-for-profit collaborations spanning organizational, professional and national boundaries. Through the framing of a culture paradox, it identifies three interrelated tensions pertaining to the management of cultural diversity towards collaborative advantage. These tensions address: interactions between organizations within a collaboration; interactions between individual actors and their orientation towards the collaboration and their host organization; and the quantity and extent of cultural diversity within a collaboration. The culture paradox and its inherent management tensions provide theoretical and practical conceptualizations that are relevant to management and governance of collaboration.     

GIRA: a general model for incident risk analysis

Most existing risk analysis methods focus on analysing risks that a system might face throughout its life. However, there is no explicit method for risk analysis during incidents. Approaches such as bow-ties and attack trees provide reliable information about triggers and escalation of incidents, but do not cover risk evaluation. Risk matrices include the entire risk analysis process; however, their risk evaluation approach is oversimplified. This paper presents a General Model for Incident Risk Analysis, which formalises the incident risk analysis process through an influence diagram. Our aim is to provide a decision support model that generates reliable risk information and enhances incident risk evaluation.     

Governing Cross-Sector,Inter-Organizational Collaborations

Abstract

This article addresses the governance of cross-sector, inter-organizational collaboration in the context of public administration and management. It conceptualizes the governance of collaborations in terms of structures and processes that enable actors to direct, coordinate and allocate resources for the collaboration as a whole and to account for its activities. It argues that the need to pay attention to considerations of ‘collaborative governance’ and ‘governing collaboration’ in cross-sector collaborations gives rise to a number of challenges and tensions that need to be addressed if the governance form is to be sustained and the collaboration is to yield advantage.     

Is Publicity Always Better than Advertising? The Role of Brand Reputation in Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility

Previous studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication suggest that firms’ social initiatives should be communicated through third-party, non-corporate sources because they are perceived as unbiased and therefore reduce consumer skepticism. In this article, we extend existing research by showing that source effects in the communication of social sponsorships are contingent on the brand’s pre-existing reputation. We argue that the congruence between the credibility and trustworthiness of the message source and the brand helps predict consumer responses to a social sponsorship. The results show that a non-corporate source (publicity) generates more positive brand evaluations than a corporate source (advertising) when the sponsor has a positive reputation. However, the converse effect occurs when brand reputation is low: when the sponsor has a poor reputation, a corporate source generates more positive brand evaluations than a non-corporate source. Mediation analyses show that the interaction effect between CSR information source and brand reputation can be explained by sponsorship attitude, persuasion knowledge, and perceived fit between the brand and the cause.     

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POPULATION GROUPS IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE TIMING AND NUMBER OF BIRTHS

From 1981 to 2005, the total fertility rate in South Africa has been reduced from an estimated level of 4.6 to 2.8 children per woman. The relative differences in the total fertility rate between population groups, however, remain large. Our empirical analysis of the determinants of the timing of births shows that better‐educated women schedule birth later and have fewer children. The differences in education between population groups account for a substantive part (up to 40%) of the differences in completed fertility between the population groups. Our findings suggest that educational reforms aimed at equal access to education, which benefit African women most, may not only improve the quality of life of women but also, through their impact on fertility behaviour, yield long‐run benefits, as they will have fewer children and more resources to invest in the next generation.     

The Challenge of Collaborative Governance

Partnerships increasingly play a major role in determining and implementing major policy drives in localities. Under-standing how they may provide value is therefore essential to understanding modern governance principles. This article describes action research aiming to develop a conceptualization of fac-tors inherent in collaborative forms and, hence, about their practicality as governance tools. Different interpreta-tions of what collaborative governance is intended to achieve are first reviewed. Two areas that seriously affect the ability of collaborations to deliver their potential, structural complexity and diversity are then reviewed. The article concludes by considering what is needed to make collaborative governance work.     

Statistical approximation of plane convex sets

Summary

Given a convex set F in the plane with a sufficiently smooth boundary we try to approximate it by polygons in the following way. Using some specified sampling procedure we pick out n points on the boundary. Through each such point we draw the tangent. Consider the polygon F*_n spanned by all these tangents. If n is large we would expect F*_n to be close to F. Measuring the deviation by the area of F*_n — F we will derive an asymptotic expression for this area when n becomes large. This expression can be used to choose the optimum sampling procedure in the sense of smallest asymptotic deviation.

The problem arose from a problem of statistical approximation in propositional calculus, see section 1.     

Bioeconomic Analysis of By-Catch of Juvenile Fish in the Shrimp Fisheries – an Evaluation of Management Procedures in the Barents Sea

A bioeconomic model on the management ofby-catch of juvenile fish in the shrimp fisheryin the Barents Sea and the Svalbard Zone,presented by the Norwegian Directorate ofFisheries to the Joint Norwegian RussianFisheries Commission in 1993, is evaluated. The model is based on management of by-catchthrough closure of areas when the by-catch ofjuvenile fish from commercially importantspecies exceeds a critical number. It isargued that although the model may prove usefulin bringing economic rationale into themanagement of by-catch, care must be taken whenstocks are in poor shape. This is illustratedby using the high mortality rates and low stocklevels experienced for cod and haddock in 2000,and which is expected for the next couple ofyears. It is therefore discussed when it isappropriate to use the model with reference tothe Code of Conduct provided by FAO in 1995.