Awareness as a foundation for developing effective spatial data infrastructures

The development of an effective spatial data infrastructure (SDI) often occurs in a fragmented organizational environment requiring a high level of inter-organizational collaboration. Different organizations from various jurisdictions need to work together closely when agreeing on how they will jointly register, store, use and share data and how they will make their data available to the wider society. However, this collaboration is generally regarded as very difficult. For example people often resist data sharing across organizational boundaries due to loss of control, power and independency. Organizational issues are thus considered one of the fundamental constraints to inter-organizational sharing of spatial data.     

Safety attitudes,behaviour, anxiety and perceived control among professional and non-professional drivers

The current study aimed to investigate differences in psychological safety factors such as attitudes and behaviour among professional and non-professional drivers. Differences in accident involvement and the number of speeding tickets were also investigated. An additional aim was to study factors associated with risky driver behaviour and speeding tickets in these groups. A questionnaire survey was distributed by mail to a randomly selected sample from the Norwegian population registry (N?=?6203). The response rate was 30% and the final sample consisted of 1864 individuals. Adjusted for demographic characteristics and road traffic exposure the results showed that professional drivers (n?=?113) reported significantly less seat belt use and watchful driving than non-professional drivers (n?=?1594). Professional drivers reported significantly less fun riding and safer attitudes regarding addressing the unsafe driving of others. The professional drivers also reported significantly safer behaviour related to drink driving, but lower priorities of road traffic safety. Professional drivers perceived significantly more control and had been involved in more accidents than the non-professional drivers. The results suggest that professional drivers may constitute a risk group in road traffic. Further research could focus on barriers of seat belt use and mechanisms, which could promote safety priorities in this driver group. The knowledge gained by such studies could be utilised by company managers in order to promote safer behaviour among professional drivers.     

Housing Price Forecastability: A Factor Analysis

We examine U.S. housing price forecastability using principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares (PLS) and sparse PLS (SPLS). We incorporate information from a large panel of 128 economic time series and show that macroeconomic fundamentals have strong predictive power for future movements in housing prices. We find that (S)PLS models systematically dominate PCA models. (S)PLS models also generate significant out‐of‐sample predictive power over and above the predictive power contained by the price–rent ratio, autoregressive benchmarks and regression models based on small datasets.     

Social Economy and New Jobs: A Summary of Twenty Case Studies in European Regions

Employment in the new social economy is growing. In times of rising unemployment new cooperatives and associations are recruiting some of the unemployed. That is the main conclusion in the study on twenty organizations scattered all over Europe presented in this article. The organizations are located in different economic and legal environments, but united in that they are comparatively small, locally based and run in a democratic way. The article also introduces the field `new social economy' and presents three hypotheses to give a theoretical framework for the results in the study. Finally implications for policy and research are presented.     

Environment and profitability in the reprocessing of paper in Norway: contradictory research reports in the context of circulation economics

In this article we study three Norwegian reports concerning the environmental problems connected to use of natural resources and production of waste. The reports are responding to political initiatives in White Paper 58 (1996–97) and White Paper 8 (1999–2000). The reports describe, analyse and give reasons for various resolution strategies with regard to excessive consumption of virgin natural resources, inefficient economic processes and irresponsible waste management. The purpose of this article is threefold. First, we present a theoretical framework that enables an integrated analysis of economic problems. We have termed the theoretical context for our analysis circulation economics. Second, we illustrate the complexity of the problems through a discussion of the three different reports concerning waste management. Third, in the context of circulation economics the different reports elucidate various aspects of the phenomenon area and the new perspective can be used to synthesize the partial findings. In addition to this, we suggest where further work has to be done in the future. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Social values and the limits to growth

This paper deals with the value aspects of the limits to growth problems. A holistic view of the concepts influencing people's lifestyles, including their social values, are presented. The materialistic, growth oriented lifestyles dominating the U.S. and other highly industrialized nations are analyzed, and the underlying needs and social values presented. Also alternative, less materialistic values are shown to indicate the direction of desirable value changes. How these changes could be accomplished is illustrated in the way a value set of an individual is created through socialization. The authors conclude that the early childhood plays an essential role in achieving the changes, but also that no one need sit back passively and just wait for changes to come along.     

Workplace bullying as an antecedent to job insecurity and intention to leave: a 6‐month prospective study

Workplace bullying is a severe problem in contemporary working life, affecting up to 15 per cent of employees. Among the detrimental outcomes of bullying, it is even postulated as a major risk factor for exclusion from work. In support of this claim, the current study demonstrates that exposure to bullying behaviour predicts an increase in both levels of job insecurity and intention to leave over a 6‐month time lag, among a random sample of North Sea workers (n = 734). The findings suggest that bullied employees are insecure about the permanence and content of their job, and they may be at risk of turnover and exclusion from working life. It is recommended that these outcomes are taken into consideration when incidences of workplace bullying are addressed.     

External workers’ perception of leadership behaviour – a study of Swedish temporary agency workers and contractors

The increasing prevalence of externalised work arrangements in industrialised countries has brought with it ever greater managerial complexity in the workplace. This article explores how leadership behaviour is perceived by internal and external workers within a public authority in Sweden. Questionnaire data from 505 temporary agency workers (TAWs), contractors and internal employees have been analysed. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicate that external workers such as TAWs and contractors are more likely than internal employees to notice leadership profiles, including pronounced, task‐oriented leadership behaviour. These results hold true when controlled for demographic and socio‐economic variables and organisational tenure. A practical implication is that explicit attention should be paid to the need for leadership training in developing HRM strategies with regard to external employees.