The dynamic role of small- and medium-sized multinationals in global production networks: Norwegian maritime firms in the Greater Shanghai Region in China

This article examines the role of small- and medium-sized multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the dynamic development of global production networks (GPNs) in the maritime industry. It studies the dynamism between subsidiaries of Norwegian maritime firms and regional actors and institutions in the Greater Shanghai Region of China from the perspectives of the subsidiaries. It argues that strategic coupling, recoupling and decoupling are partly the results of regional selection mechanisms. However, in the cases where the subsidiaries are embedded within the host region, the strategies and behaviour of MNEs are of decisive importance for the dynamic development of GPNs.     

Conference Tourism: A Problem for the Environment,as well as for Research?

The increase in professional trips to conferences and seminars made by employees in the 'knowledge industries' presents an environmentally worrying trend in mobility in contemporary post-industrial society. A number of factors are involved. Globalisation and regional competition encourage host cities and institutions to put themselves on the conference map. For the individual traveller, conferences and seminars offer escape from daily routines and the chance to experience new, perhaps exotic, places. But trips to distant conferences can have serious environmental impacts, especially if made by airplane. Because of the aggressive impact of greenhouse gas emissions in the upper atmosphere, their threat to the global climate is more serious than similar trips made at surface level. In addition, the time spent on such trips competes with other tasks: conference participation takes scarce time resources available to university academics for research. In the age of electronic communication, it is questionable whether conferences are effective arenas for communicating and gathering knowledge.     

Attitudes of police managers to different leadership roles in their jobs: An empirical study in Norway

The background for this study is the increased complexity in policing that has become more knowledge‐based and more professional in the past decade. The aim of this article is to present empirical results from a study of attitudes of police managers to different leadership roles in their jobs in two police districts in Norway. A questionnaire was developed and administered among police managers in two police districts in Norway. Participants in leadership programs were selected for this survey research. The Follo police district and Hedmark police district had a total of 130 participants in these programs, with 60 managers from Follo and 70 managers from Hedmark. The research was carried out in March and April 2010. The personnel leader role was found to be most important, followed by the resource allocator role. Responding police managers reported that they felt least competent in the liaison role.     

A Review on Possible Approaches for Detecting Early Warning Signs in Projects

In this paper, we attempt to provide an overview of the full extent of early warning detection approaches, which are directly or indirectly addressed in the literature. These approaches can aid project managers in taking corrective actions timely enough for preventing failures. The study is based on a review of the current literature within the field of early warning in project management and our own experiences gained from practice. An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and their applications in different contexts are also performed. We conclude that the choice of the most effective approach is arguably dependent on the type of project, organizational culture, and the project environment.     

Expectations,substitution, and scrapping in a putty-clay model

The paper presents a framework for analyzing the effect of changing expectations about future prices on a firm's choice of technique, and on its anticipated scrapping of capital equipment. Assuming a putty-clay technology, particular attention is paid to the way in which the scrapping age depends on the degree of ex ante input substitution. Numerical illustrations — based on data for Norwegian manufacturing for the years 1964–1983, an ex ante technology represented by a Generalized Leontief cost function in materials, energy, labor, and capital, and an ARMA representation of the price expectation mechanism — are presented. The results indicate that the price changes in this period may have had a substantial impact on planned scrapping, and on the chosen production techniques.     

Consumer Bankruptcy: A Right or a Privilege? The Role of the Courts in Establishing Moral Standards of Economic Conduct

The Norwegian Consumer Bankruptcy Act was passed 17 July 1992 to give persons with "serious debt problems (. . .) the possibility to gain control over their economy." The Act contains provisions for negotiations between the debtor and the creditors, for court rulings on repayment plans, and for a discharge of the debts not covered by the plan. The origin of the Act was a social welfare approach to the problem of overindebtedness. However, the Act embodies an inherent contradiction in that it also includes moral elements in order to prevent it from exerting a negative influence on the perceived obligation to pay one's debts. This contradiction has given the courts a wide scope of discretion in the application of the Act. As a result, cases are treated differently in different jurisdictions. Some judges put more emphasis on moral evaluations than others. This situation also gives room for strategic action from creditor groups who typically are repeat players in cases of consumer bankruptcy. In this way the more objective, social welfare approach of the Act is undermined.     

The Modeling Process for Stage Models

The purpose of this paper is to present and test a modeling procedure because researchers have struggled for decades to develop stages-of-growth models that are both theoretically founded and empirically validated. This article presents the concept and hypothesis of stages, the history of stage models, and a procedure that may serve as a useful tool in modeling stages of growth. Based on previous research and lessons learned from case study experience of the government sector in Norway, a procedure for the stages of growth modeling process is suggested and demonstrated. The procedure is used for developing a stage model for e-government interoperability. This article provides new insight into issues and challenges faced when engaging in stages of growth research. The paper proposes a new approach to stages of growth modeling. The utility of the suggested procedure is to improve theory building and empirical validation. The contribution to academia is the modeling process that can be applied in future developments of stages of growth. The contribution to practice lies in the stage hypothesis of organizational development over time.     

Categorizing risks in seven large projects—Which risks do the projects focus on?

In a hierarchy of project objectives, strategic objectives will often be principally different from the operational ones. Operational objectives concern the project outputs/results, and strategic objectives concern the project goal and purpose. In this study, risks are categorized as risks to operational, long‐term, or short‐term strategic objectives, and, by studying a dataset of some 1,450 risk elements that make up the risk registers of seven large projects, we examine how operational and strategic risks are distributed in the projects. The study strongly indicates that risks to a project's strategic objectives rarely occur in the project's risk registers, though project success and failure stories indicate their importance.     

UNDERSTANDING PER‐CAPITA INCOME GROWTH IN PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE

In a Malthusian environment, per‐capita incomes are stagnant, meaning they cannot exhibit sustained growth. However, they can still display volatility and persistence when hit by shocks. This article simulates a Malthusian model with realistic life‐cycle structure and stochastic and accelerating growth in land productivity. We find that differences across simulated economies are quantitatively similar to those found in recently compiled data over GDP per capita for several European countries before 1800. This speaks to the relevance of the Malthusian model for understanding preindustrial development in Europe, contrasting with contentions to the contrary in some of the existing literature.     

On the use of partial least squares path modeling in accounting research

Partial least squares (PLS) is an approach to structural equation modeling (SEM) that is extensively used in the social sciences to analyze quantitative data. However, PLS has not been as readily adopted in the accounting discipline. A review of the accounting literature found 20 studies in a subset of accounting journals that used PLS as the data analysis tool. PLS allows researchers to analyze the measurement model simultaneously with the structural model and allows researchers to adopt more complex research models with both moderating and mediating relationships. This paper assists accounting researchers that may be interested in adopting PLS as an analysis tool. We explain the benefits of using PLS and compare and contrast this analysis approach with both ordinary least squares regression and covariance-based SEM. We also explain how the PLS algorithm works to derive estimates for the measurement and structural models. To further assist researchers interested in using PLS, we offer guidelines in the development of research models, analysis of the data, and the interpretation of these results with PLS. We apply these guidelines to the accounting studies that have used PLS and offer further recommendations about how researchers could apply PLS in future accounting research.