THE REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF U.S. BUSINESS SERVICES GROWTH, 1977–1987: EVIDENCE AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Regional analysts and policy makers have long struggled with problems arising from the uneven development of industrial systems. Most efforts have focused on manufacturing even though the business services sector continues to gain importance as a source of employment. This paper provides rigorous analyses of the regional organization of business services employment growth in the United States and discusses some implications of regionalism for the development of industrial policy. The analyses use chi-square goodness-of-fit tests and spatial statistics to examine regional structure. State-level employment data in ten business service industries for two periods, 1977–1982 and 1982–1987, are used in the analyses. The results show that although employment growth varies across the United States, it does not exhibit consistent regional organization. Instead, growth is organized more around metropolitan complexes. The lack of regional organization suggests that industrial policy should focus on the urban concentration of growth, telecommunications infrastructure and urban-rural linkages.     

OLDER WORKERS, GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS: IMPLICATIONS FOR AGEING POPULATIONS OF A GLOBALISING ECONOMY

Though there is a consensus surrounding the importance of people working at older ages – and in a more flexible way – trends in employment and trade patterns mean that existing policies are not as effective as they need to be.     

INTERACTIONS AMONG DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF A RESPONSIVE PUBLIC SPACE: CASE STUDY IN IRAN

A place is generally identified by its varying physical, activity, social and meaning (connotative) characteristics. In this paper, the Model of Responsive Public Space is defined by these four aspects and each of them has its own special indicators as shown in previous studies on this subject. To examine this model and evaluate the interactions between these dimensions, experimental studies were carried out in two stages. In the first stage, open-ended structured interviews were carried out with 70 participants to adjust the model with personal opinions about public spaces in Qazvin city, Iran. In the second stage a questionnaire was used to explore the effect of the four dimensions on each other. 598 users of a selected public space participated in this study. The results were analyzed by SPSS software applying a Pearson correlation test and Excel software. These results indicate that not only in theory but also in practice, public spaces have four distinct aspects that must be taken into consideration when creating a responsive public space. The most significance correlation is that between the meaning and the social dimension of public spaces.     

THE ROLE OF TENURE SECURITY IN HOUSING SELF-IMPROVEMENT: A CASE-STUDY OF SURABAYA, INDONESIA

Some developing countries are tapping into the opportunities offered by self-help gradual improvement of houses in order to relieve the environmental problems besetting their urban areas. For decisionmakers and planners it is important to know the factors that can entice slum dwellers to improve their houses. Using Indonesian data, this paper has tested and verified the assumption that tenure security is a powerful factor that can entice slum dwellers to internalize the benefits from neighborhood environmental quality improvement.     

CORPORATE MANAGEMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A CASE STUDY

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to examine the development of a Corporate Management Unit in a north-western local authority. The research tool is social analysis and it is proposed to arrive at some conclusion concerning the contribution of social analysis to organization development. The research was undertaken in the early summer of 1974 when a total of fifteen unstructured person to person interviews were completed from a sum of fifteen respondents.     

EXPLORING THE MENTAL MODELS OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGISTS: THE CASE FOR A PROCESSUAL APPROACH

Recently there have been a number of studies published which seek to further our understanding of the competitive structures of markets. These studies have used aggregated perceptual data in an attempt to uncover industry-level mental models of business environments. In this article we argue that such studies are predicated on the assumption that there are high levels of consensus within and between organizations in a given industry concerning the bases of competition and the positioning of particular organizations. In the present study we employ a similar methodology but focus on the mental models of individuals in order to examine empirically the nature and extent of such consensus. the research was carried out in the UK grocery retailing industry. Twenty-three managers from two organizations were each interviewed using a variant of the cognitive taxonomic interview procedures devised by Porac and his associates. the study revealed considerable variation in terms of the nature of the cognitive categories elicited from the participants and the overall complexity of their taxonomies relating to competitive structures, both within and between the organizations. However, the study also revealed considerable intra-organizational agreement regarding the categories which describe the self-identity of the research participants’organizations and their major competitors. We consider the implications of these findings for understanding processes of strategy development and implementation in organizations.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELATIVE RISK AVERSION AND THE LEVEL OF EDUCATION: A SURVEY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DEMAND FOR LIFE INSURANCE

The expected utility hypothesis has been widely used in the construction of economic models and numerous difficulties are encountered in attempting to take into account preferences toward risk in a real‐world setting. More recently, attention has focused on comparative studies in economics and business in an international framework and problems related to the hypothesis of relative risk aversion (RRA). One ambiguous hypothesis is the relationship between the level of RRA and the level of education, which has been found either positive or negative. From a causality point of view, it may be argued that investors with a high level of education are less risk averse, but it may also be argued that less risk‐averse individuals choose to pursue a higher level of education. The purpose of this paper is to survey the empirical literature on this subject. It provides evidence that risk aversion is negatively correlated with higher education and human development. The results have important implications for macroeconomic empirical studies and the demand for financial assets and more specifically on the demand for life insurance. Assuming the same degree of RRA for utility‐maximizing consumers should be limited to homogeneous samples.     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY AS A SOCIAL ENGINEERING TOOL: A NEW JERSEY CASE STUDY

This study uses logistic regression to examine the preferences for social engineering policies in the agricultural sector in a New Jersey case study. It finds that farm operators are unlikely to support a policy allowing countries to restrict trade to pursue domestic economic and social policy goals if the policies affect international trade. In particular, it suggests that farm operators with annual gross sales including government payments between $500 000 and $999 999 are 80 percent less likely to indicate such a preference. Farm operators with advanced degrees, some college education, and a high school diploma are also unlikely to indicate such a preference. In contrast, farm operators who receive no income from farming or ranching and those who receive a percentage of family income from farming or ranching indicate that countries should be allowed to restrict trade to pursue domestic economic and social policy goals even if the policies affect international trade.     

ORGANIZATIONAL OPTIONS FOR PROVIDING URBAN WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICES: THE CASE OF INDONESIA

Rising incomes and rapid growth require better approaches to organizing and delivering solid waste management services in developing countries. This paper uses Indonesia as a case context for exploring organizational options to urban waste management, including provision by municipal agencies, semi-commercial enterprises, private firms, and neighborhood organizations. Semi-commercial enterprises were found to cover significantly higher shares of routine expenditures than municipal agencies. Few differences were found among different indicators of labor and equipment productivity among organizational types, however. The major difference is that non-public organizations more vigorously seek out revenues. Promising ways to increase revenues and stop leakages are to link solid waste payment with payment of electricity bills and to negotiate revenue-sharing schemes with neighborhood leaders.