Exploring e-government futures through the application of scenario planning

In this paper, we examine the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) on government departments/agencies and the contribution of external agents to change and development programs. We present empirical evidence of externally facilitated change to mindsets and patterns of behavior within local government through use of a scenario planning-based approach. Our aim was to facilitate the organizational actors' conduct of investigation of the ‘limits of the possible’ for a range of plausible futures and determination of strategic responses to these. Participants used their own current knowledge and understanding as a basis for development, with the introduction of external ‘expertise’ to challenge their thinking and to expand their understanding. Following this, we facilitated the participants' elucidation of key uncertainties on the future, exploration of the relationships between them and possible outcomes. The participants then constructed scenarios that outlined four possible and plausible futures. These held explicit meaning for the participants, enabled them to identify implications of each possible future in relation to structure and service requirements and informed analysis of current structure, service, etc. We compare and contrast the process and outcomes of our scenario-planning intervention (based on intuitive logics) with both those of other futures methodologies (decision analysis, Delphi and environmental scanning) and with other scenario methodologies (trend-impact analysis and cross-impact analysis). We argue that the external facilitation of internal generation of knowledge, understanding and meaning, and of exploration of the limits of the possible for the future, is a valuable tool for comprehending strategic choices. We conclude that our scenario approach, utilizing intuitive logics, enables organizational actors to make sense of the complexities and ambiguities that they face and so facilitates strategic change.     

Exploring the relationship between technical and service characteristics

The paper explores the complex relationship between technical and service characteristics discussed by the Saviotti–Metcalfe model of innovation. It is proposed that principal components analysis (PCA) is a more appropriate method of analysing this relationship than approaches previously used. A PCA is performed on a dataset of mobile phone handsets for the period 2003 to 2008. In addition to the relationship between technical and service characteristics, the analysis explores the existence of clusters of ergonomic characteristics within mobile phone handsets. The findings indicate that a limited set of core technology components underpin the large set of service characteristics offered by mobile phone handsets, and that the mapping between technical and service characteristics can be highly complex.

Exploring the relationship between university and innovation: evidence from the Italian food industry

This study provides empirical evidence on the role of universities’ technological transfer (TT) activities in the Italian manufacturing sector, with particular attention to the food industry. Using the UniCredit-Capitalia database (2008 UniCredit-Capitalia. 2008. Decima Indagine Sulle Imprese Manifatturiere Italiane. Rapporto Corporate. [Google Scholar]) for firms and data from the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) to obtain the university TT indicator, we estimate a probit model to assess the effect of universities’ TT activities on a firm’s likelihood to innovate. The role of proximity in knowledge spillovers from TT activities is also investigated. Results show that university TT activities seem to stimulate food industry firms innovation and the impact appears significantly higher than for the manufacturing sector. Moreover, the effect of TT activities on innovation appears to be geographically bounded. As regards policy implications, this study provides two insights which may help promote innovation in the food sector. First, the factors that influence innovative capability in the food sector are different from those in other sectors, suggesting the need for sector specific instruments for promoting innovation. Second, science is important in the food industry and this raises questions about the policy of mainly considering high-tech industries when promoting a closer relationship between firms and universities.     

The uses of history in policy analysis and strategic planning

History is a useful, if not necessary, adjunct to the policy analysis process. Although the policy options are different at various periods in history, we can learn from the examples of the past. The Japanese experience or coordination between government and the universities is examined along with the American experience since World War II.     

Organizational ambidexterity: Integrating deliberate and emergent strategy with scenario planning

In this article we propose scenario planning as a tool for fostering organizational ambidexterity. The concept of organizational ambidexterity continues to gain attention, however, clear methods for developing this organizational ability are generally not offered. We therefore describe organizational ambidexterity and situate it in the general strategy literature. Key characteristics of organizational ambidexterity are provided, and the logical link to scenario planning is made. As the concept of organizational ambidexterity is relatively novel, our proposal highlights the use of scenario planning as a potential tool for developing this organizational “skill”, and clear next steps are described to examine our proposal as well as leverage the concept of organizational ambidexterity beyond that of a simple metaphor.     

浅谈高职院校发展战略下的财务战略规划

时代的飞速变化,促进了高职院校发展;随着其办学规模的扩大,高职院校财务管理成为人们所关注的焦点内容。做好财务战略规划不仅可以提高经营利润,还可以提高市场竞争力,得以在变化莫测的市场体系中占据一席之地。本文就高职院校发展战略下的财务战略规划展开分析,主要对财务战略的特点作出研究,也给出了几点有效对策,希望以此来促进高职院校财务战略规划的有效落实,并且提高整体教学质量和效率。     

Local niche planning and its strategic implications for implementation of energy-efficient technology

It is widely recognised that the world is facing climate challenges that necessitate transitions towards more energy-efficient buildings. A key challenge is that visions of energy efficient buildings in policies often fail to become aligned with existing local practices. In order to overcome such a gap between policy visions and their implementation in practice specific forms of strategic work is needed, according to new transformative ideas in spatial planning. The aim of this paper is to characterize the transformative capacities of this kind of strategic work at the spatial scale of the town in order to assess how such activities engage with sustainable transitions. The theoretical contribution of the paper is to compare strategic work performed in transformative forms of spatial planning with the strategic work intended in strategic niche management, which represent a change-management process for enabling transitions. The study outlines the proactive spatial planning of a Danish local authority in order to illustrate how the strategic work performed in this kind of local development project represents a special form of niche management that is able to create room for innovation and challenge existing socio-technical regimes in the building sector, but still different to typical strategic niche management processes. Based on this empirical study, the paper challenges the narrow focus on niches around technology development processes in strategic niche management by pointing towards niche planning in local development projects as another relevant context for niche management. However, as discussed in the paper, this assumes a more strategic form of planning than is often practised today, where more emphasis is put on how planning can contribute to promoting sustainable transitions.     

Strategic planning, strategic management, strategic foresight: The seminal work of H. Igor Ansoff

H. Igor Ansoff was the prominent reference in the corporate strategy field, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. His bestseller, Corporate Strategy, was the first to give a conceptual framework and a tool box to top managers, consultants and scholars. Recognized as the real pioneer of the field, he was seen by Henry Mintzberg as also the leader of the strategic planning school. The aim of this short article is to show that he was also the father of strategic management and a leader who gave an impressive set of concepts and ideas to promote an integrative and flexible view of strategic planning, strategic foresight, organizational structures and processes.     

纳税筹划对会计人员的素质要求

同样的经济业务由于会计处理方法不同对企业纳税将产生较大影响,因而现代会计人员如果还停留在正确计算收入、费用、成本,及时编制会计报表上面,那是远远不够的.准确地计算当期税金,及时地申报解缴税款,也仅仅是对会计人员的最基本要求.而全方位进行纳税筹划、尽可能规避纳税风险则是现代会计人员必备的基本能力;精通会计业务、熟悉国家税法,与时俱进,不断更新会计知识和税收法律知识才是会计人员必备素质.     

Roadmapping 3G mobile TV: Strategic thinking and scenario planning through repeated cross-impact handling

In order to deal with growing uncertainties emerging in the 3G wireless industry and to preserve their competitiveness, managers involved in the wireless value network should identify future success very early and develop their strategic planning on time. This study, based on a Scenario Evaluation and Analysis through Repeated Cross impact Handling, allows the generation of both qualitative and quantitative scenarios and can be used as an operative planning tool. The dynamic forces driving the scenario are based on the main principles of system thinking and multiple features. The probabilistic data have been elicited with the help of 40 executives in USA and Europe working for companies in the different phases of the wireless value chain. Findings allow to identify basic trends and uncertainties useful to develop corporate or business strategies.     

跨国战略联盟与中国企业竞争力提升

20多年的改革开放,使中国经济全面融入一体化的世界经济体系中。面对全球性的竞争格局,几乎所有的中国企业不得不同世界各国企业在相同的市场领域中上展开激烈竞争,所谓“国际竞争国内化,国内竞争国际化”。要想在激烈的竞争中获胜,从根本上讲,中国企业必须不断提高竞争力,从提高自身实力出发应对未来的市场环境。自20世纪80年代开始兴起的战略联盟,已经成为许多企业提高竞争力的有效途径。面对强大的国外竞争对手,如何通过建立跨国战略联盟提高竞争力是大批中国企业必须考虑的现实问题。一、中国企业竞争力的现实状况在宏观层面,同国际大企…     

Hospital RNs' and CNOs' perceptions of the impact of the nursing shortage on the quality of care

The results of analyses of the 2002 and 2004 National Sample Surveys of RNs and the 2004 National Sample of CNOs document the widespread perception that the shortage of nurses is a major problem for the overall quality of patient care in hospitals. In the eyes of the majority of hospital RNs and CNOs surveyed, care processes involving communication, timely response to pages and telephone calls, delays in patient discharges, and the time patients had to wait for tests and procedures were all affected negatively by the nursing shortage. These results are not encouraging.     

Financial markets and the post-crisis scenario

Starting from August 2007, the FED intervened by injecting liquidity in the inter-banking market and reducing interest rates. Day after day, the financial markets register negative trends and rallies. This is not due to events which are particularly related to the market itself. This appeared in the days when there were government interventions, when everybody expected a positive sign in the financial market but a negative sign occurred. Sometimes, this is due to the intensity of actions taken by the governments. The markets always expect appropriate interventions (in terms of intensity). Looking at these market reactions (in unexpected signs) after each government action, we can suppose that policy makers underestimate the intensity of this crisis. The capacity of making enforcement on the system should avoid underlining the side of governance rules which will never be precise. Being able to count on an active control of the market dealers, broadly speaking is a way of giving active confidence to individual/institutional agents who decide the allocations of saving in the financial market. There is no such confidence at the moment, if one focuses only on the definitions of new rules. If one starts from existing rules and does continuous monitoring so that they are applied adequately at crucial moments, then one could reduce the possibility of facing new exceeding volatilities of banking securities in the stock market. This work is focused on understanding how governance as well as central banks’ policy impact on the crisis, as well as possible future scenarios.

The exploratory analysis of trade-offs in strategic planning: Lessons from Regional Infrastructure Foresight

The sustainable transformation of infrastructure sectors represents a challenge of prime importance worldwide. Due to long life times of infrastructures, strategic decision making has to explicitly consider uncertainties in context conditions, value considerations and available technological alternatives. However currently, strategic infrastructure planning is often carried out in a very narrow perspective. The present paper argues that foresight informed strategic planning, allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way. The paper introduces a specific procedural proposal, the Regional Infrastructure Foresight method (RIF) and illustrates its potential virtues through an application to urban water management planning in a Swiss region (Kiesental).     

软件"标准锁定"竞争博弈分析

运用博弈论,本文首先分析软件“标准锁定”竞争中双方所采取的“新标准策略”,指出新标准之争的核心是创新度之争;然后分析“标准锁定”竞争中的“兼容策略”,得出在位的厂商一般不会采取兼容策略,小企业要比大企业更具实现兼容策略动力等结论。     

Understanding the relationship between poverty and children's health

Throughout the world, children from poor households have worse health than children from wealthier households. There are numerous channels through which such disparities may arise. For designing programs to improve children's health, it is important to identify, for example, whether these disparities arise from differences in pre-natal health inputs and behaviors (nutrition, alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy), or differential health inputs following birth. We explore these issues for Russia, where children's health is particularly poor. We find that large health disparities between rich and poor originate largely from differences in pre-natal nutrition and alcohol use.     

On the relationship between hierarchy and type morphisms

Here, we establish a relationship between hierarchy and type morphisms. Both concepts have been used to relate the types in one structure to types in a second “larger” structure. In general, the two concepts may differ, in the sense that a hierarchy morphism need not be a type morphism. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which the two concepts coincide. We go on to provide situations under which this condition must be satisfied.     

员工福利与幸福感关系分析

随着经济社会不断发展,员工对福利的要求更加多元化,企业对满足员工福利,提升员工幸福感也更为重视。如何制定合理的福利制度,进而提升员工的幸福感,促进员工更好为企业创造价值是每个企业必须重视的问题。通过文献查询、调研分析等方法,将员工福利进行了科学划分,对各类福利与员工幸福感的关系进行了分析,并对企业如何通过建立合理的福利制度来提升员工幸福感提出了建议,为企业完善福利制度,提升员工幸福感水平提供了依据。     

农家乐的服务质量、顾客满意度及忠诚度的关系研究——以天目山地区为例

通过问卷调查和当面访谈相结合的方法,以天目山景区周边的农家乐为例,对其服务质量、顾客满意及忠诚度的关系进行研究。结果表明,农家乐服务质量对于顾客满意度、顾客忠诚度具有正向关系,顾客满意度对于顾客忠诚度也具有正向关系。为进一步提升整体农家乐服务质量,增加顾客满意度,提高顾客的重游意愿和推荐意愿,提出相关建议和意见,以期促进天目山景区周边农家乐的可持续发展。     

Exploring the hedonic value of ambient water quality: A local watershed-based study

Non-point source water pollution of local watersheds can result from various sources but is tied most closely to runoff from impervious surfaces associated with development activities such as roadways, parking lots and large commercial structures. This research investigates the value of ambient water quality as measured by data from twenty-two monitoring stations located throughout a local watershed in Maryland; the St. Mary's River watershed. A hedonic property value model is used to investigate the marginal implicit values of the following water quality variables: total suspended solids and dissolved inorganic nitrogen. The econometric results indicate the marginal implicit prices associated with a one milligram per liter change in total suspended solids and dissolved inorganic nitrogen, are $− 1086 and $− 17,642, respectively.