Debate: Public procurement needs outcome evaluations

This article considers public procurement papers presented at the recent annual conferences of the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA). It reflects on whether the studies presented at IPSERA align with public procurement priorities. It identifies congruence between research and practice, but also areas in which research is leading practice, such studies of sourcing from low-cost countries, service delivery and risk management. Future trends in public procurement research are then discussed.     

Activity-Based Segmentation of Canadian Domestic Pleasure Travelers to New Brunswick

The purpose of the study was to conduct a distinctive analysis for segmenting the New Brunswick travel market through empirical examination. Data was obtained from the Consumer Interests, Motivators and Attitudes (CIMA) Surveys conducted by the New Brunswick Ministry of Tourism and Parks. This study examined the travel characteristics, benefits sought from travel to New Brunswick, intention to revisit, interest in various travel activities when traveling and sociodemographic characteristics of 655 visitors and nonvisitors from Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The results showed that the activity-based travelers are classified in three clusters: outdoor lovers, active explorers, and cultural shoppers. Statistically significant differences among three clusters were found in sociodemographic, travel pattern, activity participation, trip planning, and benefit-related variables. The study results indicated that activity was a viable basis for market segmentation and implications existed for product packaging, promotional strategies, and advertising strategies when attracting domestic pleasure travelers in Canada to New Brunswick.     

Debate: The need for procurement risk management

Improvement boards offer a new approach to supporting stronger performance by public service organizations, and especially those facing significant issues of change. They involve formalized peer challenge and support by senior politicians and managers from other agencies. The authors document early experiences with improvement boards in local government and draw conclusions for policy and practice. Improvement boards will have the most impact where the organization's leadership already has some understanding of the performance improvement task, and is able to position the board as part of a wider strategy for change.     

Agricultural Policy in the 21st Century: Economics and Politics

This paper provides a framework for thinking about agricultural policy, why and how it is introduced, and how it changes over time. This framework suggests that agricultural policy will be influenced by both concerns for efficiency and lobbying. While agricultural policy will not always be effective, it will be relatively stable, at least in terms of its broad outlines. Underlying this broad stability, however, will be considerable small‐scale change as program and policy details shift in response to a changing environment. When policy changes in a major way, which it almost always will, the shift will be abrupt—a punctuation. These abrupt changes come as attention is eventually paid to areas and/or issues that are increasingly understood to be not working. While there is considerable room for economic analysis in the policy process, it will not be the main driver; this role belongs to politics—the ability to change the discourse around a policy issue in such a way that different evaluations and interpretations of the policy and its impact are created. Based on the analysis in this paper, it is argued that supply management is more likely to see significant change than business risk management programs, since more attention seems to be currently directed at the former issue. It is also argued that although proponents of local food, organic production, and urban agriculture have had some success at getting attention focused on these issues, this success will not translate into any major policy changes, in part because markets for these products are developing and appear to be working reasonably well.     

Optimal NGO Financing of a Resource Management Certification Scheme

The development of voluntary certification schemes in areas as diverse as fish, coffee and forestry offer the promise of environmental improvements without the requirement of governmental regulation and intervention. In many cases, however, the costs to landholders of making the transition are too large for them to do so. At the same time, the large intermediaries appear to have little economic incentive to introduce certification because the market does not adequately value the environmental benefits. Instead, NGOs and other aid and development agencies who would like to see small producers benefit from the change in production practices have typically stepped in to provide financial support for certification. This paper shows how voluntary price discrimination (in the form of donations) by the consumers that most highly value certification can be used to finance a switch to environmentally sustainable practices and thus address a market failure. This analysis shows that an NGO’s optimal intervention depends on the size of its budget, the elasticity of supply of the product, and the elasticity of participation by producers. NGOs with smaller budgets rely more heavily on lump sum transfers to the intermediary and less heavily on volume and participation-dependent subsidies. Volume and participation dependent subsidies are inversely related to the elasticity of supply and the elasticity of participation in a standard Lerner relationship.     

Multiple perspectives on planning for emergencies: An introduction to the special issue on planning and foresight for emergency preparedness and management

This introduction highlights the diversity of national localities, research methods, case studies, and topics covered by the papers selected for inclusion in the special issue on “Planning and foresight methodologies in emergency preparedness and management.” It then provides a detailed summary of each study, emphasizing what the editors feel are the most important contributions. Concluding remarks include a call for future studies that are needed. An example is planning for ways of supporting and integrating citizen participation in all phases of crisis management, a topic that is missing from this collection.     

When opportunity knocks: mobilizing capabilities on serious organized economic crime

ABSTRACT

This paper is primarily concerned with organized crime structures and how they adapt and modify to take advantage of fraud opportunities. It is illustrated with case studies which show a growing capability within UK organized crime to pool and deploy criminal monies in legitimate markets. The theme and purpose of the paper is to raise awareness of this in a way that encourages collaborative and strategic responses from law enforcement and relevant institutions, including academia.