Predicting the geo-temporal variations of crime and disorder

Traditional police boundaries—precincts, patrol districts, etc.—often fail to reflect the true distribution of criminal activity and thus do little to assist in the optimal allocation of police resources. This paper introduces methods for crime incident forecasting by focusing upon geographical areas of concern that transcend traditional policing boundaries. The computerised procedure utilises a geographical crime incidence-scanning algorithm to identify clusters with relatively high levels of crime (hot spots). These clusters provide sufficient data for training artificial neural networks (ANNs) capable of modelling trends within them. The approach to ANN specification and estimation is enhanced by application of a novel and noteworthy approach, the Gamma test (GT).     

Multinationals and changing national business systems in Europe: towards the ‘shareholder value’ model?

This article reviews recent development in employment relations in MNCs, within the context of the varied and changing business systems within Western Europe. Focusing on Germany, France, Sweden and the UK, we analyse both the effects of national corporate governance systems on MNCs, and the extent to which MNCs specifically, and globalisation more widely, have affected the nature of national business and employment systems. While elements of a move towards a more ‘Anglo‐Saxon’, economically liberal model of corporate governance and employment relations can be detected in all four countries, this is far from complete. Cross‐national differences in business systems within Europe therefore continue to exert effects upon MNCs.     

Normative fundraising ethics: A review of the field

The ethics of fundraising has received scant attention in the academic literature, while there is not a huge amount in the grey and practitioner literature either. There is little that explicitly describes normative theories of fundraising—broad concepts of how fundraising ought to be practised, from which recommendions for applied ethical practice can be drawn. This is the first review of the literature on fundraising ethics, articulating, synthesing and naming (often for the first time) 14 ethical theories/lenses that can be inferred (few are explicitly stated as normative ethical theories) from the literature. In so doing, this review provides scholars and practitioners with a much firmer conceptual foundation for examining and developing professional fundraising ethics, and for analysing applied practice and finding solutions to the ethical dilemmas in applied practice.     

The new product development process: past evidence and future practical application, Part 1.

This article conducts a review of the research work into the process of product development and the way in which it has progressed over nearly forty years. It also shows that much of the work is unknown to many product development managers. The article goes on to show why the application of past research evidence has been restricted and describes attempts at translating the results into effective action.     

Absence management and the issues of job retention and return to work

Strategies aimed at facilitating the job retention and return to work of sick and injured workers are currently the subject of growing attention. In this article the authors examine the nature and potential significance of such strategies to absence management and utilise interview findings to shed light on current employer policies and practices relating to the management of long‐term absences. They conclude that at the national level a large proportion of working days lost through sickness absence stem from relatively long spells of absence and that the adoption of a proactive approach to supporting the return to work of ill and injured workers can have beneficial consequences. However, they further conclude that few organisations appear to have comprehensive arrangements in place to handle cases of long‐term absence. A number of areas where present employer arrangements could usefully be reviewed are therefore identified.     

Food transfers to Asia: A Delphi forecast of required levels

The authors obtained the views of a number of agricultural economists on the desirability and feasibility of future food transfers from rich to poor countries. The consensus view which emerged was that food aid will still be needed in the 1980s but that practical institutional arrangements for it are more likely to come from the political than the economic arena.     

The Financial Services Environment and Schools' Savings Rates in the San Francisco Kindergarten to College Program

Children's savings accounts (CSAs) have emerged as a promising intervention to improve educational outcomes, curtail rising student loan debt, and promote equality of opportunity. Numerous localized CSA programs have emerged in the last decade, and many are embedded within school systems. This study leverages novel data to investigate participation in one of the oldest and most well‐known CSA programs in the country: the San Francisco Kindergarten to College (K2C) Program in the San Francisco Unified School District. Spatial analysis of 21,617 accounts at 74 elementary schools reveals statistically significant differences in the rates of elementary schools' K2C account participation based on the concentrations of banks, credit unions, and alternative financial service providers—net controls for neighborhood demographics. Unless explicitly addressed, substantial variations in the financial service environment across neighborhoods could undermine participation in school‐based CSA programs for the very children these programs intend to support.     

Evaluating the London 2012 Games’ impact on sport participation in a non-hosting region: a practical application of realist evaluation

In the literature on Olympic legacies and impacts, there is a dearth of materials that specifically address the issue of Olympic impact for non-hosting regions. The literature tends to deal with impacts at a national level, or at a hosting-city region level, neglecting in large part the degree to which benefits can be leveraged by non-hosting regions. A further limitation identified in the literature is a failure to engage in detailed formal evaluation of policy implementation where assertions of potential policy impact are based on untested assumptions. This study is intended to address both of these concerns. It presents an empirical, ‘bottom-up’ application of a Realist Evaluation framework to assess the impact of a policy initiative – Workplace Challenge – aimed at leveraging enhanced sports participation in a non-hosting region – Leicestershire – in the period leading up to the 2012 Games. In doing so, it seeks to identify which causal mechanisms worked within this particular context to produce the observed outcomes. The evaluation results demonstrate that the programme represented a positive approach to fostering regular engagement with sport and physical activities for some groups in some types of organisations, and that awareness and motivational factors associated with the London 2012 Games are, in this case, linked (albeit weakly) to an increase in sport and physical activity participation for specific groups taking part in the programme in particular organisational contexts.     

On the Marginalist Theory of ‘Capital Supply’

A familiar theory of how the volume of lending depends on the rate of interest is deficient in at least two respects. First, it treats household income as independent of the rate of interest; second, it supposes the relative prices of consumption commodities to be independent of that rate.     

A framework for monitoring during the planning stage for a sports mega-event

This paper proposes a monitoring framework to be used during the planning stage for a sports mega-event. The research identifies a lack of monitoring and evaluation studies during the development stage for sports mega-events. Importantly, it notes the absence of research which evaluates an event systematically from the outset of the process and from the perspectives of host residents and event planners. The framework was developed on the basis of the philosophical approach of pragmatism; it focused on a sustainable development perspective, and it was applied to a case study of the Kaohsiung 2009 World Games. A survey of the views of 606 host residents about the potential impacts of the event revealed that the respondents tended to show higher levels of agreement on the host benefits. The results of 38 interviews with various stakeholders indicated big gaps in both the city's long-term development aspirations and the Games themselves and also in the event strategies adopted. Using this information, key sustainability issues can be identified and monitored during the event planning stage so that the desirable outcomes of events can be enhanced and then sustained in the longer term.