What crises could teach us about complexity and systemic management: The case of the Nestucca oil spill

In this article we attempt to uncover some systemic management principles for the better management of complex issues. Taking a pragmatic approach we have expanded the case methodology proposed by John Dewey to the case study of a major crisis. By proposing that crises allow for a better apprehension of complexity, we study the changes which were carried out or not, to this day, after the 1988 Nestucca oil spill that occurred in Canada only three months prior to the Exxon-Valdez disaster. After conducting a linear and systemic analysis of the crisis, we propose that the changes institutionalized thus far spring mostly from what we call “behavioral” and “paradigmatic” learning which are weak for addressing complex issues. Proposing that 15% of the people we have interviewed where able to derive a “systemic learning” from this crisis, we suggest several unlocking strategies that allow these systemic lessons to be institutionalized.     

“Friendly” Complaining Behaviors: Toward a Relational Approach

The relational approach is often presented as a strategy to retain customers, but it may also be an appropriate approach to encourage customers to complain, as a review of literature shows. Using information contained in complaints and giving the right answers (distributive, procedural and interactional) to such complaints is essential. Relational marketing may also be used to induce customers (but not all of them) to complain about the attributes of certain products/services. This article focuses on these issues and should stimulate further research in this new field.     

Optimal choice of characteristics for a nonexcludable good

In this model, a principal decides whether to produce one indivisible good and which characteristics it contains. Agents are differentiated along two substitutable dimensions: a vertical parameter that captures their valuation for the good, and a horizontal parameter that captures their disutility when the characteristics are distant from their preferred ones. When valuations are private information, the principal produces a good with characteristics more on the lines of the preferences of the agent with the lowest valuation. Under asymmetric information on the horizontal dimension, the principal biases the decision in favor of the agent who incurs the highest disutility.     

Network externalities and interconnection: the case of information intrastructures

Information infrastructures are characterized by the existence of direct and indirect network externalities. However, the presence of externalities poses two types of problem: they create phenomena of overproduction (consumption) and under-production (consumption); and they require the operators reach a critical size of subscribers quickly. Facing this question of critical size, the interconnection makes it possible for the networks to develop by relying on network externalities. However, the justification of interconnection does not concern the externalities solely but is also based on the existence of essential facilities. The first part examines the various types of network externalities, whose implications are presented in the second part. The third part deals with the stakes of the interconnection.     

Creating University Spin‐Offs: A Science‐Based Design Perspective*

Academic entrepreneurship by means of university spin‐offs commercializes technological breakthroughs, which may otherwise remain unexploited. However, many universities face difficulties in creating spin‐offs. This article adopts a science‐based design approach to connect scholarly research with the pragmatics of effectively creating university spin‐offs. This approach serves to link the practice of university spin‐off creation, via design principles, to the scholarly knowledge in this area. As such, science‐based design promotes the interplay between emergent and deliberate design processes. This framework is used to develop a set of design principles that are practice based as well as grounded in the existing body of research on university spin‐offs. A case‐study of spin‐off creation at a Dutch university illustrates the interplay between initial processes characterized by emergent design and the subsequent process that was more deliberate in nature. This case study also suggests there are two fundamentally different phases in building capacity for university spin‐off creation. First, an infrastructure for spin‐off creation (including a collaborative network of investors, managers and advisors) is developed that then enables support activities to individual spin‐off ventures. This study concludes that to build and increase capacity for creating spin‐offs, universities should do the following: (1) create university‐wide awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities, stimulate the development of entrepreneurial ideas, and subsequently screen entrepreneurs and ideas by programs targeted at students and academic staff; (2) support start‐up teams in composing and learning the right mix of venturing skills and knowledge by providing access to advice, coaching, and training; (3) help starters in obtaining access to resources and developing their social capital by creating a collaborative network organization of investors, managers, and advisors; (4) set clear and supportive rules and procedures that regulate the university spin‐off process, enhance fair treatment of involved parties, and separate spin‐off processes from academic research and teaching; and (5) shape a university culture that reinforces academic entrepreneurship by creating norms and exemplars that motivate entrepreneurial behavior. These and other results of this study illustrate how science‐based design can connect scholarly research to the pragmatics of actually creating spin‐offs in academic institutions.     

Healthy Food Stores,Greenlining and Food Gentrification: Contesting New Forms of Privilege,Displacement and Locally Unwanted Land Uses in Racially Mixed Neighborhoods

Local activists engaged in contemporary environmental justice struggles not only fight against traditional forms of hazardous locally unwanted land uses (LULUs), they also organize to make their neighborhoods livable and green. However, urban environmental justice activism is at a crossroads: as marginalized neighborhoods become revitalized, outside investors start to value them again and they themselves invest in green amenities. Yet vulnerable residents are now raising concerns about the risk of displacement from their neighborhoods in consequence of environmental gentrification processes. Their fear is linked to environmental amenities such as new parks or remodeled waterfronts, as well as (most recently) healthy food stores. Using the case of a conflict around a new Whole Foods supermarket in Boston, MA, I examine how food venues and stores labeled as healthy and natural can create socio‐spatial inequality together with privilege, exclusion and displacement in racially diverse neighborhoods. I analyze how high‐end supermarket chains target inner‐city neighborhoods for their growth and profit potential, and demonstrate that their arrival contributes to what I call ‘supermarket greenlining'. This greenlining illustrates the process of food gentrification, and the manipulation of health and sustainability discourses about food by healthy and natural food investors and their supporters. The opening of high‐end supermarkets thus converts such stores into new LULUs for historically marginalized groups.     

Minimum wage,on-the-job search and employment: On the sectoral and aggregate equilibrium effect of the mandatory minimum wage

We study the impact of a minimum wage in a segmented labor market in which workers are at different stages of their careers. At the end of a learning-by-doing period, workers paid the minimum wage quit “bad jobs” for better-paying “good jobs”, following an on-the-job search process with endogenous search intensity. A rise in the minimum wage reduces “bad jobs” creation and prompts workers to keep their “bad jobs” by reducing on-the-job search intensity. The ambiguous impact on unqualified employment replicates and explains the findings of several empirical studies. However, a minimum wage rise reduces overall employment and output.