Pictures and parts: Delivering an automated automotive parts catalog

The paper describes a classic challenge in business technology—keeping (or expanding) a market in light of changing demands and product technologies. Threatened by other firms in the microfiche publishing business and by new entrants offering catalog data bases, Bell & Howell reevaluated its entire approach to the automotive parts catalog business. In the process the company discovered how a properly concieved system could provide significant efficiency improvements in automobile repair operations. Much of the hardware needed for the system was “off the shelf.” As in many cases of technological development, initial expectations about what the new technology could offer were incorrect. The heart of the story is the company's persistent and iterative efforts to understand its customers' activities and to offer a system that could be tailored to, and justified in, the customers business environment.     

Urban sustainability and knowledge: Theoretical heterogeneity and the need of a transdisciplinary framework. A tale of four towns

The academic debate on «sustainable city» is like a large arena, where heterogeneous approaches and contributions, coming from different disciplines, flow into without converging on a common vision. The growing awareness that an increasing percentage of the world's population now lives in urban areas makes the organization of this space a crucial issue for global sustainable development. In order to acquire this challenge, urban studies need to overcome conceptual oppositions, seeking new integrated responses to implement the principle of sustainability at urban scale. This effort requires a new managerial approach of science and policy, which can be based on a transdisciplinary vision to knowledge production. The paper is divided into four different sections. The first and second sections review the theoretical literature on urban sustainability and explore the conceptual relations between knowledge and knowledge production in urban governance processes. The third section presents a comparative empirical analysis based on a survey of 2213 questionnaires carried out in four different urban contexts. The fourth and last section outlines the conclusion, suggesting a new approach to manage knowledge in urban governance, in a trans-disciplinary perspective.     

European unification: a new proposal

My contribution presents a possibility to unify Europe based on newly emerging political units focused on solving problems rather than on historically given nation states. These Endogenous Political Entities (EPE), as they shall be called, are better suited to reach the goals of European unification as they strengthen the fundamental European values of variety and freedom. I make three propositions: to base the unification of Europe on nation states is unfortunate as the latter are responsible for the political disaster of the two World Wars; the unification must proceed in a problem-oriented manner. The constitution of Europe must allow and promote EPE to emerge specifically to deal with particular problems; the new political units can be introduced in marginal steps. Over time, a flexible and dynamic net of political entities will arise taking care of the large economic, social and cultural diversity in Europe.     

Environmental Management of End‐of‐Life Products: Nine Factors of Sustainability in Collaborative Networks

The paradigm of the green economy has contributed to raising the attention paid to developing sustainability‐oriented strategies for supply chain (SC) management. The responsibility of producers to extend and reverse SCs is a critical and timely topic that captures increasing concerns over the way firms can adapt their business models to interlinking technical, socio‐economic and environmental frameworks. This is particularly true when producers are not also reuse/recycle actors. By performing a critical review of the scientific literature on this field, this article develops nine elemental factors that can be considered for assessing the impacts of collaborative strategies as a means to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) in open‐loop SCs. The resulting conceptual framework provides EPR implementation guidance under different market conditions. Inter‐organizational relationships are found to present both opportunities and threats that can be profitably managed under a systemic perspective. Implications for management and needs for further research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Group Characteristics Influence Distribution Patterns of Off-Road Vehicle Recreation within a Complex Trail System in Southwest Idaho

Recreation on public lands is growing and is increasingly recognized as an ecosystem service providing improved health, connection to nature, and social time while also disturbing and degrading ecosystems. Human impacts must be managed, but often managers have little information about the factors that affect recreation patterns. We combined data from global positioning system receivers to record off-road vehicle (ORV) travel with a pretrip survey to determine how group characteristics, site experience, site knowledge, and motivation are associated with ORV trip patterns on public lands in southwest Idaho. Spatial and temporal extent and distribution could summarize most variation in ORV trips. Both trip distribution and extent were associated with group characteristics and site knowledge. Spatial and temporal extent was additionally associated with motivations and distribution was associated with riding experience. These findings can help land managers to identify use patterns, direct informational programs, and effect indirect management strategies.     

Happiness in the arts—International evidence on artists’ job satisfaction

Many artists are prone to high unemployment and low incomes suggesting low job satisfaction. Our analysis including 49 countries paints a different picture. On average artists enjoy higher job satisfaction than other employees, mainly due to more autonomy.     

Some Evidence on the Ethical Disposition of Accounting Students: Context and Gender Implications

Research into the ethical disposition of students hasbeen popular in recent years. However, research intothe ethical disposition of accounting students inparticular has been sparse. Because of the uniquecharacteristics of those who choose to enter the fieldof accounting, generalizing findings of businessstudents to accounting students may not be valid. Consequently, additional studies of accountingstudents are useful.This study investigates context (academic vs.business)-based and gender-based differences inaccounting students ethical intent. We find mixedsupport for gender-based mean differences; theseresults are consistent across context. With regard tocontext we find a greater variability in respondentsbehavioral intent in an academic context relative toa business context. We also find gender-baseddifferences in how ethical issues are grouped (thatis, the perceived cognitive structure of ethicalissues). Implications of these findings are discussedwith particular interest relative to education.     

Liquidity supply and adverse selection in a pure limit order book market

This paper analyzes adverse selection costs and liquidity supply in a pure open limit order book market. We relax assumptions of the Glosten/Såndas modeling framework regarding marginal zero profit order book equilibrium and the parametric market order size distribution. We show that using average zero profit conditions considerably increases the empirical performance while a nonparametric specification for market order size combined with marginal zero profit conditions does not. A cross sectional analysis corroborates the finding that adverse selection costs are more severe for smaller capitalized stocks. We also find additional support for one of the central hypothesis put forth by the theory of limit order book markets, which states that liquidity supply and adverse selection costs are inversely related. Furthermore, adverse selection cost estimates based on our structural model and those obtained using popular model-free methods are strongly correlated. This indicates the robustness of the theory-based approach.     

CALCULATING TRAGEDY: ASSESSING THE COSTS OF TERRORISM

Abstract.  The trends and consequences of terrorist activities are often captured by counting the number of incidents and casualties. More recently, the effects of terrorist acts on various aspects of the economy have been analyzed. These costs are surveyed and put in perspective. As economic consequences are only a part of the overall costs of terrorism, possible approaches for estimating the utility losses of the people affected are discussed. Results using the life satisfaction approach, in which individual utility is approximated by self-reported subjective well-being, suggest that people's utility losses may far exceed the purely economic consequences.