Rural land use policy at the local level : Mechanisms for collaboration

Countryside policies in the UK suffer from a lack of integration, and this may give rise to unbalanced or conflicting land use at the local level. Nevertheless, the UK policy-making style is typically one of consensus, and is thus conducive to collaboration between apparently conflicting Interest groups. This article examines five case studies in which multi-agency fora have been established to resolve local land use and economic development issues. Typically, they are initiated by planning authorities and entail the production of land use plans even though there are few planning powers over rural land. The success of the exercises is evaluated and it is noted that, although their performance is imperfect, there are distinct areas in which progress may be made.     

Gaps in the debates about agriculture in Senegal,Tanzania and Mozambique

In three stable and in many ways successful governments in Africa claiming socialism, gaps in the politics which shape their agricultural policies and vested political interests have inhibited the resolution of agricultural problems. In Senegal the politics of distribution predominates, while crucial issues of structural change within production units and rural communities have not been squarely faced. In Tanzania the government has not shrunk from structural change, but it has found it difficult to deal clearly with the experience of promoting co-operative agricultural production and the issues it raises for power relations within communities and between communities and the state. In Mozambique the priority given to state farms has discouraged clear attention to the difficulties of peasant agriculture and its transformation towards producer co-operatives.     

Expectations of returned Chinese graduates and hotel managers regarding entry-level work in the hotel industry in China

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expectations of returned Chinese graduates with an Australian degree regarding their work situation in the Chinese hotel industry and the expectations of hotel managers in China regarding the graduates’ job attitude. Nineteen semi-structured interviews were undertaken. The results showed that most graduates were relatively satisfied with their current work situation in the Chinese hotel industry. However, managers argued that returned graduates have unrealistic expectations about the work requirements in the industry. The study found that universities and hotels in China need to assist the returned Chinese international students with their reentry.     

Moving the Conceptual Framework Forward: Accounting for Uncertainty

To meet the objectives of financial reporting in the IASB's Conceptual Framework, the “balance-sheet approach” embraced by the Framework is necessary but not sufficient. Critical, but largely overlooked, is the role of uncertainty, which we argue defines the role of accrual accounting as a distinctive source of information for investors when investment outcomes are uncertain. This role is in some sense paradoxical: on the one hand, uncertainty undermines both the balance sheet (because uncertain assets are unrecognized) and the income statement (because mismatching is unavoidable). However, these inevitable accounting effects can be exploited to provide information about uncertainty, though not by a balance-sheet approach alone. Rather, balance sheet recognition and measurement criteria are established by consideration of the impact of uncertainty on matching and mismatching in the income statement. This combination of balance-sheet and income-statement approaches enhances the communication of information to investors under conditions of uncertainty, thereby giving greater clarity and purpose in satisfying the objective of the Framework to provide information about “the amount, timing, and uncertainty of future cash flows.”     

Reshaping European metrology research – the role of national research managers

This paper deals with the role of research and development (R&D) managers in shaping the landscape of public research in Europe. These R&D managers work in the sphere of public research within national government laboratory services. The case we present is of the reconfiguration of metrology research. Metrology is the science of measurement. We examine why scientists and research managers in nationally embedded institutes, which are performing R&D in support of national policy and local industry needs, have chosen to co‐operate in a shared research programme. This means giving up, in part, their national sovereignty over funds and decision making. Furthermore, we examine how they have achieved the shared programme, which was launched as a European Commission (EC) programme through the Article 185 ¹ initiative, which allows the European Union to participate in research programmes undertaken jointly by several Member States.     

Rhetorical profiling: Modes of meaning generation in organizational topoi

Accounting for homogenous action in seemingly apparent heterogeneous organizations is a research question that persists across prominent organizational studies literatures, and which have become more persistent and pertinent as organizations have become more global and diverse. To address how differing forms of relatively homogeneous solutions to practical problems arise from otherwise heterogeneous organizations, we develop a rhetorical framework that depicts the role of topoi, often understood as a theme or motif or literary convention, in an organization's rhetorical activity and facilitates the profiling of organizations according to how members use topoi as modes of meaning creation. We assert 10 propositions reflecting how members invent and legitimize functional meaning and demonstrate how such meaning can direct the organization toward different discursive paths. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Achieving a 10% Cut in Europe's Carbon Dioxide Emissions using Additional Excise Duties: Coordinated,Uncoordinated and Unilateral Action using the Econometric Model E3ME

Coordinated, uncoordinated and unilateral policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10% in 11 member states of the European Union (EU) by 2010 are compared with unilateral policies in each member state. The paper presents the results from four projections using a large-scale, integrated, regionalized E3 model of the EU (not a general equilibrium model) estimated on time series, cross-section data for 1968—93 with international trade treated as between each member state and a European transport and distribution network. The 10% reduction is achieved by additional excise duties incremented every year from 1999 to 2010, according to the carbon contents of fuels, with special treatment of electricity (taxed on outputs not inputs) and with revenues recycled via reductions in employers' social security contributions. Multilateral coordinated policies require a common tax rate of 156 Ecus per tonne carbon (1999 prices), which rises to an average of 162 Ecu/tonne, with a wide range between regions when policies are uncoordinated. All the tax shift projections show double dividends of emission reduction and employment gain for all member states. Unilateral policies do not show much carbon leakage and they show smaller gains for output and employment. The results are compared with those from a general equilibrium model (GEM-E3), tackling the same topic.