New Approaches to Evaluating the Performance of Corporate–Community Partnerships: A Case Study from the Minerals Sector

A continuing challenge for researchers and practitioners alike is the lack of data on the effectiveness of corporate–community investment programmes. The focus of this article is on the minerals industry, where companies currently face the challenge of matching corporate drivers for strategic partnership with community needs for programmes that contribute to local and regional sustainability. While many global mining companies advocate a strategic approach to partnerships, there is no evidence currently available that suggests companies are monitoring these partnerships to see if they do, in fact, represent ‘strategic’ investments. This article argues that applying the management concept of ‘investment performance’ to corporate–community partnerships requires questioning traditional evaluation methods that focus on the results of programmes or activities. We adopt a case study approach to introduce an evaluation framework that considers performance from both corporate and community perspectives and that conceptualises partnership performance as comprising four aspects: (1) the contribution of the partnership to the overall portfolio of a company’s community investment programmes, (2) the appropriateness of the partnership model, (3) the effectiveness of the partnering relationship and (4) the ability of the partners to achieve programme goals. The application of this evaluation framework to an established corporate–community partnership programme provided some useful insights as to how partnership performance can be improved.     

Multi-level governance for sustainable innovation in smart communities: an ecosystems approach

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This paper analyses the TrentoSmartCity project to redefine Trento (an Italian municipality) as a smart community according to an ecosystems...     

Dependent development in South America: China and the soybean nexus

This article examines the expansion of the soybean complex in South America and the role of Chinese firms in expanding their presence in different sectors of the oilseed complex. The growth in trade relations between the two parties has been built on the export of primary commodities from South America and the import of Chinese manufactures—a trade pattern that reproduces core‐periphery dynamics identified by dependency theory scholars. Of particular importance in this bilateral trade is soybean, a crop that has been consolidated as the main export for several South American countries, fuelled by growing demand from China. This article explores China's role in the global political economy as a key agri‐business player and the implications for new relations of dependency by studying the strategies deployed by Chinese firms to increase their influence in the governance of the soybean nexus.     

Business Dynamics and Efficiency in Industries and Regions: The Case of Spain

High rates of firm births and deaths are a pervasive phenomenon across industries and territories. Most studies have related the great turbulence at the fringe of practically all manufacturing industries to positive effects on the long-run performance of industries. According to these views business turbulence, although it has a relatively small incidence on net entry, leads to allocative improvement and stimulates innovation. The existing set of empirical studies does not reach clear conclusions, however, and many questions are still open. Our contribution analyses the relationship between business dynamics in manufacturing and the growth of total factor productivity in industries and regions. After a review of current literature on entry and exit it is argued that most models are tailored to suit the processes observed in industries and regions that are near the technological frontier, and we propose an approach that could be more representative of middle range economies such as Spain. According to this approach new firms are seen more as users of innovations than producers of innovations. We adopt a model based on a vintage capital framework in which new entrants embody the edge technologies available and exiting businesses are supposed to represent the most marginal obsolete plants. Both industries and regions are represented by a Hall's type production function which controls for imperfect competition and economies of scale. The results show that both entry and exit rates contribute positively to the growth of total factor productivity in industries and in regions.     

Consumer Attitudes to Genetically Modified Food in Norway

There is a lack of public acceptance of genetically modified (GM) food products in Europe. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation methodology, we find that, on average, survey respondents with a positive attitude toward the use of biotechnology in food production, higher educated, younger, and male need less of a discount to choose to purchase bread made with GM wheat. Further, we estimate confidence intervals for the mean discount required for consumers to choose GM bread. The 95% confidence interval for the mean discount required for the respondents to choose the GM bread is a 37% to 63% discount relative to conventional bread.     

Raising the bar (6)

Raising the bar (6). Spatial Economic Analysis. This editorial summarizes and comments on the papers published in issue 12(4) so as to raise the bar in applied spatial economic research and highlight new trends. The first paper addresses the question of whether ‘jobs follow people’ or ‘people follow jobs’. The second paper develops a new methodology to determine functional regions. The third paper is a major contribution to the growing literature on new modelling approaches and applications of disaster impact models. The fourth paper focuses on the costs and benefits of higher education. The fifth paper develops a two-step procedure to identify endogenously spatial regimes in the first step using geographically weighted regression, and to account for spatial dependence in the second step. Finally, the sixth paper estimates a dynamic spatial panel data model to explain house prices and to show that restricted housing supply in the city of Cambridge, UK, has some undesirable labour market effects.     

The BoP business paradigm: what it promotes and what it conceals

The Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) is a popular paradigm within management circles concerning those in poverty. In this paper, we develop a critical analysis of BoP discourse and practice, drawing particularly on the works of Laclau and Mouffe, and enriched by post-development thinking as expressed in the works of Esteva and Escobar, among others. We argue that the BoP paradigm functions to reinforce market capitalist hegemony and – vitally – to conceal economic alternatives. Using the concepts of ‘discourse’, ‘hegemony’ and ‘performativity’, we analyse the politics of language and representation in the BoP discourse. Finally, we point to modes of scholarship that contribute to the nurturing and performance of diverse, non-capitalist economic worlds.     

Abnormal returns before acquisition announcements: evidence from Europe

Acquisition announcements influence the stock price of target firms, providing an opportunity for insiders to obtain significant abnormal returns. We study the presence of positive abnormal returns before the announcement date, in target firms, quoted in Euronext markets (Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Portugal) from 2001 to 2007. We investigate whether the pre-announcement run-up of prices can be explained by rumours in the media and the percentage of capital previously owned by the bidding firm, among other factors. We examine cumulative abnormal returns in an event window of 60 days prior the acquisition announcement, with the event date adjusted for the previous disclosure of news about the acquisition, in the media. We compute a run-up index, and find that there are abnormal positive returns before the announcement date, confirming previous studies. We find that a significant part of the run-up is explained by: (i) market anticipation triggered by legitimate sources of information, namely, rumours in the media about the possibility of an acquisition bid and (ii) the percentage of capital previously owned in the target firm, by the bidding firm.