How not to Privatise

The outright gift of shares in formerly state-owned industries would both deprive government of revenue with which it could cut taxes and delude new shareholders that their acquisitions do not entail risk os well as the prospect of profit, argues Anthony Sampson, Lecturer in Economics at Sheffield University.     

Firm formation and operating characteristics in the Cornish tourist industry — the case of Looe

G. Shaw and A. Williams, of Exeter University's Geography Department, examine the organization of the tourism industry in the county of Cornwall, UK, taking the town of Looe in south-east Cornwall as a specific example. Factors considered include the way in which tourism businesses are set up, how they obtain their start-up capital and the types of person involved.     

A comparative study of innovation behaviour in Singapore's KIBS and manufacturing firms

While most services innovation studies are concentrated on the OECD or EU countries, research on services innovation in the non-OECD context is still rare. This study investigates innovation behaviour of a certain group of services – knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), compared with the manufacturing sector in Singapore. The main findings of this study are: (1) KIBS firms have higher innovating ratio than manufacturing firms, but innovating manufacturing firms are more likely to do R&D than innovating KIBS firms; (2) KIBS firms have higher human capital intensity, training spending intensity, innovation spending intensity, and R&D spending intensity than manufacturing firms; (3) KIBS firms and manufacturing firms have similar innovation objectives, although some delicate nuances do exist; (4) KIBS firms are less likely to have overseas partners for innovation collaboration than manufacturing firms; (5) there is a U pattern of innovation collaboration with geographic distance for both KIBS and manufacturing firms; (6) social capitals are important for KIBS firms' successful provision of innovation support to manufacturing clients; (7) the importance of spatial proximity varies over different phases of innovation support.     

Exploring the application of IVR: lessons from retail banking

In today's increasingly competitive retail banking environment, banks are faced with the challenge of building and maintaining relationships with profitable customers while at the same time embracing technological change. So, while on the one hand increasing the role of technology in a services organisation can serve to reduce costs and often improve service reliability; on the other hand, organisations are acutely aware of the important role for personalised relationships in the delivery of their service proposition. This article reports on a qualitative research study into the perceptions of customers and staff of a large retail bank regarding the piloting of an interactive voice recognition (IVR) system. This system is regarded as a way for the case bank to benefit from technological advances, while still retaining its relationships with more profitable customers. To this end, the system was hoped to encourage lower net worth customers to increase their use of the bank's telephone banking facility, and allow branch staff, who would be freed from dealing with routine telephone enquiries, to deliver a better personalised service to high net worth customers. However, despite this rationale, the article reports the paradoxical situation that the system has been effectively rejected by customers and staff alike. The key objection is that relating to the perceived service discrimination between high and low net worth customers, the very rationale for which the IVR was introduced.     

欧盟民主赤字的争论:国家主义与多元主义的二元分析

国家主义与多元主义的二元分析框架可以为国际关系理论与欧洲一体化理论之间的通约提供解释便利。这一理论通约可以将欧盟民主赤字的讨论放在国际关系理论的宏观背景下考察,即欧盟民主赤字的争论可以被放在调节自由主义、自由现实主义和规范自由主义之间进行展开。调节自由主义和自由现实主义对欧盟民主持抵制和批评的消极立场,而规范自由主义则表现出了追求欧盟民主的极大热情。欧盟民主赤字的争论展现出调节自由主义与自由现实主义结盟以对抗规范自由主义的景象。作者认为,欧盟民主赤字争论是康德与黑格尔关于欧洲未来讨论的当代版本。在国内政治中,康德主义越来越成为主导,但在国际政治中,黑格尔主义仍然处于话语和治理的霸权地位。反映在欧洲民主赤字的讨论中,其表现是:黑格尔主义色彩浓厚的调节自由主义和自由现实主义仍居于主导的位置,而作为康德思想当代翻版的规范自由主义则处在相对弱势的地位。     

安全治理:非传统安全能力建设的新范式

通过梳理安全治理理论的缘起与演进,作者强调了安全治理概念的形成体现了安全从传统转向非传统、安全维护从管治转向治理的新趋势以及全球治理理论运用于各国实践的新趋向。从非传统安全能力建设的角度,作者还分析了安全治理的能力特性及其实现的可能性,并通过对安全治理的不同模式(欧洲模式、拉美模式以及东盟模式)的逐一比较,进而考察了非传统的安全观念、思维模式及实践经验在不同区域的差异。结合中国的具体国情,作者对国家利益、安全内涵、安全指数以及对安全的维护途径与方法进行了认识上的提升与拓展,强调作为非传统安全能力建设新范式的理论意义与现实价值,即超越国家中心主义的认识论并对多种资源进行整合以实现治理的模式不仅是当代国际安全研究中一种新的研究方法和模式,也是中国非传统安全治理模式与非传统安全能力建设的一种可借鉴的理论范式。     

因果机制与过程追踪法

因果推理有两种基本形式:因果影响和因果机制。因果影响主要是通过变量之间的共变性来确定,大样本的回归分析方法是发现变量间共变性和关系模式的有效工具;而因果机制则是讨论原因变量如何导致结果的过程,小样本的深度案例分析,尤其是过程追踪法是发现和理解因果机制的重要手段。因果影响和因果机制同样重要,大样本的回归分析和小样本的案例研究也各有所长。利用过程追踪法来分析因果机制能够帮助我们认识因果关系的复杂性,有助于理解现实世界中那些重要但稀少的事件。运用过程追踪法应当以理论和变量为指导,尽可能多地发现可观测要素,从而增进因果推理的效度。