Evaluation of a home injury prevention program in a WHO Safe Community

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a community-based injury prevention program on home injuries. Unintentional injuries occurring in private homes and during leisure time account for 70-80% of injuries treated in public health care. A quasiexperimental design was used for the study, with cross-sectional preand post-implementation measurements in the program area and in a neighboring control community. Children and the elderly were two main target groups of the intervention program, which was based on a participative strategy for community involvement. The study was based on defined total populations. The total relative risk for home injury occurrence decreased in the study area, whereas it increased in the control area. Regarding age and gender, there was a decrease for females and males in the study area and a slight increase in the control area. For males, the youngest and oldest age groups showed no decrease, whereas females showed a decrease among the youngest and those aged 60-79. No decrease was observed in the control area. The study showed that the Safe Community approach had a general effect on the incidence of home injuries.     

Income inequality,unemployment, and suicide: a panel data analysis of 15 European countries

One of the reasons behind the re-negotiation of the Lomé Convention, resulting in the Cotonou Agreement, was the alleged inability of the trade provisions of Lomé to increase the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries' market share of the European Union (EU) market. The Cotonou Agreement may lead to the more advanced ACPs being granted future market access to the EU under a generalized system of preferences (GSP), in conformity with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. To this end, this paper makes a comparative analysis of the effects of the EU's Lomé Convention and GSP on exports of developing countries using a gravity type of model. The results indicate positive and statistically significant export effects of the both the Lomé Convention and the GSP. The export effects are greater in case of the Lomé Convention throughout the study period running from 1973 to 1992. In addition, the paper illustrates the EU country distribution of the export effects and shows that Belgium and The Netherlands are the EU countries that most have increased their imports from the developing countries under both the Lomé Convention and the GSP.     

Communicative skills that support value creation: A study of B2B interactions between customers and customer service representatives

Although interaction has been acknowledged as central in value creation there is still a lack of empirical studies on how value creation is accomplished in practice, and in particular how communicative skills support customers' value creation. The purpose of this paper is therefore to generate a deeper understanding of how customer service representatives' communicative skills in conversations with customers support customers' value creation. We argue that value creating processes correspond to customers' roles as “feelers”, “thinkers” and “doers”. Accordingly, value creation involves three interdependent elements, an emotional, a cognitive and a behavioral. Based on a qualitative research design, drawing on an empirical study of 80 telephone conversations between customers and customer service representatives in a business-to-business context, the paper demonstrates three communicative skills that are essential in supporting customers' value creation: attentiveness, perceptiveness and responsiveness. The findings show how employees, by means of these communicative skills support customers' value creation. Attentiveness supports cognitive elements of the customers' value creating processes, whereas perceptiveness supports value creation in terms of cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects. Finally, responsiveness supports the customer's cognitive as well as behavioral value creation.     

The effect of uncertainty on pollution abatement investments: Measuring hurdle rates for Swedish industry

We estimate hurdle rates for firms’ investments in pollution abatement technology, using ex post data. The method is based on a structural option value model where the future price of polluting fuel is the major source of uncertainty facing the firm. The empirical procedure is illustrated using a panel of firms from the Swedish pulp and paper industry, and the energy and heating sector, and their sulfur dioxide emissions over the period 2000–2003. The results indicate that hurdle rates of investment vary from 2.7 to 3.1 in the pulp and paper industry and from 3.4 to 3.6 in the energy and heating sector depending on econometric specification.     

Swedish CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Emissions 1993–2006: An Application of Decomposition Analysis and Some Methodological Insights

This study undertakes a decomposition analysis to identify the drivers of carbon dioxide emissions change in the Swedish business and industry sectors 1993–2006. On aggregate, energy intensity decreased, but this does not seem to have been very important for reducing emissions. Rather, fuel substitution seems to have been more important, which is in line with findings from the decomposition literature on Sweden. However, at the sectoral level, we find no clear pattern of the effect of fuel substitution and energy intensity on emissions. We also draw some methodological conclusions: decomposition analysis should be undertaken at the most disaggregate level possible; assessing decomposition results by summing results over several time periods leads to biased results; and decomposition analysis should not be based only on some initial and final years of a long time period. Furthermore, we address the problem of double counting energy flows in decomposition analysis of aggregate effects when the energy sector is included, and point out potential problems related to output measured in monetary terms.     

E-Business Adoption by SMEs--Prerequisites and Attitudes of SMEs in a Swedish Network

The context for this research is the transformation process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from traditional (t-) businesses toward e-businesses and the accompanying development of the knowledge and competence among employees. SMEs constitute a great part of the Swedish industry and economy. This and the fact that they have special prerequisites concerning human and technology resources makes SMEs an interesting research focus when looking at the transformation process toward e-business. The aim of this research is to investigate SMEs with the purpose of designing, implementing, and evaluating information technology-supported activities that will allow SMEs to approach e-business. This article presents results from parts of an ongoing study, that involves seven SMEs. This study will be conducted in two main phases: first, informative and preparatory activities and second, business transformation and competence development activities. This article focuses on the first phase of the study, but an insight in its current status and further research is given. The underlying prerequisites for SMEs as well as the research approach are described. A working model is presented that illustrates stages of maturity for taking an enterprise toward e-business. The last sections present the research design, that is, planning, actions, observations, and reflections of the study up until now. New actions to take are discussed at the end of this article.     

Critical events in time and space when cooperation turns into competition in business relationships

This study aims to improve our understanding of the processes of critical events in time and space that lead from cooperation to competition in dyadic business relationships. Within the business network approach there has recently been a call for research into both time and competition, and research combining both is novel. The study identifies and analyzes critical events in time, their connections with each other and the inner and outer space related to each event. The empirical study is based on four qualitative cases. The findings contribute to existing research by presenting several new perspectives on events and spaces, which improves our understanding of time and process in business networks. Business relationships may evolve from cooperation to competition through chronological events involving information sharing, sales-related and opportunistic activities. In space, these events mostly relate to the focal business relationships, the individual companies and third parties, such as customers.