Beyond the manual: Practicing deliberative visioning in a Greek island

Deliberative visioning refers to processes of inclusive, multi-stakeholder deliberation over a desirable future. Methodologies include scenario workshops, future searches and community visioning. This paper looks critically at the assumptions of deliberative visioning benefiting from a case study in Greece. We argue that there are fundamental choices to be made concerning how to frame the process, who to invite and how to facilitate it. These are not just a matter of following manuals' good practice guidance. We emphasize the need for epistemological and methodological awareness of: the assumptions which frame DV itself; the assumptions of the users of DV; and the situation in which DV is deployed. We find that whereas visioning motivates participants to work together and provides a good framework to systematize discussion, it is not necessarily effective for developing systemic perspectives and plan actions. This is especially true in contexts such as that of our case study, where there is lack of a collaborative culture and there are insufficient mechanisms that integrate effectively a deliberative process with other processes of policy or social change.     

People’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against epidemics

Animal epidemics are associated with significant economic damage and they negatively influence consumers’ meat consumption. Vaccination can be used as a strategy to prevent the outbreak of animal epidemics. The current study examines people’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against an animal epidemic. We asked people separately about their willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against both animal epidemics and against zoonoses. Zoonoses are also animal epidemics, but they might affect human health. A questionnaire was sent out to a representative sample of Swiss people and yielded N = 1033 completed datasets. Although animal vaccinations were highly accepted among those surveyed, compared to a wide range of other animal applications such as antibiotics, only about a quarter of those surveyed indicated that they would eat meat from animals vaccinated against a zoonosis. Some 60% indicated they would eat meat from animals vaccinated against an animal epidemic. We found attitudes about animal vaccination, knowledge about human vaccination, misunderstanding of animal treatments, and average meat consumption to significantly influence people’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against a zoonosis. Therefore, it is necessary that regulatory bodies provide information on both the safety of meat for human consumption and ways to minimize any potential health risks from the handling or consumption of meat products that might be infected in cases of zoonotic outbreaks.     

Trapped in Informality: The Big Role of Small Firms in Russia’s Statist-patrimonial Capitalism

Manifestations of patrimonialism such as corruption and state predation on business are widespread in many emerging economies. This paper presents the case of Russian political economy, dubbed ‘statist-patrimonial capitalism’, which is marked by state threats to private property rights through bureaucratic extortion or legal harassment. How can we explain the resilience of Russia’s statist-patrimonial capitalism? Predominant accounts focus on the lack of institutional constraints on state predation. The paper offers a different perspective by exploring the often-overlooked contribution of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). First, statistical data show a steady rise of SMEs in the 2000s despite increasing state predation, suggesting that SMEs are not simply subjugated by the state. Second, in-depth interviews with Russian entrepreneurs reveal that business contributes to the maintenance of the statist-patrimonial system through the mechanism of the ‘informality trap’: firms that choose the informal strategy have difficulties to return to the legal sphere and get stuck in informality. The drivers of informality include firm-specific characteristics, institutional factors and socio-cultural factors dubbed ‘normality’. The mechanism of the ‘informality trap’ highlights the agency of firms in corrupt polities and may be applicable to other emerging economies.     

Human Development at Risk: Economic Growth with Pollution-Induced Health Shocks

Risks to human health stemming from polluted air, water, and soil are substantial, especially in the rapidly growing economies. The present paper develops a theoretical framework to study an endogenously growing economy which is subject to pollution-induced health shocks with the health status being an argument of the welfare function. Pollution, arising as a negative externality from production, adversely and randomly affects the regeneration ability of a human body leading to a decline in the overall health status of the population. We include two types of uncertainty surrounding the health status: continuous small-scale fluctuations, driven by the Wiener process, and large-scale shocks or epidemics, driven by the Poisson process. We derive closed-form analytical solutions for the optimal abatement policy and the growth rate of consumption. Devoting a constant fraction of output to emissions abatement delivers the first-best allocation. This fraction is an increasing function of total factor productivity, polluting intensity of production, and damage intensity of both continuous and jump-type shocks. A higher frequency of jumps also calls for more vigorous abatement policies. By contrast, the optimal growth rate of the economy is decreasing in the frequency and intensity of shocks and in the polluting intensity of output. The efficiency of abatement technology has, in general, an ambiguous bearing on both the growth rate and on the abatement share due to the opposing forces of the direct and indirect effects.     

In or out? The welfare costs of EMU membership

Sweden and the UK have repeatedly refused to join the European and Monetary Union (EMU). Surprisingly, there is very little work on the welfare consequences of the loss of monetary policy flexibility for these countries. This paper fills this void by providing a framework to evaluate quantitatively the economic costs of joining the EMU. Using a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices we investigate the economic implications of the loss of monetary policy flexibility associated with the EMU for each country. The main contribution of our general equilibrium approach is that we can evaluate the effects of monetary policy in terms of welfare. Our findings suggest that these economies may experience sizable welfare losses as a result of joining the EMU. Results show that the cost associated with the loss of the monetary policy flexibility is higher in the presence of persistent government consumption shocks and small trade shares with the EMU.     

Exploring the role of expedition staff in volunteer tourism

Conservation volunteer tourism (VT) (or nature conservation expedition)‐related organisations can provide a meeting point for both tourists and field‐based scientists. Expedition leaders should be aware of the needs of the volunteer tourists that can be fulfilled through VT. It appears that the role of expedition leaders is central to the successful execution of the VT expedition. This study aimed to understand the expedition leaders' perceptions of VT, their perspective of the expectations of their volunteer tourists and their requirements of the volunteers, and assess how volunteers perform with regard to those requirements. The results suggest that there may be some differences in perceptions between leaders and volunteer tourists that may affect the success of the expedition. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation: fourteen-year longitudinal case study of a tourist accommodation provider

Abstract

Progressing sustainable tourism requires both an innovative transition from “unsustainable” tourism and innovative research methods to develop theory and concepts for a sustainable tourism. While there are many ad hoc examples of initiatives, there are very few examples of firms systematically recording their medium-term evolutionary progress. This case study of an accommodation provider uses longitudinal data over 14 years, deductive and inductive methods, and comparison with other similar eco-friendly providers, to provide the first exploration of sustainability-oriented innovation by a firm attempting to make transitions. Findings show how important hindsight and insight are for continuous learning, and how broader community sustainability issues influence the owners’ worldviews. Both learning and changing views are required to support innovation. A Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation model is recommended, recognising the characteristics of a service industry where innovation can be an organic process led by humans for humans and consequently more fuzzy in its progress than the clearly defined steps that are suggested by previous research. This model seeks to assist researchers and practitioners to better measure innovative progress of service firms, and develop more relevant strategies to ease transitions towards sustainable business practices.     

An interactive perspective on business in practice and business in theory

For nearly a quarter of a century researchers engaged in business exchange have met on the annual IMP Conferences to share their experiences, with the phenomenon of interaction and business relationships; its sources, content and effect for the larger business landscape. This special issue’s selection of papers from the 2008 IMP Conference gives a nice illustration of the width and depth in this research. The issue includes considerations of interdependencies in dyadic business relationships, in connected business relationships and among business and non-business organizations. Finally, it includes a discussion of the emergences of research communities like IMP, and stresses the importance of the organically emerging interaction among researchers representing both similar and dissimilar theoretical and empirical interpretations of the dynamics of the business landscape.     

A network approach for assembling and linking input–output models

Input–output (IO) models, describing trade between different sectors and regions, are widely used to study the environmental repercussions of human activities. A frequent challenge in assembling an IO model or linking several such models is the absence of flow data with the same level of detail for all components. Such problems can be addressed using proportional allocation, which is a form of algebraic transformations. In this paper, we propose a novel approach whereby the IO system is viewed as a network, the topology of which is transformed with the addition of virtual nodes so that available empirical flow data can be mapped directly to existing links, with no additional estimation required, and no impact on results. As IO systems become increasingly disaggregated, and coupled to adjacent databases and models, the adaptability of IO frameworks becomes increasingly important. We show that topological transformations also offer large advantages in terms of transparency, modularity and increasingly importantly for global IO models, efficiency. We illustrate the results in the context of trade linking, multi-scale integration and other applications.