A Global Mining Corporation and Local Communities in the Lake Victoria Zone: The Case of Barrick Gold Multinational in Tanzania

This case explores a Canadian mining corporation, Barrick Gold Corporation (Barrick), and the way it engages with the local communities that surround its mining activities in the Lake Victoria Zone, Tanzania. Following recent organized tensions within several local communities and heightened criticism from those communities [examples of recent discontent from local communities and workers at Barrick Gold Corp in Tanzania: http://www.protestbarrick.net/article.php?id=214; http://www.protestbarrick.net/article.php?list=type&type=12; http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1247233520081212; http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15263; http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Tanzania_en/What_Really_Happened (accessed Feb- ruary 25, 2009)], as well as from local media, social lobbyists, and local not-for-profit organizations (NFOs), the case examines the way Barrick has responded to this situation by implementing global corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in an attempt to strike a balance between its international business capabilities and its localization strategies. In spite of these efforts, tension between Barrick and the local communities within the company??s zone of operations has not abated. This issue has left Barrick??s senior management wondering what more the company could reasonably do to resolve the situation.     

Customer Centric Company

Literaturhinweise

Customer centric company     

Evaluation of subsidiary marketing performance: combining process and outcome performance metrics

Issues in evaluating marketing performance and devising appropriate metrics for measurement have taken center stage in marketing thought and practice in recent years. We propose an empirical model that enables a multinational enterprise (MNE) to assess the marketing performance of its subsidiaries, taking into explicit consideration the fact that tactical actions by subsidiaries contribute to the creation of assets that can be harnessed for marketing outcomes. Thus, our model captures the asset creation abilities of marketing expenditures and also takes in to account the environmental differences of the context in which each MNE subsidiary operates. We evaluate comparative, overall, and process-level (creation of market assets and market yield) marketing performance in the context of multi-country operations. This simultaneous examination of marketing process and marketing outcome performance enables a global corporation to gain strategic, operational, and diagnostic insights into the performance of its subsidiaries. Our approach is empirically illustrated with an evaluation of the marketing performance of subsidiaries of a large global corporation.     

中国乡城流动人口社会网络复杂性特征分析

借助社会网络等非正式制度方式实现再社会化是乡城流动人口融入城市生活的主要途径之一。对流动人口社会网络的分析不仅可以揭示其网络结构特点,也将为进一步研究流动人口再社会化过程提供理论基础。采用深圳市流动人口专项调查中的整体网络数据,借助复杂性科学,尤其是复杂网络的研究方法,系统分析了乡城流动人口社会支持网络与讨论网络的复杂性特征。在乡城流动人口社会网络中广泛存在小世界现象和无标度特性等复杂网络特征。复杂性科学可以为分析诸如乡城流动人口这样的复杂系统提供有效方法,也是拓展复杂性科学,尤其是复杂网络应用领域的有益尝试。     

Digitalisierung im Gesundheitswesen — zwischen Datenschutz und moderner Medizinversorgung

The digital transformation of the healthcare branch is important and unstoppable. The enormous possibility of digitalisation to redesign and enhance processes has been shown in other branches. Digital technologies offer the similarly large potential to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. However, in terms of digitalisation, the German health system lags behind other European countries. But given a lack of available evidence, the effects of the digitalisation of the healthcare system cannot be reliably evaluated. Digital access to patient data necessitates constructive error cultures in organisations in order to limit defensive medicine. And digital access to health information necessitates individual competence in searching and using this information for participatory decision-making. As with all technological progress, information security is very important in order to gain citizens’ confidence in a digital healthcare system. Thus, it is necessary to simultaneously pursue both enhanced privacy standards and state-of-the-art medical technology.     

Effects of extent and diversity of alliancing on innovation: the moderating role of firm newness

The purpose of this paper is to show the varying effects of alliance portfolio size and heterogeneity on innovation in biotechnology firms. Previous literature has indicated that the number and heterogeneity of partners in an alliance portfolio might have positive effects on innovativeness. Yet, engaging in multiple and heterogeneous collaborations also raises managerial costs and complexity levels disproportionally, potentially causing detrimental performance effects. Analysis of a unique panel dataset suggests that engaging in many alliances generally has a positive influence on a firm’s innovation output. Furthermore, maintaining diverse alliance portfolios and a high extent of alliancing jointly affects a firm’s innovation output ?negatively. By additionally showing that younger firms benefit disproportionally from both alliance portfolio diversity and size, this study provides a more nuanced view of alliancing effects.     

Viennese kaleidics: Why it’s liberty more than policy that calms turbulence

The idea of a kaleidic economy or society is strongly associated with George Shackle and his vision of Keynesian kaleidics. This essay asserts that the central thrust of the Austrian tradition in economic analysis can be described by the term Viennese kaleidics. In either version of kaleidics, the analytical stress is placed on treating time seriously and not just notionally. Either version of kaleidics leads to recognition that economic processes are better treated as turbulent than as equilibrated. While that turbulence is a natural feature of the unavoidable incompleteness of intertemporal coordination, it is subject to mitigation. This essay explains how it is that individual liberty and private ordering is generally superior to state policy and public ordering in calming the turbulence that naturally characterizes a kaleidic economy.