Taxation and the Performance of Technology Based Small Firms in the U.K.

This paper analyses a database of U.K. small companies in order to establish the profile of Technology Based Small Firms (TBSFs) in terms of their demography, financial structure and performance, and tax affairs. Following the evaluation of the impact of direct taxation on the high technology small companies, compared to that of their low technology counterparts, the paper briefly discusses the current policy debate about the nature and appropriateness of tax-based incentives for the development of this strategically important scale and type of enterprise.     

What Is Personalization? Perspectives on the Design and Implementation of Personalization in Information Systems

In e-commerce and mobile commerce, personalization has been recognized as an important approach element in customer relationships and Web strategies. However, there are wide differences in how this concept is defined, characterized, and implemented in the literature. In this article we present a high-level framework for classifying approaches to personalization that delineates fundamental assumptions about personalization in the literature and relates them to strategies for developing personalization systems. The framework consists of 2 parts: (a) a set of perspectives on personalization that guide the design of personalization systems at a general level and (b) a scheme for classifying how personalization can be implemented. The personalization perspectives represent 4 distinct schools of thought on the nature of personalization distilled from the literature of several fields. These perspectives are ideal types and we discuss them in terms of the motivation they supply for personalization, the goals and means of personalization, and the ways in which they conceptualize and model users. The implementation classification scheme is constructed on 3 dimensions of implementation choices. These 3 dimensions pertain to what to personalize (content, interface, functionality, channel), to whom to personalize (individuals or categories of individuals) as well as who does the personalization (implicit or explicit personalization). The personalization perspectives represent particular concepts of personalization that guide general design choices; these choices are implemented via the options described in the implementation classification scheme. The framework contributes to the development of a common theoretical basis for the study of personalization. We discuss implications of the framework for design of personalization systems and future research directions.     

Reviews

POLICIES FOR TRAINING AND THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED.

Corney, M. 1990: The Black Hole in Britain's Training System; Training for People in Employment: Robinson, P. 1989: Stagflation; Lessons from Other Places; and Meacher, M. 1990: Adopting the Employment Principle: A Green Paper. All published by the Campaign for Work. The price of the first is £4.00, the second £5.00 and the third £3.50.

US LESSONS IN EVALUATION.

Bingham, R. D., Hill, E. W. and White, S. B. (eds) 1990: Financing Economic Development: An Institutional Response. Newbury Park, California and London: Sage Publications, £33.25 cloth, £16.75 paper.

LESSONS FROM THE USA.

Hambleton, R. 1990: Urban Government in the 1990s: Lessons from the USA,

Occasional Paper No. 35, Bristol: School for Advanced Urban Studies. No price stated.

SKILLS TRAINING.

CBI, 1989: Managing the Skills Gap. London: CBI, £10.00 paper; Report of the Vocational Education and Training Task Force, 1989: Towards a Skills Revolution. London: CBI, £20.00 paper; Association of London Authorities, 1990: Training for London. London: ALA.     

Efficient and optimal programs when investment is irreversible: A duality theory

An attempt is made in this paper to formulate a satisfactory duality theory of efficient and optimal programs in intertemporal models with irreversible inveatment. The introduction of the constraint that depreciated capital stock cannot be used for present consumption makes the meaningful choice and interpretation of dual variables a more difficult problem, as is pointed out by means of an example. A new definition of a competitive program is introduced, and this is seen to lead to useful characterizations of efficient and optimal programs.