GOVERNMENT VERSUS PRIVATE QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR AUSTRALIAN FOOD EXPORTS

Most foodstuffs have quality attributes that are difficult to determine prior to purchase. Thus quality assurance is an inherent problem in food exporting. Private quality assurance can succeed if exporters can credibly signal that they have much to lose from cessation of purchases. If exporters do not provide credible quality signals, and foreign importers judge food quality according to country of origin, honest exporters can suffer negative spillovers from others' cheating under either government or private quality assurance. For both economic and political reasons, the best choice between government and private quality assurance will differ between foods and importing countries.     

Value for Money? Neo‐Liberalism in New South Wales Prisons

The NSW prison sector has undergone considerable reform over the last ten years. The NSW government now oversees the operation of publicly managed prisons, one privately managed prison and a number of new public prisons operating under the new 'Way Forward' management model. In order to establish which approach to prison management offered the best value for money, the NSW government undertook a 'value for money' assessment in 2005. In this article, we argue the cost accounting information is privileged in the assessment process. However, we contend that this information was limited and partial, and provided a poor basis on which to form policy. Even so, the NSW government has proceeded on this basis. In order to explain this, we position the report within the wider neo-liberal turn in policymaking and the workplace reforms that have accompanied it.     

THE PROCESSING OF CRISIS AND NON-CRISIS STRATEGIC ISSUES

This paper asserts that organizations process different types of strategic issues in systematically different ways, proposing that organizational decision-makers expend greater resources, centralize authority and generate a greater volume of causal explanations during the processing of crisis versus non-crisis strategic issues. Data from comparative tracings of several crisis and non-crisis issues in a single organization lend preliminary support to the propositions. By conceptualizing the process of issue resolution both from an instrumental and symbolic perspective, this type of response to crisis issues can be interpreted. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Influences on technology strategy in the uk oil- and gas-related industry network

In the course of the last 25 years the UK has seen the emergence of a new, technologically advanced network of organisations underpinning the technical needs of the oil and gas extraction industry.The euolution of this industy network has taken place within a public policy framework which has had too central objectives: to maximize UK industrial involvement in the industry and to maximize. North Sea oil and gas extraction. The extent to which this framework has encouraged the development of new, technology-based firms has not been systematical stuided. This study examines the extent of indigenous incoltlement in the network and the influence of the currrent pressures of economic and policy changes on the performance and strategic planning of these compnies.     

Planning for recreational planning

This paper takes a look at recreational planning from the point of view of a formal planning system. In particular, the development of a decision support system for recreational planning is discussed. One of the outputs of this system is the familiar recreation plan and its associated processes. In addition, such a system allows the recreation plan to deal with some important issues on a timely basis as well as establishing a strong working relationship with local agencies.     

The Scope of the Grants Economy and Income Distribution: An Examination of Intergenerational Transfers of Income

A bstract . Private transfers of income between family members have had significant equalizing effects on the distribution of income in the United States but only recently have they become a subject of research and an element of analysis. Some of the major theoretical developments in the area of income distribution and intergenerational mobility in the rich literature of the grants economy are reviewed. Among the effects of family transfers on income distribution, the most critical considerations in intra-family transfers, tentative results indicate, are those that relate, directly or indirectly, to investments in children during their formative years. Estimates of the size of family transfers include one that in a single year their total was of the magnitude of 30.7 percent of gross national product and another that in 1980 they were 70 percent of total transfers, amounting at least to 1 trillion. Trends in their level and structure are projected.     

New Product Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Pooling Network Resources

Pharmaceutical innovation increasingly involves some pooling of resources of finance, equity, technology, information, and intellectual property between pharmaceutical companies and other organizations. The organizations and their exchanges constitute a network which can be regarded as a growing store of these varied resources preferentially accessible to network members. D. Jane Bower examines some network effects in management decision making in Ciba-Geigy (Switzerland) and Elan Corporation (Ireland). She concludes that participation in a common network has enabled these firms to access a pool of resources of knowledge, experience, and finance. This pool has been generated by past exchanges among network members, including providers of finance, and has increased the network's collective reservoir of knowledge.