Development of agricultural territories during the post-soviet period: Institutional aspect

The necessity of institutional proposals on the stable development of rural territories is justified in the article. A multivariant approach is proposed for studying the institutional environment of the countryside. The key trends of reformation of the countryside’s social and economic systems are defined based on the results of the our own empiric research.     

Cash balance pension plans: A case of standard-setting inadequacy

Accounting for and ownership of U.S. private employee pensions has long been a controversial and politically contested terrain. The uniqueness in the U.S. of using employers as the principal provider of pensions makes the reporting of pensions more problematic since the corporate employers providing pensions are not strictly accountable to only the pensioners. Over the last quarter century there has been a marked swing in power toward management and away from employees making it possible for increasing numbers of U.S. companies to switch from conventional defined benefit plans to cash balance plans. This paper provides a “case” study of how accounting standard-setters framed the pension reporting problem vis-à-vis how they frame the “reporting problem” in general. Utilizing various sources of commentary about the phenomenon of cash-balance conversions, we triangulate on the pension problem to demonstrate how current FASB disclosure rules fail to satisfy the condition of neutrality and how those rules have facilitated the shifting of economic risk from shareholders to employees.     

Marketing information systems—The problem of system usage

Much literature has been devoted to singing the praises of present and potential computer utilization in marketing. Highly touted are “total information systems,” “on-line, real-time systems,” and “simulation-based systems.” One would be led to believe that each company has devoted or should be devoting its moneys and energies to the design and implementation of such sophisticated computer-based marketing information systems. Yet recent evidence has indicated a lack of enthusiasm-indeed, in some cases antagonism exists toward information systems in marketing. One reason for this disillusionment has been low usage of existing marketing information systems by marketing management. System utilization holds the key to a favorable return on investment in marketing information systems. This article explores many of the causes of infrequent to non-existent system usage and offers a plea and a plan for active elimination of this problem.     

A measure of alienation from the marketplace

For the purpose of equipping researchers in marketing with a more sophisticated method to measure alienation in a marketing context, the authors have constructed and initially tested an alienation from the marketplace index. Alienation is defined in terms of Melvin Seeman's (1959) five basic variants of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation, and self-estrangement. After pretesting, two questions per variant of alienation remained as the operational measures of alienation from the marketplace. These questions focused specifically on marketing phenomenon. Test-retest reliability was tested with 35 paired observations. Validity was checked with survey data from 140 households. In terms of face or content validity, the questions met the criterion of “looking as if” they should indicate the corresponding dimensions of alienation. Correlations between the marketplace alienation items and a measure of general alienation established concurrent validity. The authors propose that the use of the marketplace alienation index in studies involving those who are affected by our country's business climate may prove useful. For example, one would hypothesize that increasing alienation from the marketplace would be associated with support of consumerist goals, or even of additional government legislation to control problems that the individual feels is uncontrollable by him because of the bigness and indifference of modern day enterprise. Pepsico, Inc.     

Knowledge embeddedness and the transfer mechanisms in multinational corporations

This paper reports a qualitative study conducted at four Japanese subsidiaries in China and Vietnam about their process of international knowledge transfer. Building on the literatures concerning the diverse types and characteristics of knowledge in multinational corporations (MNCs), we explore the broad mechanisms adopted and locally generated by the host country subsidiaries for transferring the foreign knowledge and putting the locally embedded knowledge into practical use at the local settings. The findings indicated (1) the limitations of applying a standardized and universal set of knowledge transfer mechanisms without considering local idiosyncrasies and (2) the contributions of local agents and institutions throughout the process of local knowledge adaptation and development.     

The future of the uplands

Upland areas provide UK society with many important functions, goods and services, but have experienced a number of disturbing trends and face an uncertain future. This paper outlines historic, current and future drivers of environmental, economic, socio-cultural and policy change in UK uplands, and assesses how these have affected or are likely to affect ways in which land is used and the provision of ecosystem services. Information is synthesised into scenarios summarising a range of possible futures anticipated for UK uplands to 2060 and beyond. Finally, innovations in science, technology, governance and policy are evaluated that could enable uplands to continue providing key ecosystem services under a range of scenarios. The paper concludes that many upland areas will need to be prepared for significant reductions in grazing and prescribed burning. Conversely, other areas could experience agricultural intensification, for example significant increases in grazing or an expansion of arable or bioenergy crops into upland valleys, due to anticipated increases in global demand for food and energy. These scenarios will take place in the context of climate change. Many may take place together and may interact with each other, with complex and unpredictable implications for the upland environment, economy and society. In this context, a number of advances are needed in science, technology and policy to maintain viable upland communities and the future provision of ecosystem services. These may include funding for ecological and hydrological restoration via carbon offsetting or other means. It may also involve advances in ecosystem service modelling, mapping and valuation, which through stakeholder participation could facilitate more integrated rural planning. New forms of environmental governance need to be explored that can empower those interested in developing upland economies to maintain thriving upland communities, while managing the ecosystem services they provide as efficiently as possible.     

Forest transition in Northern Spain: Local responses on large-scale programmes of field-afforestation

Public field-afforestation schemes have been designed and widely implemented as a measure to alleviate uneven distribution, generate economic growth in rural areas and maintain or improve natural resources. The literature on forest management and planning has improved land-related information systems, allowing policy-makers to design and implement future policies on the allocation of forestland uses, and to forecast the land requirements of the target population more closely. The aim of this article is to empirically examine and validate the temporal and spatial land use changes and the socioeconomic effects linked to field-afforestation on private lands in the province of Lugo (Galicia, Northern Spain) at the municipal, parish and individual farm holding levels. Two main top-down field-afforestation programmes are reviewed in the study area: the national programme of public afforestations started with the implementation of Ley de Patrimonio Forestal del Estado (National Forest Estate Act; NFE) from 1941 to 2000, and the European aid scheme for forestry measures established under European Council Regulation No. 2080/1992 from 1993 to 1997. The results of a survey, targeted at 1355 farmers and conducted through questionnaires in the province of Lugo in 2004, complete the analysis of public intervention in forest management. The results indicate that the specific social, economic and environmental context of an agricultural and forestry area involves a differential heritage of land customs that determines a differential response model to forest programmes of land allocation and planning. Therefore, this must not be underestimated by the quantitative or qualitative general objectives of large-scale policies.     

Ex ante analysis of the benefits of transgenic drought tolerance research on cereal crops in low-income countries

This article develops a framework to examine the ex ante benefits of transgenic research on drought in eight low-income countries, including the benefits to producers and consumers from farm income stabilization and the potential magnitude of private sector profits from intellectual property rights (IPRs). The framework employs country-specific agroecological–drought risk zones and considers both yield increases and yield variance reductions when estimating producer and consumer benefits from research. Benefits from yield variance reductions are shown to be an important component of aggregate drought research benefits, representing 40% of total benefits across the eight countries. Further, estimated annual benefits of US$178 million to the private sector suggest that significant incentives exist for participation in transgenic drought tolerance research.