Overseas Investment, Encouraging Long Journey

In the context of the financial crisis, international capital flows, cross-border investment, as well as the mergers and acquisitions generally continues shrinking at a large range in 2009, while China's foreign investment and overseas cooperation still maintains a good momentum of devclopment.     

Towards a model of dynamic capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy: Insights from project-oriented service firms

With the growing significance of services in most developed economies, there is an increased interest in the role of service innovation in service firm competitive strategy. Despite growing literature on service innovation, it remains fragmented reflecting the need for a model that captures key antecedents driving the service innovation-based competitive advantage process. Building on extant literature and using thirteen in-depth interviews with CEOs of project-oriented service firms, this paper presents a model of innovation-based competitive advantage. The emergent model suggests that entrepreneurial service firms pursuing innovation carefully select and use dynamic capabilities that enable them to achieve greater innovation and sustained competitive advantage. Our findings indicate that firms purposefully use create, extend and modify processes to build and nurture key dynamic capabilities. The paper presents a set of theoretical propositions to guide future research. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Finally, directions for future research are outlined.     

UK Land Use Futures: Policy influence and challenges for the coming decades

This paper, originally contributed as part of the government's Foresight investigation of Land Use Futures, considers the likely shape of policies affecting UK rural land use up to 2060, based on literature review, analysis of past and current trends and drivers, and discussion with selected policy experts. The postwar, centralised approach to spatial planning and countryside management has come under increasing challenge from domestic and international needs and concerns. European policy influence has increased in respect of agriculture and the natural environment. Zoning of land-use and a restrictive approach to built development have gradually weakened, and land-use drivers have become more multifunctional. Policy has moved away from a ‘top-down’ process designed in Whitehall towards a multi-layered structure within which international agreements and negotiations must be reconciled with regional and local, partnership-based approaches to planning and management, via national frameworks and a complex mix of regulatory and market-based instruments. Climate and energy policy, as well as policies on food and health, will require new and more diverse forms of development. A major challenge for the future could be the extent to which current, multi-layered spatial planning policies can accommodate the scale of change implied by the new mix of drivers from other policy areas. There is the possibility of an increasingly differentiated response across the UK countryside, as well as much more radical change in the system driven from the centre, as pressures increase.

While the Government Office for Science commissioned this review, the views are those of the author, are independent of Government, and do not constitute Government policy.     

Materiality and the comfort of things: drinks,dining and discussion with Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at University College London. Miller’s foundational work in consumption studies, material culture studies and the anthropology of materiality has made profound contributions to our understanding of consumption, markets and culture. He is particularly known for Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1987 Miller, D. 1987. Material culture and mass consumption, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]), A Theory of Shopping (1998 Miller, D. 1998. A theory of shopping, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar]) and his edited collections Unwrapping Christmas (1995 Miller, D., ed. 1995. Unwrapping Christmas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]), the four‐volume Consumption: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences (2001 Miller, D., ed. 2001. Consumption: Critical concepts in the social sciences, Vol. 4, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), and Materiality (2005 Miller, D., ed. 2005. Materiality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). He is a tremendously prolific scholar and has worked with a large number of doctoral students. His 2008 Miller, D. 2008. The comfort of things, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar] book, The Comfort of Things, has introduced Miller to a wider audience. This interview took place in London on 25 November 2008.     

The incidence of wrongdoing,whistle-blowing,and retaliation: Results of a naturally occurring field experiment

The present study examined two general research questions pertaining to the passage of a law designed to encourage whistle-blowing: (a) Has the incidence of perceived wrongdoing, whistle-blowing, anonymous whistle-blowing, or retaliation changed following the passage of the law? (b) What variables predict the comprehensiveness of retaliation that identified whistle-blowers claim to have experienced? One questionnaire was mailed to members of 15 organizations affected by the law in 1980 (n=8500) and a second was administered in 1983 (n=4700). There was some evidence that the law had beneficial effects; specifically, the incidence of perceived wrongdoing declined and whistle-blowing increased. Unfortunately, identified whistle-blowers were just as likely to experience retaliation in 1983 as they were in 1980. The predictors of the comprehensiveness of the retaliation experienced were generally the same in both years. The results tentatively suggest that more legal and organizational encouragement of whistle-blowing is needed.     

Medicaid managed care: effects on children's Medicaid coverage and utilization

We use data from the National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) to measure the effects of the growth of Medicaid managed care on children. We examine both the probability that individual children were Medicaid-covered and their utilization of care. We find that managed care penetration has significant effects on the composition of the Medicaid caseload: Young children are less likely to be covered, while poor school-age children are more likely to be covered. When we examine coverage by race, we find that black children are less likely to be covered where Medicaid managed care organizations (MMCOs) are more prevalent. These lower Medicaid enrollment rates are linked to increases in the numbers of young children who go without any doctor visits in a year. These results suggest that it is important to examine the potential effects of changes in Medicaid on selection into the Medicaid program, rather than focusing exclusively on the effects of managed care on those who are enrolled. In addition, among those enrolled in Medicaid, higher managed care penetration is associated with an increase in the number of black children with chronic conditions who go without doctor visits, but with decreases in the number of Hispanic children and poor teens who go without care.     

Changing Governance, Changing Equality? New Labour, Modernization and Public Services

This article explores the implications for issues of equality and diversity in the Labour government's programme of public service modernization. Networks and partnerships are viewed as a response to the increasing complexity and ambiguity of the public realm. But in the new knowledge-based and networked economy, 'who you know', and whether you can access the crucial networks, is becoming highly significant. As the site of action shifts, so equality agendas must be renegotiated.     

Managing through contracts: the employment effects of compulsory competitive tendering in Australian local government

This article brings new evidence to bear on the employment and human resource effects of competitve tendering and contracting. Drawing on a database of over two hundred workplace agreements, the article examines the impact of compulsory competitive tendering on employees’ pay and employment arrangements in the Australian local government sector. The findings are contextualised in the light of evidence on the outcomes of a similar contracting regime in Britain.