ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION-MAKING AS HIERARCHICAL LEVELS OF DRAMA*

In conducting a longitudinal examination of eight long-term complex decision processes in two Fortune 500 heavy manufacturing companies the authors developed a six-level framework of decision complexity. The levels range from: (1) instantaneous decision choices to (2) decision actions (3) decision events (4) mini-decision processes (5) decision processes and (6) decision theatres. They vary in time, numbers of participants, and in the integrative effort required to formulate and implement them. Thus, one problem with the word ‘decision’is that it is used to mean many different things in organizational settings. Each lower level of ‘decision’was found to combine with ‘decisions’of the same level and to be embedded within higher levels, resulting in a nested hierarchy of simultaneously occurring processes.     

Managing the Waters of Baՙth Country: The Politics of Water Scarcity in Syria

The Syrian government and international development agencies commonly present water scarcity as being one of Syria's main development challenges. This paper draws on a set of international reports, written in consultation with Syrian officials, to reveal the politics of this scarcity. I show how water scarcity is constructed and ordered through spatial representations. Rather than accepting the common explanation that scarcity is the result of population pressure, I argue that Syria's water scarcity is a consequence of the ruling Ba?th party's continuous promotion of water-intensive agriculture. This support for the agricultural sector, motivated in part by a desire for food self-sufficiency and growth through an expansion in irrigated agriculture, is linked to the rural roots of the Ba?th party and the influential Peasants Union. In revealing these key national politics, this analysis highlights how geopolitical studies of water in the Middle East must move beyond a focus on inter-state dynamics and pay critical attention to the politics operating around water distribution and use on a range of scalar levels.     

KwaZulu‐Natal's rural institutional environment: Its impact on local service delivery

This article examines the rural institutional framework in KwaZulu‐Natal as it pertains to local service delivery, and claims that the key component of development is getting the institutional environments right. The article assesses relevant literature and introduces a dual framework linking institutionalist and organisational perspectives. The institutional framework of KwaZulu‐Natal is discussed in terms of its historical development, and a critical analysis of its present configuration is carried out. The article highlights the mismatch between rural development needs and the institutional framework of the province and generates a number of policy proposals in an attempt to correct this problem.     

Use of registers and population censuses as sampling frames in Great Britain

The use of official data sources as sampling frames for numerous government surveys in the United Kingdom is described. "The great majority of these surveys use registers of various kinds as sampling frames. Some of these registers are intended to cover all addresses in the country in which there are private households. Other registers relate to specific sub-groups of the population. Each of the general registers has advantages and disadvantages but none is ideal for sampling purposes. In recent years nearly all samples required of the general population have been drawn, by automated means, from the Postcode Address File, although the balance of advantages of this system need to be continually monitored and evaluated." Reasons why the census is not often used as a sampling frame are considered.     

The Role of Pre-Exposure Cognitive Structure in Mediating Consumer Responses to Advertising

Measurement of cognitive responses has evolved around the use of post-test only research designs. The failure to include pre-exposure cognitive structure into research designs threatens the validity of results. In the present study, we show that consumers' product attitudes influence how they respond to television commercials and what reactions they have toward advertised products following exposure.     

The evolution and resilience of community-based land tenure in rural Mexico

This paper examines the evolution of ejido tenure in Mexico since the 1992 constitutional and legal reforms in that country. Prior to the Mexican Revolution, communal tenure had all but disappeared, but since 1920 community-based tenure re-emerged to become the dominant tenure form in Mexico. The paper investigates ejido land tenure through an examination of ejido governance structures and the tenure rules relating to the acquisition, transfer and extinction of land and resource rights. It draws on community-level research and numerous published case studies, relevant laws, and on data describing the status of ejidos countrywide. This reveals a diverse set of practices, which in many instances depart from the rules as defined in the Agrarian Law and even in internal community regulations. Land tenure plays a critical mediating role in the inter-relationship between humans and the environment. Using the framework of resilience I examine the persistence of ejido tenure and its dynamics in the aftermath of major land policy and legal reforms. Three major ‘shocks’ are identified which are seriously challenging the resilience of ejidos. These are the 1992 legal reforms, NAFTA and the resulting out-migration from rural Mexico, and urbanization. I conclude that ejidos have generally been resilient enough to accommodate the 1992 reforms, but problems with cross-generational transfers that stem in part from labor migration, and urbanization have set ejidos on a course that could ultimately overcome all but the most resilient communities.     

Country image,product image and consumer purchase intention: Evidence from an emerging economy

In offering fresh insights on the country-of-origin effect literature, this article provides evidence to suggest that cognitive country image (CI) is not necessarily consistent with affective country image. Based on a large scale consumer survey conducted in China, the findings reported provide empirical support for a hypothesized decomposing effect. In particularly, the results demonstrate that cognitive and affective CI have a different impact on the intention to purchase, with the former influencing purchase through product image, and the latter having a direct influence, independent of product image. Such a decomposing effect has important theoretical and managerial implications surrounding the mechanics of country image and the impact on purchase intention which are extracted from this study along with directions for future research.