Trade barriers in East and South East Asia: the implications for retailers

Many countries in East and South East Asia have erected trade barriers at various times since 1945. Many retail markets have therefore been closed to outside influence and investment. In the 1990s however such measures are being reversed and markets in East and South East Asia are becoming increasingly open. This openness is both a willing embrace of outside investment and a less willing acceptance of external pressures. This paper reviews the changes taking place and concludes that those retailers taking advantage of the opportunities are faced with a variety of problems. Indeed, it would seem that the removal of international trade barriers simply leads to their replacement with more difficult domestic market policies.     

Making Innovation Happen in a Megaproject: London's Crossrail Suburban Railway System

Isolated pockets of innovation can be found in projects—such as the novel solution used to redesign the Velodrome roof during the London 2012 Olympics—but there have been few, if any, systematic efforts to manage innovation in a megaproject. This paper presents the initial findings of an ongoing three‐year (2012–2014) action research project between Crossrail and researchers at Imperial College London and University College London. Action research is well suited to a setting where an intervention is required to diagnose and solve an organizational problem and produce scientific findings (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Van de Ven, 2007). Undertaken in collaboration with practitioners, the aim of action research is to transform the research setting through a process of critical inquiry and action. Our engagement with Crossrail aimed to formulate and implement an innovation strategy to improve the performance and outcomes of the project. We identified four stages—or windows of opportunity—to intervene to generate, discover, and implement innovation in a megaproject: (1) the bridging window during the front‐end when ideas, learning, and practices from other projects and industries can be used to create an innovative project process, organization, and governance structure; (2) the engaging window, when tendering and contractual processes can be used by the client to encourage contractors and suppliers to develop novel ideas and innovative solutions; (3) the leveraging window, when all the parties involved—clients, delivery partners, and suppliers—are mobilized to develop novel ideas, new technologies, and organizational practices to improve performance; and (4) the exchanging window at the back‐end, when ideas and resources for innovation can be (re)combined with those of other projects in the wider innovation ecosystem to improve performance. The first two stages had largely occurred when we became involved in the Crossrail project in 2012. Our intervention addressed the final two stages, when we assisted in the development and implementation of an innovation strategy. Core to this strategy was a coordinated mobilization of the innovative capabilities across the project supply chain. Though, to be successful, this approach had to be open enough to span organizational boundaries beyond the supply chain, reaching into the broader ecosystem. The four windows provide a valuable new heuristic for organizing innovation in megaprojects, pointing to areas where project managers can craft targeted innovation interventions and compare their efforts with those of others.     

How we talk when we talk about nano: The future in laypeople's talk

Nanotechnology is an example of postnormal technoscience ‘in the making’: its concrete products and applications are currently only starting to trickle into the marketplace. In this paper I use nanotechnology as a case to examine how uncertain technoscientific futures are represented in lay talk. I engage with this question through a close analysis of focus group discussion around nanotechnology, describing the cultural and linguistic resources that participants draw upon in doing this, including personal experience and expertise, analogies and comparisons, and fiction and popular culture. These are, I suggest, the key discursive tools with which laypeople can weigh up and evaluate emerging technologies. However, I also argue that these are used flexibly to create different kinds of arguments in different conversational contexts, and use the example of nanotechnology as ‘the same’/’different’ to illustrate this. In concluding I reflect on the implications of these findings for scholars of public opinion and attitude and for those who frame policy on emerging and uncertain science and technology.     

From spending to understanding: Analyzing customers by their spending behavior

In customer segmentation, a common strategy is to use individual differences as a predictor of future behavior. Recent advances in data management in large financial institutions give an unprecedented and potentially powerful source of data for identifying such differences. We show that spending data can substantially help target the direct marketing of financial products, and constitutes new information, not captured by demographics. In particular, a systematic combination of this independent source and more traditional measures can enhance the predictive power of marketing research and improve the relationship with customers as illustrated in a direct mailing selection method which substantially raises response rates.     

Comparative Computer Approaches to Multi-Outlet Retail Site Location Decisions

This article explores alternative changes that could take place in the technology, methodology, and most importantly, the practice of locational decision-making, and is part of a larger scale project aimed at investigating the practical value of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for strategic decision-making. The research involves comparing the effectiveness of a number of AI paradigms and modelling devices, both with each other and with more conventional computer models.     

Ethics in regulation

This paper was given as the opening address at the 13th Annual European Business Ethics Network Conference' held in Cambridge 12–14 September 2000. The Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Howard Davies, first outlined the background to the present approach to financial regulation in the UK. He described the principle‐based regulatory regime which is now in the process of being implemented, and the role of rules, regulations and guidelines in making this effective. However, compliance is not sufficient; for the system to work there needs to be an ethical culture at the level of the organisation, and a commitment to integrity on the part of those who work in the sector. The Financial Services Authority aims to work with the industry to build individual and corporate responsibility.     

Regulators as ‘agents’: power and personality in risk regulation and a role for agent‐based simulation

We critically examine how evidence and knowledge are brokered between the various actors (agents) in regulatory decisions on risk. Following a précis of context and regulatory process, we explore the role power and personality might play as evidence is synthesised and used to inform risk decisions, providing a review of the relevant literature from applied psychology, agent‐based simulation and regulatory science. We make a case for the adoption of agent‐based tools for addressing the sufficiency of evidence and resolving uncertainty in regulatory decisions. Referring to other environmental applications of agent‐based decision‐making, we propose how an agent model might represent power structures and personality characteristics with the attending implications for the brokering of regulatory science. This critical review has implications for the structuring of evidence that informs environmental decisions and the personal traits required of modern regulators operating in facilitative regulatory settings.     

A Review of the Review

In 1997 a process started to review the 1988 Basel I Accord, which ultimately led to the Basel II Accord of June 2004. In this paper Sir Howard Davies, Director of the London School of Economics and Former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, provides an analysis of this review process. Several issues related to the complexity and implementability of the Accord are discussed. Although the author thinks that Basel II has many appealing aspects (such as the three‐pillar framework), he argues that the outcome is very complicated, it took a very long time, and needs to be adapted in ways not originally envisaged. He calls for a "Review of the Review" to see what lessons can be learnt from the review process which might be helpful for the future.     

The Fall and Rise of Evidence in Criminal Justice

Practitioners within the criminal justice system have been cautious about claiming that their work with offenders directly impacts on the level of subsequent re-offending. This article provides an overview of the generation and use of evidence on effectiveness within the criminal justice system, particularly focusing on the supervision of offenders by the probation service. The article outlines the continuing debates about appropriate methodologies for evaluating effectiveness. It also describes some of the problems encountered in trying to get research evidence to have an impact on offender supervision practice. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the present move towards evidence-based criminal justice services are explored in order to provide learning opportunities for other public services.     

Forecasting in a large macroeconomic system

This paper examines the efficiency gains yielded from estimating multiple equation cointegrated systems as compared to their single equation counterparts. In particular, this paper is concerned with the ability of utilizing the cointegrating information to improve forecasting performance. Recently an inability to improve forecasts of real income once money demand error correction terms were introduced has been used to argue that the M2 relationship had broken down during the early 1990s. However, the results suggest that once the underlying responses of variables are more closely investigated, the behaviour of M2 has remained stable.