Aditya Agrawal and Keiran Sharpe
Purpose – This chapter aims to contribute to the policy debate on private sector involvement in traditionally core defence activities through rigorous economic analysis…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter aims to contribute to the policy debate on private sector involvement in traditionally core defence activities through rigorous economic analysis. Punishment and correction in the US military prisons have traditionally been considered as a core activity that has been governed, regulated and managed by the military service personnel. It has been shown however, that military facilities such as stockades and brigs have often failed to meet their correctional objectives – a quality issue.
Methodology – The chapter constructs a case study to illustrate the method of analysis. Well-trained and motivated military custodial personnel play an important correctional role but are not available in sufficient numbers in military prisons. It is therefore proposed to source these services through the private sector. Specifically, the chapter proposes that private sector providers should provide custodial personnel for stockades and brigs. Traditionally the private sector has been employed to reduce costs, rather than improve quality. This chapter adapts and applies the framework developed by Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997) to study the governance model and incentive regime that could enable the use of the private sector, reduce the risk of excessive cost cutting and enable quality outcomes to be achieved.
Findings – This chapter argues that private sector involvement could effectively increase the contestability of supply.
Implications – The chapter demonstrates the scope for private sector involvement to increase quality, rather than just decrease costs. It follows that the private sector can contribute to core national security outcomes. However, this implication needs significantly more exploration for specific contexts.
Value – The adopted mode of analysis provides a template for rigorous analysis of similar proposals in the future.
When the physical and psychological wall separating East from West crumbled in 1989, the West preferred and encouraged the substitution of free enterprise. The wall's…
Abstract
When the physical and psychological wall separating East from West crumbled in 1989, the West preferred and encouraged the substitution of free enterprise. The wall's disappearance left a fertile playground for legitimate, as well as illegitimate, business.
The Sixteenth Session of the I.C.A.O. Assembly which met in Buenos Aires, has elected Brig. A. Numa Sanchez of Argentina as President of the Assembly. Vice‐Presidents chosen were…
Abstract
The Sixteenth Session of the I.C.A.O. Assembly which met in Buenos Aires, has elected Brig. A. Numa Sanchez of Argentina as President of the Assembly. Vice‐Presidents chosen were Mr H. Winberg (Sweden), Mr M. Maiga (Mali), Mr A. H. Arbabi (Iran) and Mr B. Jovanovic (Yugoslavia). The assembly also appointed the following as Chairmen of Commissions: Mr E. R. K. Dwemoh (Ghana), Technical Commission; Mr P. M. J. Nottet (Belgium), Economic Commission; Mr V. Gumucio (Chile), Legal Commission; and Mr E. J. Georgoura (Kuwait), Administrative Commission.
In the first decades of the nineteenth century to the first decade of the twentieth century, the US Federal and Supreme Courts heard several cases on the legal status of ships…
Abstract
In the first decades of the nineteenth century to the first decade of the twentieth century, the US Federal and Supreme Courts heard several cases on the legal status of ships. During this period, Chief Justice John Marshall and Justice Joseph Story determined that a ship was a legal person that was capable to contract and could be punished for wrongdoing. Over the nineteenth century, Marshall and Story also heard appeals on the illegal slave trade and on the status of fugitive slaves crossing state lines, cases that raised questions as to whether enslaved peoples were persons or property. Although Marshall and Story did not discuss the ship and the slave together, in this chapter, the author asks what might be gained in doing so. Specifically, what might a reading of the ship and the slave as juridical figures reveal about the history of legal personhood? The genealogy of positive and negative legal personhood that the author begins to trace here draws inspiration and guidance from scholars writing critically of slavery. In different ways, this literature emphasises the significance of maritime worlds to conceptions of racial terror, freedom, and fugitivity. Building on these insights, the author reads the ship and the slave as central characters in the history of legal personhood, a reading that highlights the interconnections between maritime law and the laws of slavery and foregrounds the changing intensities of Anglo imperial power and racial and colonial violence in shaping the legal person.
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Hannah King occupies a unique place in missionary and colonial history, the history of education, cross‐cultural relations and material culture in New Zealand. She was the only…
Abstract
Hannah King occupies a unique place in missionary and colonial history, the history of education, cross‐cultural relations and material culture in New Zealand. She was the only woman from the first 1814 Missionary settlement of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in New Zealand to remain in New Zealand for the rest of her life, yet she does not have an entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and is rarely indexed in either New Zealand’s general historical works or even works more specifically related to the Missionary era. John and Hannah King were one of three artisan missionary couples who sailed with the Revd Samuel Marsden on his ship, the missionary brig ‘Active’, from Port Jackson, Australia to Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands, in late 1814. Marsden’s 1814 Christmas Day service on the beach at Rangihoua is recognised as the beginning of missionary activity and planned European settlement on New Zealand soil.
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Thien T. Truong, Matthew H.T. Yap and Elizabeth M. Ineson
This paper aims to identify and analyse potential Vietnamese consumers' perceptions of organic foods.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify and analyse potential Vietnamese consumers' perceptions of organic foods.
Design/methodology/approach
A deductive approach of reasoning was employed to address the positivism research philosophy through the survey research strategy. Quantitative data were collected from 264 potential Vietnamese consumers through a self‐administered structured questionnaire and analysed using frequencies, descriptive statistics, chi squared test, principal components analysis, t‐tests and a Kolmogorov‐Smirnov test.
Findings
Potential Vietnamese consumers' willingness to purchase organic foods was linked positively to health and safety whilst the females appreciated their nutritional value. Environmental and sustainability concerns did not influence purchasing decisions. Because of their perceived superior quality, potential Vietnamese consumers were not price sensitive towards organic foods.
Research limitations/implications
This study lacks the qualitative depth and the employment of quota sampling technique to select respondents may impact external validity.
Practical implications
The findings can benefit organic foods sellers and retailers in developing appropriate sales and marketing strategies by differentiating between organic foods and conventional foods to target and attract potential Vietnamese consumers, and to expand the existing organic foods market in Vietnam.
Originality/value
The present paper supplements the knowledge gap by identifying and analysing potential Vietnamese consumers' perceptions of organic foods in order to assist organic foods sellers and retailers to understand potential Vietnamese consumers and expand their organic foods market in Vietnam.
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The Dominion of New Zealand is not, at present, an exporter of canned fruits. The canned fruits which are made are made for home consumption. So far as the export trade of fruit…
Abstract
The Dominion of New Zealand is not, at present, an exporter of canned fruits. The canned fruits which are made are made for home consumption. So far as the export trade of fruit is concerned the New Zealand growers have mainly concerned themselves with raw apples and to a smaller extent with pears. Everyone knows that the Dominion extends over a small range of low southern latitude; that it has a sunny and equable climate; a rainfall well distributed over the year; a variety of excellent soils. It will, in a word, grow almost anything, a fact that has not altogether proved to be an unmixed blessing. Up to 1876 its hundred thousand square miles of area was divided into nine provinces; after that date by the Provinces Act, 1876, the country was divided for administrative purposes into counties with powers of local self‐government. The central government, at Wellington, is responsible for the Acts referred to in this article, these Acts being applicable to the whole of the Dominion. Such legislative measures as have been passed in relation to the fruit industry have for their main object the development of fruit orchards, chiefly those of apples at present. In the year 1930–1, 3,539 tons of fruit were used in the making of jams, jellies, canned or bottled fruits and “other products.” The value of the fruit canned or bottled was £45,763, as against £165,655 for jams and jellies, and £119,104 for “other products” in the same period. This works out roughly to about 14 per cent. The Orchard Tax Act† (No. 25, 1927) provides for special taxation for the development of the fruit‐growing industry and the protection of orchards from fireblight.‡ Under Section 3 of the Act any fruit grower with 120 or more trees in his orchard shall pay one shilling for every acre or part of an acre. The minimum yearly tax under this section shall be five shillings. The term “fruit” includes apples, pears, quinces, oranges, lemons, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums and cherries, and any other kind of fruit which may subsequently be declared by the Governor‐General in the Gazette. This is a good list of fruits and illustrates as well as anything of the kind can the great possibilities of New Zealand as a fruit‐growing country. Lemons are an important crop in North Island. Much of the lemons consumed in New Zealand are home grown, but it is desired to make the Dominion self‐supporting in this respect. The Poorman Orange, according to the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, is becoming popular as a substitute for imported grape fruit. Oranges it seems have been cultivated with success since about 1875, as well as citron, lime and lemon in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Thompson (Naturalisation of Animals and Plants in New Zealand, 1922) quotes a remark by an officer of the brig “Hawes” in December, 1928, that he saw a few orange trees that had been introduced with success. The same author remarks that apples, pears, and, according to Major Cruise (1820), peaches had been introduced by the missionaries. It was about this time that missionary enterprise, which would appear to have been somewhat badly needed, made its appearance.
Christian J. Nothiger, Michael Bründl and Walter J. Ammann
During the analysis of the 1999 avalanche winter and of the winter storm Lothar on 26 December 1999, the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos…
Abstract
During the analysis of the 1999 avalanche winter and of the winter storm Lothar on 26 December 1999, the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos conducted an inquiry of the cable car‐ and ski lift‐companies in German‐ and French speaking part of Switzerland. This arti‐cle presents the results in detail. In the whole of Switzerland there were 1'821 cable cars and ski lifts in 1999 (not counting 550 small ski lifts). The SLF sent its questionnaire to 117 companies. A considerable proportion of them (79%) have been returned. In February 1999 avalanches and snow pressure induced damages on 44 cable cars and ski lifts; repairs cost more than 17 Mio. SFr. Due to high avalanche danger, 37% of all lift facilities had to be closed for an average of seven days. The loss of earnings for Switzerland (without Ticino) is estimated at 78 Mio. SFr. compared to February 1998. The winter storm Lothar caused damage to 127 cable cars and ski lifts. The cost of damage repairs is estimated at 7.6 Mio. SFr. The storm interrupted power supply for 14% of the lift facilities; 58% had to be closed down due to high wind speeds. The loss of earnings caused by winter storm Lothar amounts to approx. 39 Mio. SFr. for the Swiss cable car and ski lift companies (without Ticino). Immediately after the events of 1999, 32% of the companies interviewed took measures to reduce the negative consequences (e.g. price reductions, press releases or publicity campaigns). To improve public relations is considered to be an important measure to cope with consequences of natural hazards in the future by 39% of the companies.
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Mario Saba, Peter Bou Saba and Antoine Harfouche
The purpose of this paper is to focus on an information technology (IT) deployment project in the specific field of agricultural cooperatives. It also aims to underline the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on an information technology (IT) deployment project in the specific field of agricultural cooperatives. It also aims to underline the importance of the IT implementation phase, but also the pre-implementation phase.
Design/methodology/approach
A four-year canonical action research project was conducted within a network of more than 300 agricultural cooperatives. Research was carried out both during the IT implementation and after deployment. Key information was gathered through unstructured and unofficial interviews, observations, field notes, meetings, focus groups, and documentary analysis.
Findings
Despite user resistance behavior, the findings show that information systems (IS) implementation may lead to unexpected results that extend beyond the tool’s initial objectives. Indeed, four hidden facets of the tool were revealed: inductor, symbol, pretext, and reference.
Research limitations/implications
Although the research is limited to one single-case study, it puts the emphasis on in-depth research, vs cross-sectional data collection, to analyze the relationship between IT implementation initiatives and organizational intelligence. Furthermore, the authors argue that while IS literature has separately developed related theories (actor-network theory, competitive intelligence), the authors conceptualize a whole theoretic system interrelating the two above-stated theories.
Practical implications
The implication for IS practitioners is that, by focusing only on experiences that have occurred during IT implementation, one may disregard critical information, behaviors and knowledge from unforeseen effects that have occurred after implementation. In future IT projects, IS managers therefore need to capitalize on post-implementation knowledge, through sociology of translation and competitive intelligence, in order to anticipate potential diversions from the initial objectives. Finally, while most IT implementation methods tend naturally to manage resistance maximize users’ satisfaction and to reduce potential resistance, the authors support an alternative approach. It consists into enhancing resistance in order to anticipate and resolve latent resistance behaviors directly or indirectly related to the project.
Originality/value
Despite widespread literature on resistance, appropriation or acceptance during IT projects, there is little research that addresses the impact of IT projects on organizational intelligence, and the kind of behaviors that lead to its failure or success. In the case, the implemented IT tool revealed hidden structural and organizational roles, which were unanticipated by IT designers and managers.
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A suite of databases designed to provide a guide to archive collections, detailed descriptions of some major holdings and surveys of holdings elsewhere, has been developed at the…
Abstract
A suite of databases designed to provide a guide to archive collections, detailed descriptions of some major holdings and surveys of holdings elsewhere, has been developed at the University of Southampton Library since 1983. The databases are mounted using STATUS. Future development paths for archive systems are discussed.