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How do European policymakers and media companies react to the AOL‐TimeWarner merger? In this short provocation, Marsden asks whether the successful coupling of the world’s largest ISP and media content creator signal le defi americain in communications, for Europe and the rest of the world? In particular, he questions whether market actors should be permitted a similar role in Europe. In competition policy terms, the question is whether creation of economies of scale and scope, particularly through vertical integration between carriers and content providers, now causes increasing redundancy of media‐specific ownership laws at a national level in favour of European industrial policy? The outflanking policy trend is demonstrated specifically in the merger of Vodafone‐Mannesmann, and the content alliances formed with Vivendi, and between Vodafone, Vivendi and variously BSkyB and Manchester United. Even if symbolic debate continues to give primacy to democratic principle, European public policy may switch poles, from denying concentration of media on democratic principle of pluralism of ownership, to encouraging European champions to compete with the Americans. This convergence debate will centrally occupy policymakers, with new national legislation and Commission Directives in all probability preceded by critical merger decisions by the Competition Directorate.

Examines abuse potential with regard to digital pay‐TV services and permitted competition which is allowed, and these are referred to as bottleneck facilities (technology). Looks at technical analysis ad bottleneck control in addition to self‐regulation and industry standard settings, and further discusses public policy concern. Concludes that it may be cautionable to pursue narrower objectives in the communications industry – especially where other declarations of public policy are feasible.

The paper aims to analyze the key structural changes required for an effective competitive new media market via digital transmission. It also aims to explain the institutional obstacles to achievement of broadband deployment in Western nations by reference to East Asia's success.

The paper identifies major trends and demonstrates evolving competition principles in the European Union media sector by discussing cases and literature in the deployment of broadband content and carriage.

The paper finds primarily that institutional barriers to reform of competition in both broadband and copyright fields create bottlenecks in any policy reform process. It goes on to consider models that have succeeded, in peer‐to‐peer content, cable and satellite television content, mobile telecommunications and East Asia, concluding that reform in fixed broadband is unlikely in the near‐term.

Policy discussion in copyright and telecommunications needs to be broadened to consider structural flaws in the institutions that govern these regimes. The paper takes a broad Northian view of institutions to encompass governance via markets, state and society in order to provide this view.

This paper examines the potential uses of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to create a new, multi‐faceted phase of globalization. It goes beyond traditional explanations of ICTs and globalization, which concentrate on the cultural imperialism of mass communications or technology management. It is argued here that the “any‐to‐any” architecture of the Internet creates a hugely unstable political landscape, in which social, economic and political alliances become both more global and more local, but always more specialized. The paper concludes by asking how states might choose to strike a balance between the benefits to individual freedom brought about by the Internet and the diminished intermediary role for state, religious and other national cultural institutions.

The point of departure of this book is that smart mobility will only be developed in a desired direction and fulfil societal objectives if it is steered in that direction. The market, left to itself, will most certainly not deliver on these objectives. This message has been conveyed extensively in recent literature, but this book aims to take this discussion one step further by focussing on what governance of smart mobility looks like today and in the future. In this introductory chapter, the authors provide a framework of different understandings of policy instruments, how they are selected, developed and used. After the array of policy instruments within the transport sector has been extensively discussed, the authors turn to discussing a broader understanding of policy instruments found within political science and political sociology. In doing so, this book contributes to the critical scholarship on policy instruments, while exploring the why, the how and the what of policy instruments in relation to smart mobility. The chapter closes with a brief introduction to the structure of the book as well as a description of the content of each chapter.

IN sharp contrast to the general feeling and practice throughout the country is that of the East Ham Corporation which on the recommendation of its Service Committee, has placed its Public Library system in the control of its Education Committee as from November next. This is the first instance known to us of a county borough falling into the trap laid for it by the educationists in the Public Libraries Act of 1919. East Ham does not rank high in the list of municipalities, and it is, perhaps, unnecessary to fear that its example will have many serious imitators.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

This chapter introduces the volume’s theme by describing the challenges of sustainability in the agri-food industry and the critical role of agri-food supply chains. Following a description of traditional and sustainable supply chain management practices, we discuss the likely characteristics of sustainability-oriented innovations and how organizations pursuing higher levels of economic, social, and environmental performance will need to adapt their capabilities.

Drawing on the emerging concepts and practices from sustainable supply chain management as well as traditional and emerging concepts from innovation, we develop general propositions and expectations about how organizations might address sustainable effectiveness in their supply chains. The importance of the agri-food industry to all three pillars of sustainable effectiveness and predictions about the inability to feed future populations gives the discussion a certain urgency.

Sustainability-oriented innovations in the agri-food supply chain are different from traditional innovations. We develop propositions regarding the driving motivations, their nature and scope (i.e., more radical and systemic than incremental and focused), and the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach. The 10 cases presented in the volume are summarized.

Distributed ledger technologies, and particularly blockchain, have attracted significant attention recently and we believe that it is right time to look back the literature and digest the accumulated knowledge. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing knowledge of blockchain technology by surveying the stock of research about this newly rising technology. We conducted a descriptive analysis of current academic and business research on blockchain technology and categorized the studies according to source, field, approach, geography, affiliation, and cryptocurrency-focus. We accompanied this with a global patent publication analysis and presented our insights and takeaways from our analyses.