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The article is a summarised version of a prospective study for the Swiss tourism region of Valais by the Institute for Public Management and Tourism (ITD) of the University of St. Gallen which has been achieved in April 2000. The Transformation Model has served as theoretical background. The Swiss Ski area industry was for a long time a driver of the tourism development in the Alpine regions. The transformation of this sector has a direct impact on the transformation of destinations and other sectors. The necessary changes, the business models and the problems of financing investments explain the transformation process. The analysis is based on two major scenarios. If the status quo — scenario is followed, it would not be possible to change the structures. In this case, the public sector has to support the sector with payments of about 1,5 billions of sfr for the next decade. In the other case of a more managed development, the strategies and the structure of the sector's enterprises have to guarantee a sustainable development. The authors are in favour of a vertical integration of a destination which can create economies of scope rather than for a horizontal integration and economies of scale.

Summary of Content Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler (1925–1926), is in two parts, “Eine Abrechung” (A Reckoning) and “Die National‐Sozialistische Bewegung” (The National Socialist Movement). Written at different times, they originally appeared separately.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Evidence of audit committee activity in the formative years of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad indicates that control and reporting activity developed long before the existence of regulatory mandate or the external auditing function. This is the earliest example of such an organized and continuing activity in American business history. With no previous business experience to model this enterprise, the organizers of the corporation put in place an audit committee of directors as a control device to safeguard assets and ensure proper handling of cash receipts and disbursements. Research into primary materials establishes that the committee not only performed regular routine audits of the “treasurer’s report,” but also identified and addressed critical problems of control and payment weaknesses. The discovery of the function of value‐for‐money (VFM) auditing by a committee of directors establishes historical context for today’s audit process and audit committee. Because the B&O was such an important entity, it influenced other railroads; and the railroad industry, in turn, greatly influenced the development of modern American businesses during the Industrial Revolution.

THREE hundred years ago, on January 28th, 1613, the death occurred of Sir Thomas Bodley, whose name is immortalized in the library that he restored and which bears his name. Oxford's famous library, though originally founded by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, owes its establishment to Thomas Bodley, who was born at Exeter in 1545.

How does university-firm collaboration affect the performance of both universities and firms? The purpose of this paper is to evaluate university-firm collaborations aimed at expanding the treatment effects of collaboration ambition on university academic performance as well as collaboration ambition focused on the firm’s production of innovation and financial performance for the top 110 US universities and the top 200 US R&D performing firms.

“Two studies, based on the three archival data sets (National Bureau of Economic Research-Rensselaer Scientific Papers Database and the Harvard Dataverse Network (DVN) US Patent Citations database and Compustat database), are undertaken in the top 110 US universities and the top 200 US R&D performing firms.” The study introduces a theoretical model that explicitly addresses collaboration diversity, number of collaborations, knowledge stock and the endogeneity problem that is generated by self-selection of collaboration ambition in university and firm’s performance.

The results suggest that the effects of adopting proactive collaboration decision on academic performance are insignificant in the firm subsample. However, more interestingly, the authors find supporting evidence of the negative impact of collaboration on university groups. The authors also find that collaboration diversity, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition lead to stronger firm performance but the number of collaborations is smaller on firm performance. Furthermore, the authors find that collaboration ambition moderates the positive effect of the number of collaborations on firm performance.

University-firm collaboration is a multifaceted relationship, suggesting that the empirical analysis can be interpreted through the university and the firm view to enhance the understanding of the collaboration for performance creation. This study articulates the positive role of collaboration diversity, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition and the negative role of the number of collaborations on university-firm collaboration in terms of university and firm performance. Moreover, proactive collaboration ambition has the positive effect of a higher number of collaborations on firm performance. The authors conclude that policy should refrain from overly focusing on collaboration diversity, number of collaborations, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition, and the authors consider the interactions between the number of collaborations and collaboration ambition on university-firm collaboration when discussing their effects on mutual performance.

This study demonstrates the effects of university-firm collaboration on academic performance. In addition, the authors discuss the factors that influence collaboration to help the firm to increase its innovation and financial performance. Therefore, it would be interesting to see simultaneously how university-firm collaboration affects the performance of both partners.

By revisiting the agency theory literature, this paper aims to both incrementally advance historical viewpoints and reveal four prominent influences on agency theory: Weber and Simon, The Great Depression, Cooperation and the Chicago School. This is critical given that understanding the history behind the authors’ major theoretical lenses is fundamental to using these theories to explain various phenomena.

Drawing on a plethora of archival sources and following the influence-mapping approach used by other management history scholars, this manuscript synthesizes historical accounts and archival information to provide a clearer picture of the major historical influences in the formation of agency theory.

We shed light on four areas related to management history that helped propel agency theory. Whereas past scholarship has not recognised them as influencers, we find and show how the industrial revolution, unionization, the stock exchange and other management approaches all played a role in the development of agency theory’s core tenants.

We extend upon the influential people and events that shaped agency theory, thus providing a fuller understanding of the theory’s usefulness. Moreover, we fill in gaps enabling scholars to better understand the context in which the core tenants of agency theory were developed.