Michael Czaja and Stuart P. Cottrell
Social science research is used to support the formulation of natural resource management decisions with accurate and timely information. Due to risk and potential impacts, this…
Abstract
Purpose
Social science research is used to support the formulation of natural resource management decisions with accurate and timely information. Due to risk and potential impacts, this is important in wildland fire management. The purpose of this paper is to identify the respondent perceptions of a natural disturbance agent's impact on fire management in Colorado and Wyoming.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology included a self-administered questionnaire completed by a random sample of respondents in three study locations adjacent to national forests. A quantitative analysis was conducted to identify attitudes about fuels management (prescribed fire) and beliefs about fire and fire management.
Findings
Respondents viewed prescribed fire favorably and they understand the natural role of fire on the landscape. While results suggest respondents support management of forest conditions to decrease the effects of a wildfire, they do not feel that individuals have a right to expect their home to be protected from fire by land managers, nor do they agree with restricting home building near national forest land.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should continue the longitudinal assessment of attitudes toward prescribed fires, incorporating respondent distance to the national forest or identifying respondents living within the wildland-urban interface.
Originality/value
This paper illustrates how applied, social science research can meet the needs of agencies and public officials. Results of this paper have been presented to state and federal forestry officials, and members of an executive-level task force in Colorado studying wildfire insurance and forest health.
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Carlyn Muir, John Gilbert, Rebecca O’Hara, Lesley Day and Stuart Newstead
The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of physical preparation for bushfire among Victorian residents in established high risk bushfire locations, and to assess whether…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of physical preparation for bushfire among Victorian residents in established high risk bushfire locations, and to assess whether these levels of preparation changed over time.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were analysed from a telephone survey among Victorian residents (n=614-629) living in high risk bushfire locations over a three-year period (2012-2014). The survey measured residents’ bushfire awareness, knowledge, planning, preparation and engagement with bushfire services. This paper focusses on the extent to which respondents undertook physical preparatory bushfire activities over the three-year period using: first, principal components analysis to generate a single preparation variable by identifying a smaller number of uncorrelated variables (or principal components) from a larger set of data, second, analysis of variance to assess differences in preparation scores between years, and third, Tukey’s honest significant difference test to confirm where the differences occurred between groups.
Findings
Results indicated only moderate levels of physical preparation for bushfires amongst respondents. The activities that respondents rated the lowest were: “having protective covers for windows” and “having firefighting equipment to protect the house”. A significant difference in total preparation scores over time was observed, F(2, 1,715)=6.159, p<0.005, with lower scores in 2012 compared with 2013 and 2014 scores.
Social implications
This study found some marginal improvements in levels of physical bushfire preparation from 2012 to 2014. However, the results indicate only moderate levels of preparation overall, despite respondents living in established high risk locations.
Originality/value
This study provides evidence for the current levels of preparedness in high risk bushfire communities, and emphasises the need for future initiatives to focus on specific bushfire preparation activities but also to consider the broader range of interventions that are likely to contribute to desired safety outcomes.
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The chapter examines the core framework of A. C. Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment (TU) with the aim of providing a rational reconstruction of his analysis of the determinants of…
Abstract
The chapter examines the core framework of A. C. Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment (TU) with the aim of providing a rational reconstruction of his analysis of the determinants of unemployment in the short period. This is accomplished without any comparison with Keynes’s criticism of TU, as often found in the previous literature.
I reconstruct Pigou’s two-sector model, which only accounted for output in the wage good sector but not in the non-wage good sector, as a complete two-sector model to reveal his implicit assumptions about the passive behaviour of non-wage earners in the non-wage good sector. I also find classical elements, most notably the wage fund doctrine and the hypothesis on profits, in Pigou’s approach, which partly explains why the model is incomplete when viewed in terms of its neoclassical elements. In the “A Rational Reconstruction of the Two-Sector Model” section, I sketch a mathematical model to make Pigou’s analysis consistent.
The chapter shows how unemployment is determined and how economic policy to deal with it is conceived in the work of a major exponent of the pre-Keynesian approach.
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N. Venkatraman, Chi-Hyon Lee and Bala Iyer
We develop and test a model of how a software firm's business strategy (product scope and market scope) interacts with the firm's network position (alliance degree and structural…
Abstract
We develop and test a model of how a software firm's business strategy (product scope and market scope) interacts with the firm's network position (alliance degree and structural holes) to impact performance. We test the joint-effects hypotheses on a sample 359 packaged software firms that have entered into 5,489 alliances involving 2,849 distinct firms during the time period, 1990–2002. While prior studies have demonstrated the importance of network positions as a determinant of firm strategy and performance, this chapter begins to examine the performance effects of how a firm's business strategy and network positions interact. We find support for three of the four hypotheses lending empirical support for our theoretical model. We develop implications for network-based perspectives of strategy and outline areas for further research.
Despite the theoretical assumption that balancing exploration and exploitation is important for long-term performance and survival, previous studies have provided few insights…
Abstract
Despite the theoretical assumption that balancing exploration and exploitation is important for long-term performance and survival, previous studies have provided few insights into these relationships because they have focused mainly on the short-term financial performance of organizations. In addition, balancing exploration and exploitation is a critical challenge for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that lack the resources, capabilities, and experience necessary to achieving ambidexterity. In this regards, this study empirically explores the relationship between the exploration–exploitation balance and SMEs’ longevity in order to address two important questions from the ambidexterity perspective: (1) How does the balance between exploration and exploitation influence organizational survival? (2) How is the appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation influenced by an organization’s internal and external contexts?
An analysis of 1981–2012 data from the Korean SMEs in IT industry reveals an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between the extent of exploratory innovation and organizational longevity, providing support for the ambidexterity perspective. We further examine the moderating effects of financial slack and environmental dynamism on the relationship between exploratory innovation and organizational longevity. The results indicate that financial slack moderated the exploration–longevity relationship and call for a contingency approach for a better understanding of performance implications of the exploration–exploitation balance.
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Popular understandings of the financial crisis tend to focus on the rents extracted by elite personnel in the financial sector. Professional discussions, however, have addressed…
Abstract
Popular understandings of the financial crisis tend to focus on the rents extracted by elite personnel in the financial sector. Professional discussions, however, have addressed the faulty assumptions underlying theory and practice – in particular, the assumption that returns to financial assets follow the Gaussian distribution, in the face of much empirical evidence that these have power law distributions with far higher kurtosis. It turns out that the power law tails of returns to financial assets are also a feature of the distribution of company rates of profit, a discovery that stems from proposals to ‘dissolve’ the traditional transformation problem by abandoning the condition of a uniform rate of profit and instead considering its distribution.Marx himself was aware of the importance of considering the distributional properties of economic variables, based on his reading of Quetelet. In fact, heavy-tailed distributions characterise a wide range of variables in capitalist economies, the best-known probably being the Paretian tail component in distributions of income and wealth. Nor is this simply an empirical fact – such distributions emerge readily from a range of agent-based simulations.Capitalist economies are, in a particular technical sense, complex self-organising systems perpetually on the brink of crisis. This modern understanding is prefigured in Marx’s discussion of how the compulsive character of social relations emerges from the atomistic exercise of human free will in commercial society. The developing literature of probabilistic Marxism successfully applies these insights to the wider fields of econophysics and complexity, demonstrating the continuing relevance of Marx’s thought.
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LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central…
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LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.
THE VALUE OF ABSTRACTS AND THEIR USE ‐ Being in possession of the “right” information is vital in maintaining competitiveness in the modern business age. There is a mass of…
Abstract
THE VALUE OF ABSTRACTS AND THEIR USE ‐ Being in possession of the “right” information is vital in maintaining competitiveness in the modern business age. There is a mass of information “out there” in the environment, so coping with it, managing it effectively, and selecting from it that which is useful, would appear to be the key to success.