An ex ante evaluation framework for the regional benefits of publicly supported R&D projects

This paper draws on the knowledge-base implicit in ex post evaluations of publicly funded R&D and other related conceptual and empirical studies to suggest a framework for the ex ante evaluation of the regional benefits from R&D projects. The framework developed comprises two main elements: an inventory of the global private and social benefits which might result from any R&D project; and, an assessment of the share of these global benefits which might accrue to a host region, taking into account the characteristics of the R&D project and the region's innovation system. The inventory of global benefits separately identifies private and social benefits and distinguishes between increments to public and private knowledge stocks, benefits to R&D productivity and benefits from commercialisation. Potential market and 'pure' knowledge spillovers are also considered separately. The paper concludes with the application of the framework to two illustrative case studies. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Corporate restructuring: empirical evidence from the UK

Corporate restructuring is perceived as a challenge to research. Prior studies do not provide conclusive evidence regarding the effects of restructuring. Since there are discernible findings, this research attempts to examine the effects of restructuring events amongst the UK listed firms. The sample firms are listed in the LSE and London AIM stock exchange. Only completed restructuring transactions are included in the study. The time horizon extends from year 1999 to 2003. A three-year floating window is assigned to examine the sample firms. The key enquiry is to scrutinise the ex post effects of restructuring on performance and value measures of firms with contrast to a matched criteria non-restructured sample. A cross sectional study employing logit estimate is undertaken to examine firm characteristics of restructuring samples. Further, additional parameters, i.e. Conditional Volatility and Asymmetry are generated under the GJR-GARCH estimate and reiterated in logit models to capture time-varying heteroscedasticity of the samples. This research incorporates most forms of restructurings, while prior studies have examined certain forms of restructuring. Particularly, these studies have made limited attempts to examine different restructuring events simultaneously. In addition to logit analysis, an event study is adopted to evaluate the announcement effect of restructuring under both the OLS and GJR-GARCH estimate supplementing our prior results. By engaging a composite empirical framework, our estimation method validates a full appreciation of restructuring effect. The study provides evidence that restructurings indicate non-trivial significant positive effect. There are some evidences that the response differs because of the types of restructuring, particularly while event study is applied. The results establish that performance measures, i.e. Operating Profit Margin, Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Growth, Size, Profit Margin and Shareholders' Ownership indicate consistent and significant increase. However, Leverage and Asset Turn Over suggest reasonable influence on restructuring across the sample period. Similarly, value measures, i.e. Abnormal Returns, Return on Equity and Cash Flow Margin suggest sizeable improvement. A notable characteristic seen coherently throughout the analysis is the decreasing proportion of Systematic Risk. Consistent with these findings, Conditional Volatility and Asymmetry exhibit similar trend. The event study analysis suggests that on an average market perceives restructuring favourably and shareholders experience significant and systematic positive gain.

Contract specificity and its performance outcomes

Governance theories, such as transaction cost economics, argue that systematic deviations from an attribute–governance alignment should influence performance. This article investigates the performance implications of contract specificity for the procurement of information technology products. The authors argue that parties choose a level of contract specificity that economizes on both the ex ante contracting costs and the ex post transaction costs and that deviations between the observed and the predicted levels of contract specificity are an important determinant of these transaction costs. The authors test the hypotheses using a comprehensive archival data set of information technology transactions and employ a two-step estimation procedure. First, they estimate the “predicted” level of contract specificity, which accounts for key transactional attributes. Second, they study the consequences of deviating from this predicted level of contractual specificity. The results provide the first explicit demonstration of the trade-off between ex ante contracting costs and ex post transaction problems and suggest that parties need to economize jointly on these costs when choosing the governance form.

A pre-post test evaluation of the impact of the PELICAN MDT-TME development programme on the working lives of colorectal cancer team members

Background - The PELICAN Multidisciplinary Team Total Mesorectal Excision (MDT-TME) Development Programme aimed to improve clinical outcomes for rectal cancer by educating colorectal cancer teams in precision surgery and related aspects of multidisciplinary care. The Programme reached almost all colorectal cancer teams across England. We took the opportunity to assess the impact of participating in this novel team-based Development Programme on the working lives of colorectal cancer team members. Methods - The impact of participating in the programme on team members' self-reported job stress, job satisfaction and team performance was assessed in a pre-post course study. 333/568 (59%) team members, from the 75 multidisciplinary teams who attended the final year of the Programme, completed questionnaires pre-course, and 6-8 weeks post-course. Results - Across all team members, the main sources of job satisfaction related to working in multidisciplinary teams; whilst feeling overloaded was the main source of job stress. Surgeons and clinical nurse specialists reported higher levels of job satisfaction than team members who do not provide direct patient care, whilst MDT coordinators reported the lowest levels of job satisfaction and job stress. Both job stress and satisfaction decreased after participating in the Programme for all team members. There was a small improvement in team performance. Conclusions - Participation in the Development Programme had a mixed impact on the working lives of team members in the immediate aftermath of attending. The decrease in team members' job stress may reflect the improved knowledge and skills conferred by the Programme. The decrease in job satisfaction may be the consequence of being unable to apply these skills immediately in clinical practice because of a lack of required infrastructure and/or equipment. In addition, whilst the Programme raised awareness of the challenges of teamworking, a greater focus on tackling these issues may have improved working lives further.

From the outside in:consumer anti-choice and policy implications in the mobile gaming market

Significant growth in mobile media consumption has prompted a call to better understand the socio-cultural and policy dimensions of consumer choices. Contrary to industry and technology led analysis, this study argues that to guide consumer choice and innovation via regulatory policies requires an understanding of both ex-ante as well as in ex-post consumption conditions. This study examines mobile phone gaming to uncover how consumer anti-choice shapes decision-making as a framework for closely interrogating the ways in which policy concerns impact on consumers' behavior. Through eleven focus groups (n=62), the study empirically identifies voluntary, intentional, and positive consumer anti-choice behaviors all of which impact policy initiatives when consumers, both gamers and non-gamers, self-regulate their behaviors. Findings point to four types of policy implication: regulating the self-regulated, understanding anti-choice, boundary-setting and including the self-excluded. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

The need for and improvement of budgetary planning in a multinational corporation

The aim of this research is to improve the planning methodology of Dunlop via an analysis of their annual planning system. This was approached via an investigation of how the plans were developed; extensive interviews, which analysed divisional attitudes and approaches to planning; an analysis of forecast accuracy; and participation in the planning system itself. These investigations revealed certain deficiencies in the operating of the system. In particular, little evidence of formal planning could be found, and some divisions were reacting ex post to the market, rather than planning ex ante. The resulting plans tended to lack resilience and were generally unrealistic, partly because of imposed targets. Similarly, because the links between the elements of the system were often inefficient, previously agreed strategies were not always implemented. The analysis of forecast accuracy in the plans revealed divisions to be poor at most aspects of forecasting. Simple naive models often outperformed divisional forecasts, and much of the error was attributed to systematic, and therefore eliminable factors. These analyses suggested the need for a new system which is proposed in the form of Budgetary Planning. This system involves conceptual changes within the current planning framework. Such changes aim to revise tactical planning in order to meet the needs placed on it by. in particular, strategic planning. Budgetary Planning is an innovation in terms of the current planning literature. It is a total system of annual planning aimed at implementing and controlling the iteratively agreed strategies within the current environment. This is achieved by the generation of tactical alternatives, variable funding and concentration of forecast credibility, all of which aid both the realism and the resilience of planning.

A firm's capability to calibrate supply chain knowledge-antecedents and consequences

This paper proposes a conceptual model for a firm's capability to calibrate supply chain knowledge (CCK). Knowledge calibration is achieved when there is a match between managers' ex ante confidence in the accuracy of held knowledge and the ex post accuracy of that knowledge. Knowledge calibration is closely related to knowledge utility or willingness to use the available ex ante knowledge: a manager uses the ex ante knowledge if he/she is confident in the accuracy of that knowledge, and does not use it or uses it with reservation, when the confidence is low. Thus, knowledge calibration attained through the firm's CCK enables managers to deal with incomplete and uncertain information and enhances quality of decisions. In the supply chain context, although demand- and supply-related knowledge is available, supply chain inefficiencies, such as the bullwhip effect, remain. These issues may be caused not by a lack of knowledge but by a firm's lack of capability to sense potential disagreement between knowledge accuracy and confidence. Therefore, this paper contributes to the understanding of supply chain knowledge utilization by defining CCK and identifying a set of antecedents and consequences of CCK in the supply chain context.

Psychological risk factors for chronic post-surgical pain after inguinal hernia repair surgery:a prospective cohort study.

A significant proportion of patients experience chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) following inguinal hernia surgery. Psychological models are useful in predicting acute pain after surgery, and in predicting the transition from acute to chronic pain in non-surgical contexts. This is a prospective cohort study to investigate psychological (cognitive and emotional) risk factors for CPSP after inguinal hernia surgery. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires before surgery and 1 week and 4 months after surgery. Data collected before surgery and 1 week after surgery were used to predict pain at 4 months. Psychological risk factors assessed included anxiety, depression, fear-avoidance, activity avoidance, catastrophizing, worry about the operation, activity expectations, perceived pain control and optimism. The study included 135 participants; follow-up questionnaires were returned by 119 (88.1%) and 115 (85.2%) participants at 1 week and 4 months after surgery respectively. The incidence of CPSP (pain at 4 months) was 39.5%. After controlling for age, body mass index and surgical variables (e.g. anaesthetic, type of surgery and mesh type used), lower pre-operative optimism was an independent risk factor for CPSP at 4 months; lower pre-operative optimism and lower perceived control over pain at 1 week after surgery predicted higher pain intensity at 4 months. No emotional variables were independently predictive of CPSP. Further research should target these cognitive variables in pre-operative psychological preparation for surgery. © 2011 European Federation of International Association for the Study of Pain Chapters.

Neonatal seizures and post-neonatal epilepsy:a seven-year follow-up study

BACKGROUND: Seizures are one of the most common symptoms of acute neurological disorders in newborns. This study aims at evaluating predictors of epilepsy in newborns with neonatal seizures. METHODS: we recruited consecutively eighty-five neonates with repeated neonatal video-EEG-confirmed seizures between Jan 1999 and Dec 2004. The relationship between clinical, EEG and ultrasound data in neonatal period and the development of post-neonatal epilepsy was investigated at 7 years of age. RESULTS: Fifteen patients (17.6%) developed post-neonatal epilepsy. Partial or no response to anticonvulsant therapy (OR 16.7, 95% CI: 1.8-155.8, p= .01; OR 47, 95% CI: 5.2-418.1, p<.01 respectively), severely abnormal cerebral ultrasound scan findings (OR: 5.4; 95% CI: 1.1-27.4; p<.04), severely abnormal EEG background activity (OR: 9.5; 95% CI: 1.6-54.2; p= .01) and the presence of status epilepticus (OR: 6.1; 95% CI: 1.8-20.3; p<.01) were found to be predictors of epilepsy. However, only the response to therapy seemed to be an independent predictor of post-neonatal epilepsy. CONCLUSION: Neonatal seizures seem to be related to post-neonatal epilepsy. Recurrent and prolonged neonatal seizures may act on an epileptogenic substrate, causing further damage, which is responsible for the subsequent clinical expression of epilepsy.

Post-national citizenship without post-national identity? A case study of UK immigration policy and intra-EU migration

A key dividing line in the literature on post-national citizenship concerns the role of collective identity. While some hold that a post-national form of identity is desirable in developing citizenship in contexts such as the European Union (EU), others question the defensibility of a collective identity at this supra-national level. The aim of this article is to intervene in this debate, drawing on qualitative research to consider the extent to which post-national citizenship should be accompanied by a form of post-national identity. The article takes the UK as a case study, and explores tensions between the immigration policies and rhetoric of the Coalition Government since 2010 and the post-national citizenship rights of EU citizens migrating into British local communities. It draws on independently collected qualitative data from the county of Herefordshire, UK, to argue that the persistent reinforcement of national identity reproduces national lines of difference which further problematise the full realisation of European citizenship. At a theoretical level, this highlights the need for the development of post-national citizenship rights to be accompanied by a paradigmatic shift in the way that collective identity is constituted in post-national contexts.

Do manufacturing firms need informality in ERP post-implementation? A study of Chinese manufacturing sites

Purpose - Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are limited due to their operation around a fixed design production process and a fixed lead time to production plan and purchasing plan. The purpose of this paper is to define the concept of informality and to describe the notion of a system combining informality and ERP systems, based on empirical research from four manufacturing case studies. Design/methodology/approach - The case studies present a range of applications of ERP and are analysed in terms of the three characteristics of informality, namely, organisation structure, communication method and leadership approach. Findings - The findings suggest that systems consisting of informality in combination with ERP systems can elicit knowledge fromfrontlineworkers leading to timely improvements in the system. This is achieved by allowing users to modify work procedures or production orders, and to support collaborative working among all employees. However it was found that informality is not required for manufacturers with a relatively stable environment who can deal with uncertainty with a proactive strategy. Research limitations/implications - This study was carried out in China, with four companies as unit of analysis. Future work can help to extend this study across countries. Originality/value - The use of Four dimensions of informality that relate to manufacturers implementing ERP are defined as "technology in practice", "user flexibility", "trusted human networks" and "positive reaction to uncertainty". This is a new construct not applied before to ERP implementations.