EU membership of the WTO: international trade disputes and judicial protection of individuals by EU Courts

The European Union (EU) is embedded in a pluralistic legal context because of the EU and its Member States’ treaty memberships and domestic laws. Where EU conduct has implications for both the EU’s international trade relations and the legal position of individual traders, it possibly affects EU and its Member States’ obligations under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO law) as well as the Union’s own multi-layered constitutional legal order. The present paper analyses the way in which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) accommodates WTO and EU law in the context of international trade disputes triggered by the EU. Given the ECJ’s denial of direct effect of WTO law in principle, the paper focuses on the protection of rights and remedies conferred by EU law. It assesses the implications of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) – which tolerates the acceptance of retaliatory measures constraining traders’ activities in sectors different from those subject to the original trade dispute (Bananas and Hormones cases) – for the protection of ‘retaliation victims’. The paper concludes that governmental discretion conferred by WTO law has not affected the applicability of EU constitutional law but possibly shapes the actual scope of EU rights and remedies where such discretion is exercised in the EU’s general interest.

Multilevel research in the field of organizational behavior: an empirical look at 10 years of theory and research

During the last 30 years, significant debate has taken place regarding multilevel research. However, the extent to which multilevel research is overtly practiced remains to be examined. This article analyzes 10 years of organizational research within a multilevel framework (from 2001 to 2011). The goals of this article are (a) to understand what has been done, during this decade, in the field of organizational multilevel research and (b) to suggest new arenas of research for the next decade. A total of 132 articles were selected for analysis through ISI Web of Knowledge. Through a broad-based literature review, results suggest that there is equilibrium between the amount of empirical and conceptual papers regarding multilevel research, with most studies addressing the cross-level dynamics between teams and individuals. In addition, this study also found that the time still has little presence in organizational multilevel research. Implications, limitations, and future directions are addressed in the end. Organizations are made of interacting layers. That is, between layers (such as divisions, departments, teams, and individuals) there is often some degree of interdependence that leads to bottom-up and top-down influence mechanisms. Teams and organizations are contexts for the development of individual cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors (top-down effects; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Conversely, individual cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors can also influence the functioning and outcomes of teams and organizations (bottom-up effects; Arrow, McGrath, & Berdahl, 2000). One example is when the rewards system of one organization may influence employees’ intention to quit and the existence or absence of extra role behaviors. At the same time, many studies have showed the importance of bottom-up emergent processes that yield higher level phenomena (Bashshur, Hernández, & González-Romá, 2011; Katz-Navon & Erez, 2005; Marques-Quinteiro, Curral, Passos, & Lewis, in press). For example, the affectivity of individual employees may influence their team’s interactions and outcomes (Costa, Passos, & Bakker, 2012). Several authors agree that organizations must be understood as multilevel systems, meaning that adopting a multilevel perspective is fundamental to understand real-world phenomena (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). However, whether this agreement is reflected in practicing multilevel research seems to be less clear. In fact, how much is known about the quantity and quality of multilevel research done in the last decade? The aim of this study is to compare what has been proposed theoretically, concerning the importance of multilevel research, with what has really been empirically studied and published. First, this article outlines a review of the multilevel theory, followed by what has been theoretically “put forward” by researchers. Second, this article presents what has really been “practiced” based on the results of a review of multilevel studies published from 2001 to 2011 in business and management journals. Finally, some barriers and challenges to true multilevel research are suggested. This study contributes to multilevel research as it describes the last 10 years of research. It quantitatively depicts the type of articles being written, and where we can find the majority of the publications on empirical and conceptual work related to multilevel thinking.

An approach to develop flexible systems with organizational-interoperability requirements

Flexibility of information systems (IS) have been studied to improve the adaption in support of the business agility as the set of capabilities to compete more effectively and adapt to rapid changes in market conditions (Glossary of business agility terms, 2003). However, most of work on IS flexibility has been limited to systems architecture, ignoring the analysis of interoperability as a part of flexibility from the requirements. This paper reports a PhD project, which proposes an approach to develop IS with flexibility features, considering some challenges of flexibility in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as the lack of interoperability and the agility of their business. The motivation of this research are the high prices of IS in developing countries and the usefulness of organizational semiotics to support the analysis of requirements for IS. (Liu, 2005).

Relational pluralism: organizational foresight in practice

This paper examines organizational foresight from a relational perspective. In doing this, we present relational incumbency as a transient conceptual framework to explore how the organizing social relationships and interactions of lower participants may influence organizational foresightfulness. The research employed an exploratory case-based approach with three software organisations and their four new product innovation projects serving as the empirical research sites. Drawing on the case evidence, we provide an account on how normative organizing structures, rights and authority relationships constitutively influence the creative emergence of organizational foresight in practice. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the managerial implications and some directions for future research.

Resources, staff beliefs and organizational culture: factors in the use of information and communication technology for adults with intellectual disabilities

Background  Access to, and the use of, information and communication technology (ICT) is increasingly becoming a vital component of mainstream life. First-order (e.g. time and money) and second-order factors (e.g. beliefs of staff members) affect the use of ICT in different contexts. It is timely to investigate what these factors may be in the context of service provision for adults with intellectual disabilities given the role ICT could play in facilitating communication and access to information and opportunities as suggested in Valuing People. Method  Taking a qualitative approach, nine day service sites within one organization were visited over a period of 6 months to observe ICT-related practice and seek the views of staff members working with adults with intellectual disabilities. All day services were equipped with modern ICT equipment including computers, digital cameras, Internet connections and related peripherals. Results  Staff members reported time, training and budget as significant first-order factors. Organizational culture and beliefs about the suitability of technology for older or less able service users were the striking second-order factors mentioned. Despite similar levels of equipment, support and training, ICT use had developed in very different ways across sites. Conclusion  The provision of ICT equipment and training is not sufficient to ensure their use; the beliefs of staff members and organizational culture of sites play a substantial role in how ICT is used with and by service users. Activity theory provides a useful framework for considering how first- and second-order factors are related. Staff members need to be given clear information about the broader purpose of activities in day services, especially in relation to the lifelong learning agenda, in order to see the relevance and usefulness of ICT resources for all service users.

The interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation, and SME growth

This paper investigates the interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), and small business performance. It reports on the findings from 350 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in North Cyprus operating in the services and retailing sectors. The findings indicate a positive relationship between EO and sales and market share growth, but not between EO and employment growth. There is also a positive relationship between organizational learning capability and EO. This paper contributes to the small business management literature by providing a holistic analysis of the interface between organizational learning capability, EO, and growth.

Connectivity recovery in epidemic membership protocols

Epidemic protocols are a bio-inspired communication and computation paradigm for extreme-scale network system based on randomized communication. The protocols rely on a membership service to build decentralized and random overlay topologies. In a weakly connected overlay topology, a naive mechanism of membership protocols can break the connectivity, thus impairing the accuracy of the application. This work investigates the factors in membership protocols that cause the loss of global connectivity and introduces the first topology connectivity recovery mechanism. The mechanism is integrated into the Expander Membership Protocol, which is then evaluated against other membership protocols. The analysis shows that the proposed connectivity recovery mechanism is effective in preserving topology connectivity and also helps to improve the application performance in terms of convergence speed.

The evolution of green leases: towards inter-organizational environmental governance

Improving the environmental performance of non-domestic buildings is a complex and ‘wicked’ problem due to conflicting interests and incentives. This is particularly challenging in tenanted spaces, where landlord and tenant interactions are regulated through leases that traditionally ignore environmental considerations. ‘Green leasing’ is conceptualized as a form of ‘middle-out’ inter-organizational environmental governance that operates between organizations, alongside other drivers. This paper investigates how leases are evolving to become ‘greener’ in the UK and Australia, providing evidence from five varied sources on: (1) UK office and retail leases, (2) UK retail sector energy management, (3) a major UK retailer case study; (4) office leasing in Sydney, and (5) expert interviews on Australian retail leases. With some exceptions, the evidence reveals an increasing trend towards green leases in prime offices in both countries, but not in retail or sub-prime offices. Generally introduced by landlords, adopted green leases contain a variety of ambitions and levels of enforcement. As an evolving form of private–private environmental governance, green leases form a valuable framework for further tenant–landlord cooperation within properties and across portfolios. This increased cohesion could create new opportunities for polycentric governance, particularly at the interface of cities and the property industry.

Reducing defects through organizational learning within a Housing Association environment

Housing Associations (HAs) contribute circa 20% of the UK’s housing supply. HAs are however under increasing pressure as a result of funding cuts and rent reductions. Due to the increased pressure, a number of processes are currently being reviewed by HAs, especially how they manage and learn from defects. Learning from defects is considered a useful approach to achieving defect reduction within the UK housebuilding industry. This paper contributes to our understanding of how HAs learn from defects by undertaking an initial round table discussion with key HA stakeholders as part of an ongoing collaborative research project with the National House Building Council (NHBC) to better understand how house builders and HAs learn from defects to reduce their prevalence. The initial discussion shows that defect information runs through a number of groups, both internal and external of a HA during both the defects management process and organizational learning (OL) process. Furthermore, HAs are reliant on capturing and recording defect data as the foundation for the OL process. During the OL process defect data analysis is the primary enabler to recognizing a need for a change to organizational routines. When a need for change has been recognized, new options are typically pursued to design out defects via updates to a HAs Employer’s Requirements. Proposed solutions are selected by a review board and committed to organizational routine. After implementing a change, both structured and unstructured feedback is sought to establish the change’s success. The findings from the HA discussion demonstrates that OL can achieve defect reduction within the house building sector in the UK. The paper concludes by outlining a potential ‘learning from defects model’ for the housebuilding industry as well as describing future work.