Promoting Community Renewable Energy in a Corporate Energy World

Small-scale, decentralized and community-owned renewable energy is widely acknowledged to be a desirable feature of low carbon futures, but faces a range of challenges in the context of conventional, centralized energy systems. This paper draws on transition frameworks to investigate why the UK has been an inhospitable context for community-owned renewables and assesses whether anything fundamental is changing in this regard. We give particular attention to whether political devolution, the creation of elected governments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has affected the trajectory of community renewables. Our analysis notes that devolution has increased political attention to community renewables, including new policy targets and support schemes. However, these initiatives are arguably less important than the persistence of key features of socio-technical regimes: market support systems for renewable energy and land-use planning arrangements that systemically favour major projects and large corporations, and keep community renewables to the margins. There is scope for rolling out hybrid pathways to community renewables, via joint ownership or through community benefit funds, but this still positions community energy as an adjunct to energy pathways dominated by large, corporate generation facilities

Managerial failure in mid-Victorian Britain?: Corporate expansion during a promotion boom

This article examines the mid-1840s expansion of the British railway network, which was associated with a large deterioration in shareholder value. Using a counterfactual approach and new data on railway competition, we argue that the expansion of the railway companies, and their subsequent decline in financial performance, was not due to managerial failure. Rather, the promotion of new routes by established railways and mergers with other companies was part of a managerial strategy to maintain incumbent positions, and may have been preferable to not expanding whilst their competitors did.

“Local politics and global corporate crime in Irish crime fiction : Alan Glynn's Winterland trilogy",

Why Are Some Subsidiaries of Multinationals the Source of Novel Practices while Others Are Not? National, Corporate and Functional Influences

It has frequently been argued that multinational companies are moving towards network forms whereby subsidiaries share different practices with the rest of the company. This paper presents large-scale empirical evidence concerning the extent to which subsidiaries input novel practices into the rest of the multinational. We investigate this in the field of human resources through analysis of a unique international data set in four host countries - Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK - and address the question of how we can explain variation between subsidiaries in terms of whether they initiate the diffusion of practices to other subsidiaries. The data support the argument that multiple, rather than single, factor explanations are required to more effectively understand the factors promoting or retarding the diffusion of human resource practices within multinational companies. It emerges that national, corporate and functional contexts all matter. More specifically, actors at subsidiary level who seek to initiate diffusion appear to be differentially placed according to their national context, their place within corporate structures and the extent to which the human resource function is internationally networked.

Corporate Ownership, Control, and Firm Performance in Victorian Britain

Scholars have long debated whether ownership structure matters for firm performance. The standard view with respect to Victorian Britain is that family-controlled companies had a detrimental effect on operating profit and shareholder value. Here, we examine this view using a hand-collected corporate ownership dataset. Our main finding is that it was not necessarily the broad structure of corporate ownership that mattered for performance, but whether family blockholders had a governance role. Large active blockholders tended to increase operating performance, implying that they reduced managerial agency problems. In contrast, we find that directors who were independent of large family owners were more likely to increase shareholder value.

Impacts of Milk Fraud on Food Safety and Nutrition with Special Emphasis on Developing Countries

Milk in its natural form has a high food value, since it is comprised of a wide variety of nutrients which are essential for proper growth and maintenance of the human body. In recent decades, there has been an upsurge in milk consumption worldwide, especially in developing countries, and it is now forming a significant part of the diet for a high proportion of the global population. As a result of the increased demand, in addition to the growth in competition in the dairy market and the increasing complexity of the supply chain, some unscrupulous producers are indulging in milk fraud. This malpractice has become a common problem in the developing countries, which lack strict vigilance by food safety authorities. Milk is often subjected to fraud (by means of adulteration) for financial gain, but it can also be adulterated due to ill-informed attempts to improve hygiene conditions. Water is the most common adulterant used, which decreases the nutritional value of milk. If the water is contaminated, for example, with chemicals or pathogens, this poses a serious health risk for consumers. To the diluted milk, inferior cheaper materials may be added such as reconstituted milk powder, urea, and cane sugar, even more hazardous chemicals including melamine, formalin, caustic soda, and detergents. These additions have the potential to cause serious health-related problems. This review aims to investigate the impacts of milk fraud on nutrition and food safety, and it points out the potential adverse human health effects associated with the consumption of adulterated milk.

The Legitimacy of Subsidiary Issue Selling: Balancing Positive & Negative Attention from Corporate Headquarters

We consider how in issue selling, subsidiaries draw on different forms of legitimacy to attract corporate headquarters’ (CHQ) positive attention and minimise negative CHQ attention. Through case study evidence, we find that directing CHQ attention to subsidiary issues needs to be executed as a balancing act through forms of subsidiary legitimacy, namely; the personal legitimacy of key individuals at the subsidiary; consequential legitimacy vis-à-vis peer subsidiaries; and linkage legitimacy in the local environment. We develop a typology of subsidiary issue-selling roles and illustrate how negative CHQ attention results from a failure to legitimise issue selling.

Food fraud and consumers' choices in the wake of the horsemeat scandal

Purpose – In 2012, the European food industry was hit by a food fraud: horsemeat was found in
pre-prepared foods, without any declaration on the package. This is commonly referred to as the
“horsemeat scandal”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ preferences across
Europe for a selected ready meal, ready to heat (RTH) fresh lasagne, to consider whether the effects of
potential food frauds on consumers’ choices can be mitigated by introducing enhanced standards of
RTH products.
Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was administered to 4,598 consumers of RTH
lasagne in six European countries (Republic of Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Norway),
applying discrete choice experiments to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay for enhanced food
safety standards and highlight differences between countries.
Findings – Many similarities across countries emerged, as well as some differences. Consumers in
Europe are highly concerned with the authenticity of the meat in ready meals and strongly prefer to
know that ingredients are nationally sourced. Strong regional differences in price premiums exist for
enhanced food safety standards.
Originality/value – This research adds relevant insights in the analysis of consumers’ reaction to
food fraud, providing practical guidelines on the most appropriate practices that producers should
adopt and on the information to reduce food risk perception among consumers. This would prove
beneficial for the food processing industry and the European Union. The survey is based on a
representative sample of European consumers making this the largest cross-country study of this kind.