501(C)(3) Nonprofit Organizations in Nebraska: 2008

Nonprofit organizations are important to the quality of life in communities. They exist in complex variety and include church congregations, private schools, service clubs, business leagues, social and recreational clubs, labor unions, farm bureaus, community theaters, neighborhood organizations and many more. Only the largest of nonprofits are likely to have employees, with most relying upon volunteers to meet their human resource requirements. They obtain their financial resources through donations, investments, grants and fee based activities, such as festivals and educational programs.

L'interpretazione a distanza: Analisi di interazioni telefoniche mediate da interprete

Interpreter profession is currently changing: migration flows, the economic crisis and the fast development of ICTs brought unexpected changes in our societies and in traditional interpreting services all over. Remote interpreting (RI), which entails new methods such as videoconference interpreting and telephone interpreting (TI), has greatly developed and now sees interpreters working remotely and being connected to service users via videoconference set up or telephone calls. This dissertation aims at studying and analyzing the relevant aspects of interpreter-mediated telephone calls, describing the consequences for the interpreters in this new working field, as well as defining new strategies and techniques interpreters must develop in order to adjust to the new working context. For these purposes, the objectives of this dissertation are the following: to describe the settings in which RI is mostly used, to study the prominent consequences on interpreters and analyze real interpreter-mediated conversations. The dissertation deals with issues studied by the Shift project, a European project which aims at creating teaching materials for remote interpreting; the project started in 2015 and the University of Bologna and in particular the DIT - Department of Interpreting and Translation is the coordinating unit and promoting partner. This dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 contains an outline of the major research related to RI and videoconference interpreting as well as a description of its main settings: healthcare, law, business economics and institution. Chapter 2 focuses on the physiological and psychological implications for interpreters working on RI. The concepts of absence, presence and remoteness are discussed; some opinions of professional interpreters and legal practitioners (LPs) concerning remote interpreting are offered as well. In chapter 3, telephone interpreting is presented; basic concepts of conversational analysis and prominent traits of interpreter-mediated calls are also explored. Chapter 4 presents the materials and methodology used for the analysis of data. The results, discussed in Chapter 5, show that telephone interpreting may be suitable for some specific contexts; however, it is clear that interpreters must get appropriate training before working in any form of RI. The dissertation finally offers suggestions for the implementation of training in RI for future interpreting students.

The Pre-1980 Roots of Neoliberal Financial Deregulation

U.S. financial deregulation is often popularly presented as a fundamental attack on financial regulation that began with neoliberalism's Big Bang in 1980. This paper argues this position is wrong in two ways. First, it is a process that stretches back decades before 1980. Textbook mentions of 1970s precursor "financial innovations" fall far short of presenting the breadth and duration of the pre-1980 attack on the system of regulation. Second, it has not been an across-the-board attack on financial regulation in the name of market efficiency as required by its ideology and claimed by its advocates, but rather a focused attack on only one of the five pillars of the system of regulation. This paper develops both of these assertions through a presentation of the five central pillars of the pre-1980 system of financial regulation, and the four major attacks on the three different aspects of the restrictions on financial competition.

Potentials and constraints of modeling for transdisciplinary co-producing strategies for sustainable water governance

Both climate change and socio-economic development will significantly modify the supply and consumption of water in future. Consequently, regional development has to face aggravation of existing or emergence of new conflicts of interest. In this context, transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge is considered as an important means for coping with these challenges. Accordingly, the MontanAqua project aims at developing strategies for more sustainable water management in the study area Crans-Montana-Sierre (Switzerland) in a transdisciplinary way. It strives for co-producing system, target and transformation knowledge among researchers, policy makers, public administration and civil society organizations. The research process basically consisted of the following steps: First, the current water situation in the study region was investigated. How much water is available? How much water is being used? How are decisions on water distribution and use taken? Second, participatory scenario workshops were conducted in order to identify the stakeholders’ visions of regional development. Third, the water situation in 2050 was simulated by modeling the evolution of water resources and water use and by reflecting on the institutional aspects. These steps laid ground for jointly assessing the consequences of the stakeholders’ visions of development in view of scientific data regarding governance, availability and use of water in the region as well as developing necessary transformation knowledge. During all of these steps researchers have collaborated with stakeholders in the support group RegiEau. The RegiEau group consists of key representatives of owners, managers, users, and pressure groups related to water and landscape: representatives of the communes (mostly the presidents), the canton (administration and parliament), water management associations, agriculture, viticulture, hydropower, tourism, and landscape protection. The aim of the talk is to explore potentials and constraints of scientific modeling of water availability and use within the process of transdisciplinary co-producing strategies for more sustainable water governance.

Do individual directors matter?

Paper 1: Pilot study of Swiss firms Abstract Using a fixed effects approach, we investigate whether the presence of specific individuals on Swiss firms’ boards affects firm performance and the policy choices they make. We find evidence for a substantial impact of these directors’ presence on their firms. Moreover, the director effects are correlated across policies and performance measures but uncorrelated to the directors’ background. We find these results interesting but conclude that they should to be substantiated on a dataset that is larger and better understood by researchers. Also, further tests are required to rule out methodological concerns. Paper 2: Evidence from the S&P 1,500 Abstract We ask whether directors on corporate boards contribute to firm performance as individuals. From the universe of the S&P 1,500 firms since 1996 we track 2,062 directors who serve on multiple boards over extended periods of time. Our initial findings suggest that the presence of these directors is associated with substantial performance shifts (director fixed effects). Closer examination shows that these effects are statistical artifacts and we conclude that directors are largely fungible. Moreover, we contribute to the discussion of the fixed effects method. In particular, we highlight that the selection of the randomization method is pivotal when generating placebo benchmarks. Paper 3: Robustness, statistical power, and important directors Abstract This article provides a better understanding of Senn’s (2014) findings: The outcome that individual directors are unrelated to firm performance proves robust against different estimation models and testing strategies. By looking at CEOs, the statistical power of the placebo benchmarking test is evaluated. We find that only the stronger tests are able to detect CEO fixed effects. However, these tests are not suitable to analyze directors. The suitable tests would detect director effects if the inter quartile range of the true effects amounted to 3 percentage points ROA. As Senn (2014) finds no such effects for outside directors in general, we focus on groups of particularly important directors (e.g., COBs, non-busy directors, successful directors). Overall, our evidence suggests that the members of these groups are not individually associated with firm performance either. Thus, we confirm that individual directors are largely fungible. If the individual has an effect on performance, it is of small magnitude.

Disparate Wages in a Globalized World

This study uses wage data from the UBS Prices and Earnings survey to highlight Disparate Wages in a Globalized World from di↵erent perspectives. This wage data is characterised by remarkable consistency over the last 40 years, as well as unusual global comparability. In the first chapter we analyse the convergence hypothesis for purchasing power adjusted wages across the world for 1970 to 2009. The results provide solid evidence for the hypotheses of absolute and conditional convergence in real wages, with the key driver being faster overall growing wage levels in lower wage countries compared to higher wage countries. At the same time, the highest skilled professions have experienced the highest wage growth, while low skilled workers’ wages have lagged, thus no convergence in this sense is found between skill groups. In the second chapter we examine deviations in international wages from Factor Price Equalisation theory (FPE). Following an approach analogous to Engel (1993) we find that deviations from FPE are more likely driven by the higher variability of wages between countries than by the variability of di↵erent wages within countries. With regard to the traditional analysis of the real exchange rate and the Balassa-Samuelson assumptions our analysis points to a larger impact on the real exchange rate likely stemming from the movements in the real exchange rate of tradables, and only to a lesser extent from the lack of equalisation of wages within countries. In the third chapter our results show that India’s economic and trade liberalisation, starting in the early 1990s, had very di↵erential impacts on skill premia, both over time and over skill levels. The most striking result is the large increase in wage inequality of high-skilled versus low-skilled professions. Both the synthetic control group method and the di↵erence-in-di↵erences (DID) approach suggest that a significant part of this increase in wage inequality can be attributed to India’s liberalisation.

Understanding heterogeneity in post-implementation enterprise system usage: towards a fit/misfit-experience-outcome typology

The overarching objective of this dissertation is to uncover why and how individually experienced fits and misfits translate into different outcomes of user behavior and satisfaction and whether these individual fit/misfit outcomes are in line with organizational intent. In search of patterns and possible archetype users in the context of ES PIPs, this dissertation is the first study that specifically links the theoretical concepts of the aggregated individual fit experiences with the individual and organizational outcome of these experiences (i.e. behavioral reaction, user satisfaction, and alignment with organizational intent). The case study’s findings provide preliminary support for four archetype users characterized by specific fit/misfit experience-outcome patterns.

Special Tax Treatment as Trade Policy: A Database on Export Processing and Special Economic Zones

Many countries treat income generated via exports favourably, especially when production takes places in special zones known as export processing zones (EPZs). EPZs can be defined as specific, geographically defined zones or areas that are subject to special administration and that generally offer tax incentives, such as duty‐free imports when producing for export, exemption from other regulatory constraints linked to import for the domestic market, sometimes favourable treatment in terms of industrial regulation, and the streamlining of border clearing procedures. We describe a database of WTO Members that employ special economic zones as part of their industrial policy mix. This is based on WTO notification and monitoring through the WTO’s trade policy review mechanism (TPRM), supplemented with information from the ILO, World Bank, and primary sources. We also provide some rough analysis of the relationship between use of EPZs and the carbon intensity of exports, and relative levels of investment across countries with and without special zones.

Federally regulated institutional review boards: The aspects of a "model" IRB---Is the current system in need of a tune up or complete overhaul?

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are the primary gatekeepers for the protection of ethical standards of federally regulated research on human subjects in this country. This paper focuses on what general, broad measures that may be instituted or enhanced to exemplify a "model IRB". This is done by examining the current regulatory standards of federally regulated IRBs, not private or commercial boards, and how many of those standards have been found either inadequate or not generally understood or followed. The analysis includes suggestions on how to bring about changes in order to make the IRB process more efficient, less subject to litigation, and create standardized educational protocols for members. The paper also considers how to include better oversight for multi-center research, increased centralization of IRBs, utilization of Data Safety Monitoring Boards when necessary, payment for research protocol review, voluntary accreditation, and the institution of evaluation/quality assurance programs. ^ This is a policy study utilizing secondary analysis of publicly available data. Therefore, the research for this paper focuses on scholarly medical/legal journals, web information from the Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Drug Administration, and the Office of the Inspector General, Accreditation Programs, law review articles, and current regulations applicable to the relevant portions of the paper. ^ Two issues are found to be consistently cited by the literature as major concerns. One is a need for basic, standardized educational requirements across all IRBs and its members, and secondly, much stricter and more informed management of continuing research. There is no federally regulated formal education system currently in place for IRB members, except for certain NIH-based trials. Also, IRBs are not keeping up with research once a study has begun, and although regulated to do so, it does not appear to be a great priority. This is the area most in danger of increased litigation. Other issues such as voluntary accreditation and outcomes evaluation are slowing gaining steam as the processes are becoming more available and more sought after, such as JCAHO accrediting of hospitals. ^ Adopting the principles discussed in this paper should promote better use of a local IRBs time, money, and expertise for protecting the vulnerable population in their care. Without further improvements to the system, there is concern that private and commercial IRBs will attempt to create a monopoly on much of the clinical research in the future as they are not as heavily regulated and can therefore offer companies quicker and more convenient reviews. IRBs need to consider the advantages of charging for their unique and important services as a cost of doing business. More importantly, there must be a minimum standard of education for all IRB members in the area of the ethical standards of human research and a greater emphasis placed on the follow-up of ongoing research as this is the most critical time for study participants and may soon lead to the largest area for litigation. Additionally, there should be a centralized IRB for multi-site trials or a study website with important information affecting the trial in real time. There needs to be development of standards and metrics to assess the performance of the IRBs for quality assurance and outcome evaluations. The boards should not be content to run the business of human subjects' research without determining how well that function is actually being carried out. It is important that federally regulated IRBs provide excellence in human research and promote those values most important to the public at large.^

Toward a planning model for the peruvian university system as a competitive strategy.

University education in Peru is based on models of teacher-centered teaching and a conception of knowledge which is closed and static and under the dominance of an information model now overwhelmed by multiple factors hastened by international change. The worlds most prestigious universities have chosen cultural diversity as a sign of quality and are hence interested in the mobility of teachers and students through exchange and cooperation with foreign educational institutions. These universities respond more effectively to pressure from the international business sector, better satisfy training demands, introduce new information and communication technologies into education and research and have improved administration and management structures. While there is progress, the university system in Peru is a planning model defined "as a discipline that seeks to respond to the needs of an organization defined by new cultural and social models" (A. Cazorla, et al 2007).This paper studies the non-Euclidean thinking of planning and development of John Friedmann (2001). Based on the four domains of social practice, it proposes a planning model for Peruvian universities that meets international requirements.

Dinamismo de las rutinas organizativas: action research in New Holland

La investigación que presentamos propone un modelo para entender, primero, las rutinas interorganizativas que existen entre la empresa matriz y las empresas concesionarias. Segundo, investigar cómo mejorarlas. Y tercero, cómo introducir nuevos modelos de relación de forma ágil.

Espacios de aprendizaje en las comunidades de prácticas: el caso de las asociaciones de jóvenes arquitectos

Este estudio ha revisado la teoría sobre comunidades de prácticas y espacios de aprendizaje aplicado a la realidad de jóvenes profesionales que colaboran entre sí para adquirir experiencia y compartir su banco de ideas en concursos de obras. Estamos ante un caso en el que la profesión se está redefiniendo y cobran protagonismo las relaciones de aprendizaje y refuerzo mutuo. Nos hemos centrado en la revisión de casos de asociaciones de jóvenes arquitectos españoles, sería conveniente ir ampliado la muestra a otro tipo de profesiones.

Viabilidad de un centro tecnológico de innovación y control de calidad en Puertollano

El proyecto tiene por objeto la realización de los estudios técnicos, económicos y de mercado necesarios para definir la estrategia de creación de un Centro Tecnológico en Puertollano (Ciudad Real), ya que no existe en Castilla-La Mancha y tampoco en España un Laboratorio de estas características que trate conjuntamente campos muy demandados por los sectores de las Energías Renovables y la Industria Energética, lo que potenciará en un futuro inmediato un importante campo de negocio. Con el propósito de tener una estrategia adecuada en el desarrollo e implantación de este Centro se ha realizado un estudio de la optimización de los servicios a prestar mediante la implantación de Sistemas de Gestión de Calidad y Sistemas de Gestión de Actividades de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación (I+D+I) en relación con la actividad del negocio y fomentar en este aspecto la colaboración de las Administraciones y Universidades. El déficit en la competitividad de la economía española afecta a los conceptos íntimamente ligados de calidad y seguridad. Las exigencias cada vez mayores de seguridad y controles metrológicos de normativas europeas en el uso de energías, combustibles e industria, prevén un horizonte muy interesante para los servicios colaterales del Control de Calidad. ABSTRACT The main objetive of this project is to make a technical, economical and marketing study to define the creation strategy of a Technological Centre in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), since there is none in Castilla-La Mancha, or in Spain. Such laboratory would jointly manage fields of high demand by the Renevable Energy Industry sectors, that would enable the development of an important business field. With the purpose of having an appropriate strategy for the development and implementation of this centre, a service optimization study has been made, using the Quality Management Investigation, and ID Systems. This is related to business activities and seeks to foment the colaboration with the Administration and universities. The competitiviness déficit of the Spanish Economy, affects some closely related concepts of quality and security. The constantly growing requirements of security and metrological controls, due to energy, fuel and industry european laws, anticípate an interesting progress for the colateral services of Quality Control.

Early termination of R&D projects

Early project termination is one of the most difficult decisions to be made by Research and Development managers. While there is the risk of terminating good projects, there is also the opposite risk of not terminating bad projects and overspend resources in unproductive research. Criteria used for identifying these projects are common subject of research in Business Administration. In addition, companies might take important lessons from its interrupted projects that could improve their overall portfolio technical and commercial success. Finally, the set and weight of criteria, as well as the procedures companies use for achieve learning from cancelled projects may vary depending on the project type. This research intends to contribute to the understanding of policies applied to projects that were once considered attractive, but by some reason is not appreciated anymore. The research addressed the question: How companies deal with projects that become unattractive? More specifically, this research tried to answer the following questions: (1) Are projects killed or (otherwise) they die naturally by lack of resources? (2) What criteria are used to terminate projects during development? (3) How companies learn from the terminated projects to improve the overall portfolio performance? (4) Are the criteria and learning procedures different for different types of projects? In order to answer these questions, we performed a multiple case study with four companies that are reference in business administration and innovation: (1) Oxiteno, considered the base case, (2) Natura, the literal replication, (3) Mahle and (4) AES, the theoretical replications. The case studies were performed using a semi-structured protocol for interviews, which were recorded and analyzed for comparison. We found that the criteria companies use for selecting projects for termination are very similar to those anticipated by the literature, except for a criteria related to compliance. We have evidences to confirm that the set of criteria is not altered when dealing with different project types, however the weight they are applied indeed varies. We also found that learning with cancelled projects is yet very incipient, with very few structured formal procedures being described for capturing learning with early-terminated projects. However, we could observe that these procedures are more common when dealing with projects labeled as innovative, risky, big and costly, while those smaller and cheaper derivative projects aren\'t subject of a complete investigation on the learning they brought to the company. For these, the most common learning route is the informal, where the project team learns and passes the knowledge though interpersonal information exchange. We explain that as a matter of cost versus benefit of spending time to deeply investigate projects with little potential to bring new knowledge to the project team and the organization