The comparative impact of privatisation and regulation on productivity growth in the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry, 1985-99

After the 10 regional water authorities of England and Wales were privatized in November 1989, the successor WASCs (water and sewerage companies) faced a new regulatory regime that was designed to promote productivity growth while simultaneously improving drinking water and environmental quality. As legally mandated quality improvements necessitated a costly capital investment programme, the industry's economic regulator – the Office of Water Services – implemented a RPI + K pricing system, designed to compensate the WASCs for their capital investment programme while also encouraging faster rates of productivity growth. This paper considers the relative effects of privatization and regulation on productivity growth in the industry using both non-parametric and parametric methods to provide a crosscheck on the robustness of the results. While there is evidence that labour productivity improved after privatization, there is no evidence that privatization led to a growth in TFP (total factor productivity). However, there is some evidence of a small increase in the rate of TFP growth in the aftermath of a substantial tightening of the regulatory regime that took place in 1995. These results, therefore, are consistent with evidence from other research that privatization, in the absence of effective competition and/or regulation, is not necessarily associated with improved economic performance.

Industrial new product planning:a study of the sources of new product ideas and the development of new product proposals in the UK computer industry

This thesis presents a study of the sources of new product ideas and the development of new product proposals in an organisation in the UK Computer Industry. The thesis extends the work of von Hippel by showing how the phenomenon which he describes as "the Customer Active Paradigm for new product idea generation" can be observed to operate in this Industry. Furthermore, this thesis contrasts his Customer Active Paradigm with the more usually encountered Manufacturer Active Paradigm. In a second area, the thesis draws a number of conclusions relating to methods of market research, confirming existing observations and demonstrating the suitability of flexible interview strategies in certain circumstances. The thesis goes on to demonstrate the importance of free information flow within the organisation, making it more likely that sought and unsought opportunities can be exploited. It is shown that formal information flows and documents are a necessary but not sufficient means of influencing the formation of the organisation's dominant ideas on new product areas. The findings also link the work of Tushman and Katz on the role of "Gatekeepers" with the work of von Hippel by showing that the role of gatekeeper is particularly appropriate and useful to an organisation changing from Customer Active to Manufacturer Active methods of idea generation. Finally, the thesis provides conclusions relating to the exploitation of specific new product opportunities facing the sponsoring organisation.

Work-related stressors and psychological strain in the sales force:the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

The contemporary workplace appears rife with psychological strain, which can have considerable deleterious outcomes to the firm and the individual. However, research on strain in the sales force is underdeveloped. This paper reports the results of a study of the antecedents and consequences of psychological strain in the sales force, with particular attention to the roles of role ambiguity, emotional exhaustion, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Emotional exhaustion is found to increase strain. Intrinsic motivation reduces strain under conditions of relatively high role ambiguity, but leads to more strain under conditions of low role ambiguity. Strain is found to have a J-shaped relationship with turnover intentions, and is linearly related to lower job satisfaction and lower job performance.

The blurring boundaries between synchronicity and asynchronicity:new communicative situations in work-related Instant Messaging

Instant messaging is one of the most popular communication technologies in virtual teams, enabling interactions to intertwine whole working days, thus creating the sense of copresence for team members who are geographically dispersed. Through close linguistic analyses of naturally occurring data from a virtual team, this article discusses the implications of two novel communicative situations enabled by instant messaging: presence information and the persistence of transcript. The preliminary findings of this study indicate that these new communicative situations require the flouting or rethinking of previously existing interactional norms and that communicative practices employed by the team members are not yet conventionalized/normalized, the expectations and interpretations of interactional rituals and timing vary highly, even within the same virtual team.

Ownership identity, strategy and performance:business group affiliates versus independent firms in India

We consider whether the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance is moderated by the company affiliation with business groups. Within business groups, we explore the trade-off between inter-firm insurance that enables risk-taking, and inefficient resource allocation. Risk-taking in group affiliated firms leads to higher performance, compared to independent firms, but the impact of proactivity is attenuated. Utilizing Indian data, we show that risk-taking may undermine rather than improve business performance, but this effect is not present in business groups. Proactivity enhances performance, but less so in business groups. Firms can also enhance performance by technological knowledge acquisition, but these effects are not significantly different for various ownership categories.

Into the Bends of Time and Musical Forces in Jazz: Group Interaction and Double-time in “My Foolish Heart” as performed by the Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian.

Into the Bends of Time is a 40-minute work in seven movements for a large chamber orchestra with electronics, utilizing real-time computer-assisted processing of music performed by live musicians. The piece explores various combinations of interactive relationships between players and electronics, ranging from relatively basic processing effects to musical gestures achieved through stages of computer analysis, in which resulting sounds are crafted according to parameters of the incoming musical material. Additionally, some elements of interaction are multi-dimensional, in that they rely on the participation of two or more performers fulfilling distinct roles in the interactive process with the computer in order to generate musical material. Through processes of controlled randomness, several electronic effects induce elements of chance into their realization so that no two performances of this work are exactly alike. The piece gets its name from the notion that real-time computer-assisted processing, in which sound pressure waves are transduced into electrical energy, converted to digital data, artfully modified, converted back into electrical energy and transduced into sound waves, represents a “bending” of time.

The Bill Evans Trio featuring bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential piano trios in the history of jazz, lauded for its unparalleled level of group interaction. Most analyses of Bill Evans’ recordings, however, focus on his playing alone and fail to take group interaction into account. This paper examines one performance in particular, of Victor Young’s “My Foolish Heart” as recorded in a live performance by the Bill Evans Trio in 1961. In Part One, I discuss Steve Larson’s theory of musical forces (expanded by Robert S. Hatten) and its applicability to jazz performance. I examine other recordings of ballads by this same trio in order to draw observations about normative ballad performance practice. I discuss meter and phrase structure and show how the relationship between the two is fixed in a formal structure of repeated choruses. I then develop a model of perpetual motion based on the musical forces inherent in this structure. In Part Two, I offer a full transcription and close analysis of “My Foolish Heart,” showing how elements of group interaction work with and against the musical forces inherent in the model of perpetual motion to achieve an unconventional, dynamic use of double-time. I explore the concept of a unified agential persona and discuss its role in imparting the song’s inherent rhetorical tension to the instrumental musical discourse.

Improving the operational skills of the health personnel working in the emergency departments. A useful tool to give concrete answers to EU policies on patients' safety and to create new working opportunities” (VS/2013/0430) finanziato dalla Commissione Europea nell'ambito del programma PROGRESS.

A useful tool to give concrete answers to EU policies on patients' safety and to create new working opportunities (VS / 2013/0430

Identifying New Business Opportunities and Customer Value Creation: Case Vuosaari

Previously conducted research projects in the field of logistics services have emphasized the importance of value added services in customer value creation. Through value added services companies can extend their service portfolio and gain higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. In more general level service marketing has been recognized to be challenging due the intangible nature of services. This has caused issues in pricing and value perceptions. To tackle these issues scholars have suggested well–managed customer reference marketing practices. The main goal of this research work is to identify shortages in the current service offering. Additionally, the focus is on, how these shortages can be fixed. Due the low capacity utilization of warehouse premises, there is a need to find the main factors, which are causing or affecting on the current situation. The research aims to offer a set of alternatives how to come over these issues. All the potential business opportunities are evaluated and the promising prospects are discussed. The focus is on logistics value added services and how those effect on route decisions in logistics. Simultaneously the aim is to create a holistic understanding of how added value and offered services effect on logistics centralization. Moreover, customer value creation and customer references’ effectiveness in logistics service marketing are emphasized in this project. Logistics value added services have a minor effect on logistics decision. Routes are chosen on a low–cost basis. However, it is challenging to track down logistics costs and break those down into different phases. Customer value as such is a difficult concept. This causes challenges when services are sold with value–based principles. Customer references are useful for logistics service providers and this should be exploited in marketing. Those reduce the perceived risk and give credibility to the service provider.

Gender effects in orientation on primary students’ performance on items rich in graphics

This study investigated the longitudinal performance of 378 students who completed mathematics items rich in graphics. Specifically, this study explored student performance across axis (e.g., numbers lines), opposed-position (e.g., line and column graphs) and circular (e.g., pie charts) items over a three-year period (ages 9-11 years). The results of the study revealed significant performance differences in the favour of boys on graphics items that were represented in horizontal and vertical displays. There were no gender differences on items that were represented in a circular manner.

Identifying effective leadership practices for implementing a new mathematics curriculum in Taipei

This study explores successful junior high school principals’ leadership practices for implementing the reformed mathematics curriculum in Taipei. Avolio and Bass’s (2002) full range leadership theory was used to record data through interviews and observations of five Taipei “Grade A” junior high school principals. Findings revealed that specific leadership practices linked to management by exception-active and contingent reward (transaction leadership), and individualised consideration and idealised influence (transformational) were considered effective for implementing reform measures. Ensuring principals are aware of effective measures may further assist reform agendas.

The enactment of the New Basics Project in a special school

This study investigates the impact of the New Basics Project on teachers at a special school for students with intellectual impairments. The study is aimed at exploring the complex nature of the work of special educators as they enact the New Basics curriculum with a particular focus on the teachers’ opinions about challenges that arose for their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Attention is also paid to how the principal’s leadership supported the enactment of the New Basics in respect to what he did and why he used particular strategies. The nine teachers and their principal were involved in a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews from one of only three special schools in phase one of the New Basics trial in Queensland, Australia. These interviews produced data from the special educators as they were confronted with a new curriculum that challenged their previous teaching practices. The enactment of the New Basics curriculum occurred within the context of a state-sanctioned mandate to provide alternative programs to those offered in mainstream schools, for students with special needs. This thesis explores these teachers' experiences using critical theory as a basis for analyzing their opinions on issues such as the role of the special educator, tensions between old and new curricula, pedagogical and assessment practices, and connections between the at-school learning experiences for intellectually impaired students and the realities of post-school life. The investigation also examines the leadership conduct of the principal in changing times at the school. The findings suggest that the New Basics has played a significant role in providing structures for developing communities of practice amongst teachers; in supporting special educators to focus more on the educational needs of the students (e.g., literacy, numeracy, financial planning) and less on their medical needs (e.g., toileting, feeding, personal hygiene); and supporting school leadership that empowers and listens critically to teachers as essential components of the successful enactment of curriculum reforms like the New Basics.

Discourse practice gaps in work life balance : comparative case studies in the Australian construction industry

Perspectives on work-life balance (WLB) reflected in political, media and organisational discourse, would maintain that WLB is on the agenda because of broad social, economic and political factors (Fleetwood 2007). In contrast, critical scholarship which examines work-life balance (WLB) and its associated practices maintains that workplace flexibility is more than a quasi-functionalist response to contemporary problems faced by individuals, families or organisations. For example, the literature identifies where flexible work arrangements have not lived up to expectations of a panacea for work-home conflicts, being characterised as much by employer-driven working conditions that disadvantage workers and constrain balance, as they are by employee friendly practices that enable it (Charlesworth 1997). Further, even where generous organisational work-life balance policies exist, under-utilisation is an issue (Schaefer et al, 2007). Compounding these issues is that many employees perceive their paid work as becoming more intense, pressured and demanding (Townsend et al 2003).

Clypeotheca, a new skeletal structure in scleractinian corals : a potential stress indicator

Physiological responses to environmental stress are increasingly well studied in scleractinian corals. This work reports a new stress-related skeletal structure we term clypeotheca. Clypeotheca was observed in several livecollected common reef-building coral genera and a two to three kya subfossil specimen from Heron Reef, Great Barrier Reef and consists of an epitheca-like skeletal wall that seals over the surface of parts of the corallum in areas of stress or damage. It appears to form from a coordinated process wherein neighboring polyps and adjoining coenosarc seal themselves off from the surrounding environment as they contract and die. Clypeotheca forms from inward skeletal centripetal growth at the edges of corallites and by the merging of flange-like outgrowths that surround individual spines over the surface of the coenosteum. Microstructurally, the merged flanges are similar to upsidedown dissepiments and true epitheca. Clypeotheca is interpreted primarily as a response to stress that may help protect the colony from invasion of unhealthy tissues by parasites or disease by retracting tissues in areas that have become unhealthy for the polyps. Identification of skeletal responses of corals to environmental stress may enable the frequency of certain types of environmental stress to be documented in past environments. Such data may be important for understanding the nature of reef dynamics through intervals of climate change and for monitoring the effects of possible anthropogenic stress in modern coral reef habitats.

Intellectual property : designing 4 success. Safeguarding your innovations - rights, obligations and opportunities in creating intellectual property by design

Design talks LOUDLY!!! Is a series of interactive presentations exploring issues and opportunities involving professional design. --------------- These seminars are organised by the Industrial Design Network Queensland (IDnetQLD) in coordination with the Design Institute of Australia (DIA). This event was held at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) with invited public presentations by a panel of industry experts from the Australian Government – IP Australia. --------------- The first seminar "Intellectual Property : designing 4 success" highlighted to design professionals how the various forms of Intellectual Property interact, what protections and pitfalls exist, and how these impact upon the work and responsibilities of designers. The overlaps, gaps and in congruencies in the various IP protection systems were highlighted by the expert line-up of speakers. --------------- The underlying message is that a clear understanding of all IP types is necessary in order to gain the best advantage from IP protection and therefore eliminate potential IP ownership issues before they become a problem.