Search results

Biology and Politics (or Biopolitics) has been a part of the political science firmament since the 1960s. Over time, it has become less an odd outlier in the discipline and more a tolerated (and sometimes respected) part of the enterprise. After about 50 years of existence, this is a proper time to reflect on where biopolitics has been, where it is now, and where it might go as an academic endeavor. Indeed, some have said that the best step would for biopolitics to no longer be seen as a special, narrow part of political science – but a part of every field in the discipline, integrated into the larger world of the study of politics.

Located within growing scholarly interest in linking the global financial crisis with revelations of financial crime, this piece utilises Roman Tomasic's suggestion that the financial crisis has marked something of a turning point in regulatory responses to financial crime worldwide. Tomasic attributes this to changing attitudes towards light-touch regulation and risk assessment, and the demand for existing agencies to be replaced with new tougher authorities. In the UK, this can be illustrated by the imminent replacement of the FSA with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Discussion of the FSA's financial crime fighting activity is an important forecast for the likely directional focus of the FCA in this regard. A focus only on “market abuse” enforcement within this arises on account of the effects for financial systems widely attributed to this activity, with threats to systemic stability being a hallmark of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This methodology also encourages coherence in focus and management of sources within the article. Market abuse enforcement provides a lens for exploring the FSA's adoption of the philosophy and ethos of “credible deterrence”, and FCA commitment to retain it, and ultimately for applying the hypothesis of the “haphazard pursuit of financial crime” to pre-crisis criminal enforcement relating to financial crime undertaken by the FSA.

The FSA and FCA appear acutely aware that the financial crisis has marked something of a turning point for the enforcement of financial crime, and for signalling changes in approach, for the reasons explored by Tomasic. Tomasic correctly identifies factors encouraging a range of undesirable practices pre-crisis, and ones signalling tougher and more sustained attention being paid to financial crime henceforth. It is noted that, pre-crisis, the FSA's pursuit of criminal enforcement of market abuse was conscious, comprehensively resourced, well publicised, and actually extensive.

This exploration of the FSA's criminal enforcement of market abuse given the Authority's own perceptions that it was not, and could never be, a “mainstream” criminal prosecutor considers the likely lasting legacy of this determined pursuit, when domestic politics and pan-European policies suggested against this. This is likely to be enormously valuable as the FCA undertakes this task in a domestic arena which is markedly in contrast from this, and where European agendas are pushing in favour of criminal enforcement, with the “more Europe, or less” debate providing a further dimension of interest.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The audit committee is one of the most prominent board sub‐committees, having a potentially important role to play in ensuring sound corporate governance. This paper aims to examine and discuss the behaviour of companies following revisions to the UK's Revised Code.

A variety of annual report data from a sample of 50 UK companies, stratified according to size, is collected and analysed.

General compliance with many provisions of the Revised Code was found. All but one company had an audit committee comprising solely non‐executive directors. However, in about a quarter of cases the chairman was a member, and in some cases directors were not “independent” according to the Code's definition. Nevertheless, many companies exceeded the minimum stipulated requirements, for example the number of non‐executive directors on the audit committee or the number of meetings held. Some companies, though, did not follow recommended practice, particularly regarding the disclosure of information, and some explanations for non‐compliance were weak.

Compliance with disclosure demands regarding audit committees could be improved, as could the quality of explanations when the recommendations of the Code are not followed. It would be sensible for regulators to monitor this, provide more detailed guidance and highlight examples of good practice. Given the resistance of many companies to corporate governance regulation and accusations of “box ticking”, future research should probe why many companies do more than is required or recommended. The research should be repeated when further revisions to the Code are made in respect of audit committees, and practice in countries other than the UK should be researched to provide comparative insights.

This paper provides useful information on the behaviour of companies following revisions to the UK's Revised Code.

IN a departure from usual practice this issue concentrates to a large extent upon a single subject — Mechanical Handling. It coincides with that industry's exhibition at Earls Court from the 9th to 19th of this month, to be opened by the Rt. Hon. Christopher Chataway, M.P., Minister for Industrial Development. In consequence it was necessary to defer some regular features for a time, for which we apologise.

This study aims to investigate digitalization as a performance driver in supply chains, especially the role of data analytics in the digitalization of procurement. The study investigates how digital procurement capabilities are linked to data analytics capabilities and supply chain operational performance and how this links to business success.

Using operational and dynamic capabilities as foundations for data analytics capabilities, this paper studied the digital procurement capabilities and proposed the conceptual model and hypotheses for empirical testing. The collected industry survey data and structural equation method are then applied to test the hypotheses.

The study confirms positive and significant relationships among digital procurement capabilities, data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance. Digital procurement capabilities mediate the positive relationship between external data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance.

This study has some limitations that should be addressed. The empirical study was based on survey data from a questionnaire that was probably challenging for some respondent companies with low levels of digital procurement and data analytics. Also, it is necessary to adopt secondary data to measure business performance in future studies which reduces the effect of subjective bias.

From the managerial point of view, the findings highlight the importance of gaining knowledge from gathered data and digitalized processes. Managers must focus on data utilization capabilities to improve the operational performance expected from the digitalization of supply chain activities. In addition, managers need to consider exploiting of data through new creative approaches as part of standardized operations.

The present study contributes to existing knowledge by investigating the mediating role of data analytics capabilities between the digitalization of procurement and supply chain performance. The findings support a positive relationship between the data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance in digital upstream supply chain procurement processes. The present study also clarifies the impact and role of data analytics capabilities in digital supply chain development and success.

As hospital costs continue to rise, increasing attention is being paid to the way these organizations are and should be managed. This attention typically comes in the form of focus on costs of services, quality (often measured through mortality rates) and length of stay. Hospital management has a broad array of choices at their disposal to address these challenges. As service operations, hospitals present a significant opportunity to apply the many tools and techniques from the field of operations strategy to this important industry. The objective of this paper is to use the operations strategy framework to assess the relationship between a set of operational elements and hospital performance in terms of average length of stay (ALOS), so that hospital managers improve the effectiveness and efficiency of patient care of their hospitals.

Using the structural and infrastructural operations strategy framework, this study examines the relationship between several strategic variables and hospital performance. To analyze these relationships the paper employs data from the population of hospitals in New York State. The performance measure is the ALOS for patients, adjusted for the mix and severity of cases in each hospital.

The paper finds that a direct relationship exists between the dependent variable and location, capacity, and teaching status, and failed to find a direct relationship for capital expenditures, salary, and staffing levels. However, the paper did find significant interaction effects between capital expenses and both salary and staffing levels.

There appear to be trade‐offs between capital expenditures and workforce decisions that have significant implications in light of current and expected hospital staffing shortages. The findings indicate that reductions in staff may not be perfectly replaced by corresponding increases in capital expenditures.

This paper further expands the body of research that addresses the important challenges hospitals face from an operations management perspective.