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Research on large firms shows that cooperative strategies have the potential to improve performance by helping firms gain access to necessary resources, enter new markets, and spread the risk over several partners. Interviews with thirty‐four small business managers show small firms also can profit from using a cooperative network. Highly‐allied small businesses entered alliances to gain resources and based their alliances on a distinctive competence. The highly allied businesses grew more rapidly than the less allied firms. Mutual goals and joint decision making were viewed as critical to the high level of satisfaction achieved.

A model of inter‐corporate power is derived from previous work on social power. The model consists of two portions – one dealing with influences on the amount of power companies have and one dealing with influences on the use of that power. This model is used to analyze competition. Suggestions are made about ways companies may increase their own power or influence the power relationships in their environment.

Initial briefs (programs) were examined in order to obtain an overview of current practice in documenting the briefing process for new health care buildings in Sweden.

An audit instrument was developed and used to examine briefs for the content and quality of information and to determine whether and to what extent the information was comprehensive and patient‐oriented.

The results indicate that few strategic briefs make use of evidence to support their statements. Moreover, few briefs had an explicitly patient‐focused goal for the project or measurable outcomes.

This new audit approach can be applied in various organisations and over time to improve the briefing process and create clearer goals and guidelines.

The quest for efficient and effective organisational performance induces management theorists and practitioners to centre attention on environmental factors. Aldrich (1979) and Child (1972), among others, believe that an organisation's timely response to environmental change has a significant effect on performance. Harrison (1986) reviews literature on environment and organisational performance and concludes that firms which have employed a strategy responsive to change in the external environment have grown and prospered relative to other firms.

The purpose of this paper is to refine and validate the most widely used leader behavior measurement instrument, LBDQXII, into a more parsimonious instrument for assessing cognitive templates of preferred leader behavior across cultures.

The 100-item LBDQXII survey was administered to 6,451 participants from 14 countries; these data were used to refine the survey.

The shorter survey instrument is a valid and reliable tool for assessing preferred leader behavior. Four periods in the LBDQXII “evolution” are identified: emergence, expansion, stagnation and revival.

The new LBDQ50 can be used to collect data across cultures, contributing to both global management development and scholarly studies.

This project corresponds to calls to shorten the well-established leader behavior instrument into a measurement tool that is reliable and valid across cultures and languages. This can be administered by both private and public organizations, contributing to greater effectiveness. Furthermore, it retains its scholarly scope encompassing follower-centric studies of leadership.

Leadership processes are found in all aspects of life and can be better understood and improved within and across cultures using the shorter version.

An efficient instrument to measure preferred leadership behavior across and within cultures. The availability of the LBDQ50 will allow practitioners and researchers to advance understanding of preferred leadership behavior as a predictor of organizational effectiveness. Most such instruments are overly-long, which hinders data collection opportunities. This newly developed instrument can lead to better response rates and easier applicability in organizational settings.

Typhoons, storm surges and sea-level rise pose major risks to life and livelihoods in Southeast Asia and demand state-level action. However, the prominence and frequency of these symptomatic disasters often divert attention from underlying systemic and situational issues. The purpose of this paper is a normative and conceptual one. It makes the case for a grounded and disaggregated human security approach for decoding complex relationships of risk, power, politics, inequality and mistrust that underpin problems we seek to address.

This paper’s approach situates the emergence of the human security paradigm and its connections to human development, sustainable economic growth and rights-based protections in historical context. It then draws on observations across the region over a number of years combined with a review of relevant research to detail how the vulnerability and exposure to disaster of at-risk communities extend beyond random or natural events. Having established that a focus on the immediate characteristics of disaster limits our frames of reference and the utility of subsequent responses, it proceeds to analyse the political, environmental and economic drivers amplifying exposure to disaster in Southeast Asia.

The findings reveal that the vulnerability and insecurity experienced by at-risk communities are not wholly random or exclusively the result of natural, unavoidable events. Exposure to disasters is also shaped by various situational factors, including habitat loss, dispossession, displacement, marginalisation and limited opportunities. Incorporating a more holistic human security perspective can bring into focus the less visible forces and interests that amplify vulnerability to hazard risk for affected individuals and communities in the region.

This is an original paper that underscores the conceptual and methodological importance of a grounded and disaggregated human security approach to grasp the disaster-prone territories of risk in contemporary Southeast Asia and for advancing appropriate responses.