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This article explores the ways in which hegemony and power impact on the emergence, development and conflict management function of regional organizations. It compares the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), both of which include a strong regional power. These powers have contrasting postures: South Africa is a keen regionalist, a reluctant hegemon and a pacific power, whereas India is a keen hegemon, a reluctant regionalist and a militarist power. The presence of the hegemon has stimulated regionalism in Southern Africa but retarded regionalism in South Asia. Despite these differences, SADC and SAARC have similarly failed to manage regional conflict effectively. This has been due in large measure to the conflictual relationship between the hegemon and another powerful state in each region, Zimbabwe in the case of South Africa, and Pakistan in the case of India. Some of these dynamics are well explained by neorealist theory, but other dynamics are best explained by constructivist and liberal positions. This supports the argument by Katzenstein and Okawara (2001–2002) that in the field of international relations an eclectic analytical approach is required to comprehend complex processes that combine material, ideational, international, domestic, contemporary and historical factors.

There is an emerging consensus within the literature on failed and failing states that state failure is contagious across borders. For its part, the literature on regionalisation claims that states within the same region tend to form clusters of security – or insecurity – so that geographical proximity is closely associated with inert security relationships. This article – along with the individual contributions in the volume it introduces – seeks to bridge these two literatures, which otherwise rarely talk to each other. The approach taken throughout the volume is largely qualitative and case-oriented, yet methodologically diverse, while the articles have a shared comparative ambition. This introductory article examines the debate on failing states and contextualises the volume's contributions within that debate. It then does the same in relation to the debate on regional security, before moving on to examine the role and impact of emerging regional responses to insecurity. When we examine recent state-building initiatives, the effectiveness of external actors seems limited, while existing power holders – and the conflicts between them – are at the centre in processes for building states. This calls for studying the practice of state-building, and for rooting policies in viable practices, even when the driving actors are not inherently benign. To a considerable degree, a state's strength and functionality are relational: the state can only be understood in relation to significant other states. Within regions, hegemonic states – and the strategies pursued by other states in their efforts to cooperate with, balance, or counter the hegemon – have major implications for security. Regional cooperation emerges through concrete collaboration to address commonly perceived challenges, at times as an unintended effect of a targeted initiative. Key actors – and the networks of which they form part – are often transnational, spanning the borders of several states. The behaviour of transnational actors, how they interface with the system of states and regions and the potential for their conversion into constructive political forces remain poorly understood. As a whole, these are findings that inspire an agenda for future research at the interface between the state and the region.

Collaborative relationships (CRs) in supply chains have become central in international business. Strategic performance measurement systems (SPMSs) establish a causal chain of performance measures that can be aligned with strategic goals and can link performance measures with business processes and suppliers. This study investigates whether CRs in supply chains positively affect buyer competitiveness by using SPMSs. Firm competitiveness is described in terms of product cost-price, delivery, as well as flexibility. We demonstrate through the use of SPMSs that CRs indirectly and positively influence the competitiveness of delivery and flexibility. This chapter contributes to the growing literature on the role of SPMSs in linking the relationship between CRs and competitiveness.

This study examines how budgetary support (BS), teamwork, and organizational commitment to employees (OCE) affect firm performance across two countries, Malaysia and the United States. By surveying senior managers of 165 small and medium enterprises, this study finds that teamwork and BS each has a direct effect on OCE and firm performance. Further, results indicate that OCE mediates the relationship between BS, teamwork, and firm performance. In Malaysia, but not in the United States, we find that teamwork affects performance directly. In the United States, but not in Malaysia, we find that BS affects performance, and there is an interaction effect between BS and management influence. We attribute the effects to the different national cultures and social-exchange relations and highlight the contributions to the budgeting research, organizational commitment literature, and to practice.

Research on weighting of measures often examines only one incentive at a time (usually bonus) and provide mixed findings regarding the relevance of non-financial performance (NFM) measures to evaluate and reward long-term time horizon employees. Using proprietary data from an auto dealership organization, we show that financial measures (FM) are weighted more for bonus than they are weighted for merit raise and promotion but NFM are weighted more than FM for merit raise and promotion. Thus, the temporal orientations of the measures and incentives seem to be aligned: the short-term (long-term) nature of FM (NFM) parallel’s the time horizon of the incentives. Next, our exploratory research questions find that for bonuses, both FM and NFM exert similar levels of significant and positive influence on junior and senior managers. But for promotions, the influence of FM is insignificant for both groups. In contrast, the influence of NFM on promotions is not only significant for both groups but is significantly greater for junior managers than it is for senior managers. That is, the evaluations of NFM for senior managers are less influential on their promotion than they are for junior managers suggesting that promotions for senior managers are often based on factors other than their formal performances.

Purpose – It is often difficult to assign blame to youthful violent offenders, and journalists may be uncertain how to determine the moral culpability of performers of horrific crimes such as school shootings.

Methodology/approach – In order to examine journalists’ assignation of moral responsibility for school shooting events, this article examines the sequencing dynamic (i.e., the order in which elements of news reportage appear) present in article lead sections from 112 New York Times articles about nine rampage school shootings occurring in the United States between 1997 and 2001.

Findings – Analysis revealed that journalists initially tended to select sequences that more clearly assigned blame. Over time journalists tended to rely on details that highlighted the contextual elements, rhetorically reducing the moral responsibility of the perpetrators. School shootings may ultimately be remembered as horrible events, but the youthful nature of the offenders and other contexts of the events will tend to mitigate the shooters’ moral culpability.

Originality/value of chapter – This study is the first to apply Cerulo's (1998) concept of sequencing to glean information about the moral decision-making process involved in the production of news content about school shootings.