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The role of management control is frequently emphasized in connection with inter-organizational relationships and value networks. For example, boundary-spanning cost and accounting control techniques have been studied in multifaceted empirical settings. The prevalence of such techniques is, however, currently unknown in conjunction with companies’ interests to increase inter-organizational integration in general. Additionally, also the nexus between the internal state of cost management and the company’s willingness to develop inter-organizational relationships requires further investigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study is based on an extensive survey that was responded to by more than 1,500 CEOs and CFOs from large, medium-sized and small Finnish enterprises in a variety of industries. As the authors chose the mixed-methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study.

The findings suggest that companies can be allocated to five clusters: “the cost experts,” “the trustful,” “the holdouts,” “the trailblazers” and “the uncertain”. When the networking-oriented clusters, “the trustful” and “the trailblazers” are combined, the authors can conclude that 40 percent of the studied companies are interested in increasing inter-organizational integration. However, only 7 percent have boundary-spanning techniques in use. There is also a correlation between interest in integrating and developing cost management.

This paper contains several theoretical implications, although further research, e.g. comparative studies, is required to verify the findings. The scarcity of managerial implications can be regarded as a limitation.

This paper fills several untapped research gaps by studying inter-organizational integration in the cost management context from multiple, complementary perspectives with a particularly large set of data.

In recent years, investment management education has become increasingly relevant. As a result of this development, it is essential that various role players should be consulted to ensure that investment management is taught in line with practitioners’ requirements. The South African Qualifications Authority also specifies that educators and practitioners should collaborate to maintain relevance in all fields of education. The importance of various areas in investment management was investigated. This article compares the ranking of these areas in terms of their importance as perceived by academics and practitioners. The study being reported also aimed to determine whether gaps exist between the areas that academics regard to be important and the areas that practitioners regard as such. Areas that are generally regarded to be most important include asset allocation, fundamental analysis and the measurement of risk and return. Areas that are regarded to be least important include arts, antiques and other hard assets; rights and capitalisation issues; and real estate. Areas in need of research include the measurement of risk and return; asset allocation; derivatives; and global markets and instruments. The findings of this study could have a significant impact on the provision of relevant training for South African investment specialists.

We describe a 13 1/2‐year‐old boy with de novo inverted interstitial duplication 8q22.1‐q21.1 associated with mild phenotypic abnormalities, learning disabilities and autism. Psychometric and psychiatric evaluation was performed. Clinical genetic evaluation was supported by chromosome analysis of blood lymphocytes using GTG‐banding technique and Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH) with whole chromosome painting 8 probe. Clinical evaluation revealed mild phenotypic abnormalities, moderate learning disabilities and mild autistic disorder. The karyotype of the proband was interpreted as 46, XYqh+pat, 8q+.ish inv dup(8)(q22.1;q21.2)(wcp8+) de novo. Although partial trisomy for other segments of 8q, as well as mosaic trisomy 8, have been described in numerous cases, interstitial duplication of 8q21‐q22 seems extremely rare and the severity of the phenotypic abnormalities ranges from mild to profound.

The chapter investigates: (1) Do married parents efficiently allocate time to children’s health care? (2) Are parents willing to sacrifice consumption for health improvements at an equal rate for all family members? (3) How does family structure affect health trade-offs parents make? (4) Are parental choices consistent with maximization of a single utility function?

A model is specified focusing on how parents allocate resources between consumption and goods that relieve acute illnesses for family members. Equivalent surplus functions measuring parental willingness to pay to relieve acute illnesses are estimated using data from a stated-preference survey.

Results provide limited support for the prediction that married parents allocate time to child health care according to comparative advantage. Valuations of avoided illness vary between family members and are inconsistent with the hypothesis that fathers’ and mothers’ choices reflect a common utility function.

Prior research on children’s health valuation has relied on a unitary framework that is rejected here. Valuation researchers have focused on allocation of resources between parents and children while ignoring allocation of resources among children, whereas results suggest significant heterogeneity in valuation of health of different types of children and of children in different types of households.

Results may provide a justification on efficiency grounds for policies to provide special protection for children’s health and suggest that benefit–cost analyses of policies affecting health should include separate estimates of the benefits of health improvements for children and adults.

Sets out to report on an exploratory study in which perspectives on cross‐cultural counselling in mental health care in Auckland, New Zealand, are to be examined.

The study utilised a single questionnaire which sought mental health professionals' perceptions on issues and concepts of cross‐cultural counselling. The questionnaire was administered in the nine public psychiatric units in Auckland.

Apart from the health units providing bicultural (European and Maori) counselling services, there was little cross‐cultural counselling available to an increasingly multicultural community.

With regard to the need for cross‐cultural counselling, rather than address the issue of population change this study examines the effect that lack of diversity would have on the gains that would otherwise be made in the health‐care system of Auckland, New Zealand.

This seminal research investigates the adaptation experiences of elderly dependent Chinese immigrants who have come to New Zealand under the Family Reunion Category between 1994 and 1998. The study involved a group‐administered questionnaire to measure the various aspects of the adaptation experiences of 105 elderly dependent Chinese from China aged 50 years and over. The data set was subjected to ANOVA, Kruskal‐Wallis and Factor Analysis to analyse and establish relationships between variables. The results confirmed that there were five main factors that influence the living conditions of the elderly dependent Chinese immigrants in New Zealand. These were, in order of severity, communication in the English language, medical care, transportation, cost of living and interestingly relationships with other family members. The study also confirmed that age, length of time in New Zealand, and the need to stay in New Zealand permanently influenced the adaptability of the elderly Chinese immigrants in New Zealand.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a deep learning approach can impact the construction industry.

The objectives of this paper were to investigate: the awareness of people dealing with sustainability in their daily working environment; how much training and information construction industry workers have had in the topic of sustainability; and if a deep learning approach to sustainability teaching can make an impact on everyday practise in the industry. With these objectives, following a literature review, a questionnaire survey has been applied to 133 office and site‐based construction workers. In total, 50 office‐based workers and 50 site‐based workers participated.

The findings reveal that deep learning can be a possible opportunity and that the Government and the construction industry should explore it when training their staff. Although there are agencies which specifically deal with green issues, they are not widely embraced and workers currently just use them as a way to meet criteria and not to fully grasp the concept and incorporate it into their everyday practice. If deep learning can be embraced it can lead to a continuous improvement in green practice.

With the UK government recently setting new targets for sustainability, it is important that the construction industry takes actions to reduce its carbon footprint. The construction industry needs to improve its ability to train and teach its staff about the importance of green issues and environmentally‐friendly practices. This paper presents the results of research which may contribute to meeting the government targets and can be useful for practitioners and researchers.

This study aims to explicate the behavioral factors that determine willingness to share personal health data for secondary uses.

A theoretical model is developed and tested with structural equation modeling using survey data from Finland.

It is shown that attitude toward information sharing is the strongest factor contributing to the willingness to share personal health information (PHI). Trust and control serve as mediating factors between the attitude and willingness to share PHI.

The measures of the model need further refinement to cover the various aspects of the behavioral concepts.

The model provides useful insights into the factors that affect the willingness for information sharing in health care and in other areas where personal information is distributed.

Sharing of PHI for secondary purposes can offer social benefits through improvements in health-care performance.

A broad-scale empirical data gives a unique view of attitudes toward sharing of PHI in one national setting.

The purpose of this chapter is to ask and answer the question of what would happen if Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) plant materials were banned. We report on two studies – one with United States only ban and one with a global ban. We used a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), for the analysis. This model has been used in hundreds of published papers on trade, energy, land use, and environmental issues. Our use of the model was to estimate the crop yield benefits for the major GMO crops, and then to convert this to a loss if the GMO traits were banned. We then shocked the GTAP model with the yield losses and estimate economic, land use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission impacts. We found that losing the GM technology would cause commodity and food prices to increase and also bring about a significant increase in GHG emissions. The increase in emissions is caused by the need to convert forest and pasture to compensate for the lost production. Another interesting conclusion of the global ban study is that economic well-being for the United States, the world’s largest GMO user, actually increases with a ban. Many regions that ban or use little GMO varieties like the European Union, India, China, and Japan all see economic well-being decrease. These counterintuitive results are driven mainly by trade patterns. Therefore GMO technology helps agriculture reduce its carbon footprint. Without this technology, agricultural land-use GHG emissions increase as do food prices. Some groups would like to see GMOs banned and also see GHG emissions fall. You cannot have it both ways.

The purpose of this paper is to present the factors that form the innovation environment in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, from a case study in a Brazilian multinational company operating in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and BPO segment.

Minnesota Innovation Research Program (MIRP) questionnaire was adopted, aimed to environment conducive to innovation. It was applied to a sample of employees, from different hierarchical levels, who participated in an innovation training program developed and implemented by the organization. The data were analyzed to verify, in a simplified initial diagnosis, the influence of internal and external factors defined by MIRP in the company's innovation process.

Innovation management process focuses predominantly on processes (71.4% of occurrences). As impact of the factors: results (88.9%), autonomy (76.3%), leadership (74.9%), resources (74.6%), internal relationship of the innovation group (73.1%), formalization (68.4%), processes (64.5%), relationship effectiveness (63.7%), external relationship of the innovation group (63.2%) and dependence on external resources (52.6%). There was confirmation that the innovation program of company is effective and that the culture of innovation is institutionalized.

A crossing of supplementary information could reveal some significant difference in the perception of the innovative culture and performance of the innovation processes between distinguished profiles.

Better guidance for management of ICT/BPO companies in an Open Innovation paradigm.

Better relationship among the actors of an Open Innovation industry arrangement.

Improvement of the innovation process can occur through a greater focus on Open Innovation.