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Responding to Colbert’s (2004) call for research examining the complexity of work systems’ effect on performance, and following Meyer and Dunphy’s (2014, 2015) work determining the general manner by which the complex mechanism of strategy choice and its implementation effect corporate performance, the purpose of this paper is to specify and test a model of the effects of workplace factors affecting employee responses to the demand for increased knowledge in using technology.

Drawing on the literature on the resource-based view of strategy and the knowledge-based (KB) view of human resource management system implementation, theory is developed, and hypotheses are generated, regarding employee attitudes toward skill development, technology, employment security, and feedback and their impact on competence and impact. Meaningfulness, self-determination, work conditions, and intensity are controlled for. Data from a sample of 888 employees, 24 managers, and corporate executives across eight Detroit-area automotive supplier firms are used to test the model using structural equation modeling.

Individual psychological states of competence and impact are positively and strongly associated with KB psychological climates that foster and condition positive beliefs about the importance of learning new skills and about the effects of the diffusion of new technologies on employees.

The complexity of the interactions of management implementation of workplace practices on employee performance still needs more sorting out. Only unionized employers pursuing high-involvement work systems were studied. Other types of employers would have very different workplace climates.

Only unionized employers pursuing high-involvement work systems were studied. Other types of employers would have very different workplace climates.

In order to have employees be receptive to changing technology and the resulting, increased demands for knowledge and skill, employers have to provide long-term employment security.

The results provide the specific manner by which employers can increase employee receptiveness to increase workplace knowledge and training to have more impact on their performance.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the main UNESCO sites in China. The cases under study offer some insight into the complexity of the management of Chinese cultural organizations, as well as the problem of the presentation of China's heritage in a new global context.

The paper is based on field research in 2008/2009 on the Chinese sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List (WHL). While details of the research will be provided in a later stage, some interesting findings and patterns are emerging.

Building on the evidence of several case studies, a preliminary evaluation of the costs, the benefits and the negative outcomes of the listing process is presented in the second section. In a nutshell, the process appears to be increasingly expensive for local government and, despite the expectations for successful inscription onto the WHL, results in terms of increased tourism income are not always guaranteed. On the one hand, being listed raises the awareness of heritage protection among the general public but, on the other, there are also risks connected to tourism overexploitation.

From a methodological point of view the study points out the scarce quality of basic data regarding visitors and financial issues among Chinese World Heritage sites. This is particularly critical for sustainable development if it is considered that a World Heritage site should be accountable to the international audience. In the final section of the paper some open questions concerning sites' management models are presented.

Se Heine non giunse fino a Roma, in compenso vi arrivarono altri non meno illustri tedeschi, il cui genio si immortalò nel campo musicale. Per non parlare di Händel, che visitò Roma nel 1707, nè di Gluck, che vi venne nel 1756, ricorderemoper il'700 — Wolfango Amedeo Mozart e — per 1'800 — Riccardo Wagner.

This article describes the implementation of Joint Economic Development Districts between the City of Akron, Ohio and surrounding townships. We examine the capacity of the JEDD structure to make Akron’s boundaries more “elastic” without contentious annexation, explore its capacity to serve as a vehicle for cooperative regional economic development, and assess its utility as mechanism for generating the funds necessary to finance the infrastructure improvements required for economic development. Preliminary indications are that the JEDD mechanism will allow the benefits of economic development to accrue to Akron while it avoids costly and contentious annexations and will generate funds to support economic development, but it does not manifest a cooperative, regional approach to economic development.

Aim of this paper is to evaluate the reliability of UNESCO Periodic Reports for the assessment of hazards affecting the UNESCO world heritage sites (WHSs) and to rank the most critical WHSs in Europe through multicriteria analysis.

The Periodic Reports represent the available continental-scale knowledge on hazards that threaten the WHSs in Europe and include 13 different natural threats. The information included in these reports has been first validated with high-quality data available in Italy for volcanoes, landslides, and earthquakes. Starting from the Periodic Reports, a multicriteria hazard analysis has been developed by using the analytical hierarchy procedure (AHP) approach. This analysis allows to identify and to rank the most critical WHSs at the European scale.

The data provided by Periodic Reports are demonstrated to be a good starting point for a continental-scale analysis of the actual distribution of natural threats affecting WHSs in Europe. The Periodic Reports appear to be reliable enough for a first-order assessment of hazards. The general overview of the hazard at the European scale shows high value of hazard index in the Eastern Mediterranean area and Balkans, due to a combination of earthquakes and landslides. The most at danger cultural site is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the most at danger natural site is Norway.

The paper gives a contribution to improve the continental-scale knowledge on hazards affecting the UNESCO heritage sites. The assessment of hazard inside the WHSs is an important task for the preservation of cultural and natural heritage, and it is important for UNESCO to achieve some of its goals. Through this research, European WHSs have been ranked according to their degree of hazard.

This article describes the emergence of the bibliographic utilities and the services they were able to offer to libraries in the face of the high costs and risks of computerization. In 1980 the utilities had dreams of one vast national bibliographic network and a network‐based total library system providing not only cataloging and location facilities but also acquisition, circulation, serials control and interlibrary loan facilities, too. The reasons why these dreams never materialised are noted together with factors why, although they are still major participants in the library automation and networking environment today, the four main bibliographic utilities in North America are declining in so far as use of their traditional services is concerned. The factors discussed include the trends towards decentralized operation with turnkey integrated library systems, the trend towards local resource sharing and the rapidly growing sophistication of librarians with computers. In Part 2, (to appear in the next issue of The Electronic Library) the ways in which the bibliographic utilities are fighting back to try and overcome these adverse trends will be discussed.

This paper illustrates the aims and the contents of the 1995 Local Government Accounting Act, which introduced an accrual-based financial reporting for Italian municipalities and provinces. To this end, this paper focuses on a sample of 23 local governments that produced these reports for the first time in 1998, and highlights a series of problems that emerged with regard to both communicational efficacy and fair presentation. The conclusions summarize the major gaps between the reform’s objectives and actual effects, and explain the reasons for these gaps and formulate some suggestions in order to re-design the system.