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This article identifies major public financial management developments in the European Community (EC). Despite a certain degree of disparity, the EC member countries have had a number of common developments in public financial management. In general, central governments of most EC member countries were faced with resource constraints, growing spending demands and large budget deficits. Moreover, fiscal changes had to be made in order to reach the single European market goal targeted by 1992. Thus, several fiscal policy and management initiatives were developed including tax reforms, changes in spending programs, improve-ments of government performance, and fiscal harmonization. The results of these initiatives are reflected in the patterns of central government receipts and outlays in the EC member countries.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the problems encountered and the solutions developed when using benchmarking and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor a major UK social house building innovation (change) programme. The innovation programme sought improvements to both the quality of the house product and the procurement process.

Benchmarking and KPIs were used to quantify performance and in‐depth case studies to identify underlying cause and effect relationships within the innovation programme.

The inherent competition between consortium members; the complexity of the relationship between the consortium and its strategic partner; the lack of an authoritative management control structure; and the rapidly changing nature of the UK social housing market all proved problematic to the development of a reliable and robust monitoring system. These problems were overcome by the development of multi‐dimensional benchmarking model that balanced the needs and aspirations of the individual organisations with the broader objectives of the consortium.

Whilst the research methodology provides insight into the factors that affected the performance of a major innovation programme its findings may not be representative of all projects.

The lessons learnt should assist those developing benchmarking models for multi‐client consortia.

The work reported in this paper describes an inclusive approach to benchmarking in which a multiple client group and their strategic partner sought to work together for shared gain. Very few papers have addressed this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, assess and explore potential risks that can affect long‐term viability of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in the post‐implementation and exploitation phase.

The research took a large Chinese private group as a case study. A theoretical ERP risk ontology, which was adopted from the literature, was used to frame the study and generate data collection tools. Two questionnaires were thus designed and used to explore ERP post‐implementation risks in the case company.

The study identified 37 risk events, of which seven were identified as the most critical for ERP exploitation in the case company. The findings show that organisational and human‐related risks are the crucial factors for potential ERP failure and not the usually suspect technical risks.

This study contributes to the knowledge of ERP in general, and provides valuable insights into ERP post‐implementation risks in large companies in particular.

The findings will not just be useful in supporting ERP risk identification and management in the large Chinese companies, but will also be beneficial to other large companies in general, which may be confronted with similar ERP exploitation challenges.

The majority of large companies in China and in the West have implemented ERP systems and engaged in the system post‐implementation phase. Most of the existing literature in the field focuses on the process of implementation. This paper looks forward to the risks involved in the post‐implementation phase. Understanding potential risks that may occur during ERP exploitation is vital for these large firms to achieve and sustain business success through their ERP systems.

After great Wars, the years that follow are always times of disquiet and uncertainty; the country is shabby and exhausted, but beneath it, there is hope, expectancy, nay! certainty, that better times are coming. Perhaps the golden promise of the fifties and sixties failed to mature, but we entered the seventies with most people confident that the country would turn the corner; it did but unfortunately not the right one! Not inappropriate they have been dubbed the “striking seventies”. The process was not one of recovery but of slow, relentless deterioration. One way of knowing how your country is going is to visit others. At first, prices were cheaper that at home; the £ went farther and was readily acceptabble, but year by year, it seemed that prices were rising, but it was in truth the £ falling in value; no longer so easily changed. Most thinking Continentals had only a sneer for “decadent England”. Kinsmen from overseas wanted to think well of us but simply could not understand what was happening.

The purpose of this chapter is to critically review the Korean Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy in terms of its context, actors, structures, and values so as to find how these characteristics are reflected in the education ODA of Korea. Previous studies, documents of Korean Government, and ODA-related statistics are reviewed. Self-confident in being transformed from a poor recipient country to a DAC donor, Korean government emphasizes the so-called Korean ODA Model in sharing its economic development knowledge and experiences with the developing countries. Despite the coordination effort by Prime Minister’s Office, government ministries tend to pursue its own ODA policies, while the finance ministry and the ministry of foreign affairs play major roles. As a result Korean ODA is economy-oriented, fragmented, and uncoordinated in planning and implementation. This study has found that such characteristics of Korean ODA are also reflected in the education ODA. For instance, TVET and higher education are the priority, while basic education is neglected, and the education ministry has its own ODA policies and programs. Outside studies on Korean ODA policy is rather scarce, furthermore, critical reviews other than policy advocacy are hard to find, particularly in English. This study will be a good start for further ones to understand the Korean ODA policy including education.

We examine the allocation of a pre-determined amount of aid from a donor to two recipient countries. The donor suffers from cross-border pollution resulting from production activities in the recipient countries. It is shown that the recipient with the higher fraction of aid allocated to public abatement and with the lower emission tax, receives a higher share of the aid when the donor allocates aid so as to maximize its own welfare. Competition for aid reduces cross-border pollution to the donor when recipients use the fraction of aid allocated to pollution abatement as a policy to divert aid from each other. But, it increases cross-border pollution when recipients use the emission tax to divert aid from each other.