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The leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced to negotiate a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) in November 2012, which is comprised of 10 ASEAN Member States (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar) and its six FTA partner countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). Embedded in the ASEAN Charter and implemented in all existing ASEAN + 1 FTAs, the ASEAN Centrality has been a corner stone principle in ASEAN-centric economic initiatives. Emerging discord in the region, complicated security climate and the rise of China, among others, have put the ASEAN Centrality under challenge. The development of the RCEP provides a timely case to assess ASEAN’s leadership role in creating the world’s most populous Free Trade Area. The RCEP may enhance ASEAN’s central role, but ASEAN needs to address challenges facing the regional integration now and beyond 2015. On the country/economy level, the chapter reviews some ASEAN Member States and their FTA Partners how they practice their ASEAN policy and seek leadership role in ASEAN. The three major players in ASEAN-Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have reiterated the importance of the ASEAN Centrality in their foreign policy in the past, but debates emerge whether, such as in Indonesia, ASEAN Centrality best suits the national interests. The chapter also explores how the major powers, including China and the United States, respond to and collaborate with the group of smaller developing country players.

Purpose – The broader aim of the research is to better understand the origins of firm heterogeneity in terms of strategy and structure, looking beyond convergence pressures resulting from economic and institutional forces.

Design/methodology/approach – To identify firm-specific differences, the paper uses an in-depth analysis of two matched cases, comparing the introduction of diversification strategies and decentralized organizational structures in two Dutch banks. Based on detailed archival research it tries to understand how different outcomes were shaped by political processes involving a variety of internal and external actors.

Findings – The research shows the importance of these processes and, in particular, the role of management succession as a trigger for organizational changes as well as the potential power of management consultants based on a combination of their own “political” skills and the opportunity provided by internal divisions. Moreover, the study confirms the view that organizational change requires a change in dominant ideology.

Research limitations/implications – The research was able to go beyond the limitations of extant studies based on cross-sectional data or single cases. It demonstrates the usefulness of historical analysis when examining changes in strategy and structure. Its results need to be confirmed by conducting similar studies in different contexts.

Originality/value – The paper provides new insights into the complex and dynamic processes of organizational change and shows how external consultants – within a specific set of circumstances – were able to manage these processes. The results are valuable to scholars studying organizational change and those looking at consultants and their role. They might also provide insights for practicing managers working or planning to work with consultants.

The Department of Economics at the University of Oklahoma (Norman) began its Doctoral program in Economics under the Chairmanship of Jim E. Reese [Brinker, 4]. The Department graduated its first Doctoral student in 1951, a student who had received his Masters Degree of Science in Chemical Engineering, 1948. From 1951 to 1995, the Department has granted approximately 101 Doctoral degrees in Economics according to records. Its graduates teach in 62 Universities, foreign and domestic; work for or have worked for the Federal Reserve Bank; The Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States; The Council of Economic Advisors to the President; and The International Monetary Fund. Included are one sitting Congressman and one 1996 Vice Presidential candidate, as well as persons employed in private practice, business, or consulting. There have been 12 women granted the Doctoral Degree which places the Department above the national average.

A vector autoregression model estimated on US data before and after 1980 documents systematic differences in the response of short- and long-term interest rates, corporate bond spreads and durable spending to news total factor productivity shocks. Interest rates across the maturity spectrum broadly increase in the pre-1980s and broadly decline in the post-1980s. Corporate bond spreads decline significantly, and durable spending rises significantly in the post-1980 period while the opposite short-run response is observed in the pre-1980 period. Measuring expectations of future monetary policy rates conditional on a news shock suggests that the Federal Reserve has adopted a restrictive stance before the 1980s with the goal of retaining control over inflation while adopting a neutral/accommodative stance in the post-1980 period.

Specialised literature on democratisation has generally presented the Spanish case as the model of an elite-led political settlement. This approach forms the basis of the most widespread interpretation of Spain's transition to democracy as a work of top-down political engineering. However, this scholarship fails to pay sufficient attention to the capacity for agency of civil society and both “old” and “new” social movements. In fact, although there is no doubt that democracy arrived in Spain by means of a negotiated transition, it must not be forgotten that the pacts among elites were influenced, as is demonstrated here, by relentless social pressure among highly organised collective actors, including the Communist Party. This paper shows that protests by this organisation and other collective actors in the most socioeconomically underdeveloped provinces of Spain, most of which have been ignored by the most influential scholarship on the transition, were vitally important in the negotiated path to democracy. As such, it investigates the relationship between social unrest and political change through the study of provinces which, a priori, were considered to be socially and politically inactive. This analysis of popular mobilisation in poor and politically marginalised provinces enables a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the dynamics from below, which were fundamental in Spain's transition process.

Purpose – To review the performance and growth of mining industry in India against current global vision and trend of the industrial growth internationally. Also, to evolve the strategic policy for evaluating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme initiatives taken by the Indian mining industry at large as well as the impacts thereof, with special reference to affected and most vulnerable mining belts in India.Design/methodology/approach – An attempt has been made in the chapter to have a holistic sectoral review of the overall performance of the mining industry in India for the past one decade, as well as its claimed impact on improvement of ecological quality and socio-economic growth in the mining belts. The chapter reviews the state of the impact of ‘CSR’ initiatives and programmes on environment as well as the mining community in terms of stakeholders’ involvement and protection of rights in developing socio-economic business equity. The chapter also critically analyses the policy dimensions – including mining industry's operational framework, which can attribute towards developing future strategy for sustainable development of the mining industry at large, through evolving a series of reform processes, adequately backed up by innovative CSR policy and programme initiatives, together with well-defined implementation, monitoring, evaluation strategies and standards.Findings – The mining industries in India have a huge potential for growth to support the other industries for which bulk of the raw materials are derived from this industrial segment. Several research and developmental studies conducted by different organisations spread across the globe have convincingly been able to link the prospect of industrial growth and long-term sustainability with the stakeholders’ participatory and proactive roles along with those of the industry for holistic and integrated socio-economic development of the mining areas. This has been possible through careful designing of the CSR programmes and initiatives by several mining companies in India (with varying degree of success and failures) with close monitoring and performance evaluation of the impact of the programmes in ecological, economical and sustainability terms against certain pre-designed standards. Such standards – as they are constantly evolving – should inter alia include ethical and transparency dimensions to ensure total involvement of the local community in the mining-affected areas. Proper compensation mechanisms and socio-economic growth of the mining community will not only improve productivity, but will also take care of ecological and economic safeguard of the mined coal blocks that are highly vulnerable to ecological degradation and economic exploitation. As for future strategy for sustainable industrial growth of the mining industry in India, there should be constant monitoring and evaluation of the various provisions of the various Acts related to mining, minerals, metals, energy, power, environment, etc. that are constantly under review and reforms processes with a view to guiding the future strategy. International co-operation in the mining sector will go a long way for sustainable growth and development of the mining industry in India for boosting the economic growth of the country.Research limitations/implications – Future research on the theme should focus on identification of replicable and sustainable model of CSR practices in the mining industry by developing illustrative business models on the basis of global experiences. Sustainability reporting and identification of better qualitative as well as quantitative parameters, tools and techniques to study the impact of CSR practices on the socio-economic growth of the affected mining community should be the focus of future research.Social implications – The findings (serving as messages) of this piece of research will certainly have an impact on society. This in turn, will, hopefully influence public attitudes, and by implications, it will also influence (corporate) social responsibility or environmental issues.Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter is innovative and, among other things, addresses some of recently reported burning issues affecting the interests of the mining industry on one hand, and the national economy of the affected countries on the other.