Inside the Velvet Glove: Sustaining Private Regulatory Institutions Through Hollowing and Fortifying

The forces that threaten to break apart private regulatory institutions are well known, but the forces that sustain them are not. Through a longitudinal inductive study of the Toward Sustainable Mining (TSM) program in the Canadian mining industry, we demonstrate how private regulatory institutions are sustained by strategically manipulating different aspects of an institution’s stringency. Our findings show how shifts in external conditions decreased benefits of participation for firms, triggering institutional destabilization. We demonstrate how the interdependent mechanisms of hollowing—actions that ratchet down aspects of stringency associated with high compliance costs—and fortifying—actions that ratchet up aspects of stringency associated with low compliance costs—worked together to stabilize the institution by rebalancing the competing pressures that underpin it. However, these same mechanisms can hinder the ability of these institutions to substantively address the targeted issues, even as they become more stringent in some areas. Our study advances research on private regulation by showing how different aspects of stringency can be simultaneously ratcheted up and ratcheted down to sustain private regulatory institutions. Further, in positioning institutional stability as an ongoing negotiation, we elucidate the key custodial role of governing organizations like trade associations in institutional maintenance.

THE IMPACT OF COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE ACQUISITION AND UTILIZATION ON HOTELS' PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA

Acquisition and frequency utilisation of Competitive Intelligence (CI) are critical strategic activities designed to assist firms in evaluating emerging trends in their business environments, major and potential threats, capabilities, and competitions for businesses today, particularly in the tourism and hotel sectors. However, there is still ambiguity about the impact of competitive-intelligence acquisition (CIA) and utilisation (CIU) on firms' performance, particularly for the hotel industry in a developing country such as Malaysia. Thus, the purposes of this research are to define the nature of CI practice in Malaysian hotels, and to illustrate the relative importance of various CIA types and sources to marketing managers in Malaysian hotels, moreover, to investigate the impact of CIA and CIU on the financial and non-financial performance of Malaysian hotels. A quantitative research design was adopted in this study. To obtain the necessary data for analysing the hypothesised model of the study, 505 questionnaires were issued to marketing managers in member hotels of the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH), and a total of 184 analyzable questionnaires were gathered, with a response rate of 34.44%. The research data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling and statistical package for social sciences "SPSS". Despite that half of the responding hotels practiced CI informally, and many of these hotels began practicing CI five years ago, the study found that hotel marketing managers have high and medium interest levels for most types and sources of CI in Malaysia, these five CIA's types were the most important: (1) competitors, (2) customers, (3) human resources, (4) socio-cultural, and (5) Global. As well, these five CIA's sources were the most important: the internet and extranets, (2) customers, (3) electronic information services/intranets, (4) business associates, and (5) newspapers and periodicals, and industry trade associations. Furthermore, the results indicate that CIA and CIU had a positive and significant impact on hotels' performance, but CIU has the most effect. These findings enrich those in positions of power like owners, managers, and practitioners, as well as academicians, with greater knowledge of the relationship and influence of CIA and CIU on firms' performance, particularly for hospitality and tourism firms.

Pieturzīmes senajos latviešu tekstos

Early written Latvian texts are important sources not only for linguistics but also for culture and social studies. Latvian texts (and indeed Latvian culture as a whole) show consistent German influence. These texts were produced in a cross-cultural context of Catholicism and Protestantism and display elements from local folklore. The history of the Latvian written language dates to the 16th century and is largely linked to the Reformation of the Church. The earliest texts from the 16th century are various versions of translations of the Lord’s Prayer, as well as separate short records in the books of Riga trade associations. Since the 17th century, the scope of genres of written sources widens: lexicographical, legal, and other secular texts have been published. There are two significant aspects of these early Latvian texts. The first is that most of the texts were translations from German, Latin, and Polish, and there were very few original texts. The second aspect is that most of the translators were not native speakers of Latvian. First punctuation marks in Latvian appeared in the 16th century in translations from the German language. In 16th-century texts, the following punctuation marks – point, question mark, slash, double hyphen, colon, and parentheses – were used. Semicolons and exclamation marks were used in 17th-century writings. The following punctuation marks have entered the 18th century: a dash, dots, round quotation marks, a comma, and an apostrophe, but they had been used on a different basis than today. While reading various texts of the 16th and the 17th century, the author also looked at the punctuation marks used at this time – a point, a question mark, a slash, a colon, a semicolon, brackets, a double hyphen, and an exclamation mark. In this study, the use of punctuation marks of 11 texts of Early Written Latvian is analyzed, and a comparison of Early Latvian Texts and the Luther Bible is given. The descriptive method and the comparative method are used. At the end of the paper, the main conclusions are given.

Analysis of the Functioning of Clusters in Poland

The cluster concept has gained special significance after the publication of the works of M. Porter “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”(1990). But the most popular definition of industrial cluster was formed eight years later, when he wrote that clusters are:“geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (e.g. universities, standards agencies, trade associations) in a particular field that compete but also cooperate”(Porter, 1998, p. 197). A cluster as a regionally focused form of economic activity generates positive effects for business and the region. Global researchers suggest that clusters help to increase the innovation and competitiveness of the country in which they are located. Since the 90s clusters have become an increasingly important element of economic development and innovation strategy of the European Union and its Member States. In years 2007–2013, clusters are expected to one of the objectives of support for EU regional policy. EU funds destined for cluster initiatives will help to take concrete actions by entrepreneurs interested in the cluster activity. Poland has recently joined the countries interested in popularizing the idea of clusters. Some specialized cluster studies have been carried out in Poland identifying clusters. This article gives an overview on policy support, formation and the functioning of clusters in Poland.

Litigation and Lobbying in Support of the Marque: The Scotch Whisky Association, c. 1945–c. 1990

We examine the Scotch Whisky Association’s (SWA) role in protecting “Scotch whisky” between c. 1945 and c. 1990. Using new archival evidence, we demonstrate that the SWA intensively lobbied the UK government to achieve coordination between domestic and European regulations governing Scotch whisky and whisky. The SWA’s nonmarket activities were consonant with some trade associations but in other respects they were atypical. The SWA extended its activities to supranational bodies and engaged in extensive domestic and foreign litigation. The key message from this article is that the SWA built the world-renowned appellation “Scotch whisky” even though this marque was not registered as an appellation until the late twentieth century.

Internalization of Advertising Services: Testing a Theory of the Firm

In 1956, a group of trade associations representing publishers and independent advertising agencies signed a consent decree aimed at ending a set of trade practices that for half a century effectively precluded advertisers from owning and operating in-house agencies. Since then, large firms have internalized more and more of the services formerly performed by external agencies, perhaps as many as half. We use this phenomenon to test a theory of the firm, thereby simultaneously offering an explanation for it. The theory suggests that firms should internalize activities for which their competitive position implies (1) that it is more important for human capital to be firm specific as opposed to function specific and (2) that frequent modifications are desirable. It also predicts (3) that these two effects reinforce each other. This is the first paper to report on a test of the specialization hypothesis, and we find that it is robustly significant in a cross-sectional data set covering nine different agency activities in 79 firms. In addition to the cross-sectional test, we informally present some time-series data suggesting that both specialization and frequency have grown over time along with the level of internalization.

Who are engaging in the nano-specific partner expert groups? An analysis of partner expert groups vs. expert groups

Background Consultation with partner expert groups (PEGs) is an important step in updating guidance under European chemical legislation concerning nanomaterials. Here, we briefly review the differences between PEGs and the broader use of expert groups in general, and scrutinise the five closed - and one ongoing-nano-specific PEGs to investigate stakeholder composition, level of engagement and the extent to which stakeholder comments resulted in revisions being implemented in ECHA’s draft guidance. Results Thirty-six different stakeholders were identified as having been involved in the closed PEG consultations, and an additional nine are currently involved in an ongoing PEG. For the closed PEG consultations, industry and trade associations (I&Ts) and member or associated member states (MSCAs) were the most represented groups, accounting for 15 and 13 members, respectively, whereas non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and European Union bodies (EUB) accounted for four members each. Interestingly, Academia was not represented. A total of 2700 comments were provided to ECHA’s draft guidance updates. Of these, MSCAs, I&Ts, EUB and NGOs accounted for 924, 876, 771 and 126 comments, of which 678, 494, 547 and 70 were adopted by ECHA, respectively. Eight stakeholders did not provide a comment. Conclusions Even though EGs and PEGs are not fully comparable, we find that they hold many similarities. The nano-specific PEGs are influenced by a few very active stakeholders that have the time, resources and motivation to engage extensively while some stakeholder groups are partly or completely missing. We recommend that ECHA provides funding opportunities for less resourceful stakeholders, in order to minimise the effects of scarce funding on engagement. Furthermore, we recommend broadening the list of accredited stakeholder organisations, thereby allowing for more diversity among stakeholders involved, e.g. Academia, and that ECHA provides a justification for inclusion of the PEG members.