可持续城市开发的策略与理念——以英国诺丁汉科学园项目为例

通过对蓝图伙伴关系机构及其开发的诺丁汉科学园的实例分析,解读英国城市复兴中的多方伙伴关系、社会责任投资政策和环境可持续理念,以期为我国可持续城市开发提供有益借鉴。     

企业资源配置战略与盈余持续性

盈余持续性是盈余质量的重要特征。较高的盈余持续性预示着企业的盈余质量较高,在一定程度上表明企业的经营状况平稳并具有良好的管理水平,有利于企业降低经营风险、提升公司价值。近年来,盈余持续性已经成为资本市场研究领域的一个热点问题。以我国A股市场2007—2017年非金融类上市公司为样本,对企业资源配置战略与盈余持续性之间的关系进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,经营主导型公司的盈余持续性要显著强于投资主导型公司;进一步区分具体的盈余构成后发现,经营主导型公司核心利润的持续性显著强于投资主导型公司,但其投资收益的持续性显著弱于投资主导型公司。上述结论表明,盈余及其构成的持续性均会受到公司资源配置战略的影响。相关研究结论既为公司资源配置战略影响盈余特征提供了经验证据,又对外部利益相关者透过战略本质看清会计信息的内在价值具有一定的启示作用。     

资源、环境与可持续发展

随着全球人口不断增加和经济持续增长，自然环境和资源受到的压力将越来越大。人类虽然在改善环境方面取得了明显的进步，但是全球经济发展的速度和规模、不断增加的全球环境污染以及地球上可再生资源基础的退化有可能将此抵消。健康、生物多样性、农业生产、水和能源是人类面临的严峻挑战，而这些挑战又与资源、环境、人口、贫困、体制等问题密切相关，它们是涉及当前可持续发展的一系列重大问题。因此．我们必须以这些问题为切入点探讨实现可持续发展的对策。     

Raising awareness of transformative ecosocial work: Participatory action research with Australian practitioners

This article reports on Participatory Action Research with social work practitioners who collaboratively explored the effects on professional practice when practitioners raise their awareness of an ecosocial work approach. Although contemporary research in the profession has contributed to the ongoing development of ecosocial work, there is a notable lack of collaboration with social work practitioners. Using a transformative ecosocial work model of practice, researchers together with social workers from a range of practice contexts met as co‐inquirers to plan, implement and evaluate ecosocial work interventions. As part of a larger international study, this article reports on research outcomes within the Australian context. Overall, results indicate that practitioners incorporated interventions across personal, individual, group and organisational levels of practice, but were constrained by structural elements at broader levels. Continuing the development of ecosocial work requires further collaborative exploration with practitioners, which takes into consideration communities and broader social and political systems. Key Practitioner Messages: ? This research endeavours to contribute to the evidence‐base for progressing transformative ecosocial work in professional practice; ? Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), this research was done in collaboration with social work practitioners as co‐inquirers to develop ecosocial work interventions; ? A range of ecosocial work interventions were implemented at the personal, individual, group and organisational levels.     

Operationalising lean in healthcare: the impact of professionalism

Abstract

Lean is endorsed as policy in practice in the UK but the challenges and complexities affecting Lean in healthcare are still to be adequately assessed. Through a qualitative single case study of an NHS organisation implementing Lean, 43 interviews with multi-disciplinary team members involved in Lean were conducted. The progress of Lean is found to be inhibited as medical professionals have failed to engage or provide clinical leadership in supporting the trajectory of Lean. This resulted in limited outcomes, sustainability implications, and failed projects. Lean is challenged by complexity and this is evident in conflicts between professional identity, corresponding status and clinical/managerial relationships. Medical professionals as a group have received a limited focus in papers assessing the progress of Lean in Healthcare from an operational perspective. Going forward, strategies for mitigating the negative impact of this can be developed to support operational managers in the healthcare domain.     

对实现西部旅游资源可持续开发利用手段的经济学分析

西部地区旅游资源具有很强的独特性和垄断性,但又有很强的脆弱性;在缺乏外部刚性约束力的情况下,只追求局部最大经济效益是以较大的社会成本为代价的,因此运用经济手段对不同条件下旅游景区资源的游客形成分散拉力,是十分必要的。     

Understanding the Sustainability of Insurgency Conflict in Thailand

Abstract

This article seeks to model the insurgency conflict in the three southern border provinces of the Kingdom of Thailand: Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. In so doing, it will explore the sustainability of the conflict by representing it in terms of a conflict life cycle that is responsive to complexity and change. The cycle arises from the cybernetic viable systems theory of ‘living systems’, and is able to foster a better understanding of what is happening empirically on the social level in these provinces, in respect to a situation characterized as one of incessant conflicts. This conflict model that arises suggests that there is an interconnection between the agents involved, and their individual and interactive dynamics. The conflict involves five types of politically related behaviours that occur between two interactive agents: the state (engaged in searching for and making arrests of insurgents) and the insurgents (engaged in violent acts of shooting, bombing, and arson). These agents are studied to the end of being able to determine the precise interactive nature of the political conflict in which they are engaged. In carrying out this investigation both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. The research was carried out in three stages. In the first stage, time series techniques were used to determine inferentially whether the conflict is both rational and involves interactive behaviours. Stage two adopts the Weibull distribution technique to assess the political conflict. In the third stage, a statistical analysis is conducted of the conflict situation in political terms. Finally, it is explained how the model and the methods used in this article may be used to deal with intractable conflict in other social environments, incidentally tracking the likelihood of conflicts being sustainable. Other agencies could utilize this approach in examining other political conflicts so as to be better able to prepare suitable approaches for coping with intractable conflicts to the end of fostering sustainable peace processes.     

Slow‐fast dynamics in a model of population and resource growth

Models of the interaction of population, the economy, and the environment often contain nonlinear functional relationships and variables that move at different speeds. These properties foster apparent unpredictabilities in system behaviour. Using a simple deterministic model of demographic, economic and environmental interactions we illustrate the usefulness of geometric singular perturbation theory in environmental population economics. In contrast to local stability analysis, the theory of slow‐fast dynamics helps to gain new insights into the global behaviour of the system. In particular, the knowledge of the basins of attraction of the stationary states enables one to determine the regions of sustainable future paths of resources and population.     

Poultry and policy in Ghana: Lessons from the periphery of an agricultural policy system

We analyze poultry‐related policy documents from Ghana and ask how the problems identified and the actions proposed have changed over time. The analysis highlights the fact of limited and poor quality data, and associated uncertainty, ambiguity and poor specification of both problems and interventions. It also points to a long‐term commitment to intensive commercial production as the preferred pathway to deliver more animal protein. However, in the face of persistent feed constraints and economic liberalization, imports of frozen chicken have sky‐rocketed since the early 2000s, and a new pathway has come to dominate. We discuss this outcome and what it says more generally about policy around minor crops and livestock species.     

Chagga chiefs’ and others’ advice for saving Mount Kilimanjaro

This paper analyses four different but connected explanations for addressing environmental change on Mount Kilimanjaro. These explanations are: the scientific, the chiefly, the economic, and that which pertains to social policy. Scientists document that the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro are thinning and disappearing. Descendants within chiefly lineages argue that their authority needs to be revitalised to protect the environment. Economists defend the value of harvesting and exporting natural and agricultural resources, while social policy advocates recommend teaching the public about these interweaving interests. An effort is needed to connect and question these four narratives through an environmental education that promotes deep anthropological analysis.