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Collected data and research material presented in the monograph are a result of financing of the Polish science budget in the years 2011−14; the research project was financed by the National Science Centre according to decision no. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. The project that resulted in this monograph was financed from public funds for education for 2011 − 2014, the National Science Center under Contract No. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. ; Value-Based Working Capital Management analyzes the causes and effects of improper cash flow management between entrepreneurial organizations with varying levels of risk. This work looks at the motives and criteria for decision-making by entrepreneurs in their efforts to protect the financial security of their businesses and manage financial liquidity. Michalski argues that businesses exposed to greater risk need a different approach to managing liquidity levels. The scientific aim of this monograph is to present the essence of financial liquidity management under specific conditions faced by enterprises with risk and uncertainty. Enterprises differ from one another in risk sensitivity. This difference affects the area of taking decisions by the managers of those enterprises. The result of interactions between levels of liquidity and sensitivity to risk affects the managers of such enterprises (Altman 1984; Tobin 1958; Back 2001; Tobin 1969). In this monograph the research hypothesis is the claim that enterprises with a higher sensitivity to risk are very different from enterprises with a lower sensitivity to risk, resulting in a different approach to managing their working capital. Enterprise managing teams react to risk, and this reaction is adjusted by an enterprise's sensitivity to risk. Because of its subject area, the book will address the issues of corporate finance. The monograph discusses the behavior of enterprises and the relationships between them and other factors in the market occurring in the management process under the conditions of limited resources. As a result of these interactions with the market and the environment in which individuals who manage enterprises operate, there is an interaction between money and real processes that in the end are the cornerstone of wealth building. This chapter discusses the objectives and nature of enterprises in the context of their risk sensitivity, as well as the relationships between the objectives of enterprises and the characteristic features of their businesses. Enterprises operate in various business environments, but generally speaking, they all have one main aim: wealth creation for their owners. The realization of that aim depends on an idea of business in which the enterprise is an instrument to collect money from clients of the enterprise's services and products. Business environment is crucial not only for future enterprise cash inflows from the market but also for risk and uncertainty (Asch, and Kaye 1997; Copeland, and Weston 1988; Fazzari, and Petersen 1993). According to the author, it is necessary to include an understanding of that risk and uncertainty of future in the rate that reduces the net size of free cash flows for the enterprise owners, beneficiaries, or more generally stakeholders. Enterprise value creation is the main financial aim of the firm in relation to working capital components (Graber 1948; Jensen, and Meckling 1976; Lazaridis, and Trifonidis 2006). Working capital management is a part of a general enterprise strategy to its value maximization (Laffer 1970; Kieschnick, Laplante, and Moussawi 2009; Lyland, and Pyle 1977). This chapter presents a definition of financial liquidity and liquidity-level measurements. This chapter contains four subchapters that address the specific role of short-term financial decisions, a classification of definitions of financial liquidity, sources of information about liquidity level, and liquidity-level measurements (Lazaridis and Tryfonidis 2006; Long, Malitz, and Ravid 1993; Kieschnick, Laplante, and Moussawi 2009). Financial liquidity definition and liquidity-level measurements Here we have an opportunity to present the author's opinion on what assets should be financed with short-term funds and what the level of liquidity is in an enterprise (Michalski 2012a). The discussion also pertains to the issue of the dividing line between long-term and short-term decisions, with greater emphasis on the durability of their effects, rather than the decision-making speed. This section also attempts to answer the question: What are the short-term effects of operations under conditions of uncertainty and risk? The reason for the considerations in this section is the need to characterize the decisions that affect the level of enterprise liquidity. The research hypothesis of this monograph assumes that differences between more risk sensitive and less risk sensitive enterprises are seen in liquidity management. Simply because the enterprises, during financial liquidity management, take into account the differences in their risk sensitivity. This chapter discusses the relationship between firm value and business risk sensitivity. The chapter starts with a presentation of intrinsic liquidity value and firm reactions to market liquidity value. This is the basis for target liquidity level in the enterprise. Liquid assets are the main part of working capital assets, so the next part of the chapter focuses on working capital investment strategies and strategies of financing such investments in working capital in the context of firm value creation. The chapter concludes that, from a firm-value-creation point of view, more risk-sensitive entities should use flexible-conservative strategies, while less risk-sensitive entities have the freedom to use restrictive-aggressive strategies. In the context of a crisis, this is the clear answer and explanation for higher levels of working capital investments observed empirically during and after a crisis. The determinants of intrinsic value of liquidity are attributed to liquidity by enterprise management. Enterprises in which financial liquidity has a high internal value will have a tendency to maintain reasonable liquid resource assets at a higher level. The levels of stocks of funds maintained by enterprises are also the result of the relationship between the liquidity market value and the intrinsic value of liquidity. It demonstrates how to approach the estimation of liquidity and presents the market value of liquidity. Having connected this information with the knowledge of manifestations of the internal liquidity, we can offer an explanation as to why the target (and also probably the optimal) level of liquidity for enterprises with higher-than-average risk sensitivity is at a higher level than the corresponding target (optimal) level for enterprises with a lower level of risk sensitivity. Working capital value-based management models In this part of the monograph we discuss the items contained within the cost of maintaining inventory. Using this approach, a model of managing inventories is presented. Theoretically, the value-maximizing optimal level of inventory is determined to be the modified EOQ model, presented as VBEOQ model. We also present an outline of issues associated with the risk of inventory management and its impact on the value of the enterprise for its owner. We also discuss the principle of the optimal batch production model and how the size of the production batch affects the value of the enterprise for its owner. Here also is demonstrated a modification of the POQ model: VBPOQ. The proposed modification takes into account the rate of the cost of capital financing and the measures involved in inventory when determining the optimal batch production. When managing the commitment of the inventory, it is crucial to take into account the impact of such decisions on the long-term effectiveness of the enterprise. This chapter also discusses the relationships between the management of accounts receivables and the value of a business. A modified (considering the value of a business) model of incremental analysis of receivables is presented, as is a discussion of the importance of capacity utilization by an enterprise for making management decisions pertaining to accounts receivables. Issues related to the management of working capital and enterprise liquidity are and will be an area of research. The analysis in this study focused primarily on working capital and liquidity management; understanding its specifics will facilitate the management of liquidity in any type of organization. Working capital as a specific buffer against risk has its special role during a crisis and can serve as a good forecasting indicator about future economic problems in the economy if a whole business environment notices higher levels of working capital and its components, like cash, inventories, and accounts receivables. The scientific value of the issues discussed in the book is associated with the issue of working capital and liquidity management in enterprises. It is also a result of the exploration and definition of the main financial objective of businesses and the relationship between the objective and the management of working capital and enterprise liquidity. The choice of topic and the contents of research resulted also from empirical observation. Empirical data on enterprises that operate in countries touched by the last crisis document higher-than-average levels of working capital before, during, and after the crisis in these enterprises. These conditions provided the means for a "natural experiment" of sorts. From that point, working capital management theory faced a necessity of even wider development. ; Collected data and research material presented in the monograph are a result of financing of the Polish science budget in the years 2011−14; the research project was financed by the National Science Centre according to decision no. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. The project that resulted in this monograph was financed from public funds for education for 2011 − 2014, the National Science Center under Contract No. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. ; How to Cite this Book Harvard Grzegorz Michalski . (April 2014). Value-Based Working Capital Management . [Online] Available at: http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834. (Accessed: 28 May 2014). APA Grzegorz Michalski . (April 2014). Value-Based Working Capital Management . Retrieved from http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834 MLA Grzegorz Michalski . Value-Based Working Capital Management . (April 2014) Palgrave Macmillan. 28 May 2014. Vancouver Grzegorz Michalski . Value-Based Working Capital Management [internet]. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; April 2014. [cited 2014 May 28]. Available from: http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834 OSCOLA Grzegorz Michalski , Value-Based Working Capital Management , Palgrave Macmillan April 2014 ; Author Biography Grzegorz Michalski is Assistant Professor of Corporate Finance at the Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland. His main areas of research are Business Finance and Financial Liquidity Management. He is currently studying the liquidity decisions made by organizations. He is the author or co-author of over 80 papers and 10 books, and sits on the editorial board of international conferences and journals. Reviews 'Due to the recent financial crisis, interest in the topic of working capital has grown significantly to both theory and practice. The research results presented by Grzegorz Michalski contribute to the development of a comprehensive theory of liquidity management and the creation of an integrated working capital and liquidity for different types of business model. The job is processed on a high quality level." -Marek Panfil, Ph.D, Director of Business Valuation Department Warsaw School of Economics 'The book of Grzegorz Michalski is a very good publication that has found the right balance between theory and practical aspects of financial liquidity management. It is extremely timely and valuable, and should be required reading for all corporate finance practitioners, academicians, and students of finance. Value-Based Working Capital Management is comprehensive, highly readable publication, and replete with useful practical examples. It has also enabled corporate leaders to make better-informed decisions in their efforts to protect the financial security of their businesses and manage financial liquidity.' -Petr Polak, Author of Centralization of Treasury Management, and Associate Professor of Finance, University of Brunei Darussalam ; REFERENCES Introduction Adner, R., and D. A. Levinthal (2004). "What Is Not a Real Option: Considering Boundaries for the Application of Real Options to Business Strategy." Academy of Management Review 29(1). Altman, E. (1984). "A Further Empirical Investigation of the Bankruptcy Cost Question." Journal of Finance 39. Back, P. (2001). "Testing Liquidity Measures as Bankruptcy Prediction Variables." 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Ali E. Abbas (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He received an M.S. in electrical engineering (1998), an M.S. in engineering economic systems and operations research (2001), a Ph.D. in management science and engineering (2003), and a Ph.D. (minor) in electrical engineering, all from Stanford University. He worked as a lecturer in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and worked in Schlumberger Oilfield Services, where he held several international positions in wireline logging, operations management, and international training. He has also worked on several consulting projects for mergers and acquisitions in California, and cotaught several executive seminars on decision analysis at Strategic Decisions Group in Menlo Park, California. His research interests include utility theory, decision making with incomplete information and preferences, dynamic programming, and information theory. Dr. Abbas is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He is also an associate editor for the Decision Analysis and Operations Research journals of INFORMS. Email: aliabbas@illinois.edu . Kash Barker (" Decision Trees with Single and Multiple Interval-Valued Objectives ") is an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, where he was a research assistant in the Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Oklahoma. His primary research interests lie in modeling interdependent economic systems and decision making for large-scale system sustainment, with research funded by the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Army Research Office. Email: kashbarker@ou.edu . J. Eric Bickel (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus " and " A Simulation-Based Approach to Decision Making with Partial Information ") is an assistant professor in the Graduate Program in Operations Research (Department of Mechanical Engineering) at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, Professor Bickel is a fellow in both the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy (CIEEP) and the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management (CPARM). His research interests include the theory and practice of decision analysis and its application in the energy and climate-change arenas. His work has addressed the modeling of probabilistic dependence, value of information, scoring rules, calibration, risk preference, decision education, decision making in sports, and climate engineering as a response to climate change. Prior to returning to academia, Professor Bickel was a senior engagement manager for Strategic Decisions Group. He has consulted around the world in a range of industries, including oil and gas, electricity generation/transmission/delivery, energy trading and marketing, commodity and specialty chemicals, life sciences, financial services, and metals and mining. Professor Bickel is the vice president/president-elect of the Decision Analysis Society and an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering–Economic Systems at Stanford University. Email: ebickel@mail.utexas.edu . Vicki M. Bier (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a full professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is currently department chair and also directs the Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis. She is also the past president of the Decision Analysis Society and is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Her research interests include applications of operations research, risk analysis, and decision analysis to problems of homeland security and critical infrastructure protection. Email: bier@engr.wisc.edu . Samuel E. Bodily (" Multiplicative Utilities for Health and Consumption ") is the John Tyler Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School. He has published textbooks and more than 40 articles in journals ranging from Harvard Business Review to Management Science. His publications relate to decision and risk analysis, multiattribute utility, forecasting, strategy modeling, revenue management, and eStrategy. Along with Casey Lichtendahl, he was runner-up for the 2012 Decision Analysis Publication Award. He has edited special issues of Interfaces on Decision and Risk Analysis, and Strategy Modeling and Analysis. Professor Bodily has published well over 120 cases, including a couple of the 10 best-selling cases at Darden. He received the Distinguished Casewriter Wachovia award from Darden in 2005 and three other best case or research Wachovia awards. Professor Bodily is faculty leader for the executive program Strategic Thinking and Action. He is the course-head of and teaches in a highly valued first-year M.B.A. course in decision analysis; has a successful second-year elective, Management Decision Models; and has taught eStrategy and Strategy. He is a past winner of the Decision Sciences International Instructional Award. He has served as chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. He has taught numerous executive education programs for Darden and private companies, has consulted widely for business and government entities, and has served as an expert witness. Professor Bodily was on the faculties of MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston University and has been a visiting professor at INSEAD Singapore, Stanford University, and the University of Washington. He has Ph.D. and S.M. degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in physics from Brigham Young University. Email: bodilys@virginia.edu . David V. Budescu (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is the Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology at Fordham University. He held positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the University of Haifa, and visiting positions at Carnegie Mellon University, University of Gothenburg, the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, the Hebrew University, and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion). His research is in the areas of human judgment, individual and group decision making under uncertainty and with incomplete and vague information, and statistics for the behavioral and social sciences. He is on the editorial boards of Applied Psychological Measurement, Decision Analysis (associate editor), Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition (2000–2003), Multivariate Behavioral Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1992–2002), and Psychological Methods (1996–2000). He is past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (2000–2001), fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and an elected member of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychologists. Email: budescu@fordham.edu . John C. Butler (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a clinical associate professor of finance and the academic director of the Energy Management and Innovation Center in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, the outgoing secretary/treasurer of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society, and an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Professor Butler received his Ph.D. in management science and information systems from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. His research interests involve the use of decision science models to support decision making, with a particular emphasis on decision and risk analysis models with multiple-performance criteria. Professor Butler has consulted with a number of organizations regarding the application of decision analysis tools to a variety of practical problems. Most of his consulting projects involve use of Visual Basic for Applications and Excel to implement complex decision science models in a user-friendly format. Email: john.butler2@mccombs.utexas.edu . Enrico Diecidue (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor of Decision Sciences at INSEAD (France) and holds a Ph.D. from the CentER (Center for Economic Research), Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Since 2001 he has been a resident faculty member at INSEAD, except for 2008–2009 when he was a visiting professor at Wharton and 2010–2011 when he was on sabbatical at the Erasmus School of Economics (the Netherlands). His main research interests are in individual decision making under uncertainty, health decisions, and experimental economics. He is interested in the role of regret, aspiration levels, and time in individual decisions. His current research is also addressing the role of groups in complex and ambiguous decisions. Professor Diecidue's research has appeared in leading journals in economics and management. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Risk and Uncertainty and is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He teaches M.B.A., executive M.B.A., and executive participants on topics such as uncertainty, data and judgment, decision making under uncertainty, risk management, and management decision making. He has won teaching awards at INSEAD and Wharton. Email: enrico.diecidue@insead.edu . Robin L. Dillon-Merrill (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Professor Dillon-Merrill seeks to understand and explain how and why people make the decisions that they do under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This research specifically examines critical decisions that people have made following near-miss events in situations with severe outcomes (i.e., hurricane evacuation, terrorism, NASA mission management, etc.). She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security through the University of Southern California's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis for Terrorism Events. She has served as a risk analysis and project management expert on several National Academies Committees, including the review of the New Orleans regional hurricane protection projects and the application of risk-analysis techniques to securing the Department of Energy's special nuclear materials. She is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Email: rld9@georgetown.edu . Raimo P. Hämäläinen (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor of operations research and director of the Systems Analysis Laboratory at Aalto University, Finland. He received his M.Sc. and Dr. Tech. degrees in systems theory and applied mathematics from the Helsinki University of Technology. His research interests include decision analysis, risk and game theory, and experimental economics, as well as dynamic optimization with aerospace applications. He is widely known for his work in environmental decision making and energy policy. He is the designer of widely used decision analysis software, including the first Web-based value tree software, Web-HIPRE; Smart-Swaps; and the Joint Gains negotiation support system. He has recently introduced the concept of Systems Intelligence, which opens a new perspective to organizational learning and personal growth. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including Decision Analysis (associate editor), European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Group Decision and Negotiation, and EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Dr. Hämäläinen has received the Edgeworth-Pareto Award of the International Society for Multiple Criteria Decision Making. He is also the honorary president of the Finnish Operations Research Society. Email: raimo.hamalainen@aalto.fi . Ralph L. Keeney (" Value-Focused Brainstorming ") is a research professor emeritus at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His education includes a B.S. in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of decision making and risk analysis. He has applied such work to important personal decisions and as a consultant for private and public organizations addressing corporate management problems, environmental and risk studies, and decisions involving life-threatening risks. Prior to joining the Duke faculty, Professor Keeney was a faculty member in Management and Engineering at MIT and at the University of Southern California, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, and the founder of the decision and risk analysis group of a large geotechnical and environmental consulting firm. Professor Keeney is the author of many books and articles, including Value-Focused Thinking, Decisions with Multiple Objectives, coauthored with Howard Raiffa, and Smart Choices, coauthored with John S. Hammond and Howard Raiffa, which has been translated into 15 languages. Dr. Keeney was awarded the Ramsey Medal for distinguished contributions in decision analysis by the Decision Analysis Society and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Email: keeney@duke.edu . L. Robin Keller (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor of operations and decision technologies in the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. in management science and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has served as a program director for the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Her research is on decision analysis and risk analysis for business and policy decisions and has been funded by NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research interests cover multiple attribute decision making, riskiness, fairness, probability judgments, ambiguity of probabilities or outcomes, risk analysis (for terrorism, environmental, health, and safety risks), time preferences, problem structuring, cross-cultural decisions, and medical decision making. She is the outgoing Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analysis, published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She is a Fellow of INFORMS and has held numerous roles in INFORMS, including board member and chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. She is a recipient of the George F. Kimball Medal from INFORMS. She has served as the decision analyst on three National Academy of Sciences committees. She has been appointed to the editorial board of the new EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Email: lrkeller@uci.edu . Anton Kühberger (" Explaining Risk Attitude in Framing Tasks by Regulatory Focus: A Verbal Protocol Analysis and a Simulation Using Fuzzy Logic ") is a professor of psychology at the University of Salzburg, Department of Cognition and Development, and a member of the Center of Neurocognitive Research at the University of Salzburg. His research interests include the following areas: judgment and decision making, in particular framing, and the role of risk, ambiguity, and uncertainty in decision making; thinking and reasoning, in particular counterfactual thinking and the notion of rationality; and social cognition, in particular the foundation of the understanding of oneself and others either by a theory of mind or by simulation. In addition, he is interested in the development of scientific methods such as verbal protocol analysis and in understanding the role statistics for the accumulation of knowledge. He is a member of the editorial board of several scholarly journals and currently is vice-dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Salzburg. Email: anton.kuehberger@sbg.ac.at . Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr. (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus " and " Multiplicative Utilities for Health and Consumption ") is an assistant professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He received his Ph.D. in decision sciences from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His research focuses on decision analysis, Bayesian statistics, game theory, and dynamic programming. Email: lichtendahlc@darden.virginia.edu . Jason R. W. Merrick (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has a D.Sc. in operations research from George Washington University. He teaches courses in decision analysis, risk analysis, and simulation. His research is primarily in the area of decision analysis and Bayesian statistics. He has worked on projects ranging from assessing maritime oil transportation and ferry system safety, the environmental health of watersheds, and optimal replacement policies for rail tracks and machine tools. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the American Bureau of Shipping, British Petroleum, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. He has also performed training for Infineon Technologies, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Capital One Services. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and the EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Email: jrmerric@vcu.edu . Luis Vicente Montiel (" A Simulation-Based Approach to Decision Making with Partial Information ") is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. His main research interest is mathematical modeling for optimization under uncertainty, with a special interest in decision analysis and simulation learning for optimization. His current research is dedicated to providing a theoretical and practical framework for approximating joint distributions under partial information. Luis has a Ph.D. in operations research from the University of Texas, an M.S. in financial engineering from Columbia University, and an M.S. in management science and engineering from Stanford University. Email: lvmontiel@utexas.edu . Jay R. Simon (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an assistant professor in the Defense Resources Management Institute of the Naval Postgraduate School. He holds a Ph.D. in operations and decision technologies from the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, an M.S. in management science and engineering, and a B.S. in mathematical and computational science from Stanford University. His primary research interest is multiattribute preference modeling, particularly involving outcomes that occur over time, space, or groups of people. His current and recent work includes a prostate cancer decision model, preference models for health decisions, preferences over geographical data, altruistic utility modeling, and multiattribute procurement. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and is the webmaster and social media officer for the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS. Email: jrsimon@nps.edu . Christian Wiener (" Explaining Risk Attitude in Framing Tasks by Regulatory Focus: A Verbal Protocol Analysis and a Simulation Using Fuzzy Logic ") received his doctorate from the University of Salzburg, Austria. His first research area was the application of the EEG in connection with dyslexia. Later he moved to the area of social cognition, where his research was focused on framing and especially the simulation of decision-making behavior using a fuzzy-logic expert system. Since the completion of his dissertation, he has been working as a clinical psychologist with developmentally delayed children. Email: christian.wiener@gmx.at . Kaycee J. Wilson (" Decision Trees with Single and Multiple Interval-Valued Objectives ") completed M.S. and B.S. degrees in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma in 2012 and 2010, respectively. Her primary interests lie in healthcare operations and reliability-based decision making, and she holds a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Email: kaycee.j.wilson-1@ou.edu . George Wu (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") has been on the faculty of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business since September 1997. His degrees include an A.B. (applied mathematics, 1985), an S.M. (applied mathematics, 1987), and a Ph.D. (decision sciences, 1991), all from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Chicago, Professor Wu was on the faculty at Harvard Business School. Professor Wu worked as a decision analyst at Procter & Gamble prior to starting graduate school. His research interests include descriptive and prescriptive aspects of decision making, in particular decision making involving risk; cognitive biases in bargaining and negotiation; and managerial and organizational decision making. Professor Wu is a coordinating editor for Theory and Decision, an advisory editor for Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, on the editorial boards of Decision Analysis (associate editor) and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and a former department editor of Management Science. Email: wu@chicagobooth.edu .

International Council of Scientific Unions Science International Newsletter No. 64 April 1997 Code Number:NL97006 Sizes of Files: Text: 70.3K Graphics: No associated graphics files MEETING REPORT 72nd MEETING OF EXECUTIVE BOARD OF ICSU Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU The Executive Board (EB), elected at the time of the 25th General Assembly, held its first meeting in Paris in January. Board Members reviewed the measures being taken concerning each of the General Assembly resolutions, and agreed on the procedure to be adopted for responding to the report on the Assessment of ICSU. FIRST MEETING OF INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD (ISAB) OF LINESCO Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU ISAB, under the chairmanship of the President of ICSU, held its first meeting in Paris in January, immediately after the meeting of the Executive Board of ICSU. The terms of reference for ISAB are: to "assist UNESCO by advising on strategic issues of science and the substantive service science offers for development and the environment and provide scientific-based elements for decision-making". ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT (ACE) Sophie Boyer King Environmental Sciences Officer The 12th meeting of ICSU's ACE, held in Paris in January, reviewed ICSU's involvement in various programmes dealing with the environment, including the three Global Observing Systems (climate, oceans, terrestrial - GCOS, GOOS, GTOS), the IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme), the WCRP (World Climate Research Programme), IHDP (International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, DIVERSITAS (Programme on Biodiversity Science) and SCOPE (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment). ACE continued to advise the Executive Board of ICSU about the membership of relevant environmental bodies. SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION (COMSCEE) Christine Glenday, on detail to ICSU from the National Science Foundation, USA. The third meeting of COMSCEE was held at the ICSU Secretariat on January 27, 1997, under its new Chairman Dr. Jan Krzysztof Frackowiak, Undersecretary of State, and Secretary of the State Committee for Scientific Research in Poland (KBN). While acknowledging that the problems of science in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU) differ widely according to country, and that, furthermore, considerable progress has been made over the past five years, COMSCEE members identified several key problems which are still common at present in this region. GETTING TO KNOW CHILE'S ICSU NATIONAL COMMITTEE INCORPORATES SCIENCE TEACHERS AND SCIENCE JOURNALISTS J.E. Aliende, President, Chilean National Committee for ICSU The National Committee of Chile for ICSU gathers the Presidents of all major scientific societies and organizations of that country. This composition results in an organization which integrates the international linkages of the Chilean scientific community. In addition, however, the Chilean NCICSU constitutes a forum that discusses and acts on national issues of importance to scientific development in that country. During the 1993 ICSU General Assembly held in Santiago, delegates from other countries were able to witness the important studies that the Chilean Academy of Sciences and the National Committee for ICSU were able to put together about the state and future of science in Chile. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN DIMENSIONS PROGRAMME ON GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE (IHDP): NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE IHDP Udo Bunnagel, Programme Officer When Professor Eckart Ehlers, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of IHDP, opened the inauguration reception for the new IHDP Secretariat in Bonn on 31 January 1997, he told the story of the child IHDP. Born in 1990, an off-spring of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), it had to move from Barcelona to Geneva, and even experienced homelessness for some time. With the second parent, ICSU, joining ISSC as cosponsor in 1996, and with the new home under the roof of Bonn University, Professor Ehlers expressed his hope that the child IHDP has finally found a stable environment, enabling it to grow Up. SPOTLIGHTS ON SCIENCE CHEMRAWN : CHEMICAL RESEARCH APPLIED TO WORLD NEEDS A. Hayes, Chairman, CHEMRAWN The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has been active for over 75 years and is well known throughout the world for its work in setting internationally recognised and much needed standards for all manner of matters of concern to chemists everywhere. Examples are in the fields of atomic weights, gas coratants, and nomenclature. In addition, IUPAC has been the means whereby chemists have come together to work on various problems and also organise symposia, seminars, congresses, and assemblies - both on topics of general interest, as well as in specialist fields. It has an exemplary record of attempting to ensure that any bona fide scientist who wishes to attend such events is able to do so. The senior chemical community has recognised throughout the life of IUPAC the need for international cooperation and many of the past presidents of lUPAC have been holders of the Nobel prize as well as distinguished and senior members of industry. In the 1970's there was a growing appreciation of the need not only to address the purely scientific aspects of chemical topics on an international scale but to demonstrate that chemistry could - and should be applied to the solution of many of the problems which face mankind all over the world. Ideas were discussed and re-formulated, debated and finally expressed as the 'CHEMRAWN' Concept. MOONEY CALLS ON SCIENTISTS TO FIND HOW BIODIVERSITY PROTECTS ECOSYSTEMS H.A. Mooney When the Convention on Biological Diversity was signed by 159 governments in 1992, most observers saw it as a move to prevent the loss of various species - to ward off the disappearance of spotted owls from a forest, or the extinction of a plant that might contain some pharmaceutical miracle. Since then, a study commissioned by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the world academy of scientists, has shown a more compelling reason to protect biodiversity. Whenever a habitat loses enough of the richness and variation among its living species, the study found, the ecological systems that nurture life begin to falter. Ecologists do not yet know how many species - or which ones - must be saved to keep an ecosystem functioning. They do know this: When ecosystems falter, they stop providing essential natural services like pure water from mountain watersheds, abundant fisheries, soulsustaining landscapes. Damaged ecosystems also have global effects: plants, for example, play an important role in the atmosphere's carbon cycle and thus in climate fluctuations. HOUSE NEWS ICSU EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TAKES ON NEW ASSIGNMENT Julia Marton-Lefevre As Members and friends of ICSU were informed in mid-February, Julia Marton-Lefevre will be on leave of absence from ICSU as of 1 September 1997, to become the first Executive Director of the programme set up by the Rockefeller Foundation known as LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) International. The International Secretariat for LEAD is based, for an initial period, in New York. The Executive Director informed the ICSU family in her February letter that her devotion to the mission of ICSU remains constant, and that this move is taken in the spirit of broadening her own expertise as well as hopefully enlarging ICSU's contacts. While on leave of absence, Julia Marton-Lefevre will continue to be involved in the major issues facing ICSU in the years ahead, and will also ensure that ICSU and LEAD, with facets in common, are able to undertake cooperative actions. Leadership for Environment and Development, or the LEAD Program, is a non-profit organization that seeks to bring together a generation of international leaders to carry forth a vision of sustainable development. The LEAD Program was established in direct response to the growing need for collaborative action in support of the world's natural and human resources. LEAD intends to inspire a course of development that is defined as environmentally responsible, culturally acceptable, economically viable and politically feasible. The LEAD Program trains mid-career professionals, called Associates, using a combination of interdisciplinary methods, interactive skills building and global networking. NEWS IN BRIEF AAAS AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION The 1997 AAAS Award for International Scientific Cooperation is given to Philip W. Hemily for having made contributions to international scientific research and engineering development for over 50 years. He recognized the importance of science and technology policies as components of political, economic, education, employment, and trade policies. PUBLICATIONS NEWS IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION REQUIRES A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE Dong Geng & A.J. (Tom)van Loon The progress of science and the implementation of new technical developments are hampered by the time-lag between submission of a manuscript to a journal and delivery of the article to readers. This problem is generally recognized, but none of the solutions suggested has been found feasible. In our opinion, however, it is possible to publish refereed material with a time-lag of no more than 24 hours, through a completely new infrastructure. The approach that is proposed here would be expensive - but probably much less so than the direct and indirect costs for society of a long time-lag. OBITUARIES Baron Nicolet Valentin A. Koptyug FUTURE MEETINGS International Young Scientists Programme at the 17th International Congress of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) announces the sponsorship of a conference for young scientists to be held at Asilomar, Monterey, CA, USA, on 22-24 August, 1997 preceding the 17th International IUBMB Congress in San Francisco on 24-29 August, 1997. CALENDAR OF FORTHCOMING MEETINGS from 23 April 1997 - 19 July 1997 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT 25th MEETING OF THE COSTED EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE IRBID/AMMAN FEBRUARY 25-27, 1997 Veena Ravichandran, Senior Scientific Officer, COSTED, Madras The Executive Committee (EXCOM) of COSTED held its 25th meeting during 25-27 February. A day prior to the EXCOM meeting, half- day parallel sessions on Strengthening Science in Africa and COSTED activities in the Arab region were organised so that EXCOM members could get an opportunity to participate in the regional plans. Strengthening Science in Africa COSTED Activities in the Arab Region EXCOM Meeting Nomenclature for COSTED-IBN: Brainstorming Session - The concept of networks in COSTED - The goals of COSTED - ICSU Assessment Report vis-avis COSTED

In the article discusses the essence of the concept of "anti-crisis management", describes the terms "competency" and "competence". The main groups of key competencies that a specialist should possess are considered. The results of studies are presented, which indicate that for many citizens of both Ukraine and Poland, advanced digital technology is now an important element of functioning both in professional and in private life. The concept of "digital competency" is characterized and it is established that the new edition of the key competencies for lifelong learning - recommendation 2018/0008 (NLE) of the European Parliament and the Council (EU), like the previous one, contains digital competence. It is noted that the dissemination of new technologies among society and the full use of their capabilities is impossible without the constant build-up of digital competence, and the formation and development of digital competence among potential and working personnel provides for their approximation and adaptation to world practice. The main provisions of the Concept for the development of the digital economy and society of Ukraine for 2018-2020 are given. Key words: anti-crisis management, competency, competence, Internet, digital competence, personnel, digitalization, innovation. REFERENCES1. Adamska, O. (2018). Antykryzove upravlinnia v konteksti reahuvannia na rehionalni vyklyky: teoretyko-metodolohichnyi aspekt [Anti-crisis management in the context of responding to regional challenges: theoretical-methodological aspects]. Retrived from http://www.lvivacademy.com/vidavnitstvo_1/edu_55/fail/5.pdf.2. Vedernikov, M.D., Chernushkina, O.O., Mantur-Chubata, O.S. (2018). Suchasni tekhnolohii upravlinnia personalom: kompetentsiinyi pidkhid [Modern technologies of personnel management: competent approach]. Retrived from http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nvuumevcg_2018_19%281%29__11.3. Havrysh, O.A., Dovhan, L.Ye., Kreidych, I.M., Semenchenko, N.V. (2017). Tekhnolohii upravlinnia personalom: monohrafiia [Technologies of personnel management: monograph]. Retrived from https://ela.kpi.ua/bitstream/123456789/19480/1/tekhnolohii_upravlinnia_personalom.pdf.4. Herasymenko, O.O. (2019). Kompetentnisnyi pidkhid yak kontseptualno-prykladna platforma rozvytku personalu: instytutsionalne seredovyshche ta praktychnyi instrumentarii [Competent approach as a conceptual and applied platform of personnel development: institutional environment and practical tools]. Retrived from http://inneco.org/index.php/innecoua/article/download/41/42.5. Dostup domohospodarstv Ukrainy do internetu u 2018 rotsi (za danymy vybirkovoho obstezhennia umov zhyttia domohospodarstv Ukrainy): statystychnyi zbirnyk (2019). [Access households in Ukraine to the Internet in 2018 (according to a sample survey living conditions of Ukrainian households): statistical collection]. Retrived from ttp://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/druk/publicat/kat_u/2019/zb/07/zb_Internet_2018.pdf6. Kliuchovi kompetentnosti dlia navchannia vprodovzh zhyttia 2018 - Tsyfrova kompetentnist [Key competences for lifelong learning 2018 – digital competence]. Retrived from http://dystosvita.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018.html.7. Korotkova, O. V., Yehorova, N. V. (2011). Deiaki aspekty realizatsii antykryzovoho upravlinnia v suchasnykh ekonomichnykh umovakh [Some aspects of implementation of anti-crisis management in modern economic conditions]. Retrived from http://www.economy.in.ua/?op=1&z=1346&i=1.8. Kuibida, V.S., Petroie, O.M., Fedulova, L.I., Androshchuk, H.O. (2019). Tsyfrovi kompetentsii yak umova formuvannia yakosti liudskoho kapitalu [Digital competences as a condition of quality formation human capital]. Retrived from http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/198/files/90a7d5c8-d10a-4f8f-8987-4d1077fdc8f6.pdf.9. Leiko, S.V. (2013). Poniattia ―kompetentsiia‖ ta ―kompetentnist‖: teoretychnyi analiz [The notions ―competence‖ and ―competence‖: theoretical analysis]. Retrived from http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/pptp_2013_4_15.10. Nosyk, O.A. (2018). Rozvytok sluzhby upravlinnia personalom derzhavnoho orhanu na zasadakh kompetentnisnoho pidkhodu: dys. … kand. nauk z derzh. upr.: 25.00.03 [Development of the public administration personnel management service on the basis of competency approach]. Retrived from http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/137/files/f4075787-6181-49f4-b44b3110c5ceb93b.pdf.11. Oleshko, A.A., Usatenko, A.O. (2019). Formuvannia ta rozvytok tsyfrovoi kompetentnosti personalu [Formation and development of digital competence of staff]. Retrived from http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/23_2019/5.pdf.12. Oleshko, A.A., Horokhovets, Ye.V. (2019). Informatsiino-komunikatsiini tekhnolohii ta liudskyi rozvytok [Information and communication technologies and human development]. Retrived from http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/16_2019/4.pdf.13. Pro zatverdzhennia Natsionalnoi ramky kvalifikatsii: Postanova Kabinetu Ministriv Ukrainy vid 23.11.2011. № 1341 [On Approval of the National Qualifications Framework: Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of November 13, 2011 No. 1341]. Retrived from https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1341-2011-%D0%BF14. Pro skhvalennia Kontseptsii rozvytku tsyfrovoi ekonomiky ta suspilstva Ukrainy na 2018-2020 roky ta zatverdzhennia planu zakhodiv shchodo yii realizatsii: Rozporiadzhennia Kabinetu Ministriv Ukrainy vid 17.01.2018 r. № 67-r [On approval of the Concept of development of the digital economy and society of Ukraine for 2018-2020 and approval of the plan of measures for its implementation: Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated 17.01.2018 № 67-р]. Retrived from https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/67-2018-%D1%80.15. Synychenko, A.V. (2016). Kompetentnisnyi pidkhid yak suchasna paradyhma upravlinnia personalom [Competence approach as a modern paradigm of personnel management]. Retrived from http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgibin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/Fub_2016_1_32.pdf.16. Fedulova, L.I. (2020). Rol tsyfrovykh kompetentsii u formuvanni informatsiinoi ekosystemy publichnoho upravlinnia [The role of digital competences in the formation of the public governance ecosystem]. Retrived from http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/ 198/files/eb2ca970-be91-400e-a34e8fdc0663763f.pptx.17. Chulanova, O.L. (2013). Intehratsiia kontseptualnykh osnov kompetentnisnoho pidkhodu do stratehichnoho upravlinnia personalom orhanizatsii [Integration of conceptual basis of competence approach to strategic management the personnel of the organization]. Retrived from https://ir.kneu.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/2010/7197/Chulanova.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.18. Balanovska, T., Havrysh, O., Gogulya, O. (2019). Developing enterprise competitive advantage as a component of anti-crisis management. Retrived from https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2019.7.1(23) https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/371.19. Carretero, S., Vuorikari, R., Punie, Y. (2017). DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Retrived from https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC106281/webdigcomp2.1pdf_(online).pdf.20. Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. (2019). Retrived from https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/council-recommendation-on-keycompetences-for-lifelong-learning_en.21. Ferrari, A. DIGCOMP: A Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe, Luxembourg, European Union (2013). Retrived from https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC83167/lb-na-26035-enn.pdf.22. Future Work Skills (2020). Retrived from https://uqpn.uq.edu.au/files/203/LIBBY%20MARSHALL%20future_work_skills_2020_full_research_report_final_1.pdf23. O kompetencjach cyfrowych w Polsce na konferencji umiejętności cyfrowe 2019. Pl. NASK. Retrived from https://www.nask.pl/pl/aktualnosci/3603,O-kompetencjach-cyfrowych-wPolsce-na-konferencji-Umiejetnosci-cyfrowe-2019pl.html. ; В статье рассмотрена сущность понятия «антикризисное управление», приведена характеристика терминов «компетенция» и «компетентность». Рассмотрены основные группы ключевых компетенций, которыми должен обладать специалист. Приведены результаты исследований, которые свидетельствуют, что для многих граждан как Украины, так и Польши передовые цифровые технологии сейчас является важным элементом функционирования как в профессиональной, так и в частной жизни. Охарактеризовано понятие «цифровая компетентность» и установлено, что в новой редакции ключевых компетентностей для обучения в течение жизни - рекомендация 2018/0008 (NLE) Европейского Парламента и Совета (ЕС), как и в предыдущей, присутствует цифровая компетентность. Отмечено, что распространение новых технологий в обществе и полное использование их возможностей невозможно без постоянного наращивания цифровой компетентности, а формирование и развитие цифровой компетентности у потенциального и работающего персонала предусматривает его приближение и адаптацию к мировой практике. Приведены основные положения Концепции развития цифровой экономики и общества Украины на 2018-2020 годы. Ключевые слова: антикризисное управление, компетенция, компетентность, Интернет, цифровая компетентность, персонал, цифровизация, инновация. Список использованной литературы1. Адамська О. Антикризове управління в контексті реагування на регіональні виклики : теоретико-методологічний аспект. Ефективність державного управління. 2018Вип. 2 (55). Ч. 1. С.30–38. URL: http://www.lvivacademy.com/vidavnitstvo_1/edu_55/fail/5.pdf2. Ведерніков М.Д., Чернушкіна О.О., Мантур-Чубата О.С. Сучасні технології управління персоналом: компетенційний підхід. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nvuumevcg_2018_19%281%29__113. Гавриш О.А., Довгань Л.Є., Крейдич І.М., Семенченко Н.В. Технології управління персоналом: монографія. URL: https://ela.kpi.ua/bitstream/123456789/19480/1/tekhnolohii_upravlinnia_personalom.pdf4. Герасименко О.О. Компетентнісний підхід як концептуально-прикладна платформа розвитку персоналу: інституціональне середовище та практичний інструментарій. URL: http://inneco.org/index.php/innecoua/article/download/41/425. Доступ домогосподарств України до інтернету у 2018 році (за даними вибіркового обстеження умов життя домогосподарств України): статистичний збірник. Державна служба статистики України. URL: http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/druk/publicat/kat_u/2019/zb/07/zb_Internet_2018.pdf (дата звернення: 12.02.2020).6. Ключові компетентності для навчання впродовж життя 2018 - Цифрова компетентність. URL: http://dystosvita.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018.html7. Короткова О.В., Єгорова Н.В. Деякі аспекти реалізації антикризового управління в сучасних економічних умовах. URL: http://www.economy.in.ua/?op=1&z=1346&i=18. Куйбіда В.С., Петроє О.М., Федулова Л.І., Андрощук Г.О. Цифрові компетенції як умова формування якості людського капіталу. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/198/files/90a7d5c8-d10a-4f8f-8987-4d1077fdc8f6.pdf9. Лейко С.В. Поняття ―компетенція‖ та ―компетентність‖: теоретичний аналіз. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/pptp_2013_4_1510. Носик О.А. Розвиток служби управління персоналом державного органу на засадах компетентнісного підходу: дис. канд. наук з держ. упр.: 25.00.03. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/137/files/f4075787-6181-49f4-b44b-3110c5ceb93b.pdf11. Олешко А.А., Усатенко А.О. Формування та розвиток цифрової компетентності персоналу. URL: http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/23_2019/5.pdf12. Олешко А.А., Гороховець Є.В. Інформаційно-комунікаційні технології та людський розвиток. URL: http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/16_2019/4.pdf13. Про затвердження Національної рамки кваліфікацій: Постанова Кабінету Міністрів України від 23.11.2011 р. № 1341. URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/ 1341-2011-%D0%BF (дата звернення: 10.01.2020).14. Про схвалення Концепції розвитку цифрової економіки та суспільства України на 2018-2020 роки та затвердження плану заходів щодо її реалізації: Розпорядження Кабінету Міністрів України від 17.01.2018 р. № 67-р. URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/67-2018-%D1%8015. Синиченко А.В. Компетентнісний підхід як сучасна парадигма управління персоналом. URL: http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgibin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/Fub_2016_1_32.pdf16. Федулова Л.І. Роль цифрових компетенцій у формуванні інформаційної екосистеми публічного управління. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/198/files/eb2ca970-be91-400ea34e-8fdc0663763f.pptx17. Чуланова О.Л. Iнтеграцiя концептуальних основ компетентнiсного пiдходу до стратегiчного управлiння персоналом організації. URL: https://ir.kneu.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/2010/7197/Chulanova.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y18. Balanovska T., Havrysh O., Gogulya O. Developing enterprise competitive advantage as a component of anti-crisis management. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues. 2019. Vol. 7. No. 1 (September). P. 303-323. URL: https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2019.7.1(23)https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/37119. Carretero S., Vuorikari R., Punie Y. DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. 2017. URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC106281/webdigcomp2.1pdf_(online).pdf20. Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. European Commission. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/council-recommendation-onkey-competences-for-lifelong-learning_en21. Ferrari A. DIGCOMP: А Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe, Luxembourg, European Union. 2013. 48 p. URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC83167/lb-na-26035-enn.pdf22. Future Work Skills 2020. URL: https://uqpn.uq.edu.au/files/203/LIBBY%20MARSHALL%20future_work_skills_2020_full_research_report_final_1.pdf23. O kompetencjach cyfrowych w Polsce na konferencji umiejętności cyfrowe 2019. Pl. NASK. URL: https://www.nask.pl/pl/aktualnosci/3603,O-kompetencjach-cyfrowych-w-Polsce-nakonferencji-Umiejetnosci-cyfrowe-2019pl.html ; У статті розглянуто сутність поняття "антикризове управління", наведено характеристику термінів "компетенція" й "компетентність". Розглянуто основні групи ключових компетенцій, якими має володіти фахівець. Наведено результати досліджень, які свідчать, що для багатьох громадян як України, так і Польщі передові цифрові технології зараз є важливим елементом функціонування як у професійному, так і в приватному житті. Охарактеризовано поняття "цифрова компетентність" та встановлено, що в новій редакції ключових компетентностей для навчання впродовж життя - рекомендація 2018/0008 (NLE) Європейського Парламенту та Ради (ЄС), як і в попередній, присутня цифрова компетентність. Відмічено, що поширення нових технологій серед суспільства та повне використання їх можливостей неможливе без постійного нарощування цифрової компетентності, а формування та розвиток цифрової компетентності у потенційних і працюючих працівників передбачає їх наближення і адаптацію до світової практики. Наведено основні положення Концепції розвитку цифрової економіки та суспільства України на 2018-2020 роки. Ключові слова: антикризове управління, компетенція, компетентність, Інтернет, цифрова компетентність, персонал, цифровізація, інновація. Список використаної літератури1. Адамська О. Антикризове управління в контексті реагування на регіональні виклики : теоретико-методологічний аспект. Ефективність державного управління. 2018Вип. 2 (55). Ч. 1. С.30–38. URL: http://www.lvivacademy.com/vidavnitstvo_1/edu_55/fail/5.pdf2. Ведерніков М.Д., Чернушкіна О.О., Мантур-Чубата О.С. Сучасні технології управління персоналом: компетенційний підхід. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nvuumevcg_2018_19%281%29__113. Гавриш О.А., Довгань Л.Є., Крейдич І.М., Семенченко Н.В. Технології управління персоналом: монографія. URL: https://ela.kpi.ua/bitstream/123456789/19480/1/tekhnolohii_upravlinnia_personalom.pdf4. Герасименко О.О. Компетентнісний підхід як концептуально-прикладна платформа розвитку персоналу: інституціональне середовище та практичний інструментарій. URL: http://inneco.org/index.php/innecoua/article/download/41/425. Доступ домогосподарств України до інтернету у 2018 році (за даними вибіркового обстеження умов життя домогосподарств України): статистичний збірник. Державна служба статистики України. URL: http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/druk/publicat/kat_u/2019/zb/07/zb_Internet_2018.pdf (дата звернення: 12.02.2020).6. Ключові компетентності для навчання впродовж життя 2018 - Цифрова компетентність. URL: http://dystosvita.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018.html7. Короткова О.В., Єгорова Н.В. Деякі аспекти реалізації антикризового управління в сучасних економічних умовах. URL: http://www.economy.in.ua/?op=1&z=1346&i=18. Куйбіда В.С., Петроє О.М., Федулова Л.І., Андрощук Г.О. Цифрові компетенції як умова формування якості людського капіталу. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/198/files/90a7d5c8-d10a-4f8f-8987-4d1077fdc8f6.pdf9. Лейко С.В. Поняття ―компетенція‖ та ―компетентність‖: теоретичний аналіз. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/pptp_2013_4_1510. Носик О.А. Розвиток служби управління персоналом державного органу на засадах компетентнісного підходу: дис. канд. наук з держ. упр.: 25.00.03. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/137/files/f4075787-6181-49f4-b44b-3110c5ceb93b.pdf11. Олешко А.А., Усатенко А.О. Формування та розвиток цифрової компетентності персоналу. URL: http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/23_2019/5.pdf12. Олешко А.А., Гороховець Є.В. Інформаційно-комунікаційні технології та людський розвиток. URL: http://www.investplan.com.ua/pdf/16_2019/4.pdf13. Про затвердження Національної рамки кваліфікацій: Постанова Кабінету Міністрів України від 23.11.2011 р. № 1341. URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/ 1341-2011-%D0%BF (дата звернення: 10.01.2020).14. Про схвалення Концепції розвитку цифрової економіки та суспільства України на 2018-2020 роки та затвердження плану заходів щодо її реалізації: Розпорядження Кабінету Міністрів України від 17.01.2018 р. № 67-р. URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/67-2018-%D1%8015. Синиченко А.В. Компетентнісний підхід як сучасна парадигма управління персоналом. URL: http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgibin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/Fub_2016_1_32.pdf16. Федулова Л.І. Роль цифрових компетенцій у формуванні інформаційної екосистеми публічного управління. URL: http://academy.gov.ua/pages/dop/198/files/eb2ca970-be91-400ea34e-8fdc0663763f.pptx17. Чуланова О.Л. Iнтеграцiя концептуальних основ компетентнiсного пiдходу до стратегiчного управлiння персоналом організації. URL: https://ir.kneu.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/2010/7197/Chulanova.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y18. Balanovska T., Havrysh O., Gogulya O. Developing enterprise competitive advantage as a component of anti-crisis management. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues. 2019. Vol. 7. No. 1 (September). P. 303-323. URL: https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2019.7.1(23)https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/37119. Carretero S., Vuorikari R., Punie Y. DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. 2017. URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC106281/webdigcomp2.1pdf_(online).pdf20. Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. European Commission. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/council-recommendation-onkey-competences-for-lifelong-learning_en21. Ferrari A. DIGCOMP: А Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe, Luxembourg, European Union. 2013. 48 p. URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC83167/lb-na-26035-enn.pdf22. Future Work Skills 2020. URL: https://uqpn.uq.edu.au/files/203/LIBBY%20MARSHALL%20future_work_skills_2020_full_research_report_final_1.pdf23. O kompetencjach cyfrowych w Polsce na konferencji umiejętności cyfrowe 2019. Pl. NASK. URL: https://www.nask.pl/pl/aktualnosci/3603,O-kompetencjach-cyfrowych-w-Polsce-nakonferencji-Umiejetnosci-cyfrowe-2019pl.html

Author's introductionOver the last 20 years, there has been a technological advance and commercial boom in genetic technologies and projects. These developments include a renewed scientific interest in the biological status and genetic constitution of race. This aspect of genetic research is of interest to sociologists and others working in the field of race and ethnicity studies. While the consensus among sociologists is that race is a social construction with no biological foundations, innovations in genetic research have pushed sociologists and other social scientists to reflect upon the ways in which ideas of biology mediate everyday understandings of race. Anthropologists, cultural geographers and sociologists have begun to study the complex and ambivalent ways in which laypeople think about the biological and genetic constitution of racial identities. Central to this area of inquiry has been analysis of laypeople's engagements with the new reproductive technologies, such as IVF. In addition, social scientists have begun to study laypeople's uses of genealogical technologies that claim to trace family ancestries, including racial descent and ethnic origins. Ultimately, such studies enable a deeper understanding of the social construction of 'race', and in the course of so doing provide an important research avenue to challenge racism.Author recommendsWade, Peter 2002. Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. London: Pluto Press.In this book, Peter Wade argues that anthropological studies of kinship provide a lens to think about how ideas of nature and culture mediate the formation of racial identities. Drawing upon studies from within anthropology, Wade contends that an increasing emphasis upon the 'gene' at the everyday level does not necessarily signify a growing genetic/biological determinism in laypeople's conceptions of race and human nature. Rather, he suggests anthropological studies that explore the biological and social 'origins' of persons can be deployed to unpack 'everyday' understandings of the relationship between ideas of 'race', 'nature' and 'culture'. In his review of anthropological approaches to the study of 'race', Wade (2002, 15) writes that, 'People…move between the biological and the social, the given and the developing, the permanent and the changeable, in ways that blur the boundary between them'.Skinner, D. 2006. 'Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity.'Social Studies of Science 36: 459–88.In this paper, David Skinner examines sociologists' and scientists' reflections on the social and ethical implications of recent research on race and genetics. He argues research on race and genetics has led to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future: 'one in which scientific racism is revived, the other in which science finally abolishes race thinking'. Skinner contends that detailed critical attention needs to be paid to existing notions of relatedness, personhood and nature/culture, to understand the implication of genetic science on racial thinking.Franklin, S. and S. Mckinnon (eds) 2001. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.This book provides a collection of articles that represent the diversity of perspectives that constitute the 'new kinship studies' within anthropology. Chapters by Kath Weston, Charis Thompson and Signe Howell focus explicitly upon how ideas of biology, blood and culture mediate the formation of racial identities within everyday and popular discourses. In this vein, Thompson explores how kinship ideologies become reconfigured by people who take‐up the opportunities offered by the new reproductive technologies, for example, ova and sperm donation. In so doing, Thompson's study illuminates the ways in which these recent clinical practices have opened a space for anthropologists to examine how ideas about biogenetic and social relatedness within families and across generations become intersected with ideas about the inheritance of ethnic and racial identities.Wade, Peter (ed.) 2007. Race, Ethnicity and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics. Oxford: Berghahn, New York.This book brings together a collection of essays written by scholars who worked collaboratively for 3 years exploring everyday articulations of race, ethnicity and genetics across Europe in the face of innovations in genetic science. The book draws upon a rich array of anthropological studies of 'assisted reproduction, transnational adoption, mixed‐race families, Basque identity politics and post‐Soviet nation‐building' to explore how ideas of race, ethnicity, nation and nature are lived and experienced by people within differing European social contexts.Tyler, Katharine, 2009. 'Whiteness Studies and Laypeople's Engagements with Race and Genetics.'New Genetics and Society 28 (1): 36–48.In this paper, Tyler proposes a research strategy for examining laypeople's thoughts and reflections on innovations in the science of race and genetics. While some sociologists have shown a reluctance to engage in such discussions, Tyler argues that social scientists need to take such views seriously. To do this, the paper brings together an anthropological approach to the study of scientific literacy and recent scholarship in the field of Whiteness studies. The combining of these literatures raises a set of interesting and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the ways in which social scientists and research participants contribute to the reproduction of White power and dominance in Western societies.Online materials'Ten commandments' of race and genetics issued, Science in Society http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14345‐ten‐commandments‐of‐race‐and‐genetics‐issued.html This website describes 10 'guiding principles' for the scientific community in relation to research on race and genetics. These principles were written by a multidisciplinary group including geneticists, psychologists, historians and philosophers. At the end of the principles are reflections from readers of the New Scientist. Motherland: A Genetic Journey, BBC Documentary, Director Archie Baron; Producer Tabitha Jackson http://www.rootsforreal.com/motherland_en.php The programme analysed the DNA of 228 Black African Caribbean descent men and women living in the United Kingdom. The research participants were selected on the criteria that they had two generations of paternal and maternal grandparents that were of Black African Caribbean descent. Twenty‐six percent of the Black male participants were told that their Y chromosome, inherited through the male line, traced them back to a European ancestor. The tests also showed that mitochondria DNA that is inherited through the maternal line affiliated many of the research participants with ancestors from African tribal groups. The documentary follows the journeys of three research participants who used their newly acquired genetic kinship to interrogate either their Black/African or their White/European ancestry, depending on which aspect of their identity was important to them. In this regard, the viewer is left with the impression that an individual's DNA can be objectively coded, separated and divided into its racially distinct component parts. However, when the research participants embarked on their journeys to forgotten African and Caribbean ancestral home‐places, they unexpectedly discovered the entanglement of White and Black people's colonial histories and origins. In this way, knowledge of genetic ancestry when combined with social relationships and history can be put to work to undermine the idea of racially pure lines of descent within families.'Roots for Real, your ancestry discovered' http://www.rootsforreal.com/?gclid=CNbs86LYu5kCFQ00QwodliIP6A 'Roots for Real' is a commercial organisation that offers a DNA tracing service, as used in the BBC programme, Motherland, to the general public. Deploying an 'at home saliva test', this service promises to analyse individual's maternal and paternal ancestry, and match it with the company's database of samples from all over the world. A map is sent to the genealogist (i.e. the client) estimating the location of the client's ancestral origins. The website includes links to testimonies from people who have used this site, press coverage of this service and a description of 'ancient migrations'.'African American Lives 2' http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/ This website accompanies Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr, television series that traced famous African American people's ancestries back to slave times. The research deploys the same kinds of genealogical techniques used in the Motherland experiment, as well as archival and historical research. Gates' guests include Tina Turney, Morgan Freeman and Maya Angelou. The website provides information about the television series, video clips from the series, including interviews with famous African Americans, background on the scientific and scholastic research, and resources for people to learn more about their own family history and genealogy.'Oxford Ancestors Ltd' http://www.oxfordancestors.com/ Oxford Ancestors was the first provider of DNA‐based services in the UK. The founder is Professor Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at Oxford University. Through the use of a saliva test, Sykes claims to be able to trace an individual's European maternal ancestry back to one of seven 'clan mothers', who are ultimately all related to 'Mitochondrial Eve' the original mother. Catherine Nash has written extensively about the gendered and ethnic meanings embedded within the work of Bryan Sykes in the following article: Nash, C. 2004 'Genetic Kinship.'Cultural Studies 18: 1–33.Sample syllabusOverview of the courseThis course introduces students to the contemporary debates in the sociological and anthropological study of race, ethnicity and racism. Historical material, social theories and ethnographic studies will be used to illustrate the social construction of race and ethnicity and the reproduction of racial power in western societies.Lecture 1 – Meanings of race and ethnicityWhat is race? What is ethnicity? How do race and ethnicity relate to racism? The era post‐1945, it has been argued, marked a shift from 'biological racism' to 'cultural racism' in which culture, rather than biology, forms the reference point for defining identities previously seen as racial. We consider to what extent such a shift has actually taken place. We shall also examine the ways in which this shift corresponds with a change in social policy and academic debates from the use of the term 'race' to 'ethnicity'.Anthias, F. and Yuval‐Davis 1992. Racialised Boundaries. Routledge.Barker, M. 1981. The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe. Junction Books.Goldberg, D. T. 1993. Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Blackwells.Malik, K. 1996. The Meaning of Race. New York University Press.Wade, P. 2002. Race, Nature and Culture. Pluto Press.Post‐race: The end of race?Lecture 10 – Interracial IdentitiesWith a marked rise in the number of children of mixed parentage, there is a growing body of literature that explores the experiences and identities of the members of interracial families. This body of literature challenges simplistic understandings of 'race', nation and culture through an interrogation of what it means to be the parent of mixed‐race children and/or to grow up and claim a 'mixed' identity.Ali, S. 2003. Mixed‐Race, Post‐Race. Berg.Alibhai‐Brown, Yasmin 2001. Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed‐Race Britons. The Women's Press.Brah, A. and Coombes, A. 2000. Hybridity and its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture. Routledge (see Part 1 of this book titled 'Miscegenation and Racial Purity' that include essays by Stoler, Labanyi, Phoenix and Owen, Treacher).Frankenberg, R. 1993. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Routledge (chapter 5).Howell, S. 2001. 'Self‐Conscious Kinship: Some Contested Values in Norwegian Transnational Adoption', in Franklin, S. and Mckinnon, S. (eds), Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Duke University Press.Ifekwunigwe, J. 1999. Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of 'Race', Nation and Gender. Routledge.Parker, D. and Song, M. 2001. Rethinking 'Mixed Race'. Pluto Press.Root, M. (eds) 1992. Racially Mixed People in America. Sage.Tizard, B. and Ann Phoenix 1993. Black White or Mixed‐Race? Race and Racism in the Lives of Young People of Mixed Parentage. New York: Routledge.Twine, F. W. 2000. 'Bearing Blackness in Britain: The Meaning of Racial Difference for White Birth Mothers of African‐Descent Children.' Pp. 76–108 in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Tyler, K. 2005. 'The Genealogical Imagination: The Inheritance of Interracial Identities.'The Sociological Review 53 (3): 475–94.Wilson, A. 1987. Mixed Race Children: A Study of Identity. Allen and Unwin.Zack, N. (ed). American Mixed‐Race: The Culture of Microdiversity. Rowman and Littlefield Pub.Lecture 12 – Race, genealogy and geneticsRecent research into human genetics has probed the relationship between human characteristics and the meaning of racial difference. Some social critics have warned that such research will heighten racist attitudes, whereas others argue that the new genetic research opens the way to a post‐racial future. In this lecture, we shall examine this debate and in doing so inquire into the interpretations that laypersons might hold of the relationship between race, genetics and human nature.Brodwin, P. 2004. 'Genetics, Identity and the Anthropology of Essentialism.' Pp. 116‐122 in Mixed Race Studies: A Reader, edited by J. O. Ifekwunigwe. London: Routledge.Condit, C. M, et al. 2002. 'Lay Understandings of the Relationship Between Race and Genetics: Development of a Collectivized Knowledge Through Shared Discourse.'Public Understandings of Science 2: 373–87.Cross, K. 2001. 'Framing Whiteness: The human Genome Diversity Project (As Seen on TV).'Science as Culture 10 (3).Essed, P. and D. T. Goldberg 2002. 'Cloning Cultures: The Social Injustices of Sameness.'Ethnic and Racial Studies 25 (6).Franklin, S. and Ragone, H. 1998. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power and Technological Innovation. University of Pennsylvania Press.Franklin, S. and Mckinnon, S. 2001. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Duke University Press.Gilroy, P. 2000. Between Camps: Nations, Cultures and the Allure of Race. Penguin.Haraway, D. 2000. 'Deanimations: Maps and Portraits of Life Itself.' in Hybridity and its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture, edited by A. Brah and A. Coombes. Routledge.Inhorn, M. C. 2000. 'Missing Motherhood: Infertility, Technology, and Poverty in Egyptian Women's Lives.' in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Marks, J. 2001. 'We're Going to Tell These People Who They Really Are,' in Relative values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, edited by S. Franklin and S. Mckinnon (eds). Duke University Press.Moore, D., Kosek, J and Pandian, A. 2003. Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference. Duke University Press.Nash, C. 2002. 'Genealogical Identities.'Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20.Nash, C. 2004. Genetic Kinship. Cultural Studies 18: 1–33.Palsson, G and Haroardottir, K. E. 2002. 'For Whom the Cell Tolls.'Current Anthropology 43 (2).Reardon, J. 2001. 'The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case Study in Coproduction.'Social Studies of Science 31 (3).Ragone, H. 2000. 'Of Likeness and Difference: How Race is Being Transfigured by Gestational Surrogacy.' in Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism, edited by H. Ragone and F. W. Twine. Routledge.Steinberg, D. L. 2000. "Reading Genes/Writing Nation: Reith, 'Race' and the Writings of Geneticist Steve Jones." in Hybridity and Its Discontents. Politics, Science and Culture, edited by A. Brah and A. Coombes. Routledge.Skinner, D. 2006. 'Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity.'Social Studies of Science 36: 459–88.Skinner, D. 2007. "Groundhog Day? The Strange Case of Sociology, Race and 'Science'."Sociology 41: 931–44.Thompson, C. 2001. 'Strategic Naturalising: Kinship in an Infertility Clinic.' in Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, edited by S. Franklin and S. Mckinnon. Duke University Press.Tyler, K. 2007b. "Race, Genetics and Inheritance: Reflections Upon the Birth of 'Black' Twins to a 'White' IVF Mother." Pp. 33–51 in Race, Ethnicity and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics, edited by Peter Wade. Berghahn Books.Tyler, K. 2009. 'Whiteness Studies and Laypeople's Engagements with Race and Genetics.'New Genetics and Society, 28 (1): 35–48.Tyler, K. 2008. 'Ethnographic Approaches to Race, Genetics and Genealogy.'Sociology Compass, 2 (6): 1860–77.Wade, P. 2002. Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Pluto Press.Wailoo, K. 2003 'Inventing the Heterozygote: Molecular Biology, Racial Identity and the Narrative of Sickle‐Cell Disease, Tay‐Sachs and Cystic Fibrosis.' in Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference, edited by D. Moore, J. Kosek and A. Pandian. Duke University Press.Wiegman, R. 2003. 'Intimate Publics: Race, Property, and Personhood.' in Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference, edited by D. Moore, J. Kosek and A. Pandian. Duke University Press.

Debarun Bhattacharjya (" Formulating Asymmetric Decision Problems as Decision Circuits " and " From Reliability Block Diagrams to Fault Tree Circuits ") is a research staff member in the Risk Analytics team within the broader Business Analytics and Math Sciences division at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He received his Ph.D. in management science and engineering at Stanford University. His primary research interests lie in decision and risk analysis, and probabilistic models and decision theory in artificial intelligence. Specifically, he has pursued research in probabilistic graphical models (influence diagrams and Bayesian networks), value of information, sensitivity analysis, and utility theory. His applied work has been in domains such as sales, energy, business services, and public policy. He has coauthored more than 10 publications in highly refereed journals and conference proceedings, as well as two patents. He was nominated by IBM management for the Young Researcher Connection at the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Practice Conference in 2010. Email: debarunb@us.ibm.com . May Cheung (" Regulation Games Between Government and Competing Companies: Oil Spills and Other Disasters ") is an undergraduate senior in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo. Her research interests are in decision analysis, optimization, and simulation with respect to complex, high-impact decisions. Email: mgcheung@buffalo.edu . Léa A. Deleris (" From Reliability Block Diagrams to Fault Tree Circuits ") is a research staff member and manager at IBM Dublin Research Laboratory, where she oversees the Risk Collaboratory, a three-year research project funded in part by the Irish Industrial Development Agency around risk management, from stochastic optimization to the communication of risk information to decision makers. Prior to joining the Dublin lab, she was a research staff member with the Risk Analytics Group, Business Application and Mathematical Science Department, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. Her primary interests have been in the fields of decision theory and risk analysis. Her work is currently focused on leveraging natural language processing techniques to facilitate the construction of risk models, distributed elicitation of expert opinions, and value of information problems. She holds a Ph.D. in management science and engineering from Stanford University. Email: lea.deleris@ie.ibm.com . Philippe Delquié (" Risk Measures from Risk-Reducing Experiments ") is an associate professor of decision sciences at the George Washington University, and holds a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Delquié's teaching and research are in decision, risk, and multicriteria analysis. His research is at the nexus of behavioral and normative theories of decision, addressing issues in preference elicitation, value of information, nonexpected utility models of choice, and risk measures. Prior to joining the George Washington University, he held academic appointments at INSEAD, the University of Texas at Austin, and École Normale Supérieure, France, and visiting appointments at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He is on the editorial board of Decision Analysis and has completed a term as an associate editor. Email: delquie@gwu.edu . Lorraine Dodd (" Regulating Autonomous Agents Facing Conflicting Objectives: A Command and Control Example ") is a highly respected international contributor to command and leadership studies within military and UK governmental command, control, intelligence and information analysis, and research. She has an honours degree in pure mathematics and an M.Sc. in operational research and management science from the University of Warwick majoring in catastrophe theory and nonlinearity. Her main interest is in sense-making, decision making, and risk taking under conditions of uncertainty, confusion, volatility, ambiguity, and contention, as applied to the study of institutions, organizations, society, people, and governance. She uses analogy with brain functions and coherent cellular functions to develop mathematical models of complex decision behavior. Her most recent studies include an application of a multiagency, multiperspective approaches to collaborative decision making and planning, and development of an "open-eyes/open-mind" framework to provide support to leaders when dealing with complex crises and "black swans." She has developed an understanding of the nonlinear, slow and fast dynamics of behavior, in particular, of means of organizing for agility in complex and uncertain environments. Email: l.dodd@cranfield.ac.uk . Rachele Foschi (" Interactions Between Ageing and Risk Properties in the Analysis of Burn-in Problems ") has an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Rome La Sapienza, where she also worked as a tutor for the courses of calculus and probability. Currently, she is an assistant professor in the Economics and Institutional Change Research Area at IMT (Institutions, Markets, Technologies) Advanced Studies, in Lucca, Italy. Her research interests include stochastic dependence, reliability, stochastic orders, point processes, and mathematical models in economics. Random sets and graphs, linguistics, and behavioral models are of broader interest to her. Email: rachele.foschi@imtlucca.it . Simon French (" Expert Judgment, Meta-analysis, and Participatory Risk Analysis ") recently joined the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick to become the director of the Risk Initiative and Statistical Consultancy Unit. Prior to joining the University of Warwick, he was a professor of information and decision sciences at Manchester Business School. Simon's research career began in Bayesian statistics, and he was one of the first to apply hierarchical modeling, particularly in the domain of protein crystallography. Nowadays he is better known for his work on decision making, which began with his early work on decision theory. Over the years, his work has generally become more applied: looking at ways of supporting real decision makers facing major strategic and risk issues. In collaboration with psychologists, he has sought to support real decision makers and stakeholders in complex decisions in ways that are mindful of their human characteristics. He has a particular interest in societal decision making, particularly with respect to major risks. He has worked on public risk communication and engagement and the wider areas of stakeholder involvement and deliberative democracy. Simon has worked across the public and private sectors, often in contexts that relate to the environment, energy, food safety, and the nuclear industry. In all of his work, the emphasis is on multidisciplinary and participatory approaches to solving real problems. Email: simon.french@warwick.ac.uk . L. Robin Keller (" From the Editors: Games and Decisions in Reliability and Risk ") is a professor of operations and decision technologies in the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. in management science and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has served as a program director for the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Her research is on decision analysis and risk analysis for business and policy decisions and has been funded by NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research interests cover multiple attribute decision making, riskiness, fairness, probability judgments, ambiguity of probabilities or outcomes, risk analysis (for terrorism, environmental, health, and safety risks), time preferences, problem structuring, cross-cultural decisions, and medical decision making. She is currently the editor-in-chief of Decision Analysis, published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She is a fellow of INFORMS and has held numerous roles in INFORMS, including board member and chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. She is a recipient of the George F. Kimball Medal from INFORMS. She has served as the decision analyst on three National Academy of Sciences committees. Email: lrkeller@uci.edu . Miguel A. Lejeune (" Game Theoretical Approach for Reliable Enhanced Indexation ") is an assistant professor of decision sciences at the George Washington University (GWU) and holds a Ph.D. degree from Rutgers University. Prior to joining GWU, he was a visiting assistant professor in operations research at Carnegie Mellon University. His areas of expertise/research interests include stochastic programming, financial risk, and large-scale optimization. He is the recipient of a Young Investigator/CAREER Research Grant (2009) from the Army Research Office. He also received the IBM Smarter Planet Faculty Innovation Award (December 2011) and the Royal Belgian Sciences Academy Award for his master's thesis. Email: mlejeune@gwu.edu . Jason R. W. Merrick (" From the Editors: Games and Decisions in Reliability and Risk ") is a professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has a D.Sc. in operations research from the George Washington University. He teaches courses in decision analysis, risk analysis, and simulation. His research is primarily in the area of decision analysis and Bayesian statistics. He has worked on projects ranging from assessing maritime oil transportation and ferry system safety, the environmental health of watersheds, and optimal replacement policies for rail tracks and machine tools, and he has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the United States Coast Guard, the American Bureau of Shipping, British Petroleum, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. He has also performed training for Infineon Technologies, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Capital One Services. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and Operations Research. He is the information officer for the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS. Email: jrmerric@vcu.edu . Gilberto Montibeller (" Modeling State-Dependent Priorities of Malicious Agents ") is a tenured lecturer in decision sciences in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics (LSE). With a first degree in electrical engineering (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil, 1993), he started his career as an executive at British and American Tobacco. Moving back to academia, he was awarded a master's degree (UFSC, 1996) and a Ph.D. in production engineering (UFSC/University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, 2000). He then continued his studies as a postdoctoral research fellow in management science at the University of Strathclyde (2002–2003). He is an area editor of the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, and he is on the editorial board of Decision Analysis and the EURO Journal on Decision Processes. His main research interest is on supporting strategic-level decision making, both in terms of decision analytic methodologies and of decision processes. He has been funded by the AXA Research Fund, United Kingdom's EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), and Brazil's CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior). His research has been published in journals such as the European Journal of Operational Research, Decision Support Systems, and OMEGA—The International Journal of Management Science. One of his papers, on the evaluation of strategic options and scenario planning, was awarded the Wiley Prize in Applied Decision Analysis by the International Society of Multi-Criteria Decision Making. He has had visiting positions at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, Austria) and the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), and is a visiting associate professor of production engineering at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). He also has extensive experience in applying decision analysis in practice; over the past 17 years he has provided consulting to both private and public organizations in Europe and South America. He is a regular speaker at the LSE Executive Education courses. Email: g.montibeller@lse.ac.uk . M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell (" Games, Risks, and Analytics: Several Illustrative Cases Involving National Security and Management Situations ") specializes in engineering risk analysis with application to complex systems (space, medical, etc.). Her research has focused on explicit inclusion of human and organizational factors in the analysis of systems' failure risks. Her recent work is on the use of game theory in risk analysis with applications that have included counterterrorism and nuclear counterproliferation problems. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the French Académie des Technologies, and of several boards, including Aerospace, Draper Laboratory, and In-Q-Tel. Dr. Paté-Cornell was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from December 2001 to 2008. She holds an engineering degree (applied mathematics and computer science) from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), an M.S. in operations research and a Ph.D. in engineering-economic systems, both from Stanford University. Email: mep@stanford.edu . Jesus Rios (" Adversarial Risk Analysis: The Somali Pirates Case ") is a research staff member at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He has a Ph.D. in computer sciences and mathematical modeling from the University Rey Juan Carlos. Before joining IBM, he worked in several universities as a researcher, including the University of Manchester, the University of Luxembourg, Aalborg University, and Concordia University. He participated in the 2007 SAMSI program on Risk Analysis, Extreme Events, and Decision Theory, and led work in the area of adversarial risk analysis. He has also worked as a consultant for clients in the transportation, distribution, energy, defense, and telecommunication sectors. His main research interests are in the areas of risk and decision analysis and its applications. Email: jriosal@us.ibm.com . David Rios Insua (" Adversarial Risk Analysis: The Somali Pirates Case ") is a professor of statistics and operations research at Rey Juan Carlos University and a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences. He has written 15 monographs and more than 90 refereed papers in his areas of interest, which include decision analysis, negotiation analysis, risk analysis, and Bayesian statistics, and their applications. He is scientific advisor of AISoy Robotics. He is on the editorial board of Decision Analysis. Email: david.rios@urjc.es . Fabrizio Ruggeri (" From the Editors: Games and Decisions in Reliability and Risk ") is the director of research at IMATI CNR (Institute of Applied Mathematics and Information Technology at the Italian National Research Council) in Milano, Italy. He received a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Milano, an M.Sc. in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Ph.D. in statistics from Duke University. After a start as a researcher at Alfa Romeo and then a computer consultant, he has been working at CNR since 1987. His interests are mostly in Bayesian and industrial statistics, especially in robustness, decision analysis, reliability, and stochastic processes; recently, he got involved in biostatistics and biology as well. Dr. Ruggeri is an adjunct faculty member at the Polytechnic Institute (New York University), a faculty member in the Ph.D. program in mathematics and statistics at the University of Pavia, a foreign faculty member in the Ph.D. program in statistics at the University of Valparaiso, and a member of the advisory board of the Ph.D. program in mathematical engineering at Polytechnic of Milano. An ASA Fellow and an ISI elected member, Dr. Ruggeri is the current ISBA (International Society for Bayesian Analysis) president and former ENBIS (European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics) president. He is the editor-in-chief of Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry and the Encyclopedia of Statistics in Quality and Reliability, and he is also the Chair of the Bayesian Inference in Stochastic Processes workshops and codirector of the Applied Bayesian Statistics summer school. Email: fabrizio@mi.imati.cnr.it . Juan Carlos Sevillano (" Adversarial Risk Analysis: The Somali Pirates Case ") is a part-time lecturer at the Department of Statistics and Operations Research II (Decision Methods) at the School of Economics of Complutense University. He holds a B.Sc. in mathematics from Complutense University and an M.Sc. in decision systems engineering from Rey Juan Carlos University. Email: sevimjc@ccee.ucm.es . Ross D. Shachter (" Formulating Asymmetric Decision Problems as Decision Circuits ") is an associate professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, where his teaching includes probability, decision analysis, and influence diagrams. He has been at Stanford since earning his Ph.D. in operations research from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982, except for two years visiting the Duke University Center for Health Policy Research and Education. His main research focus has been on the communication and analysis of the relationships among uncertain quantities in the graphical representations called Bayesian belief networks and influence diagrams, and in the 1980s he developed the DAVID influence diagram processing system for the Macintosh. His research in medical decision analysis has included the analysis of vaccination strategies and cancer screening and follow-up. At Duke he helped to develop an influence diagram-based approach for medical technology assessment. He has served on the Decision Analysis Society (DAS) of INFORMS Council, chaired its student paper competition, organized the DAS cluster in Nashville, and was honored with its Best Publication Award. For INFORMS, he organized the 1992 Doctoral Colloquium and has been an associate editor in decision analysis for Management Science and Operations Research. He has also served as Program Chair and General Chair for the Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence Conference. At Stanford he served from 1990 until 2011 as a resident fellow in an undergraduate dormitory, and he was active in planning the university's new student orientation activities and alcohol policy. Email: shachter@stanford.edu . Jim Q. Smith (" Regulating Autonomous Agents Facing Conflicting Objectives: A Command and Control Example ") has been a full professor of statistics at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom for 18 years, receiving a Ph.D. from Warwick University in 1977, and has more than 100 refereed publications in the area of Bayesian decision theory and related fields. He has particular interests in customizing probabilistic models in dynamic, high-dimensional problems to the practical needs of a decision maker, often using novel graphical approaches. As well as teaching decision analysis to more than 3,000 top math students in the United Kingdom and supervising 23 Ph.D. students in his areas of expertise, he has been chairman of the Risk Initiative and Statistical Consultancy Unit at Warwick for 10 years, engaging vigorously in the university's interaction with industry and commerce. His book Bayesian Decision Analysis: Principles and Practice was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. Email: j.q.smith@warwick.ac.uk . Refik Soyer (" From the Editors: Games and Decisions in Reliability and Risk ") is a professor of decision sciences and of statistics and the chair of the Department of Decision Sciences at the George Washington University (GWU). He also serves as the director of the Institute for Integrating Statistics in Decision Sciences at GWU. He received his D.Sc. in University of Sussex, England, and B.A. in Economics from Boğaziçi University, Turkey. His areas of interest are Bayesian statistics and decision analysis, stochastic modeling, statistical aspects of reliability analysis, and time-series analysis. He has published more than 90 articles. His work has appeared in journals such as Journal of the American Statistical Association; Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Ser. B.; Technometrics; Biometrics; Journal of Econometrics; Statistical Science; International Statistical Review; and Management Science. He has also coedited a volume titled Mathematical Reliability: An Expository Perspective. Soyer is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a fellow of the Turkish Statistical Association, and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He was vice president of the International Association for Statistical Computing. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Statistical Association and is currently an associate editor of the Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry. Email: soyer@gwu.edu . Fabio Spizzichino (" Interactions Between Ageing and Risk Properties in the Analysis of Burn-in Problems ") is a full professor of probability theory at the Department of Mathematics, the Sapienza University of Rome. He teaches courses on introductory probability, advanced probability, and stochastic processes. In the past, he has also taught courses on basic mathematical statistics, Bayesian statistics, decision theory, and reliability theory. His primary research interests are related to probability theory and its applications. A partial list of scientific activities includes dependence models, stochastic ageing for lifetimes, and (semi-)copulas; first-passage times and optimal stopping times for Markov chains and discrete state-space processes; order statistics property for counting processes in continuous or discrete time, in one or more dimensions; sufficiency concepts in Bayesian statistics and stochastic filtering; and reliability of coherent systems and networks. He also has a strong interest in the connections among the above-mentioned topics and in their applications in different fields. At the present time, he is particularly interested in the relations among dependence, ageing, and utility functions. Email: fabio.spizzichino@uniroma1.it . Sumitra Sri Bhashyam (" Modeling State-Dependent Priorities of Malicious Agents ") is a Ph.D. candidate in the Management Science Group at the London School of Economics (LSE). Her Ph.D. thesis is supervised by Dr. Gilberto Montibeller and cosupervised by Dr. David Lane. Her research interests include decision analysis, multicriteria decision analysis, preference modeling, and preference change. Before coming to study in the United Kingdom, Sri Bhashyam studied mathematics, physics, and computer sciences in France for two years, after which she moved to the United Kingdom to complete a B.A.Hons in marketing communications and then an M.Sc. in operational research from the LSE. She worked as a project manager at Xerox and, subsequently, as a consultant for an SME (small and medium enterprise) to help them set up their quality management system. Alongside the Ph.D., and participating in other research and consultancy projects, she has been a graduate teaching assistant for undergraduate, master, and executive students at the LSE. The courses she teaches include topics such as normative and descriptive decision theory, prescriptive decision analysis, simulation modeling and analysis. Email: s.sribhashyam@lse.ac.uk . Jun Zhuang (" Regulation Games Between Government and Competing Companies: Oil Spills and Other Disasters ") has been an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY-Buffalo), since he obtained his Ph.D. in industrial engineering in 2008 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Zhuang's long-term research goal is to integrate operations research and game theory to better mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from both natural and man-made hazards. Other areas of interest include healthcare, sports, transportation, supply chain management, and sustainability. Dr. Zhuang's research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) and National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) through the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Dr. Zhuang is a fellow of the 2011 U.S. Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (AF SFFP), sponsored by the AFOSR. Dr. Zhuang is also a fellow of the 2009–2010 Next Generation of Hazards and Disasters Researchers Program, sponsored by the NSF. Dr. Zhuang is on the editorial board of Decision Analysis and is the coeditor of Decision Analysis Today. Email: jzhuang@buffalo.edu .

Ali Abbas (" From the Editors… ") is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He received an M.S. in electrical engineering (1998), an M.S. in engineering economic systems and operations research (2001), a Ph.D. in management science and engineering (2003), and a Ph.D. (minor) in electrical engineering, all from Stanford University. He worked as a lecturer in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and worked in Schlumberger Oilfield Services from 1991 to 1997, where he held several international positions in wireline logging, operations management, and international training. He has also worked on several consulting projects for mergers and acquisitions in California, and cotaught several executive seminars on decision analysis at Strategic Decisions Group in Menlo Park, California. His research interests include utility theory, decision making with incomplete information and preferences, dynamic programming, and information theory. Dr. Abbas is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He is also an associate editor for Decision Analysis and Operations Research and coeditor of the DA column in education for Decision Analysis Today. Address: Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 117 Transportation Building, MC-238, 104 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801; e-mail: aliabbas@uiuc.edu . Matthew D. Bailey (" Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach ") is an assistant professor of business analytics and operations in the School of Management at Bucknell University, and he is an adjunct research investigator with Geisinger Health System. He received his Ph.D. in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. His primary research interest is in sequential decision making under uncertainty with applications to health-care operations and medical decision making. He is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Address: School of Management, Bucknell University, 308 Taylor Hall, Lewisburg, PA 17837; e-mail: matt.bailey@bucknell.edu . Anthony M. Barrett (" Cost Effectiveness of On-Site Chlorine Generation for Chlorine Truck Attack Prevention ") is a risk analyst at ABS Consulting in Arlington, Virginia. He holds a Ph.D. in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and he also was a postdoctoral research associate at the Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California. His research interests include risk analysis, risk management, and public policies in a wide variety of areas, including terrorism, hazardous materials, energy and the environment, and natural hazards. Address: ABS Consulting, 1525 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 625, Arlington, VA 22209; e-mail: abarrett@absconsulting.com . Manel Baucells (" From the Editors… ") is a full professor at the Department of Economics and Business of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He was an associate professor and head of the Managerial Decision Sciences Department at IESE Business School. He earned his Ph.D. in management from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). His research and consulting activities cover multiple areas of decision making including group decisions, consumer decisions, uncertainty, complexity, and psychology. He acts as associate editor for the top journals Management Science, Operations Research, and Decision Analysis. He has received various prizes and grants for his research. In 2001, he won the student paper competition of the Decision Analysis Society. He is the only IESE professor having won both the Excellence Research Award and the Excellence Teaching Award. He has been visiting professor at Duke University, UCLA, London Business School, and Erasmus University. Address: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain; e-mail: manel.baucells@upf.edu . J. Eric Bickel (" Scoring Rules and Decision Analysis Education ") is an assistant professor in both the Operations Research/Industrial Engineering Group (Department of Mechanical Engineering) and the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, Professor Bickel is a fellow in both the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy and the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University and a B.S. in mechanical engineering with a minor in economics from New Mexico State University. His research interests include the theory and practice of decision analysis and its application in the energy and climate-change arenas. His research has addressed the modeling of probabilistic dependence, value of information, scoring rules, calibration, risk preference, education, decision making in sports, and climate engineering as a response to climate change. Prior to joining the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Bickel was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University and a senior engagement manager for Strategic Decisions Group. He has consulted around the world in a range of industries, including oil and gas, electricity generation/transmission/delivery, energy trading and marketing, commodity and specialty chemicals, life sciences, financial services, and metals and mining. Address: Graduate Program in Operations Research, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, C2200, Austin, TX 78712-0292; e-mail: ebickel@mail.utexas.edu . Vicki M. Bier (" From the Editors… ") holds a joint appointment as a professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she has directed the Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis (formerly the Center for Human Performance in Complex Systems) since 1995. She has more than 20 years of experience in risk analysis for the nuclear power, chemical, petrochemical, and aerospace industries. Before returning to academia, she spent seven years as a consultant at Pickard, Lowe and Garrick, Inc. While there, her clients included the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of nuclear utilities, and she prepared testimony for Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearings on the safety of the Indian Point nuclear power plants. Dr. Bier's current research focuses on applications of risk analysis and related methods to problems of security and critical infrastructure protection, under support from the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Bier received the Women's Achievement Award from the American Nuclear Society in 1993, and was elected a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis in 1996, from which she received the Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007. She has written a number of papers and book chapters related to uncertainty analysis and decision making under uncertainty, and is the author of two scholarly review articles on risk communication. She served as the engineering editor for Risk Analysis from 1997 through 2001, and has served as a councilor of both the Society for Risk Analysis and the Decision Analysis Society, for which she is currently vice president and president elect. Dr. Bier has also served as a member of both the Radiation Advisory Committee and the Homeland Security Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board. Address: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1513 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706; e-mail: bier@engr.wisc.edu . Samuel E. Bodily (" Darden's Luckiest Student: Lessons from a High-Stakes Risk Experiment ") is the John Tyler Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and has published textbooks and more than 40 articles in journals ranging from Harvard Business Review to Management Science. His publications relate to decision and risk analysis, forecasting, strategy modeling, revenue management, and eStrategy. He has edited special issues of Interfaces on decision and risk analysis and strategy modeling and analysis. Professor Bodily has published well over 100 cases, including a couple of the 10 best-selling cases at Darden. He received the Distinguished Casewriter Wachovia Award from Darden in 2005 and three other best case or research Wachovia awards. He is faculty leader for an executive program on Strategic Thinking and Action. He is the course head of, and teaches in, a highly valued first-year MBA course in decision analysis, has a successful second-year elective on Management Decision Models, and has taught eStrategy and Strategy. He is a past winner of the Decision Sciences International Instructional Award and has served as chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. He has taught numerous executive education programs for Darden and private companies, has consulted widely for business and government entities, and has served as an expert witness. Professor Bodily was on the faculties of MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston University and has been a visiting professor at INSEAD Singapore, Stanford University, and the University of Washington. He has a Ph.D. degree and an S.M. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. degree in physics from Brigham Young University. Address: Darden School of Business, 100 Darden Boulevard, Charlottesville, VA 22903; e-mail: bodilys@virginia.edu . David Budescu (" From the Editors… ") is the Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology at Fordham University. He held positions at the University of Illinois and the University of Haifa, and visiting positions at Carnegie Mellon University, University of Gotheborg, the Kellog School at Northwestern University, the Hebrew University, and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion). His research is in the areas of human judgment, individual and group decision making under uncertainty and with incomplete and vague information, and statistics for the behavioral and social sciences. He is or was on the editorial boards of Applied Psychological Measurement; Decision Analysis; Journal of Behavioral Decision Making; Journal of Mathematical Psychology; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition (2000–2003); Multivariate Behavioral Research; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1992–2002); and Psychological Methods (1996–2000). He is past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (2000–2001), fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and an elected member of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychologists. Address: Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, New York, NY 10458; e-mail: budescu@fordham.edu . John C. Butler (" From the Editors… ") is a clinical associate professor of finance and the academic director of the Energy Management and Innovation Center in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and the secretary/treasurer of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. Butler received his Ph.D. in management science and information systems from the University of Texas in 1998. His research interests involve the use of decision science models to support decision making, with a particular emphasis on decision and risk analysis models with multiple performance criteria. Butler has consulted with a number of organizations regarding the application of decision analysis tools to a variety of practical problems. Most of his consulting projects involve use of Visual Basic for Applications and Excel to implement complex decision science models in a user-friendly format. Address: Center for Energy Management and Innovation, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1178; e-mail: john.butler2@mccombs.utexas.edu . Philippe Delquié (" From the Editors… ") is an associate professor of decision sciences at the George Washington University and holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Delquié's teaching and research are in decision, risk, and multicriteria analysis. His work focuses on the interplay of behavioral and normative theories of choice, with the aim of improving managerial decision making and risk taking. His research addresses issues in preference assessment, value of information, nonexpected utility models of choice under risk, and risk measures. Prior to joining the George Washington University, he held academic appointments at INSEAD, the University of Texas at Austin, and École Normale Supérieure, France, and visiting appointments at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Address: Department of Decision Sciences, George Washington University, Funger Hall, Suite 415, Washington, DC 20052; e-mail: delquie@gwu.edu . Zeynep Erkin (" Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach ") is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her M.S. and B.S. degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 2008 and 2006, respectively. Her research interests include maintenance optimization and medical decision making. Address: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3600 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261; e-mail: zee2@pitt.edu . Peter I. Frazier (" Paradoxes in Learning and the Marginal Value of Information ") is an assistant professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University. He received a Ph.D. in operations research and financial engineering from Princeton University in 2009. His research interest is in the optimal acquisition of information, with applications in simulation, medicine, operations management, neuroscience, and information retrieval. He teaches courses in simulation and statistics. Address: School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853; e-mail: pf98@cornell.edu . L. Robin Keller (" From the Editors… ") is a professor of operations and decision technologies in the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. in management science and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has served as a program director for the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Her research is on decision analysis and risk analysis for business and policy decisions and has been funded by NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research interests cover multiple-attribute decision making, riskiness, fairness, probability judgments, ambiguity of probabilities or outcomes, risk analysis (for terrorism, environmental, health, and safety risks), time preferences, problem structuring, cross-cultural decisions, and medical decision making. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analysis, published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She is a Fellow of INFORMS and has held numerous roles in INFORMS, including board member and chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. She is a recipient of the George F. Kimball Medal from INFORMS. She has served as the decision analyst on three National Academy of Sciences committees. Address: The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3125; e-mail: lrkeller@uci.edu . Lisa M. Maillart (" Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach ") is an associate professor in the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, she served on the faculty of the Department of Operations in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She received her M.S. and B.S. in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech, and her Ph.D. in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. Her primary research interest is in sequential decision making under uncertainty, with applications in medical decision making and maintenance optimization. She is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the Society of Medical Decision Making (SMDM), and the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Address: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3600 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261; e-mail: maillart@pitt.edu . Jason R. W. Merrick (" From the Editors… ") is an associate professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has a D.Sc. in operations research from the George Washington University. He teaches courses in decision analysis, risk analysis, and simulation. His research is primarily in the area of decision analysis and Bayesian statistics. He has worked on projects ranging from assessing maritime oil transportation and ferry system safety, the environmental health of watersheds, and optimal replacement policies for rail tracks and machine tools, and he has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the United States Coast Guard, the American Bureau of Shipping, British Petroleum, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. He has also performed training for Infineon Technologies, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Capital One Services. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and Operations Research. He is the information officer for the Decision Analysis Society. Address: Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284; e-mail: jrmerric@vcu.edu . Phillip E. Pfeifer (" Darden's Luckiest Student: Lessons from a High-Stakes Risk Experiment ") is the Richard S. Reynolds Professor of Business at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, where he teaches courses in decision analysis and direct marketing. A graduate of Lehigh University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, his teaching has won student awards and has been recognized in Business Week's Guide to the Best Business Schools. He is an active researcher in the areas of decision making and direct marketing, and he currently serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Interactive Marketing, which named him their best reviewer of 2008. In 2004 he was recognized as the Darden School's faculty leader in terms of external case sales, and in 2006 he coauthored a managerial book, Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master, published by Wharton School Publishing, which was named best marketing book of the year by Strategy + Business. Address: Darden School of Business; 100 Darden Boulevard; Charlottesville, VA 22903; e-mail: pfeiferp@virginia.edu . Warren B. Powell (" Paradoxes in Learning and the Marginal Value of Information ") is a professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1981. He is the director of CASTLE Laboratory (Princeton University), which specializes in the development of stochastic optimization models and algorithms with applications in transportation and logistics, energy, health, and finance. The author or coauthor of more than 160 refereed publications, he is an INFORMS Fellow, and the author of Approximate Dynamic Programming: Solving the Curses of Dimensionality, published by John Wiley and Sons. His primary research interests are in approximate dynamic programming for high-dimensional applications and optimal learning (the efficient collection of information), and their application in energy systems analysis and transportation. He is a recipient of the Wagner prize and has twice been a finalist in the Edelman competition. He has also served in a variety of editorial and administrative positions for INFORMS, including INFORMS Board of Directors, area editor for Operations Research, president of the Transportation Science Section, and numerous prize and administrative committees. Address: Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; e-mail: powell@princeton.edu . Mark S. Roberts (" Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach "), M.D., M.P.P., is professor and chair of health policy and management, and he holds secondary appointments in medicine, industrial engineering, and clinical and translational science. A practicing general internist, he has conducted research in decision analysis and the mathematical modeling of disease for more than 25 years, and he has expertise in cost effectiveness analysis, mathematical optimization and simulation, and the measurement and inclusion of patient preferences into decision problems. He has used decision analysis to examine clinical, costs, policy and allocation questions in liver transplantation, vaccination strategies, operative interventions, and the use of many medications. His recent research has concentrated in the use of mathematical methods from operations research and management science, including Markov decision processes, discrete-event simulation, and integer programming, to problems in health care. Address: Department of Health Policy and Management, University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health, 130 De Soto Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261; e-mail: robertsm@upmc.edu . Ahti Salo (" From the Editors… ") is a professor of systems analysis at the Systems Analysis Laboratory of Aalto University. His research interests include topics in portfolio decision analysis, multicriteria decision making, risk management, efficiency analysis, and technology foresight. He is currently president of the Finnish Operations Research Society (FORS) and represents Europe and the Middle East in the INFORMS International Activities Committee. Professor Salo has been responsible for the methodological design and implementation of numerous high-impact decision and policy processes, including FinnSight 2015, the national foresight exercise of the Academy of Finland and the National Funding Agency for Technology and Innovations (Tekes). Address: Aalto University, Systems Analysis Laboratory, P.O. Box 11100, 00076 Aalto, Finland; e-mail: ahti.salo@tkk.fi . Andrew J. Schaefer (" Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach ") is an associate professor of industrial engineering and Wellington C. Carl Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. He has courtesy appointments in bioengineering, medicine, and clinical and translational science. He received his Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech in 2000. His research interests include the application of stochastic optimization methods to health-care problems, as well as stochastic optimization techniques, in particular, stochastic integer programming. He is interested in patient-oriented decision making in contexts such as end-stage liver disease, HIV/AIDS, sepsis, and diabetes. He also models health-care systems, including operating rooms and intensive-care units. He is an associate editor for INFORMS Journal on Computing and IIE Transactions. Address: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3600 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261; e-mail: Schaefer@pitt.edu . George Wu (" From the Editors… ") has been on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business since September 1997. His degrees include A.B. (applied mathematics, 1985), S.M. (applied mathematics, 1987), and Ph.D. (decision sciences, 1991), all from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Chicago, Professor Wu was on the faculty at Harvard Business School. Wu worked as a decision analyst at Procter & Gamble prior to starting graduate school. His research interests include descriptive and prescriptive aspects of decision making, in particular, decision making involving risk, cognitive biases in bargaining and negotiation, and managerial and organizational decision making. Professor Wu is a coordinating editor for Theory and Decision, an advisory editor for Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, on the editorial boards of Decision Analysis and Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and a former department editor of Management Science. Address: Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637; e-mail: wu@chicagobooth.edu .

Sata kuntaa riittää , Puolet pois! ja Lopulta kuntia voi olla vain 30. Tutkimuksen aiheena on 1990-luvun alusta 2000-luvun puoliväliin käyty kuntarakennetta koskeva julkinen keskustelu. Keskustelua näkökohtineen, vaatimuksineen ja osapuolineen tarkastellaan totuuden politiikan kautta. Kiinnostuksen kohteena on se, miten tuotetaan ne totuudet, joilla perustellaan kuntarakenteeseen kohdistuvia vaatimuksia. Tutkimuksen aineisto muodostuu kuntaliitoksia käsittelevistä sanomalehtikirjoituksista. Tutkimuksen perusteella kuntarakennekeskustelun solmukohdassa käydään kamppailua tehtävien, voimavarojen ja kuntarakenteiden keskinäisestä suhteesta. Kunnille osoitettujen tehtävien ja voimavarojen merkitys on kansantaloudellisesti ja jakopoliittisesti keskeinen. Voimavaroissa tai tehtävissä tunnistettu muutos käynnistää tarpeen sopeuttaa kahta muuta elementtiä. Muutosvaatimukset ovat kytkeytyneet myös poliittisen vallanjaon jännitteisiin eli puolueiden valtapoliittisiin asemiin kuntakentässä. Kamppailu oikeista tulkinnoista, määritelmistä ja näkökulmista eli totuudesta ilmenee puhe- ja ajattelutavoissa eli diskursseissa. Kuntarakennekeskustelua hallitsee puhetapa, joka on nimetty valtadiskurssiksi. Sen keskeisenä päämääränä on kuntarakenteen uudistaminen suurempien kuntien muodostamiseksi. Kysymys on kuntien toimintaedellytysten ja voimavarojen vahvistamisesta. Keskeiseksi muodostuu kuntien toimintaympäristön muutos. Valtadiskurssissa kuntarakenteen uudistaminen asetetaan rahoituksen tai tehtävien uudelleenmäärittelyn edelle. Kun kuntien tehtävissä tai voimavaroissa tapahtuu muutoksia, rakenteiden tulee sopeutua näihin muutoksiin. Kuntarakenne näyttäytyy hallittavana , sen piirteitä voidaan mitata, arvioida ja muuttaa. Vastadiskurssiksi nimetty diskurssi syntyy reaktiona vaatimukselle kuntarakenteen muutoksesta. Vastadiskurssin lähtökohdista käsin pyrkimys kuntarakenteen muutokseen ei ole perusteltu. Kunnat nähdään historialtaan ja identiteetiltään ainutkertaisina itsehallinnollisina yhteisöinä, joilla on alueellinen itsemääräämisoikeus. Kunnan kehittämistä ja palveluja koskeva päätöksenteko halutaan säilyttää mahdollisimman lähellä kuntalaisia. Kuntaliitosten nähdään johtavan kehittämistoimenpiteiden ja palveluiden keskittymiseen eli hyvinvointivaltion paikalliseen alasajoon. Toimintaympäristön muutos edellyttää sopeutumista, mutta kuntaliitosten sijaan ratkaisuksi esitetään kuntien voimavarojen lisäämistä, tehtävien vähentämistä, kuntien yhteistyön lisäämistä ja muita palvelutuotannon tehostamiseen tähtääviä toimenpiteitä. Nykyiset kunnat ovat muodostuneet useiden vuosisatojen aikana monien vaiheiden kautta. Kuntia on yhdistetty ja niitä on jaettu. Muutoksia on perusteltu eri aikoina ajankohtaisilla kuntien tehtäviin ja taloudellisiin voimavaroihin kohdistuvilla haasteilla. 1990-luvun alussa kuntarakenteen muutostarve kytkettiin byrokratiaan ja lamaa seuranneeseen kunnallistalouden kriisiin. Vaatimus palvelujen tehokkuudesta ja byrokratisoituneen hallinnon virtaviivaistamisesta muodostui hyvin keskeiseksi. 1990-luvulta 2000-luvulle tultaessa alkoi korostua seutuistuminen, kuntien keskinäinen riippuvuus ja yhteistyö elinkeinojen kehittämisessä sekä palvelujen turvaamisessa. Samalla omaksuttiin kaksi erilaista sopeutumisstrategiaa eli pyrkimys edistää sekä kuntaliitoksia että seutuyhteistyötä. Kaksikärkinen strategia edusti kompromissia tilanteessa, jossa kunnat eivät olleet halukkaita liitoksiin. 2000-luvun puoliväliin tultaessa kuntarakennekeskustelussa tapahtui kuitenkin diskursiivinen muutos. Kuntarakenteen muutosta vaadittiin entistä voimakkaammin nimenomaan palvelujen turvaamiseksi. Kuntien taloudellisen aseman eriytyminen kiihtyi muuttoliikkeestä ja kuntien rahoitusperusteiden muutosten seurauksena. Uhkana olivat myös väestön ikääntymisestä ja palveluvaatimusten muutoksista johtuva palvelukustannusten kohoaminen. Kunnat näyttivät jakautuvan menestyviin ja menettäviin. Monien kuntien edellytykset palvelujen järjestämiseen olivat merkittävästi heikentyneet. Kuntien taloudellinen vastuullistaminen ja vaatimus elinvoimaisuudesta korostuivat. Julkisen talouden sopeuttamistarpeen ja kuntien palvelukustannusten kasvun myötä tehokkuuden rinnalle nousi vaatimus tuottavuuden kohottamisesta. Toimintaympäristön muutoksiin varautumisen katsottiin edellyttävän myös elinvoimaisuutta. Aiempina vuosikymmeninä valtion rahoitusta ohjattiin voimakkaasti infrastruktuurin ja palveluverkon ylläpitämiseen syrjäseudulla ja heikosti toimeentulevissa kunnissa. Tapahtuneessa muutoksessa on kysymys siitä, että yksi totuuden politiikka korvautuu toisella. Kuntien odotetaan kantavan vastuunsa elinkelpoisuudestaan ja yhdistyvän väestö- ja elinkeinopohjaltaan ja sitä kautta entistä vahvemmiksi kokonaisuuksiksi. 2000-luvun edetessä kuntaliitoshankkeita on käynnistynyt kiihtyvällä tahdilla ja yhä useammissa niistä kunnat yhdistyvät. Kuntayhteisön historia, identiteetti ja ainutkertaisuus väistävät, kun yhdistyminen muodostuu yhden tai useamman kunnan taloudellisen aseman tai toiminnallisten edellytysten kannalta välttämättömäksi. Keskusteltaessa kuntarakenteesta keskustellaan samalla kuntien itsehallinnosta. Voimakas vaatimus kuntien elinvoimaisuudesta ja elinkelpoisuudesta merkitseekin itsehallintokäsityksen muuttumista. ; The topic of this study is the public discussion on desired local authority size and the need for municipal mergers. The study is based on the French philosopher Michel Foucault´s discoursive view of knowledge and power and an analytics of governmentality, which has evolved from Foucault´s research. The discussion on local government structure concerns information on local authorities, power and competing governmental rationalities. Governmental rationalities refer to different ways of producing truths and giving causes for social and political aims. The study is based on the conception that governmental rationalities are bound up with a discoursive struggle. This struggle is integrated into public discussion. The material of the study consists of newspaper articles on local government structure and municipal mergers. The discussion on local government structure is examined in contexts from the early 1990s and early 2000s. With regard to these two periods I analyse the changing historical conditions under which the discourses unfold. During the time that passed between the two periods the local authorities faced a major change in economic fluctuations, migration, internationalisation, the European integration and the effects of extensive public administration reforms. The discussion on local government structure is analysed in relation to the recent development of the operating environment, the metamorphosis of the welfare society and the changeable role of local authorities. An important issue in my study is what kind of discourses form the framework for public discussion on local government structure? And how do they regulate the governmental rationalities concerning the relations between the duties, resources and structures of local governments? According to my study, the debate on local government structure is in fact a defining struggle over the local authorities´ mission, resources and structure and how these are related to one another. A change detected in resources or duties triggers a need to adjust either one of the two other elements in question. The interpretations of adjustment in each case result in specific governmental rationalities of reform. There is also the question of how political power is distributed and the tensions arising from it, i.e. a struggle for political power in connection to the political parties´ differentiated position in local governments. A change in local government structure signifies new strategic positions and political strongholds. The positions of the traditional ruling parties, i.e. the Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party, produce opposite dispositions of how and on whose conditions the governmental models are outlined. The study shows that the discussion on local government structure is dominated by a power discourse that strongly emphasises a demand for restructuring in order to form larger municipalities. The power discourse strengthens a rationality that gives priority to restructuring local governments instead of financing or redefining duties. Within the power discourse the conception of local government structure turns into an instrument of governmentality and a perspective which sets aside other possible ways of representing local authorities. Local authorities are perceived as a part of the total structure of administrative units, the characteristics of which may be measured, assessed ­ and changed. A counterdiscourse arises as a reaction to the power discourse and its demand for adjustment to the change of operational environment through a change of local government structure. This counterdiscourse questions the notion of local authorities as a structure that can be steered and governed. Local authorities are seen as unique, autonomous regional institutions where decisions on their development and services must be made as close to the local residents as possible. Thus the counterdiscourse emphasises the local authorities´ territorial autonomy, which secures preserve the unique history and identity of the present municipalities. In the 1990 s the interpretation that the operating environment developed towards regionalisation was characteristic for the change management. The aim to promote regionalisation and conditions influencing regionalisation was strengthened. Regional cooperation represented a compromise between reluctance to merge and securing of industrial development needs and services. The discussion concerning local authority structures was founded upon a two-peaked strategy of adjusting, i.e. the aim was to actively further the promotion of both municipal mergers and regional cooperation. Securing services is the topic in the core of the discussions on local government structures. And this topic is enwrapped in the discourse on equality. However, equality appears to be the ambivalent precondition for the reform. In the power discourse the equal status of citizens is threatened by the differentiation of the financial situation of local authorities. A change of the local government structure arises as the solution. The counterdiscourse emphasises one aspect above all others, i.e. to secure services as close to the local residents as possible. The pursuit of scale benefits, concentration of resources and development measures and cutting down on services are considered risks in the change of local government structures. The fear for the effects of concentrated powers and for the dismantlement of the welfare society at local level will be actualised in the counterdiscourse. From the beginning of the 1990 s to the mid-2000 s there is a discoursive change in the discussion on local government structures. The discussion starts increasingly to circle around the change of operating environments of local authorities. The prerequisites of local governments to secure the services are getting questioned due to migration, changes in the population s age structure and regional differentiation. There seems to be a division into winning and losing local authorities. The financial and operating prerequisites of small and remote local authorities are considered to have weakened. Making provisions for changes in the operating environment emphasises vitality and viability. A condition is that local authorities embrace their financial responsibilities. The responsibilisation in the discoursive change is similar to the responsibilisation frequently applied in connection with the management of welfare drawing on different neoliberal practices. The mentality of liberalisation and responsibilisation can be more widely acknowledged in the development of the relations between local authorities and the state. In political rationalisation the promotion of productivity has become the counterpart of the securing of services. The rhetoric of financial necessities is more strongly than before starting to regulate the discussion. In the 1990 s the emphasis was on effectivity and claims for the streamlining of the bureaucratised governance. In the 2000 s the talk focused on productivity and the demand that more should be achieved despite decreasing resources. The concept of productivity welling from the background assumptions of economic science is problematic for the public sector. It does not measure welfare and wellbeing. Consequently the dispute is not about measures but about goals. What kind of local authorities will be given the responsibility for the services to residents and the development of their close environment? The answer to this question also implies how resources and duties are allocated to local authorities. The discoursive change is all about a reorganisation of the mutual relations between knowledge and power. One politics of truth is replaced with another politics of truth with more explanatory power and penetrating effects than the former one. The responsibilisation of local authorities and the assessment based on financial processes come in the centre of the discussion on local government structures. The definitions of local authority duties, resources and structures also contribute to the revision of local self-government. The strong claim for vital and viable local authorities actually means the articulation of a new kind of basis for the self-government.

This report presents an account and evaluation of the Hidden Drop-Out project being implemented in Albania by the 'Development of Education' Association with the support of UNICEF and the backing of the Ministry of Education and Science. The initiative, which was launched in 2001 and piloted in five regions, set out to address the widespread but largely hidden phenomenon, whereby teachers engage in whole-class teaching, and consequently focusing solely on achieving students and ignoring the rest of the class. Such practices lead to a process of disengagement on the part of thousands of pupils in the first cycle at the basic school level, a process that leads to lack of achievement in learning core competencies, and eventually to the abandonment of the school. The report describes the initiative, its design and piloting, the difficulties encountered in implementing it and how such problems were tackled or overcome, particularly with a view to ensuring its sustainability. The report also considers the extent to which the initiative proved to be relevant, effective and efficient, given the specificity of the overall sociocultural and educational environment in which it was introduced, and the broader reform effort in the country. The research methodology used in this review was largely qualitative, with the international consultant spending a two-week period in Tirana, Korçë and Gjirokastër interviewing students, parents, teachers, Principals, deputy Principals, inspectors and Regional Education Directors, and observing classes which were being taught by teachers involved in the project, in schools that were piloting the approach. Interviews were also carried out with key staff from the DoE Association, UNICEF, the Ministry of Education and Science, and several NGO's working in the field of education. Fieldwork was supplemented by desk research, as well as by preliminary data provided by a local consultant on the review team. The report describes the key strategies used by the project in order to address the hidden dropout phenomenon. Focusing on the first cycle of the basic school sector, i.e. Grades 1 to 4, and on two key curricular areas, i.e. Albanian language and Math, the initiative: 1. Trained teachers to design 'Minimum Necessary Learning Objectives' (MNLO's) relating to the learning units for the Grade that they taught. 2. Helped teachers and Principals develop continuous assessment techniques, through the use of 'mini-testing', in order to constantly gauge the extent to which different pupils were mastering the MNLO's, and to keep track of progress or lack of it. 3. Provided teachers with support in the goal of supporting at-risk pupils by initiating peerlearning programmes, and by engaging adult volunteers from the community. 4. Trained Principals in a new approach to annual school planning, ensuring that the process was more open to partnership with teachers and the community, and more focused on learning achievement and learning outcomes. The findings suggest that after four years of piloting, the project has had a positive impact on the pupils, schools and communities were it was implemented. It has also had a broader 'multiplier effect' on several other aspects of educational policy and practice in the country. The achievements and impact of the HDO initiative are detailed in Chapter Four of the report: 1. All qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that there were significant gains in learning achievement for pupils involved in the MNLO approach, and that consequently there were less 'hidden drop-outs' in the pilot schools. 2. The focus on learning outcomes led to a valuing of accountability and transparency, with schools and teachers being more open about the learning objectives that had to be reached, and more willing to facing up to their responsibilities when such objectives had not been attained. 3. Teachers became much more aware of the variegated needs of different learners in their classrooms, and organised their teaching, assessment and homework-setting practices in ways that took account of such difference. 4. Teacher evaluation practices on the part of Principals and inspectors became more supportive and formative in scope, leading teachers to becoming less insular and defensive, and more open to considering alternative ways that could enhance effectiveness. 5. Teachers also found it easier to work together in the planning of MNLO's for their classes, and were prepared to move away from their classroom isolation in order to be pro-active members of a community of reflective practitioners. 6. Teachers and schools developed a heightened awareness of the fact that improved learning achievement for all required the support of other partners, including members of the student body (through peer learning programmes), and members of the wider community. Despite such achievements, the evaluation report also highlights challenges that the project has to face up to in order to reach its goals more effectively. Two types of challenges are considered, those that are internal to the initiative itself, and those that related to the environment and context in which the initiative is embedded. Endogenous challenges include: 1. The difficulties that teachers are finding to cater for the learning needs that are present in a heterogeneous classroom setting. Included in this challenge is the difficulty that teachers tend to face in designing MNLO's and minitests that, while respecting the principle that there are minimum competences that all students must master, nevertheless are articulated in such a way as to take into account of the different abilities in the classroom. 2. The propensity for competency approaches to present knowledge in fragmented ways rather than holistically, leading students to see lessons as a series of isolated, discrete sequences rather than as a part of a network of connected knowledge structured around powerful ideas. 3. The need to develop a more integrated, whole-school approach to educational change, given that piloting in only the first four Grades and in only two curricular areas creates discontinuities of practice that are confusing for teachers and pupils alike. 4. The unintended consequences of the public display of the results of learning outcomes per Grade, and the comparison of these results within and across schools. Such practices tend to perpetrate the belief that achievement is unrelated to school intake, and that schools and teachers, on their own, can completely address injustices that have their origins elsewhere, i.e. in the way resources, power and life-chances are allocated and distributed in Albanian society. 5. The persistence of whole-class, traditional teaching styles among teachers who are involved with the HDO project, to the extent that few seem to be implementing childcentred, joyful forms of learning that are normally associated with primary schooling. 6. The negative impact that the term 'hidden drop-out' can have on pupils thus labelled, given that it reinforces a perception of oneself as a weak student, thus proving damaging to the process of the construction of their selfidentity. Other challenges—that are not the responsibility of those leading the initiative, but which nevertheless need to be addressed if the project is to be successful and replicated on a nationwide basis—include the following: 1. A more unequivocal and enthusiastic support of the project and MNLO approach on the part of the MoES, given that both the DoE Association and its partner UNICEF have completed the phases for which they had responsibility for. While UNICEF will certainly support the MoES in attaining EFA and quality education—through, for instance, promoting whole-school, holistic interventions that build on the experience gained in implementing the HDO project—it now behoves the Ministry to mobilise its resources to take the pilot project to scale. 2. A greater connectivity between the different educational reforms, so that each initiative complements and sustains the other. This is, in large part, the responsibility of the Ministry, given that they have the overall responsibility for the system, and the duty to ensure that the different parts of the mosaic come together in meaningful ways. This is especially important in the case of the HDO project, where the assumption is that teachers are being trained in interactive, learner-centred pedagogies through their involvement in other projects. 3. A more principled appointment of leading staff in directorates and schools, given that political appointees take the place of persons who have received training to implement the HDO project strategies, and that their unwarranted replacement jeopardises the stability and continuity of the initiative, leading to demotivation and disengagement on the part of many. 4. A more clear articulation of the roles and obligations that are proper to the teaching profession, in such a way that inhibits the present practice of expecting extra remuneration for work which, in most countries, would be considered part and parcel of teachers' regular duties. Such expectations can seriously threaten the sustainability of the project, which has hitherto proven itself as low cost, high impact initiative. Recommendations for the future and for the way forward flow naturally from a consideration of the above-mentioned endogenous and exogenous factors. The report concludes that the HDO project is now at a critical stage, when a firm decision has to be made about going beyond the piloting phase to one that is more national in scope. Despite the challenges that the project has to overcome, there is little doubt that the initiative has grown strong roots in educational communities in the country, and that it has developed the breadth of vision, the effective tools, and the legitimacy and credibility that any project aspiring to go to scale must have. As importantly, the HDO initiative has shown that it is sufficiently well-conceived as to promote 'multiplier effects'—in other words, it has the ability to vehicle with it the paradigm shift that is much talked about in Albania, and to help bring about a radical change in outlook that will have an impact on the way educational communities go about their work. UNICEF has gained much experience in supporting the piloting of the initiative, and has much to offer in ensuring that this knowledge is applied in deepening the impact of the project in the pilot schools, and taking it to other regions across the country, and beyond. No project, however, can go to scale without the State's backing and the State's resources. It is the State that, with the strategic help of its international partners, has the capacity to sustain a fledgling initiative that has proven itself, but which now requires major investment so that training programmes can be implemented, and practices that have been piloted in a few schools replicated across all the regions—particularly the poorer and more remote ones. This is particularly important given the fact that Albania is one of 25 countries selected in the framework of the EFA-Fast Track initiative. Vigorous State support in improving, deepening and extending the principles underlying the HDO initiative would certainly assist the government face the major challenges of MDG 2 and EFA-FTI implementation, which are crucial and critical issues for Albanian education in the next decade. ; peer-reviewed

Inhaltsangabe: To introduce this work the author refers to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2011, which took place in Davos from the 26th - 30th of January 2011, its agendas and reports (The World Economic Forum, 2011). At first view this meeting looks like a get-together of several leaders from different backgrounds, meaning leaders from different industries as well as political and religious leaders. But the huge amount of attendees and their position in the world turns this get-together into a platform to discuss strategies and solutions for the world's future economy and how to overcome the latest issues regarding the financial crisis. The theme of this year's meeting was 'Shared norms for a new reality', indicating, that the world has reached a turning point where change is important to assure a sustainable future. Abhisit Vejjajiva, Prime Minister of Thailand, for example states 'Governments and businesses should start revising their social contracts with their stakeholders in the light of the new realities of the post-crisis world". Furthermore his concern is that today's leaders are mostly just focused on the short-term success, due to the high pressure from their shareholders and thus work in their own borders without caring about the common good outside the borders in order to generate sustainable success. This concern gets a higher emphasis by Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, who actually attacks today's businesspeople and want to send them back to university because they just aim for short-term profits, rather than worrying about a sustainable future. In addition it is about the future leadership role of China considering multi stakeholders to achieve win-win solutions (Victor Chu, First Eastern Investment Group), leadership for people (Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Finance) and finally an optimistic outlook for the future, especially Europe, and the request of change and more transparency by David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. At the end buzzwords like stakeholders, sustainability, partnership, social responsibility, growth, balance and responsible leadership, just to name a few, can be found throughout all statements. As a matter of course all these statements are in a broader context meaning global issues, but can easily transferred to normal businesses. Reason for this project: Sustainability has become, as seen above, a huge topic paired with a more social behaviour for the common good and let the feeling arise that a new era has begun, that some of the main leaders have started to develop a new 'Zeitgeist". The question now is how this dissertation can contribute to the on-going change in order to achieve sustainable success. Sustainable success is depended on the competitive advantages, which is often tried to gain through reengineering, process improvement, etc. According to Huber, Scharioth, Pallas (2004) this is initially a good idea, but even if there are differences putting these into practice, the performance standard is often quite similar and the competitive advantage, which is won by these initiatives, is not as significant as desired. That is why they are putting the emphasis on stakeholder management with the purpose to not left the relationships with stakeholders on its own. Stakeholder management is actually an idea developed within the 80's by Freeman (1984) in order to strategically align the stakeholder's interest, using a rough framework, finally resulting in improved success (Stoney Winstanley, 2001). Success is nowadays often seen in form of financial benefits and at least in this point Berman, Wicks, Kotha, Jones (1999) see a positive impact on the part of stakeholder management. Nonetheless sustainable success is not just about finances and thus it is interesting to investigate what sustainable success is and how stakeholder management nurtures all its components. But why is each stakeholder so important? Giving some examples according to Huber, Scharioth, Pallas (2004), it points out that no matter if employees or suppliers they all have an essential impact on the business. Employees for instance have a high impact on the customer retention and company's profitability (improvement of 20% - 50%) and therefore put before customer by Nayar (2010). On the other hand suppliers need a lot of attention, due to 'Outsourcing', 'Lean' and scarcity of raw materials, to get required quality, quantity and delivery time. But also other external stakeholders are from high importance to avoid higher financial risks, as already pointed out in the 1990s by McGuire in Savage, Nix, Whitehead, Blair (1991), and thus must be managed well in order to not loose the support of a specific group and thus getting hindered on the journey to sustainable success (Reynolds, Schultz, Hekman, 2006). This is where 'managing", also understood as 'balancing" (Avery, 2005), the different interests comes into play, whereas it can become difficult, if the company is highly depending on one specific stakeholder. This could be an investor, who is holding a lot of shares, or a supplier, who is having a monopole, leading to generated bias and an exposure of sustainability (Savage, Nix, Whitehead, Blair, 1991). Furthermore a company or a company network respectively, is seen as an alliance of stakeholders (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, 2007), and their sustainable success is ensured by sticking together and behaving like a moving target (De Wit Meyer, 2005), in order to withstand evolutions in the industry and the corresponding challenges. It also could be refereed to a company as organisation, an amalgamation of people or groups of people with the aim of accomplishing productive activities, which is seen as difficult on an individual basis (Chemers, 1997). However there are also arguments against stakeholder management as enabler for sustainable success (Stoney Winstanley, 2001), at which the only purpose of a company is seen by Friedman (1962) in Stoney Winstanley (2001) in making profit and thus stakeholder management is an attack on the individual wealth of shareholders (Sternberg, 1997). In addition stakeholder management has found one of its biggest critics in Stoney Winstanley (2001) who complain about the complexity of this approach and finally its misuse as just a new tool to control the participants. Nonetheless these concerns are generally based on traditional and old-fashioned views and the question arises if the time is ripe for change, meaning the move away from just sustainable shareholder success. Considering the criticism above it seems that one of the biggest drawbacks of stakeholder management is the actual realisation, meaning the consideration of everyone's interest. This is why De Wit Meyer (2005) see good leadership skills as crucial to balance the discrepancies mostly between shareholders and other stakeholders, and lead through an alliance with different partners, affected by mistrust, due to fear that others always want a bigger part of the cake. So one major pitfall of leaders regarding stakeholder management is that of avoiding bias. There are differences between the stakeholders, for instance regarding the flexibility. Employees are mostly depending on their workplace, whereas shareholders can always choose from a wide range or portfolio of possible investments and therefore the risk of favouring shareholders is quite high (De Wit Meyer, 2005), caused in their higher direct influence (Savage, Nix, Whitehead, Blair, 1991). Additionally it should be born in mind that CEO's and the board often hold a share of the own company or are even obligated to, according to several financial reports (e.g. Finsbury, Reckitt Benckiser). Thus the own opulence is affected by the profitability of the company. In this case a bias is self-evident. On the other hand advocates of stakeholder management see the necessity for shareholder value (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, 2007), but state that it can be just sustainably realised if it is not seen as the main purpose, according to William George, chairman of Medtronic, in De Wit Meyer (2005). Instead of focusing on shareholder value, the actual focus should be concentrated on 'customer satisfaction" and 'integrity" as stated by Porras Collins (2005). In addition a motivated workforce can be seen as a crucial aspect of sustainable success, due to difficulties of competitors to copy it (De Wit Meyer, 2005). Buying in the workforce, but also other stakeholders, by creating a vision, maintaining it and finally make it live through the whole company is seen as one of the major and most difficult tasks of a leader (Ware, Michaels, Primer, 2004) and thus leaders often lacking clear direction during this task and therefore fail (Wheeler, Fabig, Boele, 2002). In order to make the organisation in a highly competitive market successful it is important to have a stable financial support, but also a highly trained and motivated workforce (Post, Preston, Sachs, 2002), often requiring a crucial change in the fundamental structure, like financial and/or ownership model (Avery, 2005). These changes are hindered by insufficient human resource models and techniques, the question how to get the employees aboard and finally the persuasion of the upper management, shareholders, etc. (Simmons, 2003). This can be eased the more the leader is convinced of the performance improvement using stakeholder management (Stoney Winstanley, 2001). The fact that people already having assets and power are not willed to share this (Gamble Kelly, 1996) and thus will defend it with all legal means or maybe also illegal, does not make it easier for the leader to put stakeholder management through. The globalisation and the expansion of companies throughout the world held another challenge for the leaders. Business policies must be kept flexible, as basis to deal with different countries, cultures and thus unusual competitive and social conditions and at the same time stick to the fundamental values and principles of the organisation (Post, Preston, Sachs, 2002). Talking about flexibility, it is important to see the flexibility of stakeholders in terms of changing from a supporting to a hampering position (Savage, Nix, Whitehead, Blair, 1991) and therefore the necessity to always reassess the importance and influence of stakeholders (Reynolds, Schultz, Hekman, 2006). In addition leaders need to focus on the right stakeholders in the right situations, different from the CEO of Eastern Airlines who was focusing during a strike just on the stakeholders with the loudest voice, and thus ran into serious trouble regarding the other parties of the strike (Savage, Nix, Whitehead, Blair, 1991). Additionally an issue arises that stakeholder may get the feeling that the decision-making regarding stakeholders is negatively influenced by divisibility of resources, saliency, incentives and sanctions (Ogden Watson, 1999) and let fade away the initial willingness to find a fair balance (Reynolds, Schultz, Hekman, 2006). This is why leaders must be prepared for the future challenges, which are a lot more complex, due to a wider range of expectations by the stakeholders, globalisation and more common pressing problems. So finally wrap the power of all stakeholders to a 'value network", considering the creation of social capital and a benefit for every participant (Maak, 2007) is the responsibility of the leader. Stakeholder Management provides a framework, a concept, which can be used by leaders, who are at the end the persons decide how stakeholder management is understood and what is the driving motivation behind its implementation (Stoney Winstanley, 2001). It was even thought about legislating SM and thus make it compulsory for companies, what is seen critical by Stoney Winstanley (2001), because in their opinion company's leaders should practice stakeholder management voluntary and chose their driver for motivation themselves. Today's environment and the resulting circumstances are continuously changing and require a leader who is always questioning the current status of a company and its direction in a constructive and meaningful way (Ware, Michaels, Primer, 2004). Therefore the leader is seen as a key catalyst in defining success of a company (Shinkle, Gooding, Smith, 2006) and also in order to make change happen to the benefit of sustainable success. Seeing sustainable success as a long-term goal leaders are confronted and hindered by external requirements, like the publication of financial reports (Avery, 2005) and thus it becomes a challenge for them to remain committed and thus have the required authentic 'tone at the top" (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, 2007). They will decide about success or failure of changes while acting as a role model and therefore have the requirement of caring about ethics and social responsibility, rather than just on making quick money. Finally it is about the ensemble of stakeholders and leaders who need a practical guideline to make their contribution for the organisation's and common good, leading to the following research question and its supporting objectives. Research content: Research question: 'What elements and characteristics of leadership would help organisations to achieve missing sustainable success through effective stakeholder management?' Supporting objectives: - Investigate and define sustainable success, stakeholder management and leadership with the purpose to identify what is understood by it and what are their characteristics. - Investigate the correlations and dependencies between sustainable success and stakeholder management to approve their complementarity. - Identify how leadership can overcome possible barriers of balancing stakeholders and creating sustainable success. - Investigate existing guidance and frameworks for the creation of sustainable success, in order to underpin their validity or propose modifications. Scope: The scope of this work is chosen very broadly, due to the nature of the project and its research areas. It is about management in general and is not aiming to be specialised on a specific industry or region. Reason therefore is the involvement of several parties, eventually coming from different industries and indeed the globalisation that does not allow investigating management tools with a narrowed regional view. However the scope is laid on business organisations. Therefore the outcome is neither focused on politics, an area worth investigating in the context of stakeholder management, nor religion. Purpose and contribution: The purpose of this work is to show companies and their leaders a way to manage their stakeholders in form of a proposed framework, to achieve sustainable success. As already mentioned in the introduction, an atmosphere of departure has arisen, due to the last happenings within the economy as well as in the politics. The outcome of this work will be an initiation to change by showing leaders how their characteristics can help to establish a win-win situation between stakeholders. Furthermore it shows the need for today's leaders to care about all stakeholders and that this is not just a matter of instruments, concepts and tools to achieve a balanced stakeholder environment, it is more about the mind-set, behaviour and confidence of the leader itself. It requires a lot of energy and stamina to achieve sustainable success and leaders will face a lot of problems and confrontations. Presenting these issues and discuss them in depth will hopefully support them to defend their view of organisational success.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: LIST OF FIGURESVI LIST OF TABLESVII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSVIII 1INTRODUCTION1 1.1BACKGROUND OF THE TOPIC AN REASON FOR ITS CHOICE1 1.1.1INITIATION FOR THE PROJECT1 1.1.2REASON FOR THIS PROJECT2 1.2RESEARCH CONTENT8 1.2.1RESEARCH QUESTION8 1.2.2SUPPORTING OBJECTIVES8 1.2.3SCOPE8 1.2.4PURPOSE AND CONTRIBUTION9 1.2.5CHAPTER OVERVIEW10 2THE MANUAL - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY12 2.1FOREWORD12 2.2RESEARCH THEORY12 2.2.1RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY12 2.2.2RESEARCH APPROACH14 2.2.3RESEARCH STRATEGY14 2.2.4THE TIME HORIZON15 2.2.5THE ENQUIRY16 2.3RESEARCH IN PRACTICE17 2.3.1RESEARCH AREA17 2.3.2RESEARCH GUIDELINE18 2.3.3RESEARCH INFORMATION RESOURCES21 2.3.4RESEARCH KEYWORDS24 2.3.5USABILITY OF DATA27 2.3.6HANDLING OF FINDINGS30 2.4CONCLUDING REMARKS31 3THE AIM - SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS32 3.1SUBSTANCE32 3.1.1THE COMPONENT SUCCESS32 3.1.2THE COMPONENT SUSTAINABILITY34 3.1.3THE OUTCOME SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS40 3.2THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS42 3.2.1GENERAL42 3.2.2AFFECTING PEOPLE42 3.2.3AFFECTING FINANCES43 3.2.4AFFECTING REPUTATION44 3.2.5AFFECTING ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY45 3.2.6AFFECTING RESPONSE TO REGULATIONS AND LEGISLATIONS46 3.4BARRIERS OF ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS48 3.5CONCLUDING REMARKS51 4THE TOOL - STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT52 4.1THE BASICS52 4.1.1DEFINITION52 4.1.2DISTINCTION OF STAKEHOLDERS54 4.1.3PRINCIPLES OF STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT58 4.1.4STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT THEORIES60 4.1.5PUTTING STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT INTO PRACTICE64 4.2LINK TO SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS65 4.3CONCLUDING REMARKS71 5THE ENABLER – LEADERSHIP72 5.1DEFINING LEADERSHIP72 5.2THE LINK OF LEADERSHIP TO STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT73 5.3REQUIRED LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS76 5.3.1REALISTIC76 5.3.2INTELLECTUAL / NOUS77 5.3.3DISCLOSING78 5.3.4GENEROUS78 5.3.5GOOD FAITH79 5.3.6SOLID80 5.3.7VISIONARY82 5.3.8RIGHTEOUS83 5.5CONCLUDING REMARKS85 6THE PROPOSAL - TOTAL STAKEHOLDING86 6.1CRITERIA FOR USEABLE FRAMEWORKS86 6.2EXISTING MODELS87 6.2.1FREEMAN'S MODEL REDEFINED87 6.2.2THE EFQM-MODEL90 6.3THE DEVELOPED FRAMEWORK95 6.3.1GENERAL DESCRIPTION95 6.3.2USER'S MANUAL97 6.3.3STAKEHOLDER98 6.3.4LEADERSHIP101 6.3.5SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS101 6.3.6PLAN-DO-STUDY-ACT (PDSA)104 6.4DISCUSSION OF FRAMEWORKS AND VALIDITY OF THE PROPOSED108 6.5CONCLUDING REMARKS113 7DISCUSSION114 7.1SCOPE114 7.2SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS115 7.3STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT116 7.4LEADERSHIP118 7.5SPECIFIC LITERATURE119 7.6METHODOLOGY DATA COLLECTION120 8CONCLUSION122 9LIMITATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER WORK124 9.1RESILIENCE124 9.2QUADRUPLE BOTTOM LINE124 9.3GROWTH125 9.4CONTRACT THEORY125 9.5ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE126 9.6SCORING SYSTEM126 10REFERENCES127 11BIBLIOGRAPHY157 12APPENDICES157 12.1WAYS OF DATA COLLECTION157 12.1.1SURVEYS157 12.1.2CASE STUDIES158 12.1.3SECONDARY DATA158 12.2SEARCH STRING TABLE160 12.3DETAILED STAKEHOLDER LIST161 12.4STAKEHOLDER ALLOCATION TO SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS169 12.5IDENTIFIED STAKEHOLDER BY FASSIN (2009)170 12.6RADAR ASSESSMENT FOR RESULTS171 12.7RADAR ASSESSMENT FOR ENABLER172Textprobe:Text Sample: Chapter 5.3.6, Solid: The personality of a leader decides whether the leader is anxious of loosing control and power, so that especially wrong strategic decisions are made due to prescient from involving others in the decision-making process (Delbecq, 2008) and not considering their opinion (Avery, 2005:216). Furthermore a strong leader's personality may benefit from a good sense of humour, suggested by (Kets de Vries, Doyle, Loper, 1994) as well as hope, that does not let him give up (Thomas Thomas, 2011). Hope is a crucial point in stakeholder management, with the aim to motivate and therefore overcome the difficulties of making it successful. But finally bravery is a personal characteristic that let the leader stand up fight for the right thing, an important step on the way to stakeholder management (Avery, 2005:79). Collins (2001:21) has done comprehensive research on great leaders and even though he just find a few of them he points out one important characteristic of great leaders: putting the greatness of the company above all. This also means to put it above the own interests, obviously a giant task and thus often doomed to failure. But this does not undermines the importance of this characteristic with regard to stakeholder management. To make this clockwork of stakeholders work the leader must put back the own interest for the benefit of the whole system. Even though it was stated in 4.2 that people are always selfish Mitchell, Agle, Wood (1997) bring forward enough opponents regarding this view, so that it finally depends on the values of the leader (Greer Downey, 1982). Solid in this case indicates that a leader is strong and self-confident in way that he can cope with the previous mentioned. All this results in a characteristic indicated as solid whereas the personality is strong enough to resist external influences. In addition it is pointed to the phrase 'solid as a rock". The leader must be the one standing out of the crowd at least for the followers and keep them grounded. In this position he act as a role model (Oakland, Tanner, Gadd, 2005) an attribute that plays a major role within stakeholder management and sustainable success. The tone at the top is crucial to buy in stakeholders, whereas they must believe in what they are doing to fulfil these expectations (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, 2007). Being solid in this context also means, as a leader, to recognise that the values are not supported and thus a further collaboration is not efficient. Nonetheless being solid also refers to the time span a leader is staying in its position. In Germany the period in higher management change after 6.1 years whereas it was 8 years in 2003 (Handelsblatt, 2011). Against the trend it is more desirable that leaders stay longer because the biggest problem with changing executives is to find a new one, an undertaking that can become very expensive as well as bear risks (Kennedy, 2000). Research in the 90s showed that the experience of managers has a great impact on their belief and their values, so that the experience of a manager in a company will have a positive impact on his decisions (Höpner, 2003:205) in this context with view to sustainable success. Additionally there is always the risk that new leaders turning the whole company upside-down and even if this is often wanted it is not if the new leader does not support the idea of stakeholder management and sustainable success. So all the hard work could turn out to be useless. Deming, 1986:121) sees an obstacle of long-term success in job-hopping due to the fact that leaders do not develop a sense of commitment and that new leaders unsettle the stakeholders. But long-term commitment also must be understood in the commitment to the approach of stakeholder management. So patience is necessary due to the fact that sustainable success and the necessary organisational behaviour is not achieved overnight (Potter, 1994). This requires an aim in the future that can be established as the one of the main motivator 5.3.7, Visionary: To avoid confusion and to respond to critics on stakeholder management a clear direction is vital for the success as discussed in 3.4. So it is about the leader to establish this direction by introducing a vision (Kets de Vries, Doyle, Loper, 1994), that helps to unify the stakeholders behind it, whilst providing clarity about what the vision is not about (Dubrin, 2007). In order to stimulate high performance and motivate followers a leader must lead passionately (Collins, 2001:20) and pragmatic (Frydman, Wilson, Wyer, Senge, 2000) towards a vision giving him/her the opportunity to have a major influence on the stakeholders. This refers back to the characteristic 'solid" (5.3.6) where a leader act as a role model towards the vision, so that stakeholder can follow (Cyert, 2005). It must be assured that the vision meets the requirements of stakeholder management, in particular balance and ethically correct, referred to as righteous. 5.3.8, Righteous: Righteous refers mainly to ethical and moral, including several 'components'. Morality is a key aspect of stakeholder management, resulting in trust and cooperation of the stakeholders. Indeed leaders should be compensated as every other stakeholder but it must be appropriate and not too high, like the stated 326:1 ratio between average CEOs and workers pay (Tang, Kim, Tang, 2000) in order to sustain trust and goodwill of stakeholders. Against the traditional way of high pay equals high performance (Jones, 1995) the survey of (Kennedy, 2000) reveals that challenging work and open communication are far more important than the pay, supported by Freeman (1984) the father of strategic stakeholder management seeing open communication as one enabler of stakeholder management. So this mind-set actually supports to lead stakeholder management, but nonetheless the salary of managers has increased dramatically. This is mainly caused in more freedom and missing internal monitoring of salary (Höpner, 2003:207), leading to a necessary moral respect of this freedom and do not exploit it. But it is not just about the monetary frugality it is also about recognition and awards, where heroism is not appropriate, acting in silence is what turned out to characterise great leaders (Collins J. , 2001:28). This includes the dispense of awards if things go good and blaming oneself if they go bad, this helps to not become arrogant (Kets de Vries, Doyle, Loper, 1994). This is also true for stakeholder management where the collaboration of the whole clockwork should be recognised and the leader act just as the element holding everything together and is not the centre of everything. Ethics is a fundamental characteristics for stakeholder management leaders, whereas Freeman, Harrison, Wicks (2007) see ethical leadership as the one most suitable, backed by McManus (2006:137) advocating ethical behaviour in order to decide to do the right thing, or ethical judgement respectively (Clarkson, 1995). This is why it is also about humanity (Kets de Vries, Doyle, Loper, 1994) and not seeing the environmental and societal responsibility as nonessential (Avery, 2005:216). Leaders also should be aware that they have fiduciary to all stakeholders and thus this fact should become the basis of the ethical mind-set (Kaufman, 2002). This fiduciary towards all stakeholders lead then towards the need of leaders to use this tool in an appropriate manner and to not justify bad decision with this model (Collins, Kearins, Roper, 2005). In addition this brings with it the desired balance of wealth distribution required by Sachs Maurer(2009).

According to the main objectives of the study, the following conclusions could be presented: 1. The drastic decrease in arable land use in the transition to a free market economy continued until EU CAP was implemented in Estonia. The regional differences in land use changes in the 1990s were determined mainly by local bio-physical disadvantages such as soil quality. The higher decrease rate of arable land use in 1992– 2001 occurred in the regions with low soil fertility. A decrease in soil fertility by one quality point brings about a 2.5% increase in the proportion of abandoned land. The loss of subsidies at the beginning of the transition period highlighted the importance of pedo-climatic conditions in the formation of the profitability of agricultural production but the EU agricultural policy has again relieved the impact of bio-physical diversity on the competitiveness of agriculture. 2. Plant nutrient balances of Estonian arable soils were analysed in the long-term (1939–2003) with uniform methodology. This approach enabled the evaluation of some aspects of sustainability of agricultural land use and soil management through transition from the Soviet era to the open market economy. The application of both mineral and organic fertilisers started to increase in the 1960s and peaked in the 1980s. The increase in fertilisation was not followed proportionately by yield increase and this resulted in positive NPK balances of arable soils in the 1970–1980s, which has significantly improved the nutrient supply of arable soils. The quantities of plant nutrients N, K and P applied to the fields exceeded the amounts removed through crop harvesting by a factor of 2–2.3 (N), 1.9–2.2 (K) and 3–3.5 (P). The amounts of lactate soluble P and K increased by 1.1 and 0.7 mg kg-1 soil per year, respectively. 3. In the 1990s the use of fertilisers has decreased by significant factors: N by six; P by twenty; K by thirty and organic fertilisers by four. The total balances of K and P of arable soils have become negative as a consequence of inadequate fertilisation. Active balance, which enables the estimation of the degree to which formation of the yield occurs at the expense of soil resources, shows that at present the 58 59 largest deficiency is regarding P (68%) and K (57%) followed by N (34%). Thus, at present, crop production takes place largely at the expense of the soil nutrient reserves created by farmers in the 1970–1980s. The use of mineral fertilisers is less intensive in the regions with low soil quality. Decrease in soil fertility reduces the amount of mineral fertilisers used by 2.85 kg NPK per one soil quality point. As nutrient deficiency is highest for forage crops, the depletion of soil P and K may become critical, especially in organic systems where grasslands are dominant. Agri-environmental policy should more consider soil degradation due to the negative plant nutrient balances of arable soils in Estonia. 4. At present only 40–50% of the yield potential of cereals is realised in actual farming conditions. The high yield gap indicates the ineffective use of pedo-climatic resources and this causes agricultural self-sufficiency at the national level to deteriorate. Low realisation of yield potential of cereals is partly due to the insufficient use of fertilisers, as the actual yield level is limited by low input of plant nutrients to the soil. It must, therefore, be considered that the yield formation of cere - als is largely determined by the pedo-climatic conditions (50–60%), and that fertilisers are a lesser influence. In the case of oilseed rape the utilisation of the yield potential is 60–65%, which is induced by more intensive fertilisation compared to cereals. To narrow the yield gap in a profitable and environmentally friendly way, the field-specific fertiliser and other input optimisation is required. 5. A positive effect of the collapse of Estonian agriculture has been a reduction of the pressure on the environment whereas a negative effect to the several aspects of sustainable agriculture has emerged (i) in soil degradation which is due to insufficient investments into maintaining soil fertility, (ii) in ineffective use of pedo-climatic resources, (iii) in low profitability and competitiveness of the agri - culture sector, and (iv) in decreased national food supply. To achieve more sustainable agriculture the optimisation of agricultural land use and soil management should be based on the scientific knowl - edge and from this necessary precondition to develop a spatial agro-economic DSS. 6. The agronomic models for spring barley and potato, based on the regression analysis of numerous field experiments, were developed to assess the impact of soil and climate conditions on the effective - ness of fertilisers. The effectiveness of fertilisation depends, to a large extent on, besides soil properties, meteorological conditions. The variance of the average effectiveness, even of quite small rates, of mineral fertilisers (N60, P26 and K50) is very high. Higher efficiency is guaranteed in the case of balanced fertilisation but the optimum combination of nutrients depends on the relative prices of fertilisers and yield. The developed models enable the estimation of the pedo-climatic and economic risks in fertilisation optimisation. Improved agronomic models operating in spatial and temporal scale are forming a basis for knowledge-based DSS. 7. Data handling and presentation in the agricultural decision making process was for the first time in Estonia embedded to fieldspecific GIS and its application possibilities were analysed in the example of Kullamaa rural municipality. A field-specific database was compiled and agro-economic models were applied to provide information for decision makers. Economically effective N norm for barley is, in most of the study area, from 50 to 60 kg N ha-1 but on a quarter of arable land in the study area it is uneconomical to apply N to barley. Field-specific fertiliser optimisation compared to uniform fertiliser application can help farmers to avoid economic losses and simultaneously increase effectiveness of fertilisation and low yields. The simulated barley yield for the study area is, with the use of economically optimised amounts of NPK fertilisers, 2.6 Mg ha-1, which is by 1.1 Mg ha-1 higher compared to the actual cereal yield in the region. Composed thematic maps enable the clear presentation of spatial variability in the profitability of barley production from field to region scale. Farmers can use spatial profitability data with other criteria for crop rotation planning and for strategic decisions but presented DSS does not make decisions, but rather contributes knowledge that can be used in the decision making process. The ben - efit of this DSS is that information from different sources is collected, processed and integrated into a unified system which makes decision making more effective. This also makes existing soil information more easily available and self-explanatory for stakeholders. 8. Despite the fact that this study presents spatial agro-economic DSS on the example of just one rural municipality and a single crop, its importance is more extensive. Up-scaling the modelling results 60 61 from field-level also enables its application in regional planning and in macro-economic analysis. In this study the methodology for the functioning of the DSS was developed which is further applicable nationwide. There is an increasing demand for the planning of abandoned agricultural land in Estonia and a developed DSS can be expanded for the cultivation of bioenergetic crops or for afforestation of abandoned land. 9. Further improvement of DSS should focus on the development of agronomic models for various crops and economic models should be continuously adjusted according the changes in socio-economic conditions. The database of digital soil map should be definitely appended with quantitative parameters, which would provide prerequisites for its more extensive applications such as related production activities to environmental impact. The extensification of Estonian agriculture during the transition period has reduced the negative impact on the environment but at the same time this has caused a decline in the fertility of agricultural land, and this diminishes the competitiveness of Estonian agriculture. Analysed spatial DSS serves as a basis for effective resource management in modern agriculture and can be used as a tool in knowledge-based decision making processes to achieve economic, social and environmental targets of sustainable agriculture. The improvement of the current DSS and usage expansion from pilot areas to nationwide coverage of Estonia are essential for these purposes. This study creates possibilities not only for field-specific agro-economic analysis but also contributes a framework for further expansion of the capabilities of GIS-based DSS in various branches of the rural economy. ; Eesti põllumajandus ja sellega seonduv maakasutus on viimastel aastakümnetel agrotehnoloogia arengust, sotsiaalmajanduslikest ja poliitilistest teguritest tulenevalt läbi teinud mitmeid olulisi muutusi. Pärast Eesti taasiseseisvumist, 1990ndate alguses, toimus põllumajandustootmise drastiline langus – teraviljatoodang vähenes kümne aastaga 1,6, lihatoodang 2,8 ja piima tootmine 1,8 korda. Post-sotsialistlikest Ida- ja Kesk-Euroopa riikidest oli Eestis põllumajandustootmise langus kõige suurem. Aastatel 1990–2005 vähenes põllumajanduse osatähtsus sisemajanduse koguproduktist 12,7%lt 2,4%ni ning põllumajanduslik tööhõive 16,6%lt 3,9%ni. Sellised suuremahulised muutused on tõstatanud vajaduse põllumajandusliku maakasutuse ja tootmissisendite teaduspõhiseks optimeerimiseks. Erinevate maakasutusviiside rakendamisel tuleb arvestada, et see oleks jätkusuutlik nii ökoloogilises, sotsiaalses kui ka majanduslikus mõttes. Kuna ülemikuperioodil sotsialistlikust ajastust Euroopa Liitu Eesti põllumajanduse konkurentsivõime ja jätkusuutlikkus oluliselt kahanes, siis tõstatub küsimus, mil määral oleks võimalik asukohapõhise agromajandusliku nõuandesüsteemi rakendamisega optimeerida maakasutust ja tootmissisendeid, suurendada põllukultuuride saagikust ning põllumajandustootmise tasuvust ilma tootmistegevuse negatiivsete mõjudeta ümbritsevale keskkonnale. Seega käesoleva töö eesmärgiks oli: 1. hinnata agroökoloogilistest aspektidest muutusi Eesti maakasutuses, muldade väetamises ja taimetoiteelementide bilanssides 2. uurida põllukultuuride saagipotentsiaali realiseerumist 3. analüüsida mineraalväetiste efektiivsust sõltuvalt mullastik-klimaatilistest tingimustest 4. uurida looduslike ja majanduslike riskifaktorite mõju taimekasvatuse tootmistulemustele ja leida lahendeid nende riskide leevendamiseks 5. koostada ajas ja ruumis muutuvad agromajanduslikud mudelid ning analüüsida nende rakendatavust väetamise ja maakasutuse optimeerimiseks odra näitel 6. arendada välja asukohapõhise agromajandusliku nõuandesüsteemi ühtne raamistik, mis loob eeldused jätkusuutliku põllumajanduse eesmärkide saavutamiseks. Käesoleva uurimistöö käigus võeti kokku Eesti agraarteaduses senitehtu ning selle põhjal koostatud agromajanduslikud mudelid seostati ühtsesse geoinfosüsteemi. Agromajanduslike mudelite ja asukohapõhise nõuandesüsteemi väljatöötamiseks vajalikud lähteandmete allikaks olid arvukad dissertatsioonid, teaduspublikatsioonid ja -aruanded, riiklike sordivõrdluskatsete, agrometeopunktide, loomade jõudluskontrolli, loodus- ja keskkonnakaitse, Statistikaameti, Maa-ameti, Põllumajanduse Registrite ja Informatsiooni Ameti, põllumajanduslike testettevõtete raamatupidamise (FADN), agrokeemiateenistuse jt asutuste andmebaasid. Töös püstitaud eesmärkidest lähtuvalt saab teha järgmised järeldused: 1. Taasiseseisvumisjärgsel perioodil toimunud suur langus Eesti põllumajanduslikus maakasutuses jätkus kuni EL ühtse põllumajanduspoliitika rakendumiseni. Põllumajandusliku maakasutuse muutused olid 1990ndatel põhjustatud sotsiaal-majanduslikest reformidest, kuid regionaalsed erinevused seonduvad eelkõige piirkonna looduslike tingimustega. Suurem põllumaa kahanemine aastatel 1992–2001 toimus madala mullaviljakusega piirkondades. Valla haritava maa boniteedi kahanedes ühe hindepunkti võrra vähenes selle valla põllumajanduslik maakasutus 2,5% võrra. Seega, mullastik-klimaatilised tingimused osutusid Eesti üleminekuperioodil põllumajandustootmise tasuvuse kujundamisel määravaks, sest põllumajandustoetused olid ebapiisavad. EL põllumajanduspoliitika rakendamisega on aga looduslike erisuste mõjud maakasutusele ja põllumajanduse konkurentsivõimele leevendunud. 2. Ühtsel metoodikal põhinev haritava maa taimetoiteelementide bilansside analüüs (1939–2003) võimaldas hinnata põllumajandusliku maakasutuse jätkusuutlikkuse mõningaid aspekte üleminekul sotsialistikust ajastust vabaturumajandusele. Mineraal- ja orgaaniliste väetiste kasutamine Eestis hakkas oluliselt suurenema 1960ndatel ja saavutas kõrgeima taseme 1980ndatel aastatel. Väetiste suurem kasutamine ei taganud aga proportsionaalset saagikuse tõusu. Eesti taasiseseisvumiseelsel perioodil, mil toimus põllumajanduse arvestatav riiklik subsideerimine, suurenesid mulda viidavate taimetoiteelementide kogused keskmiselt 4,5 kg N, 2,8 kg K ja 0,6 kg P hektari kohta aastas. Samal ajal taimede poolt kasutatud ja saagiga eemaldatud toitainete kogused suurenesid aastas keskmiselt 1,3 kg N, 1 kg K ja 0,2 kg P hektari kohta. Seega mulda viidavad taimetoitainete kogused ületasid taimede poolt kasutatavaid koguseid lämmastiku osas 2–2,3 korda, kaaliumi puhul 1,9–2,2 korda 8 4 85 ning fosforit viidi mulda 3–3,5 korda rohkem. Märkimisväärsest positiivsest taimetoiteelementide bilansist tulenevalt suurenes sel perioodil muldade laktaatlahustuva fosfori- ja kaaliumisisaldus aastas vastavalt 1,1 ja 0,7 mg kg mulla kohta. 3. Eesti taasiseseisvumisjärgsel perioodil, 1990ndatel aastatel, vähenes lämmastikväetiste kasutamine kuni 6 korda, fosforväetiste kasu - tamine 20 korda, kaaliumväetiste kasutamine 30 korda ja orgaan - iliste väetiste kasutamine 4 korda. Tulenevalt ebapiisavast väetiste kasutusest muutus põllumuldade kaaliumi ja fosfori üldbilanss negatiivseks ning lämmastikku viidi väetistega mulda kogustes, mis eemaldati põllult saakidega. Taimetoiteelementide aktiivbilansist lähtuvalt on praegu kõige suurem defitsiit fosfori (68%) ja kaaliumi (57%) osas, kuid puudujääk on ka lämmastiku osas (34%). Tai - medele omastatava muldaviidud toiteelementide ja mullast saagiga eemaldatavate koguste vahe on negatiivne – -24,5 kg N, -6,5 kg P ja -26,2 kg K ha-1. Järelikult toimub praegune taimekasvatus - toodangu formeerumine peamiselt 1970–1980ndate suurtootmises loodud mullavarude arvelt. Mineraalväetiste kasutamine on väiksem madala mullaviljakusega piirkondades. Mullaviljakuse vähenedes ühe hindepunkti võrra kahaneb kasutatav mineraalväetiste NPK kogus 2,85 kg ha-1. Kõige suurem toiteelementide puudujääk esineb söödakultuuride osas. Fosfori ja kaaliumi mullarvarude ammen - dumine võib muutuda saagikust limiteerivaks faktoriks eelkõige suure rohumaade osatähtsusega mahepõllumajanduses. Põllumajan - dus- ja keskkonnapoliitika peaks aga edaspidi suuremat tähelepanu pöörama negatiivsest toiteelementide bilansist tuleneva muldade degradeerumise vältimisele. 4. Tänapäeval moodustab Eesti keskmine teravilja saagikus kõigest 40–50% reaalselt võimalikust saagipotentsiaalist. Suur tootmis - saagikuste ja saagipotentsiaali erinevus viitab ebaefektiivsele mul - lastik-klimaatiliste ressursside kasutusele. Madal saagipotentsiaali realiseerumine on seletatav ebapiisava väetiste kasutumisega, kuid samas tuleb arvestada, et saagikus tootmises sõltub 50-60% ulatuses mullastik-klimaatiliste tingimustest ning väetamise osa saagikuse kujunemisel on oluliselt väiksem. Rapsi mõnevõrra intensiivsem väetamine võrreldes teraviljadega on taganud parema saagipotentsiaali realiseerumise – riigi keskmine rapsi saagikus moodustab 60–65% sordivõrdluskatsete saagitasemest. 5. Põllumajanduse drastiline langus 1990ndatel aastatel vähendas negatiivset mõju ümbritsevale keskkonnale, kuid samaegselt on tõstatunud mitmed jätkusuutlikkust ohustavad probleemid: (a) põl - lumuldade degradeerumine tulenevalt ebapiisavatest sisenditest mul - laviljakuse säilitamiseks, (b) ebaefektiivne mullastik-klimaatiliste ressursside kasutus, (c) põllumajandussektori madal konkurentsivõime ja tasuvus, (d) kahanenud toiduga isevarustatus. Nende probleemide lahendamiseks ja oluliselt jätkusuutlikuma põllumajanduse saavuta - miseks peab põllumajandustootmise ning maakasutuse optimeeri - mine toimima teaduspõhiselt, millest tuleneb vajadus asukohapõhise agromajandusliku nõuandesüsteemi väljaarendamiseks. 6. Arvukate põldkatsete tulemustel põhineva regressioonanalüüsi abil koostatud odra ja kartuli agronoomilised mudelid võimaldavad hinnata mullastiku ja ilma mõju väetiste efektiivsusele ja väetiste kasutamise agromajanduslikke riske. Väetiste efektiivsus sõltub lisaks mulla omadustele ja väetistarbele suuresti ka klimaatilistest tingimustest, isegi mõõdukate väetisannuste kasutamisel on nende efektiivsus väga varieeruv. Kõrgem väetamise efektiivsus ja tulukus saavutatakse tasakaalustatud väetisnormide korral, kuid majan - duslikult põhjendatud taimetoiteelementide vahekord väetises on sõltuv väetise ja saagi hinnasuhtest. Hetke väetise ja odra hindade juures peab näiteks lämmastikväetise efektiivsus olema üle 7,4 kg kg-1 N-1, et katta väetamisele tehtud kulutused. Ajas ja ruumis to - imivad mudelid võimaldavad hinnata looduslikke ja majanduslikke riske väetamise optimeerimises ning panevad aluse teaduspõhise nõuandesüsteemi väljaarendamiseks. 7. Teaduspõhine nõuandesüsteem ühildati antud töö raames esmakordselt põllupõhise geoinfosüsteemiga ja selle rakendamise võimalusi analüüsiti Kullamaa valla näitel. Koostati põllumassiivide andmebaas ja rakendati agromajanduslikke mudeleid pakkumaks täiendavat informatsiooni odrakasvatuse ja väetamise põllupõhiseks optimeerimiseks. Majanduslikult efektiivsed mineraalse lämmastiku normid odrale jäid enamikel uurimisala põldudel vahemikku 50–60 kg N ha-1, kuid samas neljandikul põllumaast ei ole lämmastikväe - tiste kasutamine kui ka odrakasvatus tasuv. Põllupõhine väetiste optimeerime võimaldab põllumajandustootjatel vältida rahalist kahju, suurendada väetamise efektiivsust ja saagikust. Majandus - likult efektiivsete väetisnormide kasutamine vastavalt muldade 86 87 väetustarbele tagaks uurimisalal odra keskmiseks arvutuslikuks saagikuseks 2,6 Mg ha-1, mis on 1,1 Mg ha-1 võrra suurem antud piirkonna tegelikust teravilja saagikusest viimasel kümnendil. Koostatud teemakaardid võimaldavad selgelt visualiseerida odrakasvatuse tasuvuse ruumilist varieeruvust nii üksikute põldude tasandil kui ka regionaalselt. Põllumajandustootjad saavad kasutada põllupõhiseid tasuvusarvutusi koos täiendavate kriteeriumitega näiteks külvikordade planeerimiseks ja strateegiliste valikute tegemiseks, kuid antud nõuandesüsteem ei tee otsuseid iseenesest, vaid pakub pigem teaduspõhist lisainformatsiooni otsustusprotsessi tõhustamiseks. Erinevatest allikatest pärineva andmete integreerimine ühtsesse süsteemi suurendab informatsiooni väärtust, kättesaadavust ja teadustulemuste rakendatavust saavutamaks jätkusuutliku põllumajanduse eesmärke. 8. Hoolimata sellest, et antud uurimistöö esitleb asukohapõhise agromajandusliku nõuandesüsteemi võimalusi ainult ühe valla ja kultuuri näitel, on selle tähtsus oluliselt laiaulatuslikum. Põllu tasandilt modelleerimistulemuste üldistamine võimaldab arendatavat nõuandesüsteemi rakendada nii regionaalplaneerimises kui ka makromajanduslikus analüüsis. Käesolev töö käigus arendati välja põllupõhise agromajandusliku nõuandesüsteemi toimimise metoodika, mis on edaspidi rakendatav üle kogu Eesti. Praegu on tõstatunud vajadus leida rakendus põllumajanduslikust kasutusest välja langenud maadele. Antud nõuandesüsteemi ongi võimalik edasi arendada nii endiste põllumaade metsastamise kui ka neil bioenergeetiliste kultuuride kasvatamise seisukohalt, bioenergeetika arengukavade koostamiseks kui ka bioenergia tootmisprotsessi optimeerimiseks. 9. Esitletud nõuandesüsteemi arendamiseks tuleb teadusuuringutele tuginevalt pidevalt täiustada erinevate põllu- ja rohumaakultuuride agronoomilisi mudeleid ning vastavalt sotsiaalmajanduslikule olukorrale on vaja kohandada ka majanduslikke mudeleid. Digitaalse mullastikukaardi andmebaasi tuleb kindlasti täiendada kvantitatiivsete parameetritega, mis looks eeldused selle laialdasemaks kasutuseks nagu näiteks ilmastikukahjude hindamiseks põllumajanduses, kuid ka tootmisega seonduvate mõjude hindamiseks keskkonnale. Eesti põllumajandustootmise ekstensiivistumine üleminekuperioodil on vähendanud negatiivset mõju keskkonnale, kuid samas on põhjustanud muldade produktsioonivõime langust, mis omakorda vähendab Eesti põllumajanduse konkurentsivõimet. Järjepidev ekstensiivne maaviljelus ja ebaefektiivne ressursside kasutamine kahandab veelgi Eesti riigi põllumajandussaadustega isevarustatust. Arendatav asukohapõhine agromajanduslik nõuandesüsteem loob eeldused looduslike ja majanduslike ressursside efektiivseks ja optimaalseks kasutamiseks põllumajanduses ja on üheks vahendiks teaduspõhises otsustusprotsessis saavutamaks jätkusuutliku põllumajanduse majanduslikke, sotsiaalseid ja keskkonnakaitselisi eesmärke. Selleks on hädavajalik antud nõuandesüsteemi järjepidev arendamine ja laiendamine pilootalalt üle kogu Eesti. Antud uurimistöö ei loo võimalusi mitte ainult põllupõhiseks agromajanduslikuks analüüsiks ja tootmistegevuse planeerimiseks, vaid see võiks olla üheks osaks kogu Eesti loodusressursside kasutamist ja majandamist hõlmavast asukohapõhisest nõuandesüsteemist.

The ICT ethical landscape is changing at an astonishing rate, as technologies become more complex, and people choose to interact with them in new and distinct ways, the resultant interactions are more novel and less easy to categorise using traditional ethical frameworks. It is vitally important that the developers of these technologies do not live in an ethical vacuum; that they think about the uses and abuses of their creations, and take some measures to prevent others being harmed by their work. To equip these developers to rise to this challenge and to create a positive future for the use of technology, it important that ethics becomes a central element of the education of designers and developers of ICT systems and applications. To this end a number of third-level institutes across Europe are collaborating to develop educational content that is both based on pedagogically sound principles, and motivated by international exemplars of best practice. One specific development that is being undertaken is the creation of a series of ethics cards, which can be used as standalone educational prop, or as part of a board game to help ICT students learn about ethics. The history of using games for educational purposes is both extensive and diverse; and current literature most often associates it with the term "Gamification", which Deterding et al. (2011) defines as "the use of game design elements in non-game contexts", this can include things such as; using a points systems, awarding badges, or completing levels, as a form of motivation and incentive (Flatla et al., 2011). A meta-analysis of results by Hamari et al. (2014) suggests that gamification can increase motivation, attitude and enjoyment of tasks, however Seaborn and Fels (2015) caution that much of the research that purports to be Gamification-based is in fact not grounded in theory and does not use gamification frameworks in the design of the systems under study. Nonetheless they found that those studies that did adhere to a good theoretical framework did show improvement in motivation, particularly extrinsic motivation. Groh (2012) notes that gamified applications have been developed across different domains such as productivity, finance, health, education, sustainability as well as news and entertainment media. He also notes that the traditional view of gamification excludes the creation of an actual game, which he classifies as a "Serious Game", a term which arose in 2002 with the emergence of the Serious Games Initiative (seriousgames.org). Seaborn and Fels (2015) support this distinction of gamification, which they define it as the "incorporation of game elements into an interactive system without a fully-fledged game as the end product", but highlight that other researchers have a less restrictive perspective, and note that Kapp (2012) and others see serious games as being a subset of gamification rather than being antithetical to it. Although the literature of gamification only commences in the 2000s, the notion of using elements of games for education, and specifically using concrete "playful" objects to illustrate abstract concepts has existed for centuries. In the context of childhood education, in 1693 Enlightenment philosopher, John Locke proposed the idea of Alphabet Blocks, saying "There may be dice and play-things, with the letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" in his thesis "Some Thoughts Concerning Education". The work of both French educator Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont in the 1750s and British cartographer John Spilsbury in the 1760s led to the development of the Jigsaw (also called at the time the Dissected Map), created as an educational tool to teach geography to children. German educator Friedrich Froebel who is renowned for creating the first kindergarten, also developed a group of "play materials" including a collection of blocks of solid geometrical shapes, and a set of foldable materials such as paper. These are now called Froebel's Gifts, and their creation in the mid-19th century is recognised as a seminal moment in education, for their use in effectively stimulating all five senses of a wide range of learners. These led to later developments, such as Meccano in 1907, the Erector Set in 1913, and Lego in 1958 (Zuckerman, 2006). In a similar vein, the military have long used serious games to help teach strategy for thousands of years, the most obvious example being chess, originating from at least the 15th century, but there were many predecessors to the game of chess that had a similar purpose, including the Indian game, Chaturanga, from the 6th century, and the Chinese game Yì (or Weiqi) from around 600 BCE (Smith, 2010). Starting in the 17th century there were versions of chess that begin to evolve towards modern strategic wargames, including in Germany: in 1616 Das Schack-oder Koenig-Spiel, in 1644 Neu-erfundenes grosses Koenig-Spiel, in 1780 (featuring a board with 1,666 squares) Koenigspiel, and in 1812 Kriegsspiel (Vego, 2012). These developments eventually led to science fiction author, H.G. Wells writing "Little Wars" a book codifying the rules for miniature wargaming (Wells, 1913). This in turn led to the first commercial board wargames, including early examples such as Tactics in 1954, and Gettysburg in 1958 (Deterding, 2009). The use of games in teaching ethics and ethics-related topics is not new, Brandt and Messeter (2004) created a range of games to help teach students about topics related to design (with a focus on ethical issues), and concluded that the games serve to as a way to structure conversations around the topic, and enhance collaboration. Halskov and Dalsgård (2006), who also created games for design concurred with the previous researchers, and also noted that the games helped with the level of innovation and production of the students. Lucero and Arrasvuori (2010) created a series of cards and scenarios to use them in, and had similar conclusions to the previous research, but also noted that this approach can be used in multiple stages of a design process, including the analysis of requirements stage, the idea development stage, and the evaluation stage. Bochennek, et al. (2007) reviewed a wide range of card games and board games that focus on medical education (with many concerning medical ethics) and concluded that although games are used widely in this discipline, there has nonetheless been insufficient evaluation of the efficacy of these games, with many simply evaluated based on individuals' opinions, rather than measuring their efficacy as teaching tools. They also reflected that some games are more boring than others, and as such this reduces the likelihood of the game being replayed, and reduces the likelihood of knowledge transfer. Lloyd and Van De Poel (2008) created a game to teach ethics where the students were given opportunity to reflect on their own perspectives and experiences, to help structure their own ethical framework. The game also involved aspects of role-play as the researchers indicated that they thought it was important that the students "felt" ethics as well as experienced them. The aim of our work is to develop educational content for teaching ICT content. In this paper we present the development of a series of ethics cards to help ICT students learn about ethical dilemmas. The development of ethics cards has followed a Design Science methodology (Hevner et al., 2004) in creating the board game these guidelines were expanded into a full methodology that is both iterative and cyclical by Peffers et al. (2007). Our project is currently in the third stage of this methodology, called the "Design & Development" stage, but the process is evolving as the cards are being designing to act as independent teaching materials that can but used in the classroom, as well as part of the board game. A sample set of cards are presented below. The cards can be used independently in the classroom, for example, a student can be asked to pick a random Scenario Card, read it out to the class, and have the students do a Think-Pair-Share activity. This is where the students first reflect individually on the scenario, then in pairs, and finally share with the class. Following this a Modifier Card can be selected, of which there are two kinds, (1) modifications that make the scenario worse for others if the student doesn't agree to do the task on the Scenario Card, and (2) modifications that make the scenario better for others if the student does agree to do the task. This should generate a great deal of conversation and reflection on whether doing a small "bad task" is justifiable if there is a greater good at stake. The cards can also be used in the board game where the players have a combination of Virtue, Accountability, and Loyalty points, which are impacted by both the Scenario Cards and the Modifier Cards. It is worth noting that some modifiers result in points being added on, others subtracted, and others multiplied to the players' global scores. Overall the goal of this project is not simply to design a game to help teach ethics, but rather to explore how effective design science methodologies are in helping in the design of such a game. KEYWORDS: Digital Ethics; Card Games; Board Games; Design Science REFERENCES Bochennek, K., Wittekindt, B., Zimmermann, S.Y. and Klingebiel, T. (2007) "More than Mere Games: A Review of Card and Board Games for Medical Education", Medical Teacher, 29(9-10), pp.941-948. Brandt, E. and Messeter, J. (2004) "Facilitating Collaboration through Design Games". In Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Participatory Design: Artful Integration: Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices, 1, pp. 121-131, ACM. Deterding, S. (2009) "Living Room Wars" in Hunteman, N.B., Payne, M.T., Joystick Soldiers Routledge, pp.21-38. Deterding, S., Khaled, R., Nacke, L.E. and Dixon, D. (2011) "Gamification: Toward a Definition", CHI 2011 Gamification Workshop Proceedings (Vol. 12). Vancouver BC, Canada. Flatla, D.R., Gutwin, C., Nacke, L.E., Bateman, S. and Mandryk, R.L. (2011) "Calibration Games: Making Calibration Tasks Enjoyable by Adding Motivating Game Elements", in Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (pp. 403-412). ACM. Halskov, K. and Dalsgård, P. (2006) "Inspiration Card Workshops" In Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, pp. 2-11, ACM. Hamari, J., Koivisto, J. and Sarsa, H. (2014) "Does Gamification Work? A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification", in Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 14(2014), pp. 3025-3034. Hevner, A.R., March, S.T., Park, J. and Ram, S. (2004) "Design Science in Information Systems Research", Management Information Systems Quarterly, 28(1), p.6. Kapp, K.M. (2012) The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. Pfeiffer; San Francisco, CA. Lloyd, P. and Van De Poel, I. (2008) "Designing Games to Teach Ethics", Science and Engineering Ethics, 14(3), pp.433-447. Lucero, A. and Arrasvuori, J. (2010) "PLEX Cards: A Source of Inspiration when Designing for Playfulness", In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Fun and Games, 1, pp. 28-37, ACM. Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M.A. and Chatterjee, S. (2007) "A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), pp.45-77. Seaborn, K. and Fels, D.I. (2015) "Gamification in Theory and Action: A Survey", International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 74, pp.14-31. Smith, R. (2010) "The Long History of Gaming in Military Training", Simulation & Gaming, 41(1), pp.6-19. Wells, H.G. (1913) Little Wars. London: Palmer. Vego, M. (2012) "German War Gaming", Naval War College Review, 65(4), pp.106-148. Zuckerman, O (2006) "Historical Overview and Classification of Traditional and Digital Learning Objects", MIT Media Lab.

Ante la alarmante situación de niveles de epidemia generalizada de VIH en Guinea Ecuatorial, y ante la urgente necesidad de llevar a cabo políticas eficaces, eficientes y efectivas en la prevención y en el tratamiento de la epidemia en el país, en el marco del convenio de cooperación al desarrollo entre España y Guinea Ecuatorial, se plantea la pertinencia de realizar el estudio de caso ESEVIGUE2. De modo que, en el año 2010 se inicia la investigación que, a continuación se expone, con la finalidad de proporcionar y generar evidencia científica para apoyar el diseño de planes estratégicos nacionales, así como orientar la toma de decisiones respecto a cómo implementar determinadas recomendaciones internacionales, y en concreto la extensión del diagnóstico precoz de VIH a toda la población guineana (OMS, 2002). El punto de partida de la investigación ha sido indagar, desde una perspectiva macrosociológica, la relación que se establece entre la globalización, con sus diferentes dimensiones, y la epidemia del VIH, para posteriormente descender a un nivel microsocial, a través de un trabajo de campo etnográfico realizado en Bata, y comprender desde una «perspectiva fenomenológica» (Schütz, 1962), cómo percibe y cómo vive la población el fenómeno de la epidemia. Las estrategias de investigación empleadas en el desarrollo de l «estudio de caso» (Stake, 2005) han sido fundamentalmente cualitativas. A través del desarrollo de diversas técnicas, como la observación no participante, la entrevista individual y el grupo de discusión, se recaba información para su posterior análisis, aplicando la teoría fundamentada como método. No obstante, en la descripción y comprensión del contexto social del objeto de estudio también se han empleado fuentes secundarias cuantitativas. En cuanto a los resultados más relevantes obtenidos en la investigación, en primer lugar se señala la pertinencia del modelo conceptual de «determinantes sociales de la salud» (OMS, 2008) para explicar la prevalencia del VIH en Guinea Ecuatorial. En este sentido, factores estructurales como las políticas públicas, el contexto político y económico, así como la cultura y los valores tienen una clara incidencia en los niveles de prevalencia en el país. Asimismo, el género, la etnia y el nivel educativo como ejes de desigualdad, también son factores que determinan una mayor vulnerabilidad por grupos sociales. La epidemia constituye, por tanto, un claro exponente de «desigualdad global en salud» (Ritzer, 2007). Ahora bien, estos factores determinantes y ejes de desigualdad, ayudan también a comprender y explicar por qué en el espacio de la cotidianidad, determinados grupos sociales no adoptan algunas prácticas preventivas para protegerse de la amenaza del VIH. Tal es el caso del empleo del preservativo masculino en la población femenina. Y, por último, con base al modelo conceptual de determinantes sociales de la salud, los resultados también nos advierten de la existencia de determinantes intermedios, como la cobertura y la accesibilidad de los servicios sanitarios guineanos de la medicina moderna, como condicionantes para el cuidado de la salud y protección ante el virus. En este sentido, algunas de las barreras de accesibilidad que se producen en la utilización de los servicios de diagnóstico y tratamiento del VIH en los servicios sanitarios modernos constituyen causas de abandono y no adherencia. Ahora bien, en relación a los motivos de abandono de los servicios sanitarios y la no adherencia al tratamiento, los resultados ponen de manifiesto que la medicina tradicional, a diferencia de otros países africanos donde sí tiene una mayor influencia (Asgary, Antony, Grigoryan, Aronson & 2014; Merten et al., 2010), no constituye la principal barrera para el diagnóstico precoz del VIH, ni tampoco la principal causa de abandono de los servicios de diagnóstico y tratamiento. Otros muchos aspectos, que desde una perspectiva fenomenológica configuran el «mundo intersubjetivo» (Schütz, 1962), tienen una mayor influencia para comprender el sentido y el significado de los comportamientos y acciones frente al VIH. A este respecto, se evidencia la coexistencia de diferentes significados sobre el virus, donde el contexto cultural local juega un papel clave en la configuración de dichas estructuras significativas. Tal es el caso de la percepción unánime que existe del virus como "enfermedad de hospital", en oposición a las enfermedades tradicionales. No obstante, un elemento transversal y común a todos los significados o percepciones que el virus adquiere, se halla en la identificación que se produce entre el VIH y la enfermedad del sida. De modo que, el VIH es finalmente percibido como la "enfermedad del sida", atribuyéndosele en última instancia significado de mortalidad, y configurándose en el imaginario colectivo como una "enfermedad mortal". Algunas de estas estructuras significativas, tales como "enfermedad de abuso sexual" y "enfermedad mortal", terminan reificándose en el «lebenswelt» (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Y con base a estas estructuras se deriva la construcción de una «representación social» (Moscovici, 1979) del VIH poco positiva y desfavorable. Cabe resaltar la gran contribución de este resultado, por su fuerte valor explicativo en la comprensión de las formas de pensar, actuar y sentir de la población ante el virus. Ahora bien, debido a la representación social del VIH poco favorable, tener el virus adquiere la categoría social de «desviación secundaria» (Lemert, 1951), modificándose por tanto el «rol social» (Parsons, 1951); la «identidad social» (Tajfel & Turner, 1979); y, en última instancia, redefiniendo y reorganizando el «autoconcepto» (Mead, 1934) de la persona que lo padece. De modo que, y en consecuencia a esta consideración de desviación secundaria, se desencadenan determinados mecanismos de control social, tales como el congosá, el rumor, las risas, el estigma, el prejuicio que cristalizan finalmente en formas de rechazo social y discriminación en torno a las personas seropositivas. Por tanto, una primera conclusión que se deriva de los resultados obtenidos en la investigación, es la influencia que tienen los determinantes sociales de la salud para explicar la prevalencia de la epidemia en Guinea Ecuatorial así como su distribución por grupos sociales. Una segunda conclusión, es el fuerte valor explicativo que tienen los distintos constructos sociales creados en torno al VIH para comprender las formas de pensar, actuar y vivir el fenómeno y, por tanto, en la adquisición o no de prácticas preventivas. ; Given the alarming situation of the generalised HIV epidemic levels in Equatorial Guinea, and given the urgent need to implement effective and efficient policies for the prevention and treatment of the epidemic in the country, the relevance of conducting the ESEVIGUE case study arises, within the framework of the development cooperation agreement between Spain and Equatorial Guinea. So, in 2010 the research began with the purpose of providing and generating scientific evidence to support the development of national strategic plans and guiding decision-making about how to implement certain international recommendations, and in particular the expansion of early diagnosis of HIV across the Equatorial Guinean population (WHO, 2002). The starting point of the research has been to investigate what relationship exists between globalisation and the HIV epidemic from a macro-sociological perspective, then to subsequently descend to a micro-social level, through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bata, with the objective of understanding how the Equatorial Guinean population perceives and lives with the phenomenon of the epidemic from a «phenomenological perspective» (Schütz, 1962). The research strategies employed in the development of the «case study» (Stake, 2005) have been fundamentally qualitative. However, in the description and understanding of the social context of the object of study, quantitative secondary sources have also been used. Specifically, the data collection techniques applied have been non-participant observation, individual interviews and discussion group. As for the most relevant results obtained in the investigation, firstly it is noted that the HIV epidemic in Equatorial Guinean society responds to the «social determinants of health» (WHO, 2005) conceptual model. It therefore constitutes a clear exponent of «global health inequality» (Ritzer, 2007). In this sense, structural factors such as public policy, political and economic context and culture and values have an impact on prevalence levels in the country. Also, gender, ethnicity and education level as axes of inequality, are also factors that determine greater vulnerability for social groups to the virus. These determinants and inequality axes also help to understand and explain why in the space of everyday life; certain social groups do not adopt some preventive measures to protect themselves from the threat of HIV. Such is the case of male condom use amongst women. And finally, as for the conceptual model of social determinants of health, it is noted that the intermediate determinants, such as the coverage and accessibility of modern Equatorial Guinean health services, also represent a determining factor for health care and protection from HIV. In this sense, the existing accessibility barriers are causes of abandonment and non-adherence to HIV diagnostic services and treatment. In relation to the grounds of abandonment of the services and non-adherence to the treatment, the results show that traditional medicine, unlike other African countries where it has a greater influence (Asgary et al., 2014; Merten et al., 2010), it is not the main barrier to early diagnosis of HIV nor the main cause of abandoning health and diagnostic services. Many other aspects, which from a phenomenological perspective constitute significant structures, i.e. the «intersubjective world" in the terms of Schütz (1962), have a greater influence on the understanding of the meaning and the significance of the behaviours and actions against HIV. So the coexistence of different meanings regarding HIV is evident, where the local cultural context is key in shaping said significant structures. For example, such is the case of the existing unanimous perception of a «hospital disease» , as opposed to traditional diseases. However, a transversal and common element to all the meanings or perceptions that the virus acquires is in the identification that occurs between HIV and the AIDS disease, ultimately being perceived as the "AIDS disease" and therefore the meaning of "deadly disease» ultimately being connotated. Some of these significant structures, such as "a disease of sexual abuse" and "a deadly disease", making it real in the «lebenswelt» (Berger & Luckmann, 1967), ultimately result in the construction of a «social representation» (Moscovici, 1979) of HIV as negative and unfavourable. The major contribution of this result is emphasised given that it has a strong explanatory value in the ways in which people think, act and feel regarding HIV. However, because HIV has acquired an unfavourable social representation, having the virus acquires the social category «secondary deviation» (Lemert, 1951), thus modifying the «social role» (Parsons, 1951); «social identity» (Tajfel & Turner, 1979); and, ultimately, redefining and reorganising the «self-concept» (Mead, 1934) of the person who has it. Therefore the consideration of secondary deviation, triggers certain mechanisms of social control, such as local gossip, rumours, laughter, stigma and prejudice that ultimately crystallise into forms of social rejection and discrimination around HIV-positive people. This consideration of HIV as secondary deviation also affects the social perception of risk, as long as it is mediated, in part, by «exogroup discrimination» (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Therefore, in view of the results obtained, one of the main conclusions obtained from the research is the influence of social determinants of health on an increased vulnerability before the HIV epidemic. As well as the explanatory value that different social constructs have, created around the virus in the acquisition of preventive practices and in the ways of thinking about, acting on and living with the phenomenon of the epidemic in the country.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, in October 2011 the world population reached 7 billion people, 3456.8 millions of whom are women.In the U.S.A, the total population is 313.1 million in 2011. Of those, 158.5 million are women, which means a little bit more than a half. In this country the people eligible to vote in 2008 reached more than 218 million, 55% of whom are women.The numbers are similar in Switzerland. With a total population of 7.7 million people, the country has 3.9 million of women – again, just a little bit more than the half –, and 54% of the Swiss eligible to vote are women (2010).However, the current representation of women in politics around the world does not reflect the population data. At parliamentary level worldwide, the percentage of women who occupies seats as deputies or senators is 19.2% and 17.8% respectively. These means that even though the historical representation of women in politics has been rising, the number of males representatives still is overwhelmingly higher.For reference only, the minimum percentage that is consider necessary for a fair and considerable representation of ideas that can influence the decision making is about 30%.In January 1918 the 19th Amendment of the USA Constitution was included in the political agenda for the discussion of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The president of USA, Woodrow Wilson, recognizing the woman's support to their country during the war, urged the politicians to vote in favor of the amendment. The Representatives passed the amendment on May 1919, and the Senate did the same on June. Thereafter, the approval was in hands of each state. More than twenty states ratified it within six months. Thirty six were needed to include the amendment into the Constitution, and Tennessee turned out to be the one which had the final decision. After a very close vote, just one of the legislators changed his opinion and the woman's right to vote was approved. Literally, the 19th amendment says: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." With those two simple lines, the activist women of the USA, who had been fighting for their right to vote for more than seven decades, finally achieved their goal and the history of American women in politics change forever.On the other hand, Switzerland is the last European country that allowed its women to vote at national level. Many say that it was due to the decisions take longer to be taken in a direct democracy. But there, it took too long.The Swiss society can be consider as patriarchal, conservative, traditional and with marked streaks sexist, which is exemplifiedin the traditional perception of the woman's role as restricted to 'kinder, kirche und kuche' ('children, church and kitchen'), still valid specially in German-speaking regions.However, the active feminist movements exist since long time ago, and they fight not only for the woman's right to vote, but also for legal equality and the empowerment of women in all aspects.By 1962, with the intention to sign the European Convention of Human Rights, the government of Switzerland asked for an exception about the legal equality of genders – specifically for the women's right to vote -. Against this, the associations pro the female suffrage protested, and the commotion forced the authorities to review that posture. So, a referendum was decided by the government in 1968, and the public consultation took place in February 1971. Finally, the results were different. More than six hundred thousand (about 66%) Swiss men said YES to the women's right to vote, so since then all Swiss women are allowed to vote at national level.Furthermore, on October 31 of the same year, there was a parliamentary election in Switzerland, and eleven women were elected to be part of it.The United States of American and Switzerland differs in many aspects, such as size, population, traditions and history. However, both have also some things in common. They both took too long to allow their women to vote, granting with that a better political equality.Their political regime is pretty similar, both are democratic countries. In the process of getting the female suffrage the USA parliament, as well as the Swiss, played a key role since the decision of including the issue into the constitutional order should, in the first instance, be approved by the legislature. But after the parliament passed it, the next step was different within the two countries. USA led the final decision to the local governments, while in Switzerland was the people who had to finish the process. This means that in the European country the men citizens had the final word instead of the parliamentarians, who should represent the interest of all citizens, men and women. There is then, a social matter. Switzerland is a multicultural country with a big percentage of foreigners among its residents, four official languages, and a rich history of immigration. Nevertheless, the Swiss society is mostly conservative and traditional, in particular its regions of German´s descendants and residents, not so the French or Italians. The facts speak by themselves: in the referendum of 1959, only three cantons voted for allow the Swiss women to vote, all three were 'French'; while in the 'German' canton call Appenzell Innerrhoden, the amount of No votes was about 95%. Another point that can be considered as a difference within the two countries concerning the female struggle, are their leaders. Both, the American and the Swiss movement, had notorious female leaders. They were all active politicians and were deeply committed to the cause, which contributes to the organization of the movements and also to the well development of the activities.However, the American female leaders, although they were largely convinced of the injustice of gender inequality, none of them had high-level education. The abolitionist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a writer, but she never took college studies. Lucretia Mott was a school teacher; and Susan B. Anthony just dedicated her entire life to the fight for women's rights. Except for Stanton (she was a lawyer's daughter), they didn't came from high educated families. Meanwhile, the most famous leader of the Swiss movement for women's right to vote, Josi Meier had a different background. Her real name was Josephine Johanna Meier, but was also known as the 'Grand Old Lady'. She died in 2006 at the age of eighty. Meier, who also came from a poor family, graduated as a lawyer in 1952, but had been defending women's right for a long time. When the right to vote for women was finally awarded in 1971, she became one of the members of the Lucerne cantonal parliament, and some month later she was among the eleven women elected as parliamentary representatives. Moreover, Meier took place in the Senate some years later and in 1991 became the first woman ever to be the Senate's speaker.It is worth comparing also the opposition that the movements had to face in both countries. The resistance to the women's right to vote, in USA as in Switzerland, had the objective of stop the progressive movements, defended the traditional order of the society and, as Nicole Herz (1992) describes, "'Antis' had to re-define the scope of woman's sphere and put government back into the male's sphere". Furthermore, the opposition in USA and in Switzerland used to use the same arguments to fight against the change. The religious beliefs were common among the opposition movements. The 'God word' and the biblical commandments that assure women were made to be men's support, good wives and exemplary mothers, dedicated to their homes and children, were some of the weapons of the anti-suffragist. Coming from conservative education, they believed that 'women belong to the kitchen' and there they must remain. Political issues were thought to be rude and complicated so only men should handle it, women would lose their femininity if they involved in politics. Other of the arguments was that the basis of the family, and therefore of society, was the women's homemakers, so if women get their right to vote, then they would had less time to do it and the families would lose their foundations, so the society would derail.Finally, there is one last fact that both, USA and Switzerland, had in common. It was the influence of an external factor into their government decision of do something about the right to vote for women. In the USA it was the World War I. In Switzerland, the Cold War.During the First World War (1914 – 1918) the American women began to be part of the work force of the country while the men went to fight in the battlefield. Doing this, women helped to sustain the USA economy developing their labor in traditional male occupations. After that, they used it as a weapon and strong argument for their struggle for suffrage right. If they were strong enough to work as men, their opinion should also be important enough in politics as men's. The men and the government must recognized it, and they had not any strong argument against the women's claim anymore. On the other hand, the Swiss government was afraid about the national security during the Cold War. Given the geopolitical situation and the small size of Switzerland, the Communist could saw it as a strategic war point. For that reason, the government thought in expand and strengthen its military force, including women into it. Again, the Swiss women, as the Americans, argued that the demand of their labor force should be compensated by granting the right that they had been fighting for. Moreover, in Switzerland there was also another factor that there was not in USA. The integration with the European region, materialized in the signing of the European Convention of Human Rights, needed the government to catch up its settings, so the legal equality should be guaranteed. The willing of being part of the region in such a difficult time as the Cold War, pushed the Swiss government to move forward in the woman's right to vote issue.The United States of America, as well as Switzerland, witnessed the long struggle for the female right to vote but, what are the current results of it? How much equality have today those countries in political terms? Have their women real participation in politics nowadays?According to the Interparliamentary Union ranking, in 2010 Switzerland was positioned as the 26th country with more women in parliamentary, while USA was in the 70th position with only 89 women among 532 legislators. Although some researchers suggest that the American women are more likely to participate in elections by making use of their right to vote than men; the USA politics still have a lot to improve in order to eliminate the gender gap in political area. On its part, Switzerland has less inequality in politics, but still is not absolutely equal. The Swiss Executive Branch is comprised of seven members, all with equal decision power, and one of them is named, by rotation, Federal President. The first woman elected as President was Ruth Dreifuss, who took place of the position in 1999.In 2010 for the first time, three women were occupying high political positions in the Swiss government simultaneously. Moreover, in September 22 of the same year, after one more woman was elected as minister, the Executive was composed by four women and three men, marking the first time ever that the Swiss government has a female majority. To sum up, unlike USA, which has never had a woman as President; Switzerland seems to be more progressive when it comes to high positions in politics nowadays. *Estudiante de la Licenciatura en Estudios Internacionales.FACS - Universidad ORT Uruguay

El cultivo de olivar se extiende por todo el territorio de Túnez. En este país, la producción olivarera para la elaboración de aceite de oliva es la actividad agraria más importante por su trascendencia económica, social y ambiental. La mayoría de los sistemas de cultivo del olivo utilizan técnicas tradicionales de secano cuya productividad es muy baja. Además, las explotaciones olivareras son en su mayoría de pequeño tamaño, empleando a trabajadores ocasionales para tareas eventuales y con un bajo nivel de empleo a largo plazo asociado a un bajo rendimiento económico. El sector olivarero tunecino debe hacer frente a la creciente competitividad internacional optimizando la productividad y la innovación del olivar tradicional. En este sentido, el sector ha experimentado importantes cambios en las últimas décadas en cuanto a las prácticas agrarias utilizadas, evolucionando desde las asociadas a sistemas olivareros tradicionales de baja densidad, a las de nuevos sistemas innovadores de cultivo de alta densidad. Además, el riego y la producción ecológica juegan un papel cada vez más importante en este sector. Los sistemas intensivos tienen mayor productividad, pero pueden generar un alto impacto ambiental. Así, la sostenibilidad de estos sistemas sigue siendo un tema controvertido y fundamental, especialmente en Túnez. En este contexto, el objetivo principal de esta tesis doctoral es evaluar la sostenibilidad de los diferentes sistemas de producción olivarera existentes actualmente en Túnez con el fin de definir estrategias de mitigación y mejora hacia un manejo más sostenible de los mismos. El trabajo se ha realizado en dos fases: En la primera fase, se ha llevado a cabo una evaluación comparativa de la multifuncionalidad y sostenibilidad global de dos sistemas de cultivo del olivo, el ecológico y el convencional. La evaluación de la sostenibilidad se ha llevado a cabo basándose en: i) una perspectiva multidimensional, considerando las tres dimensiones de la sostenibilidad -ambiental, económica y socio-territorial; y ii) un enfoque de conocimiento de expertos para seleccionar y evaluar los criterios adecuados de sostenibilidad para comparar ambos sistemas. Para ello, se ha aplicado la metodología del Proceso Analítico Jerárquico - Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), una técnica de Análisis de Decisión Multicriterio – Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), a partir de una encuesta dirigida a un panel de 20 expertos. En la segunda, se ha realizado una evaluación de la multifuncionalidad y sostenibilidad de los sistemas olivareros, con un mayor nivel de detalle de los mismos (ecológico tradicional, convencional tradicional, intensivo y súper-intensivo). Se han evaluado los sistemas de cultivo desde la fase de plantación hasta la fase de plena producción y la eliminación de los árboles al final del ciclo de vida, lo que abarca un periodo de 50 años. Así, se han comparado seis sistemas tradicionales, dos sistemas intensivos y uno súper-intensivo, considerando el tipo de cultivo (convencional o ecológico), el manejo del riego (con o sin riego) y el manejo de la fertilización (con o sin fertilización). Las prácticas agrícolas analizadas son el manejo del suelo, los fertilizantes, los pesticidas, la poda y la recolección. Los resultados del análisis se refieren a dos unidades funcionales: 1 tonelada de aceitunas y 1 hectárea de superficie de olivar. En primer lugar, se ha realizado una evaluación ambiental de los sistemas olivareros mediante el Análisis del Ciclo de Vida (ACV). Para analizar la sostenibilidad del Ciclo de Vida de los sistemas de cultivo del olivo se ha desarrollado un marco integrado de Análisis de la Sostenibilidad del Ciclo de Vida (ASCV) que consta de dos partes metodológicas: 1) Evaluación del ciclo de vida; e 2) Integración mediante el MCDA. En la primera parte, se calculan las categorías de impacto ambiental, económico y social mediante el ACV, el Cálculo de los Costes del Ciclo de Vida (CCV) y el Análisis Social del Ciclo de Vida (ACV-Social), respectivamente. Los datos cuantitativos se recogieron a partir de una encuesta realizada a 250 agricultores y de una revisión bibliográfica. Posteriormente, se aplicó el AHP para priorizar las tres dimensiones de la sostenibilidad (ambiental, económica y social) y las categorías de impacto y calcular una Puntuación de Sostenibilidad del Ciclo de Vida para cada sistema olivarero. El proceso de priorización se llevó a cabo mediante la consulta a 28 agentes del sector. Los resultados del análisis multicriterio mediante AHP muestran que el sistema olivarero ecológico es más sostenible que el convencional, si bien se pone de manifiesto la necesidad de incrementar el rendimiento económico del sistema ecológico. Los resultados del ACV indican que los sistemas innovadores (intensivo y súper-intensivo) producen un menor impacto ambiental en todas las categorías con respecto al resto de sistemas desde el punto de vista productivo. En cambio, generan un mayor impacto por hectárea de superficie cultivada. Los fertilizantes y el manejo del suelo son las prácticas agrarias con mayores contribuciones en la mayoría de las categorías de impacto evaluadas. El ASCV de los sistemas de producción olivarera indica que la mayor prioridad se asigna a los aspectos ambientales, seguidos de los económicos y sociales, especialmente, en las categorías de impacto de Agotamiento de los Recursos Hídricos, Tasa Interna de Retorno y Toxicidad Humana. En términos de sostenibilidad, los sistemas ecológicos obtienen mejores puntuaciones por hectárea y los sistemas innovadores por tonelada. Los resultados sugieren, de nuevo, la necesidad de incrementar el rendimiento económico del sistema ecológico a través de estrategias políticas centradas en: i) la mejora de la productividad mediante la aplicación de buenas prácticas agrarias; ii) el fomento de la demanda de productos ecológicos en el mercado local, esencialmente mediante la mejora de la capacidad de compra del consumidor y su formación; y iii) la adopción de un plan estratégico para explorar nuevos mercados. Además, la afiliación de los agricultores en cooperativas puede ser una solución eficaz para aumentar la baja rentabilidad de los olivares tradicionales. Una gestión más racional del olivar tradicional e innovador (intensivo y súper-intensivo), como por ejemplo desarrollando una normativa de producción integrada, similar a la de la UE, y la implantación de guías de buenas prácticas y programas de formación para los agricultores deberían considerarse líneas prioritarias en el diseño de políticas públicas para el fomento de una producción olivarera más sostenible en Túnez. A nivel metodológico, la combinación novedosa de las metodologías del Ciclo de Vida y el Análisis de Decisión Multicriterio han permitido definir un marco integrado de ASCV para la evaluación completa de la sostenibilidad de los sistemas agrarios, que puede ser válida para otros sistemas de cultivo y otros casos de estudio. ; Olive growing is widespread throughout Tunisia. Olive production for the production of olive oil is the most important agricultural activity in Tunisia because of its economic, social and environmental importance. Most of the olive cultivation systems use traditional rain-fed techniques with very low productivity. Moreover, olive farms are mostly small, employing occasional workers for casual tasks and with a low level of long-term employment associated with low economic returns. The Tunisian olive sector has to cope with increasing international competitiveness by optimising productivity and innovation in the traditional olive grove. In this respect, the sector has undergone major changes in recent decades in terms of the agricultural practices used, evolving from those associated with traditional low-density olive growing systems to those of new innovative high-density farming systems. In addition, irrigation and organic production are playing an increasingly important role in this sector. Intensive systems have higher productivity, but can have a high environmental impact. Thus, the sustainability of these systems remains a controversial and fundamental issue, especially in Tunisia. In this context, the main objective of this PhD thesis is to assess the sustainability of the different olive production systems currently existing in Tunisia in order to define mitigation and improvement strategies towards a more sustainable management of these systems. The work has been carried out in two phases: In the first stage, a comparative assessment of the overall multifunctionality and sustainability of both organic and conventional olive growing systems was performed. This assessment was undertaken based on: i) a multidimensional perspective considering the three classical dimensions of sustainability – environmental, economic and socio-territorial; and ii) on an experts' knowledge approach selecting the adequate criteria of sustainability to compare both systems. For this purpose, the Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology (AHP), a Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) technique was applied as the adequate framework to fulfil the study objectives based on a survey directed with a panel of 20 experts. In the second, the multifunctionality and sustainability of olive production was evaluated, with a more detailed analysis of the olive growing systems (traditional organic, traditional conventional, intensive and super-intensive) from the planting phase to the full production phase, during a reference period of the life cycle of the olive growth of 50 years. Six traditional systems, two intensive systems and one super-intensive system were compared and the differences of type of production (conventional or organic), irrigation management and fertilization management were selected. Field agricultural practices of olive systems are soil management, fertilizers, pesticides, pruning and harvesting. The results of this study are referred to two functional units: 1 ton of olives and 1 hectare of cultivated olive growing area. First, an environmental assessment of the olive systems was carried out using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). To analyze the Life Cycle sustainability of olive production systems, an integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment framework was developed consisting of two methodological parts: 1) Life Cycle evaluation; and 2) Muticriteria Decision Analysis integration. In the first part, the impact categories are calculated using Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social-Life Cycle Assessment (Social-LCA). Quantitative data were collected from a survey to 250 farmers and a literature review. Subsequently, the AHP methodology was applied to prioritize the three sustainability dimensions (environmental, economic and social) and impact categories and calculate a Life Cycle Sustainability Score (LCSS) for each olive system. The prioritization process was implemented through consultation with 28 stakeholders. The results of the multicriteria analysis using AHP show that the organic olive growing system is more sustainable than the conventional one, although the need to increase the economic performance of the organic system is evident. The LCA results indicate that the most innovative olive production systems (intensive and super-intensive) result in less environmental impacts for all categories with respect to the rest of systems from the productive perspective but produce higher impacts per hectare of cultivated area. Fertilizers and soil management are the field agricultural practices that presented the highest contributions in most of the categories evaluated. The LCSA of the olive production systems shows that the highest priority is allocated to environmental aspects, followed by economic and social ones, especially, in the Water Resource Depletion, Internal Rate of Return, and Human Toxicity impact categories. In terms of sustainability, organic systems achieve better scores per ha and innovative systems per ton. The results suggest, again, the need to increase the economic performance of the ecological system through policy strategies focusing on: i) improving productivity through the implementation of good agricultural practices ii) increasing the demand of organic products in the local market, essentially by the improvement of the consumer's purchase capacity and sensibilization and iii) adopting strategic plans to explore new markets. In addition, the integration of farmers into cooperatives could be an effective solution to increase the low profitability of traditional olive groves. A more rational management of traditional and innovative olive groves (intensive and super-intensive), such as the development of integrated production regulations, similar to those of the EU, and the implementation of best practice guides and training programs for farmers should be considered priorities in the design of public policies for the promotion of a more sustainable olive production in Tunisia. Methodologically, the novel combination of Life Cycle and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis methodologies allows the definition of an integrated LCSA framework for the comprehensive assessment of the sustainability of farming systems, which can be used for other farming systems and other case studies.