Stress in small town and rural law enforcement: Testing the assumptions

Sandy and Devine (1978) theorized that small-town and rural police officers experienced Stressors different from their urban counterparts. They delineated four rural stress dimensions: security, social factors, working conditions, and inactivity. Despite the number of hypotheses annunciated by these authors from their exposure to small-town and rural police, they have never been tested. This study is an attempt to rectify this deficiency in the literature by testing their theory/hypotheses with data derived from a survey questionnaire of West Virginia law enforcement officers. The findings of this study lend support for many of the original hypotheses and all four of the dimensions.     

The Impact of Cooking with Firewood on Respiratory Health: Evidence from Indonesia

The vast majority of households in low-income countries cook with firewood, which is known to produce various airborne toxins. We examine whether cooking with firewood results in poorer respiratory health by using a unique Indonesian household survey that collected direct measures of lung capacity. We find that individuals living in households that cook with firewood have 9.4 per cent lower lung capacity than those that cook with cleaner fuels. This impact is larger for women and children than for men. The results strongly support the international policy focus on facilitating households to switch to cooking with cleaner fuels.     

Never mind the quality feel the width: University–industry links and government financial support for innovation in small high-technology businesses in the UK and the USA

In this paper we use a size and industry matched sample of over 1,900 UK and US businesses for the period 2004–05 in the manufacturing and business services sectors to analyse the relative “strength” of the university–industry ecosystems in which these firms operate in the two economies. Our analysis shows that in both countries universities per se play a quantitatively smaller role as a source of knowledge for business innovation than either the business sector itself or a variety of organisations intermediating between the university and business sectors. Our analysis reveals a much more diffuse university–industry ecosystem in the UK in which a higher proportion of businesses claim links external to themselves in their pursuit of knowledge for innovation and a higher proportion report directly connecting with universities. US firms are more likely to access knowledge through a combination of business and intermediary sources and are less likely to have established formal collaborative or partnership agreements in the 3 years prior to the survey. We also find, however, that a higher proportion of US firms place a very high value on the connections they have with universities and are much more likely to commit resources to support such innovation related university interactions. A similar pattern of diffuse but weaker links characterise the supply of public sector financial assistance for innovation in our sample firms. UK firms are more likely to be in receipt of assistance, but receive far less per firm in absolute terms and relative to their R&D expenditures. It appears that the UK university–industry ecosystem is characterised by a greater width than quality of interaction.     

Academic entrepreneurship and business schools

In this paper, we employ resource-based and institutional theories to examine the current role of business schools in academic entrepreneurship. In particular, we seek to identify and understand the challenges to business schools contributing to the transfer of knowledge to enable academic entrepreneurship. Employing a case-based method, we present evidence from 42 interviews with technology transfer officers (TTOs), business school deans, business school entrepreneurship faculty and scientists in eight UK universities. Our empirical analysis is focused on analyzing the challenges arising from the links between business schools and three other principal stakeholders of academic entrepreneurship (i.e., the university management, TTOs and academics in science departments). The findings suggest that in addition to concerns about the nature of their human capital, the ability of business schools to fill knowledge gaps in the development of academic entrepreneurship is constrained by the institutional structures of universities which influence: the strategies of the university and the business school; links between business schools, TTOs and scientists; and process issues relating to differences in language and codes, goal differences, incentives and rewards, expertise differences and the content of interactions. We conclude that if business schools are to play a more prominent role in academic entrepreneurship there is a need to develop internal university processes and policies that promote rather than hinder internal knowledge flows between business schools, TTOs and science departments.     

Ontario proposes to regulate viatical settlements

Proposed new regulations would allow any company to apply for a licence to trade in viatical settlements in Ontario. Currently, only insurance companies can engage in this practice.     

Non-neutral humanitarianism: Ngos and the Rwanda crisis

NGOs play an increasingly important role in humanitarian work, and the impact of their activities is often non-neutral in relation to the conflicts which underlie crises. This was the case in the Rwanda crisis, during which some NGOs lent support to the forces of the genocidal Rwandan regime through their choice of where to work; the type and organisation of support offered; and some of the public statements made by NGO representatives. This article documents how this process occurred, and concludes with recommendations for avoiding such problems in the future.