Business Development Capabilities in Information Technology SMEs in a Regional Economy: An Exploratory Study

“Business development” is a corporate entrepreneurial capability (or competence) that has emerged in the Information Technology industry to support that industry’s practice of co-creation of value with customers and complementors. As a set of practices that link the firm’s value creating processes with its external environment, business development capabilities are a key factor in the success of IT SMEs. This article examines business development functions and business developer attributes in SMEs in the Information Technology Industry in Eastern Canada. The principal business development functions are finding profitable opportunities in business networks, developing and maintaining partnerships, providing support for new product development, and recognizing and responding to customer needs. The regional market and export markets require different business development capabilities.     

Police psychology: The influence of Daubert and its progeny

In the current legal atmosphere, any practicing professionals, including police psychologists, may expect to have their decisions challenged in court. If such a challenge is not met, it may have a disastrous financial and reputational impact for both the psychologist (and other expert consultant) and the employer or contractor by whom the psychologist has been retained. The rules for expert witness qualification throughout the nation have been very strongly effected by the introduction of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975 and subsequent case law, particularly theDaubert, Joiner, andKumho Tire Supreme Court decisions. This article examines the history of the development of theDaubert Standard and proposes principles for potential expert witnesses in order to minimize the likelihood of aversive consequences, such as disqualification or malpractice accusations. Authors' Note: Cary Rostow, Ph.D., is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is in private practice in Baton Rouge. He holds a Diplomate in Police and Criminal Psychology from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vicepresident and director of science, research, and development, for Matrix, Inc., and has a private practice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He holds a Diplomate from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Judith Levy, Ph.D., is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Matrix, Inc.     

Working at the intersection—a story from Australia

Conceived by nurses in the hospital of a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, and inspired by Norwegian People's Aid, the international aid agency of the Australian trade unions was designed to give a genuine material base to solidarity with national liberation struggles. Bridging the difficult division in Australian labour politics between the Catholic right and the social democratic and pro‐Moscow lefts, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (now Union Aid Abroad APHEDA) was able to channel funds from unions and the Australian government to agriculture, health, and vocational training projects in many countries in the South. Unlike most counterpart organisations in Europe and the USA, its earlier partners were rarely trade unions. Only recently has APHEDA directly supported trade union training in Cambodia, East Timor, and Indonesia, under pressure from Australian unions, who see workers' rights in neighbouring countries as crucial to their own fate. Yet unions in advanced capitalist countries don't spontaneously understand the humanitarian and development needs of countries, such as Papua New Guinea, where waged workers are a small minority of the population. Unionisation is only one part of the solution. The April 2000 Durban congress of the ICFTU called for trade unions to ‘organise the unorganised’, such as informal‐sector workers, and to build alliances with NGOs and civil society around shared values. As a trade union NGO, APHEDA is located in the middle of a challenging intersection. Mandated to educate Australian workers on globalisation issues, APHEDA finds itself often more partisan than other international development NGOs in Australia, sometimes more circumspect. With attacks on union rights and the increasing share of the Australian aid budget delivered through private companies, APHEDA faces decisions about its independence, alliances, direction, and sustainability.     

The MMPI-2 L scale as a tool in police selection

The MMPI has been used extensively in the selection of law enforcement personnel. Because police officer candidates have been preselected, however, individuals with obvious mental disturbance have been screened out of the candidate pool before evaluation. It is necessary to search for more subtle variables to serve as predictors of unsatisfactory future performance. The L scale is a subtle variable which can suggest potential for problematic behavior. The value of the L scale in the selection process is discussed. Authors' Note: William U. Weiss, Ph.D., is professor of psychology. The University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Av., Evansville, IN 47722. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vice-president and director of science, research, and development, for Matrix, Inc., and Cary Rostow, Ph.D., is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA. Sarah Kinsman was a psychology major at the University of Evansville at the time this research was conducted.     

Punishment as language: Misleading analogy for desert theorists

I should like to thank Anthony Duff, Igor Primoratz, and Don Scheid for helpful comments on one or another early draft of this paper. I should also like to thank those who discussed the penultimate draft at a sessio of the Mid-western Division Meeting, American Philosophical Association, 27 April 1991, especially Jacob Adler, my official commentator, for helping to give the paper its final polish (without polishing it off).     

The Japanese legal system: Why many Americans fail

In the United States, a businessperson can operate within the familiar framework of American law, relying on a legal expert only for the relevant specifics. However, because the historical background, modern usage, and basic logical structure of the Japanese legal system differs so completely from American expected norms, this simple acquaintance with the law is insufficient in Japan. The failure of the American trans-Pacific business community to acquaint itself adequately with the unique Japanese legal system has contributed to America’s inability to penetrate Japanese markets, the default of many business ventures, and ultimately to the decline of America’s economic status relative to Japan.     

Repeat victimization among adolescents and young adults

Prior research has shown that victimization incidents are disproportionately concentrated among relatively few victims and that prior victimization is a consistent predictor of future risk. This paper expands existing knowledge on victimization by describing temporal patterns of risk and by developing and testing alternative explanatory models of the link between past and future risk. Analyses based on panel data from the National Youth Survey support both state dependence and heterogeneity interpretations of the correlation in risk over time. In other words, prior victimization predicts future risk in part because it alters something about the individual, and because it indicates an unmeasured propensity for victimization that persists over time. The theoretical implications of these findings, including the feasibility of a victim labeling perspective, are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Phoenix, 1993.An exception to this lack of attention is the vast literature in the area of domestic abuse.