Knowledge Management and Open Innovation in United Kingdom Local Authorities

The article examines the performance of UK local authorities in relation to knowledge management and open innovation. Data were acquired using a mail survey of non-metropolitan local authorities in England and Wales. The results indicate that certain factors influence the effectiveness of the knowledge management process. Authorities engaged in open innovation have developed more effective knowledge management processes. Hence, of instead of implementing a strategy solely based upon cutting services and reducing staffing levels, local authorities seeking to survive in the face of government spending cuts might also consider the benefit from optimizing the effectiveness of their knowledge management processes and participation in open innovation.     

Managerial Innovations in the Egyptian Public Health Sector: An Empirical Investigation

The purpose of this article is to analyze the process of restructuring the Egyptian public health sector according to the new mode of governance principles and the concomitant dilemmas in the process. Based on an interpretative methodology, the findings of this research indicate that (a) despite some positive changes, serious doubts remain over the commercialization of basic public services; (b) confusions have emerged regarding the identity of public hospitals; (c) despite the introduction of the business management principles, the centralized hierarchical power of the state over the local governmental hospitals remains intact; (d) the new system has degraded the professional standards of medical practitioners and made them subservient to the whims of the financial management professionals; and (e) there have been some negative effects on equity.     

论中医药传统知识保护立法的基本原则

中医药传统知识不仅是我国的传统文化和医疗资源,也是具有巨大经济价值的商业资源,通过立法来保护中医药传统知识已经成为了中医药界的共识。在保护中医药传统知识立法的过程中,立法技术要遵循与现行法律有效衔接、制度创新、上位法与下位法相结合等基本原则;立法内容要遵循保护与利用相结合、分类确权、体现价值、国家利益、政府主导等基本原则;立法进程要遵循先易后难、协调配合等基本原则,从而实现对中医药传统知识保护法律制度的系统构建。     

Citizen's psychological knowledge,legal knowledge,and attitudes toward participation in the new Japanese legal system,saiban-in seido

A new procedure, saiban-in seido, was introduced in the Japanese criminal court in 2009.1 1. This article was written before the Saiban-in seido started. A mixed tribunal of three professional judges and six lay people selected from a list of voters deliberate the verdict in serious criminal cases such as murder, rape, and arson. This study researched lay people's attitudes toward the new system, their psychological knowledge (e.g. the reliability of eyewitness testimony) and legal knowledge (e.g. ‘presumed innocent’), and the relationship between attitude and knowledge. Study 1 examined the responses of 294 citizens to a questionnaire; 90 responses were examined in Study 2 (both samples consisted of two age groups, i.e. (1) 20s and (2) 40s and 50s, and two education levels, i.e. (1) college or below and (2) university or more. In both studies, respondents showed concerns about their lack of ability and knowledge to become a lay judge. Although legal knowledge was related to attitude – i.e. the more legal knowledge, the less negativity – no relationship was found between psychological knowledge and attitude. Relevant support for citizens to become lay judges was discussed.     

Sharing the benefits of biodiversity the Kani TBGRI deal in Kerala,India

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) concluded at the Earth Summit in 1992, mandates that where utilisation of the knowledge, innovations and practices of local and indigenous communities leads to benefits, such benefits shall be equitably shared with the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices. The study analyses some of the issues that have emerged in the context of a ‘benefit sharing exercise’ attempted by the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI), a research institute based in Kerala, with the Kani tribals of Kerala, pursuant to the development of a pharmaceutical drug, based on the knowledge, information and natural resources that the Kanis have nurtured over many years.

As the case study illustrates, the debate on benefit sharing in the absence of other fundamental rights such as the rights to land, access to the resource and adequate governance structures becomes a limited and myopic exercise. A ‘fair and equitable benefit sharing mechanism’ would therefore call for certain basic pre‐conditions that will be discussed in the course of the study.     

What do students really know about criminal justice?

This survey of three hundred and twenty undergraduate students attempted to determine their knowledge of crime and punishment in North Carolina. Respondents answered a series of open- and closed-ended questions regarding various legal topics, such as statutory rape and the legal ages for tobacco and alcohol use. The participants were also asked to list punishments for various offenses, such as possession of marijuana, driving while intoxicated, and rape. They were then asked to define certain legal terms such as larceny. The results indicated that most students were unable to provide correct corresponding punishments for many offenses. They were also unable to accurately define various legal terms, such as robbery or rape. The implications for stronger education in the area of criminal justice are discussed.     

Towards a new semiotics of landmark knowledge

This paper proposes to reconsider the relation between language, truth and knowledge, based on an integrational semiology as developed by Roy Harris: at its centre of interest is the question of what it is to know the name of a landmark, and how that in turn relates to the general concept of landmark knowledge. It is claimed here that previous research interested in referential talk involving landmarks adopted a “mythological” view of language and communication, which leads to conflating knowledge with verbal displays of knowledge. Taking the present author's fieldwork in Bellinzona, the capital of Italian-speaking Switzerland, as a case in point, it is argued that by generating communicational situations where informants are unaware of being objects of study and can no longer rely on an “ideal” (and idealized) name–referent relationship (i.e. for each object there is one “proper” name), it becomes possible to understand reference as an integrational process (rather than as a form of linguistic knowledge), which in turn lends further support to the notion of knowledge as integration.     

The legitimation of local knowledges: introducing the postmodern into laboratory science

The idea that science simply mirrors nature has been challenged by postmodernism that has considered the way it contructs the world, our bodies and identities. But such criticisms, apart from the odd exception, have been directed at science in general with little insight or attention to actual empirical procedures that take place in laboratories, for example. This article investigates the idea that Enlightenment is not redundant, and that in fact laboratory procedures are not so different to those used in the humanities. The article shows that scientific procedure shares much with the way narratologists might analyse story. It likens representations of cancer development and cell cycles to the narratological models used by Barthes and Greimas. Science does not so much make nature reveal its secrets but offers an epistemological opportunity for examination, expression and ultimately creativity.     

知识吸收能力对服务创新绩效影响的实证研究——来自服务外包企业的经验证据

知识吸收能力对服务型企业的服务创新绩效有着重要的影响.本文选择企业竞争优势和客户满意度作为衡量企业服务创新绩效的重要指标,从理论上分析了知识吸收能力对企业竞争优势和客户满意度的影响,并以服务外包企业为例,运用结构方程模型进行了实证研究.研究结果表明：知识吸收能力的提高有利于增强服务外包企业的竞争优势和提升客户满意度,进而提高企业的服务创新绩效.