A Model to Support IT Infrastructure Planning and the Allocation of IT Governance Authority

Information technology (IT) requires a significant investment, involving up to 10.5% of revenue for some firms. Managers responsible for aligning IT investments with their firm\u27s strategy seek to minimize technology costs, while ensuring that the IT infrastructure can accommodate increasing utilization, new software applications, and modifications to existing software applications. It becomes more challenging to align IT infrastructure and IT investments with firm strategy when firms operate in multiple geographic markets, because the firm faces different competitive positions and unique challenges in each market. We discussed these challenges with IT executives at four Forbes Global 2000 firms headquartered in Northern Europe. We build on interviews with these executives to develop a discrete-time, finite-horizon Markov decision model to identify the most economically-beneficial IT infrastructure configuration from a set of alternatives. While more flexibility is always better (all else equal) and lower cost is always better (all else equal), our model helps firms evaluate the tradeoff between flexibility and cost given their business strategy and corporate structure. Our model supports firms in the decision process by incorporating their data and allowing firms to include their expectations of how future business conditions may impact the need to make IT changes. Because the model is flexible enough to accept parameters across a range of business strategies and corporate structures, the model can help inform decisions and ensure that design choices are consistent with firm strategy

Water Rights and Water Allocation: Issues and Challenges for Asia

The primary audience for this report is management and staff working in water resources agencies in Asia, particularly those in river basin organizations (RBOs) in their various forms. The roles and responsibilities of RBOs vary considerably and are evolving as pressureson water resources are becoming more severe. Although this report seeks to share knowledge about the fundamentals and application of waterrights and allocation, it attempts to do so with a practical focus

Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru

The governance of water resources is prominent in both water policy agendas and academic scholarship. Political ecologists have made important advances in reconceptualising the relationship between water and society. Yet, while they have stressed both the scalar dimensions, and the politicised nature, of water governance, analyses of its scalar politics are relatively nascent. In this paper, we consider how the increased demand for water resources by the growing mining industry in Peru reconfigures and rescales water governance. In Peru, the mining industry’s thirst for water draws in, and reshapes, social relations, technologies, institutions and discourses that operate over varying spatial and temporal scales. We develop the concept of waterscape to examine these multiple ways in water is co-produced through mining, and become embedded in changing modes and structures of water governance, often beyond the watershed scale. We argue that an examination of waterscapes avoids the limitations of thinking about water in purely material terms, structuring analysis of water issues according to traditional spatial scales and institutional hierarchies, and taking these scales and structures for granted

EU cohesion policy and the role of the regions : investigating the influence of structural funds in the new member states

This paper undertakes a critical assessment of the influence of the EU Cohesion policy on regionalisation and the role of regional institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. It addresses questions that are central to ongoing theoretical debates about the role of the region in the new member states. Have the powers and resources of the regions been strengthened by their involvement in EU support programmes? Are regions increasingly involved in integrated 'bottom-up' responses to regional development challenges? The paper offers a fresh perspective on these issues, with a cross-national analysis of practical experience in the postenlargement period and a detailed assessment of the technical, variable, and complex reality of working with EU Structural Funds. A distinctive approach of the analysis is to disaggregate the stages of Structural Funds programme management and delivery, thereby highlighting the varied nature of regional involvement in Structural Funds. Ultimately, the paper questions the notion that Structural Funds build regional structures and competence, and lead to 'stronger regions'. Instead, it is argued that there is no guarantee that the Structural Funds will necessarily promote regionalisation in Central and Eastern Europe, at least in the short to medium terms

The Obstacles of Implementation of Village Allocation Fund Program in the North Konawe Southeast Sulawesi

Provision of Village Allocation Fund is predicated on the realization of the right to hold the village of village autonomy. This is done so that the village can grow and evolve to follow the growth coming from the village itself based on diversity, participation, indigenous autonomy, democratization, and empowerment. Rural Institutions have increased due to the ability of an optimal are not adequately involved in the planning process using the Alokasi Dana Desa (ADD) village without there even through the planning process as the existing guidelines, were never involved in the implementation of ADD and also have never been involved in the evaluation of the implementation of the ADD, all plans activities and filing submitted to Badan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Desa (BPMD). This phenomenon shows that community involvement is still an obstacle. The main barriers associated with the management of the village administration who have not gotten the right formula in community involvement, especially in aspiration. That is because of the following: 1) The low level of public education 2) Weak managerial ability of the village and other village institutions and 3) Failure mechanisms of socialization and increased capacity building by BPMD to the village

Master Planned Communities and Governance

In the last three decades, a number of master planned communities (MPCs) have been developed in South East Queensland (SEQ) as part of the response to the housing demands of rapid population growth. Developers, state government, local councils and communities play key roles in the production and management of infrastructure and community services in these Masterplanned communities. Alongside rising community expectations regarding quality of services, there is an increasing trend for developers to be involved in either the direct provision of infrastructure, or its funding, with local councils and the state government playing a facilitating role in provision of services alongside their more traditional role of direct provision. It is imperative to understand the governance structures as well as governance challenges of master planned communities at different stages of development. The objectives of this paper are to review governance frameworks and challenges for master planned communities at three critical stages of development: the visioning and planning stage, the implementation stage, and the completion stage. The paper has identified three distinct governance structures of master planned communities – single developer model, principal developer model and government led model. Three case studies from South East Queensland, each being representative of a particular governance structure, are used to evaluate each of the three stages of development with respect to the challenges involved in the provision of infrastructure and services. The paper provides a framework for analysing the relationship between governance structures and the development of master planned communities, focusing on the relationships that exist between institutional stakeholders, and on the potential impacts of the transfer of infrastructure and service provision from private management to community and local control