The institutional dynamics at the origin of a new method of local administration: The relationship between AEROSPATIALE and its subcontractors

The Institutional Dynamics at the Origin of a New Method of ?Local? Administration: the Relationship between AEROSPATIALE and its Subcontractors DAMIEN TALBOT LEREP In the last twenty years, interactions between the Aeronautical Branch of AEROSPATIALE and its subcontractors have evolved radically. From a system of fragmented regional subcontractors centered around AEROSPATIALE establishments, a network of businesses, much reduced in number and characterised by stronger links and a withdrawal from the notion of territorial boundaries, has been formed under the aegis of a principal contractor. This paper examines the reasons behind such upheavals and, in particular, how the principal contractor has managed to impose such changes and why. In answering these questions, this paper focuses both on the market and non-market interactions between the economic players. In order to fully understand the reasons behind these players? behaviour, it is necessary to take account of the principles of non-market interaction. As these apply to interactions between principal contractors and their subcontractors, the notion of power is central. At least one theory, that of American institutionalism, implicates power imbalances between players as the major factor in their changing behaviour. This theory is advanced further by COMMONS through the notion of conflict. This last approach proposes that institutions themselves provide a setting for actions and thus one cannot fully understand the evolution of behaviour without first understanding the role played by these institutions, not only as to how they influence economic behaviour, but more importantly in understanding the actual processes underlying institutional change itself. In order to identify these processes, as institutions and behaviour evolve hand in hand, this paper proposes, as a useful starting point, to examine the distinction between the terms institution and organisation, in order to then define institutional change. These definitions will subsequently be applied to the evolution of the relationship between AEROSPATIALE and its major subcontractors. This paper hopes to show that the evolution is the result of the role played by GIE AIRBUS in altering the mindset of the AEROSPATIALE group. Finally, this paper will describe the effect this institutional change has had on AEROSPATIALE?s method of local administration. It must be pointed out that the term ?local? here has no defined boundaries and is to be determined by reference to businesses established in a territory and/or an a-territorial network. REFERENCES ARROW K. (1994) Methodological Individualism and Social Knowledge, Am. Econ. Rev. 84, 1-9. BAZZOLI L. and DUTRAIVE V. (1995) Dynamique technologique et institutionnelle dans la pensee institutionnaliste americaine: les enjeux de la maitrise sociale, in BASLE M., DUFOURT D., HERAUD J. A. and PERRIN J. (Eds) Changement institutionnel et changement technologique, pp. 51-67. CNRS Editions, Paris. BERNARD P., TALBOT D. and WALLET F. (1997) Pouvoirs, proximites et apprentissages: une relecture des relations par la dynamique interaction / action, Industria 4, to be published. COMMONS J.R. (1931) Institutional Economics, Am. Econ. Rev. 21, 648-657. COREI T. (1995) L'economie institutionnaliste, les fondateurs, series Economie de poche, Economica, Paris. DUFOURT D. (1995) Arrangements institutionnels et logiques de l'action collective: les enjeux d'une reflexion renouvelee par les institutions, in BASLE M., DUFOURT D., HERAUD J. A. and PERRIN J. (Eds) Changement institutionnel et changement technologique, pp. 21-32. CNRS Editions, Paris. HODGSON G. (1988) Economics and Institutions: A Manifesto for a Modern Institutional Economics, Polity Press, Cambridge. HODGSON G. (1996) The viability of Institutionnal Economics, Conference Evolutionnisme, fondements, perpectives et realisations, Sorbonne, Paris. KIRAT T. and LUNG Y. (1995) Innovations et proximites: le territoire, lieu de deploiement des processus d'apprentissages, in LAZARIC N., MONNIER J. M. and PAULRE B. (Eds), dans Coordination economique et apprentissage des firmes, pp. 207-227. Economica, Paris. PERRIN J. (1993) Apprentissage et cognition en economie des changements techniques, l'apport des economistes neo-institutionnalistes, Economies et Societes 1, 103-124. RUTHERFORD M. (1983) J. R. Commons's institutional economics, JEI 17, 443-451. SJOSTRAND S.E. (1995) Towards a theory of institutional change, in GROENEWEGEN J., PITELIS C. and SJOSTRAND S.E. (Eds) On Economics Institutions, pp. 19-43. European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, Cambridge. VEBLEN T. (1899) Preconceptions of Economic Science, II, Quart. J. Econ. 13, 396-426. VILLEVAL M.C. (1995) Une theorie economique des institutions ? in BOYER R. and SAILLARD Y. (Eds), Theorie de la Regulation, l'etat des savoirs, pp. 202-213. La Decouverte, Paris. WALLER W. (1982) The evolution of the veblenian dichotomy: Veblen, Hamilton, Ayres, and Foster, JEI 16, 757-771. WILBER C. and HARRISON R. (1978) The methodological basis of Institutional Economics: pattern model, storytelling, and holism, JEI 12, 61-89.

Moveable worlds/digital scenographies

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Intellect Ltd 2010.The mixed reality choreographic installation UKIYO explored in this article reflects an interest in scenographic practices that connect physical space to virtual worlds and explore how performers can move between material and immaterial spaces. The spatial design for UKIYO is inspired by Japanese hanamichi and western fashion runways, emphasizing the research production company's commitment to various creative crossovers between movement languages, innovative wearable design for interactive performance, acoustic and electronic sound processing and digital image objects that have a plastic as well as an immaterial/virtual dimension. The work integrates various forms of making art in order to visualize things that are not in themselves visual, or which connect visual and kinaesthetic/tactile/auditory experiences. The ‘Moveable Worlds’ in this essay are also reflections of the narrative spaces, subtexts and auditory relationships in the mutating matrix of an installation-space inviting the audience to move around and follow its sensorial experiences, drawn near to the bodies of the dancers.Brunel University, the British Council, and the Japan Foundation

The impact of professional learning on the teaching identities of higher education lecturers

Higher Education is currently undergoing some of the most profound changes in its history. Against a backdrop of increasing marketization, rising levels of student debt and far greater fully online offerings, the higher education lecturer is grappling with new ways of working and high expectations of teaching quality. This 3 year qualitative study based in The Open University UK investigates the ways in which HE distance learning lecturers are approaching professional development and learning, identifying what type of learning may be most effective in creating and sustaining an online teaching identity. The study also examines ways in which resistance discourse is shaping these identities and practices revealing emerging re- conceptualisations of what it means to be an effective and well-motivated distance learning lecturer. The investigation uses a framework for identity analysis which analyses professional identity via the expression of hegemonies, phenomenological, narrative articulations of identity, and a post-modern, constructivist view of identity which is shaped by social interactions and communities of practice. It highlights the importance of personal agency in identity formation. The results revealed a number of insights into the ways in which a combination of resistance discourse, professional learning and reflections from student interactions are shaping new understandings of professional knowledge in this context

Identifying some obstacles from intuition to a successful mediation process

Intuition and common beliefs can sometimes misguide the mediator and be obstacles to the success of mediation, when they are linked to behaviors which likely induce negative consequences in the process. Following four different stages of a mediation session, this paper names a series of such obstacles and explores their underlying intuitions, as well as their subsequent usual behavior and its rather negative effects. Each time, alternative strategies that increase expectations of success are suggested, with their expected outcome. This paper combines a descriptive approach of obstacles which increase the chance of a negative process and mediation failure, with a prescriptive approach of alternative behaviors that increase the chance of a positive process and mediation success.Mediation; Success; Failure; Obstacles; Process; Intuition; Mediator’s Behavior; Descriptive Approach; Prescriptive Approach

QoS and trust prediction framework for composed distributed systems

The objective of this dissertation is to propose a comprehensive framework to predict the QoS and trust (i.e, the degree of compliance of a service to its specification) values of composed distributed systems created out of existing quality-aware services. We improve the accuracy of the predictions by building context-aware models and validating them with real-life case studies. The context is the set of environmental factors that affect QoS attributes (such as response time and availability), and trust of a service or a composed system. The proposed framework uses available context-QoS dependency information of individual services and information about the interaction patterns among the services to make predictions for the QoS and trust values of the composed system at the design phase of the development lifecycle. Such predictions made in the early phases of the system development lifecycle will reduce cost, time, and effort. We demonstrate the use of these predictions in selecting the optimum set of services to create composed systems using heuristic optimization algorithms. Additionally, the prediction model is used at runtime with fast heuristic techniques to build adaptable composed systems. The empirical results show the proposed context-dependent framework performs well in providing more accurate predictions than the prevalent approaches

An information assistant system for the prevention of tunnel vision in crisis management

In the crisis management environment, tunnel vision is a set of bias in decision makers’ cognitive process which often leads to incorrect understanding of the real crisis situation, biased perception of information, and improper decisions. The tunnel vision phenomenon is a consequence of both the challenges in the task and the natural limitation in a human being’s cognitive process. An information assistant system is proposed with the purpose of preventing tunnel vision. The system serves as a platform for monitoring the on-going crisis event. All information goes through the system before arrives at the user. The system enhances the data quality, reduces the data quantity and presents the crisis information in a manner that prevents or repairs the user’s cognitive overload. While working with such a system, the users (crisis managers) are expected to be more likely to stay aware of the actual situation, stay open minded to possibilities, and make proper decisions

In Defense of Property

This Article responds to an emerging view, in scholarship and popular society, that it is normatively undesirable to employ property law as a means of protecting indigenous cultural heritage. Recent critiques suggest that propertizing culture impedes the free flow of ideas, speech, and perhaps culture itself. In our view, these critiques arise largely because commentators associate property with a narrow model of individual ownership that reflects neither the substance of indigenous cultural property claims nor major theoretical developments in the broader field of property law. Thus, departing from the individual rights paradigm, our Article situates indigenous cultural property claims, particularly those of American Indians, in the interests of peoples rather than persons, arguing that such cultural properties are integral to indigenous group identity or peoplehood, and deserve particular legal protection. Further, we observe that whereas individual rights are overwhelmingly advanced by property law\u27s dominant ownership model, which consolidates control in the title-holder, indigenous peoples often seek to fulfill an ongoing duty of care toward cultural resources in the absence of title. To capture this distinction, we offer a stewardship model of property to explain and justify indigenous peoples\u27 cultural property claims in terms of non-owners\u27 fiduciary obligations toward cultural resources. We posit that re-envisioning cultural property law in terms of peoplehood and stewardship more fully illuminates both the particular nature of indigenous claims and the potential for property law itself to embrace a broader and more flexible set of interests