Foreign Investment and the Politics of Export Profits Tax Relief 1956

T. K. Whitaker and Seán Lemass are generally credited with effecting the policy shiftfrom protectionism to outward orientation. Ireland’s low corporation tax regime,however, has its origins in the export profits tax relief (EPTR) measures introduced bythe second inter-party government in 1956. EPTR was introduced at the urging of theDepartment of Industry and Commerce in the face of long-standing opposition from Revenue and the Department of Finance. Industry and Commerce at the same time successfully thwarted the desires of the Taoiseach, the Department of Finance and other state agencies to have restrictions on foreign ownership of industry repealed. These apparently contradictory positions were rooted in the historical legacy of protectionism. The inter-party Taoiseach, John A. Costello, downplayed the connection between EPTR and foreign investment in an apparent attempt to deprive Fianna Fáil of an opportunity for controversy. Its introduction hastened the end of Fianna Fáil prevarication on the issue of foreign ownership. The importance of the intense electoral competition of the period is also frequently ignored in accounts of the policy shift. Following sixteen years of unbroken Fianna Fáil rule, the next four general elections brought four changes of government. Along with the depth of the 1950s recession, this forced Fianna Fáil into a comprehensive reexamination of its industrial strategy. The economic thinking of the major political parties co-evolved, and many of the institutional innovations of the period were the result of inter-party government initiatives. The defeat inflicted on Finance by the Department of Industry and Commerce partly motivated Finance’s work on Economic Development, the 1958 publication of which provided political cover for Fianna Fáil’s U-turn on overall economic strategy.Ireland, FDI, Corporation Tax, Export Profits Tax Relief

The Ghost of Patrick Geddes: Civics As Applied Sociology

In 1904 and 1905 Patrick Geddes (1905, 1906) read his famed, but today little-read, two-part paper, \'Civics: as Applied Sociology\', to the first meetings of the British Sociological Society. Geddes is often thought of as a \'pioneer of sociology\' (Mairet, 1957; Meller, 1990) and for some (eg Devine, 1999: 296) as \'a seminal influence on sociology\'. However, little of substance has been written to critically assess Geddes\'s intellectual legacy as a sociologist. His work is largely forgotten by sociologists in Britain (Abrams, 1968; Halliday, 1968; Evans, 1986). Few have been prepared to follow Geddes\'s ambition to bridge the chasm between nature and culture, environment and society, geography, biology and sociology. His conception of \'sociology\', oriented towards social action from a standpoint explicitly informed by evolutionary theory. A re-appraisal of the contemporary relevance of Geddes\'s thinking on civics as applied sociology has to venture into the knotted problem of evolutionary sociology. It also requires giving some cogency to Geddes\'s often fragmentary and inconsistent mode of address. Although part of a post-positivist, \'larger modernism\' Geddes remained mired in nineteenth century evolutionary thought and fought shy of dealing with larger issues of social class or the breakthrough work of early twentieth century sociology of Simmel, Weber and Durkheim. His apolitical notion of \'civics\' limits its relevance to academic sociology today.History of Sociology, Civics, Patrick Geddes, Scottish Generalism, Urban Sociology

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

UNH Law Alumni Magazine, Winter 2010

https://scholars.unh.edu/alumni_mag/1007/thumbnail.jp

Extending CRM in the Retail Industry: An RFID-Based Personal Shopping Assistant System

This paper describes the research and development of a radio frequency identification (RFID)-based personal shopping assistant (PSA) system for retail stores. RFID technology was employed as the key enabler to build a PSA system to optimize operational efficiency and deliver a superior customer shopping experience in retail stores. We show that an RFID-based PSA system can deliver significant results to improve the customer shopping experience and retail store operational efficiency, by increasing customer convenience, providing flexibility in service delivery, enhancing promotional campaign efficiency, and increasing product cross selling and upselling through a customer relationship management (CRM) system. In this study, an RFID value grid for retail stores is proposed that allows managers to use RFID technology in stores to add value to the shopping experience of their customers. Four propositions are presented as the research agenda for examining the ability of RFID technology to improve the operations management of retail stores