Effective Counterterrorism: What Have We Learned so Far?

The fight against terrorism, in particular of Islamist nature, has become a focus area of foreign and security policies in Western countries and around the world. This substantial effort is however only to a limited extent matched by adequate evaluations as to its actual success. This paper offers an overview of the counterterrorism effectiveness literature in terms of main areas of interest, conceptualisation and operationalisation difficulties as well as methodological considerations regarding the types of methods used, validity and reliability evaluations. It discusses the different understandings of causality and proposes a working definition of counterterrorism effectiveness. We find that a main focus of the literature lies on the impact component of effectiveness, often in the sense of a reduction of terrorist attacks in general or a reduction of certain methods of terrorism such as suicide attacks. Our model article "What Happened to Suicide Bombings in Israel? Insights from a Terror Stock Model" by Kaplan et al. (2005) illustrates the above-mentioned issues and reflects the mainstream approach in this field. The article uses econometric methods to determine the impact-effectiveness of counter-terrorism and reflects the problematique associated with attempts to infer a causal relationship between counterterrorism policies and the occurrence of terrorism.Counterterrorism, effectiveness, causality, quantitative and qualitative research methods

Organisational Change in Europe: National Models or the Diffusion of a New "One Best Way"?

Drawing on the results of the third European Survey on Working Conditions undertaken in the 15 member nations of the European Union in 2000, this paper offers one of the first systematic comparisons of the adoption of new organisation forms across Europe. The paper is divided into five sections. The first describe the variables used to characterise work organisation in the 15 countries of the European Union and presents the results of the factor analysis and hierarchical clustering used to construct a 4-way typology of organisational forms, labelled the 'learning , 'lean , 'taylorist and 'traditional forms. The second section examines how the relative importance of the different organisational forms varies according to sector, firm size, occupational category, and certain demographic characteristics of the survey population. The third section makes use of multinomial logit analysis to assess the importance of national effects in the adoption of the different organisational forms. The results demonstrate significant international differences in the adoption of organisational forms characterised by strong learning dynamics and high problem-solving activity. The fourth section takes up the issue of HRM complementarities by examining the relation between organisation forms and the use of particular pay and training policies. The concluding section explores the relation between national differences in the use of the four organisational forms and differences in the way labour markets are regulated and in such research and technology measures as patenting and R&D expenditures. The results show that the relative importance of the learning form of organisation is both positively correlated with the extent of labour market regulation, as measured by the OECD's overall employment protection legislation index, and with innovative performance, as measured by the number of EPO patent application per million inhabitants.Firm organisation; learning; Europe

The PACTUM model: product analysis of cost and time using mathematics

Establishing a mathematical supply-chain model is a proposition that has received attention due to its inherent benefits of evolving global supply-chain efficiencies. This paper discusses the prevailing relationships found within apparel supply-chain environments, and contemplates the complex issues indicated for constituting a mathematical model. Principal results identified within the data suggest, that the multifarious nature of global supply-chain activities require a degree of simplification in order to fully dilate the necessary factors which affect, each sub-section of the chain. Subsequently, the research findings allowed the division of supply-chain components into sub-sections, which amassed a coherent method of product development activity. Concurrently, the supply-chain model was found to allow systematic mathematical formulae analysis, of cost and time, within the multiple contexts of each sub-section encountered. The paper indicates the supply-chain model structure, the mathematics, and considers how product analysis of cost and time can improve the comprehension of product lifecycle management

Optimizing of the Balanced Scorecard method for management of mining companies with the use of factor analysis

The managers of information age companies cannot rely merely on data derived from past activities of the company and focus on improving existing processes. They need a frame for measuring values that result from strategic goals of the company, a tool, which is focusing on obtaining information about company's current success, as well as finding new driving forces to ensure the future competitiveness of the company. Strategic business performance measurement system the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a suitable tool for improving the competitiveness of industrial companies. During its implementation, however, there is a conflict of perception of the importance of individual goals and measurable characteristics in partial perspectives of the BSC and its actual enforcement of the various strategic objectives in companies. The aim of this article is to verify the accuracy of BSC settings in an environment of selected companies in the Moravian-Silesian region with the emphasis placed on mining companies with the help of multidimensional statistics - factor analysis. The research took place in 2015 in cooperation with managers from the Moravian-Silesian Region (MSR), and it was divided into two kinds of research - quantitative and qualitative.Web of Science22444743

Examining client perceptions of partnership quality and its dimensions in an IT outsourcing relationship

This paper reports on an empirical study of the multidimensionality of partnership quality in IT outsourcing arrangements and the relationships between these dimensions of partnership quality. A two-phase national survey was conducted to collect empirical data to confirm the dimensions of partnership quality in an IT outsourcing arrangement from the client organisation perspective and to identify the significant relationships between these dimensions using a second generation multivariate analysis technique—partial least squares (PLS). The findings from results of the data analyses show that inter-organisational trust, shared business understanding and to a lesser extent, functional and dysfunctional conflict between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT outsourcing relationship are the key determinants of partnership quality. The key outcome variable for high partnership quality between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT outsourcing relationship is mutual beneficial sharing of risks and benefits. Commitment in an IT outsourcing relationship is confirmed as a multidimensional construct of behaviour commitment and temporal/continuance commitment and was found to be influenced by the other dimensions of partnership quality. The key findings of this study provide support for the notion that trust and shared business understanding are key drivers in the IT outsourcing partnership style relationship ensuring that the sharing of risks and benefits are realised and conflict is minimised leading to a high quality and ultimately successful partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor. Furthermore our findings indicate that behavioural commitment to the contractual obligations of an IT outsourcing relationship sustains an ongoing temporal commitment to the partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor

Investigating the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation: a comparative study

In a competitive world there is a need for companies to maximise all their resources. One of the resources that are often overlooked is that of existing customer base. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that is becoming increasingly popular as it provides a method of maximising existing customer resource as well as adding value from the customers’ perception. CRM consists of three simultaneous considerations that drive CRM strategy: (1) people, business culture and relationships, (2) processes, and (3) technology. In a globalise economy, cross-cultural is becoming of extreme importance to many researchers and practitioners, but there is a lack of literature on the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation. Multinational organizations face the situation of how to adopt CRM implementation process according to differences in culture factors from country to country