The Tobacco Epidemic in South-East Europe: Consequences and Policy Responses. Health, Nutrition and Population Discussion Paper

Smoking is the single largest cause of premature mortality in the developed world. Obtaining accurate estimates of smoking's impacts in south east Europe (SEE) is hindered by the lack of accurate data.. None of the countries of the region yet conduct regular national surveys of adult smoking prevalence and some have no recent nationally representative data available. The very high rates among medical personnel are cause for concern. Youth smoking surveys are now conducted in most countries as part of international projects and show rates broadly similar to the EU. The collapse of communism and the end of the conflicts in the 1990s has led to major changes in the region's tobacco industry. The previously state-owned tobacco monopolies have either undergone or are undergoing privatization and the transnational tobacco companies have been increasingly active both in importing their cigarettes to, and investing in, the region. These changes can be expected to increase competition in the tobacco industry which will in turn drive down prices and increase advertising, thereby stimulating consumption. The available statistics, combined with the changes to the region's tobacco industry, suggest that the health impacts of tobacco in SEE will continue to worsen over coming years

A resource-based view of the firm : integrating the role of IT as a strategic resource - an empirical study of South African personal financial services (Assurance) firms, 1999-2003

Includes bibliographical references (p. 502-531).This research explores an "inside the black box" view on how IT enables sustainable competitive advantage. Most researchers have investigated IT competitive competencies that make up a firm's strategic framework to understand competitive advantage. However, Resource-Based Theory (RBT) probes into the inner workings of a firm, suggesting that a firm's IT assets and resources are the basis of a firm's "rare" core competencies to compete successfully. Using RBT and research in the economics, strategy, and IT literatures, an initial "Framework of Sustainability" was created, against which the case studies were conducted. This framework was used as foundation to develop semi-structured questionnaires in which 45, 90 minute (on average) interviews were conducted with managers in the four firms. Both internal and external documents about the firms and the industry were used as sources of corroborating evidence. In addition, a "bottoms up" view was obtained with evidence gathered from a short questionnaire and focus groups discussions held with 178 staff employees in the four firms