Forming and maintaining cross-cultural interorganisational networks

This research addresses the problem: How do cross-cultural influences affect interorganisational formation and maintenance international business networks? In particular, the two concepts of stages of network development and psychic distance in partner selection are explored. A partnership between educational institutions and small and medium enterprises in developing trade relationships in the Asia Pacific region are analysed is analysed in depth. This cross-cultural business network did not appear to develop through clearly defined, predictable stages and all dimensions of culture appeared to consistently influence the networks' development. It seems that personal and business networks are important for both partners (not only for Chinese Malaysians) but if these networks are not consciously linked or expanded jointly, very little basis for cross-cultural understanding is built. An investment in a cross-cultural network should be a multi-faceted and long term financial, organisational and personal investment, which will have to change in ways that are difficult to forecast except to say that they will be needed if the network is not to eventually die

Millerocaulis richmondii sp. nov., an osmundaceous fern from Mesozoic strata near Little Swanport, Tasmania, Australia

A permineralised rhizome from Mesozoic strata south of Little Swanport, Tasmania, represents a new species of Millerocaulis (M. richmondii).Its stem is 6 x 7 mm across and is surrounded by adhering leaf bases with each having a stipular expansion typical of the Osmundaceae. The xylem of the ectophloic siphonostele comprising this stem is dissected by leaf gaps and consists of 14 xylem strands in its cylinder.Twenty leaf traces occur in a transverse section of its cortices. The xylem of its leaf traces and petiolar vascular strands is generally curved adaxially with a single protoxylem cluster being median on the trace. This proroxylem cluster bifurcates into two protoxylem groups immediately after leaving the stem and upon entering the petiole. The sclerotic ring of the petiole base is uniform in width and cell-wall thickness. A mass of sclerenchyma present in the adaxial concavity of the petiolar vascular strand expands at higher levels of the petiole until it fills the concavity of the strand and becomes immediately adjacent to the sclerotic ring. A large, round cellular mass of sclerenchyma occurs in the stipular expansions midway between their sclerotic rings and their tips. Millerocaulis richmondii is an additional species in the family Osmundaceae which was very abundant in Tasmania during mid-Mesozoic time

Achieving the DREAM: The Effect of IRCA on Immigrant Youth Post-Secondary Educational Access

This issue of The Takeaway describes Dr. Kalena Cortes’s research on the relationship between the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and subsequent enrollment of immigrant youth, providing insight into potential effects and intergenerational benefits of effective immigration policy. Reducing barriers to higher education for undocumented immigrant youth can significantly improve higher educational attainment for these populations, leading to more prosperous communities. Cortes’s research found a significant increase in post-secondary enrollment among immigrant youth to whom amnesty was granted by the IRCA

Fragmenting the Community: Immigration Enforcement and the Unintended Consequences of Local Police Non-Cooperation Policies

(Excerpt) Part I traces the historical roots of the relationship between local police and federal immigration authorities, beginning with the changes in enforcement strategy precipitated by the September 11, 2001 attacks and leading up to the launch of S-Comm. The federal government\u27s increased reliance on local police to supplement its internal enforcement efforts has raised several Tenth Amendment concerns as the states struggle to define the proper scope of their inherent authority to act in immigration matters, with officials in some so-called sanctuary cities insisting that their inherent authority to enforce federal immigration law is commensurate with the sovereign right to refuse to cooperate. Is opting out likely to succeed as a strategy for gaining the trust and cooperation of immigrants? Part II explores that question. Using the work of leading social psychologist Tom Tyler as a framework for discussion, I conclude that trust and cooperation are an outgrowth of individual perceptions of legitimacy. The quest for legitimacy, or those properties of a police department that lead[] people to feel that [the department] is entitled to be deferred to and obeyed, has precipitated every major historical shift in policing, from the professional model to present-day community policing. These failed models and the promise of community policing are examined in Part III. Ever since it emerged as the model of police reform in the late 1980s, community policing\u27s imprimatur has been bestowed upon a myriad of outreach strategies, particularly those aimed toward improving the fractured relationship between police and minority communities. Tensions between police and minorities, fueled by decades of physical abuse and deceptive tactics, have contributed to an ethnic gap in the manner in which people view the police. Community policing represented a seismic shift in the police\u27s approach to interacting with minorities, specifically in its prioritization of partnerships with affected communities and the solicitation of community input in shaping the department\u27s enforcement agenda. The increased role of the community has fueled fears that the police, in seeking cooperation from various segments of the community, would ultimately become co-opted by the special interests of those highly vocal and politically active segments of the community. In Part IV, I argue that the dangers of co-optation increase exponentially when community-generated expansions of police discretionary authority, like opting out, are involved. In the past, similar expansions of discretionary authority have received harsh criticism from those who insist that the use of discretion fragments communities by creating winners and losers. According to critics, the losers are typically minorities and other disenfranchised groups. In the case of non-enforcement of immigration law, when the winners are a historically disenfranchised minority group, it is easy and convenient to derisively dismiss opponents as xenophobic or racist. The competing interests, attitudes, and agendas that exist within communities and between minority groups are largely ignored. It is these differences that the police should consider when promulgating policies designed to improve their relationships with one segment of the minority community