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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Vijayaraghavan, K.; Dutz, Mark A. |
| Abstract: | This paper describes and analyzes a series of complementary policy initiatives in India to adapt and commercialize existing global biotechnologies to meet local needs in healthcare, agriculture, industry and the environment in a more affordable manner. This evolving approach has been implemented through six complementary elements, namely (1) translational research; (2) technology access through global consortia; (3) commercialization supported by public-private partnerships, broadly interpreted; (4) skills development; (5) regulation; and (6) institutional governance, including special purpose vehicles, for effective project management. The paper focuses on two public-private partnership initiatives, the Small Business Innovation Research Initiative and the Biotechnology Industry Partnership Program, which together have allocated more than US$70 million in public funding to almost 150 projects, contributing to a total public-private investment of more than $170 million over the past five years. The authors'key recommendation, to ensure effective resource use and better policy impact, is for these innovation-support initiatives to adopt more continuous monitoring with quicker feedback from learning to implementation, and more rigorous impact evaluation including approaches that allow the results of firms benefiting from support to be compared with an appropriate group of firms not benefiting from support. |
| Keywords: | ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,E-Business,Agricultural Research |
| Date: | 2012–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6022&r=ppm |
| By: | Manning, Carrie; Malbrough, Monica |
| Abstract: | This study explores the effects of foreign aid on democracy in Mozambique during the last decade. Aid for democracy built on historic relationships forged between donors and the government during the wartime humanitarian emergency. Foreign aid played an important role in Mozambique.s transition from war to peace and from single-party rule to multiparty politics in the early 1990s. Since 2000, aid has shifted markedly toward general budget support and away from project support. Emphasis has moved from building central government institutions to bolstering local governance, and from a focus on democracy to good governance. |
| Keywords: | Mozambique, foreign aid, democracy, local governance, budget support, project support |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-18&r=ppm |
| By: | Steven Grenadier; Andrey Malenko; Ilya A. Strebulaev |
| Abstract: | We provide a dynamic model of an industry in which agents strategically time liquidation decisions in an effort to protect their reputations. As in traditional models, agents delay liquidation attempting to signal their quality. However, when the industry faces a common shock that indiscriminately forces liquidation of a subset of projects, agents with bad enough projects choose to liquidate even if their projects are unaffected by the shock. Such "blending in with the crowd" creates an additional incentive to delay liquidation, further amplifying the shock. As a result, even minuscule common shocks can be evidenced by massive liquidations. As agents await common shocks, the industry accumulates "living dead" projects. Surprisingly, the potential for moderate negative common shocks often improves agents values. |
| JEL: | G01 G24 G31 G32 G33 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17945&r=ppm |
| By: | Mara Del Baldo (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo"); Paola Demartini (Department of Management and Law, University of Rome 3, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper reflects on the theme of sustainability and territorial social responsibility, which, in this context, is defined as a pathway promoted by a plurality of public and private actors, forand non-profit, who find that social cohesion and the relationships that are cultivated in the place from which these diverse “protagonists” come, are the drivers in the construction of shared territorial governance. The efficacy of such processes in the local context (communal, provincial and regional) is predicated on the culture and on the values that the diverse, networked stakeholders-actors accumulate in their territory (meso level). In developing this theme, the paper is divided into several parts. The first part describes the theoretical context, which is illustrated by an enumeration of experiences realized at the local level in Italy. We then focus our analysis on the experience of territorial governance promoted in the Marches Region. This project was selected as a case study because it is emblematic of the Italian context; the territory is characterized by the diffuse presence of small businesses in the socio-economic fabric and by the proactive role of the local government. The case allows us to evaluate this paper’s fundamental proposition, that the policies of the European Commission and the Government of Italy for promoting Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability are not concretely effective when they are not fostered by regional authorities together with local private actors. Furthermore, public initiatives, to be effective, should take into consideration the influence of local culture, the social milieu, and economic factors shaping the environment in which public-private networks arise. |
| Keywords: | Regional CSR and sustainability oriented network, Territorial responsibility, Territorial governance. |
| JEL: | M14 G34 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:12_04&r=ppm |
| By: | Mara Del Baldo (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo") |
| Abstract: | The research question posed at the basis of this study is the following: what is the importance of sharing common values that originate from (and are reinforced by) the entrepreneurs’ and company’s embeddedness in a cohesive territorial socio-economic system? How can “land values” influence the company’s stakeholder and CSR approaches? Taking both a deductive and inductive perspective, the reflections are developed around three main topics: the CSR roots, strictly connected to ethical oriented core values and influenced by the belonging to a specific geographical context; the development of social and ethical networks of stakeholders (promoted by “territorial” companies) that share a minimum mutual set of values; the influence of those values on the company’s approach to stakeholders management. After presenting the theoretical framework, the second part of the paper examines a case study of an Italian company, the Loccioni Group, which offers an example of a “CSR-oriented” organizational ecosystem and a best practices of stakeholder management that co-evolves with the environment, moving in the direction of responsible development, improving, at the same time, its own competitiveness and the social conditions of the environment and of the local context. |
| Keywords: | Regional Corporate social responsibility, Entrepreneurial values, Local context, Small and medium enterprises, Territorial companies. |
| JEL: | M13 M14 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:12_05&r=ppm |
| By: | Bartelheimer, Peter; Henke, Jutta; Kotlenga, Sandra; Pagels, Nils; Schelkle, Bettina |
| Abstract: | "The pilot programme 'PRIMUS' ('Integrate, encourage, strengthen strengths') implemented by the Jobcenter Saarbrücken tested a new counselling and support approach for jobseekers eligible for basic security assistance benefits, aged 25 to 48, who had been long-term recipients and were considered hard to place in the labour market due to a number obstacles while not qualifying for case management. Each of the project's six placement officers was to handle a caseload of 40 household communities. Participation was voluntary, leaving job-seekers the choice to be served at their regular job centre branch as before or to transfer to the programme. A qualitative evaluation of the project was jointly conducted by the Göttingen Institute for Sociological Research (SOFI) and Zoom - Society for prospective Developments e.V. The study involved the close monitoring of casework with 42 project participants, including case documentation, interviews and non-participant observation. Singular observations or inter-views were realized with 11 more participants. In addition, 10 non-participants were also interviewed. This report outlines the evaluation results. The way the project team addressed key problems of professional action in placement counselling are both original and uncommon within the legal framework of jobseekers' basic assistance and of the public employment services. The project worked on the assumption that intensive individual support would enable participants to enter into a durable, unsubsidized employment that would meet their job expectations. Against the resignation fostered by longer unemployment the team used a systemic counselling approach, providing occasions for clients to experience success and to draw on hitherto untapped resources. While accounting for limitations and constraining circumstances, the project officers sought points of vantage for joint placement strategies. Case workers could rely on the voluntary entry into the programme and on intrinsically motivated participants to obtain their clients' personal mandate and to pursue shared objectives by way of collaborative strategies. Additional time for client support and professional discretion provided the basis for a specific service profile that combined individual case work with group activities and complemented counselling by forms of practical assistance, (e.g. escorting clients to employers or to government agencies). In the case of families, the placement strategy included all employable household members. Further assistance was offered to clients after they had taken up work. All concerned parties considered the project a success. A quarter of all participants and close to half of the qualitative evaluation sample took up a job. The qualitative evaluation showed how comprehensive, resource-intensive placement-oriented services provided by job centre staff offers effective support to disadvantaged unemployed. While income sanctions were not enforced, clients proved highly committed to joint objectives, and service satisfaction of clients and job satisfaction of staff were equally high." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Date: | 2012–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfob:201205&r=ppm |