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This paper explores the relationship between micro-economic business models, economic structure, and locally sustainable prosperity. In this respect, the paper takes as a premise the contention that sustainable mobility requires a sustainable industry to create the vehicles and business models to deliver that mobility. The interactions between locality and scale are explored within the context of the anti-globalisation discourse. Thereafter, the paper provides a brief outline of some business models from the automotive industry where alternatives to the monolithic and centralised structure of the mainstream industry have been proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of Faculty members of the School of Industrial Management at Purdue University have for some time been engaged in studies of decision making in a large, decentralized American manufacturing company. These studies have investigated decisions at the mills producing raw material and the converting plants of this fully integrated company. Examinations have been made of decision processes within and between company plants with the objective of adding to theory of behavior in organizations, particularly theory of working relations and theory of cognitive processes in the carrying out of complex organizational tasks, and application of theory to the solution of practical problems, such as those of scheduling production and of formal organization.
This paper discusses one of these projects, an attempt to construct a behavioral model of the decision rules actually employed to schedule orders for production in one of the firm's plants. This project has sought to embody decision rules in a computer program which will, in fact, take incoming data on orders and plant capacity and convert this into an operating schedule in a manner highly analogous to that of the human schedulers who performed this task.[] The following discussion avoids technical details, since the aim of this paper is to give an overall picture of the major purpose and problems of this type of research; to describe its origin and to suggest possible future application as seen by the researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: During the past decade scholars have noted growing ideological polarization between Democratic and Republican Party elites in the United States. This trend has occurred in a party system traditionally characterized as decentralized. This paper examines whether the trend towards partisan polarization noted by scholars at the national level has affected state party systems in similar ways. Are some state party systems more polarized than others? The paper uses a classification scheme of state party systems developed by David Mayhew to try to explain interstate differences in partisan polarization. The paper concludes that states with political environments that supported pragmatic and non-ideological traditional party organizations are less polarized in the modern era than states without such environments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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Grounded in a historical analysis of the processes of managerialization in Israel between the 1950s and the 1970s, this paper explores the ways in which well-integrated U.S. experts, in collaboration with their Israeli counterparts, retheorized and disarmed the well-institutionalized and antimanagerialist Israeli version of workers' participation in management. It demonstrates how through the bricolage of the radical local alternative with the U.S.-originated promanagerialist version of workers' participation in management, foreign intervention opened the way for the formerly unwelcome professionalization of corporate control in the country. In so doing, the importance of translation and theorizing are stressed as mechanisms of reproduction of geopolitical domination of the world system center over the periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The youth sport system in the United States is not achieving its full potential. There is a need to reimagine this system in ways that are evidence-based, innovative, and coordinated to best safeguard and promote the well-being of young people. The purpose of this expert commentary, composed by the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition Science Board, is to propose a set of changes across multiple levels of influence (e.g., individual, family, school, organization) that could cultivate a more developmentally sound youth sport system. By advancing the vision of the National Youth Sports Strategy to provide quality youth sport to all young people in the country, these changes have substantial potential to benefit young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing pervasiveness of telecommunications technologies, very few studies have holistically attempted to examine their use in organizational contexts. This study approaches the use of these technologies from an innovation perspective. Literature on innovation is synthesized into a testable model and the results of a senior IS executive survey of 154 organizations is reported. Factors that enable initiation, adoption, and implementation of a set of 15 distinct telecommunications technologies are examined. Two factors in particular, environmental uncertainty and decentralization of decision making, show significant relationships with the usage of these technologies. The results provide useful insights into the usage of individual technologies and the contextual factors that enable diffusion of this important set of technologies in U.S. organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study treats the administrative effect factor as a moderator in LISREL analyses to build an explanatory model that best explains Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program caseload changes. The analysis reveals that the administrative effect factor, followed by fiscal expenditure, social needs, and political factors, directly contribute to changes in TANF caseloads in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How states choose to organize and structure their human service agencies determines to a great extent how state human service systems function and how human services are delivered to clients. Little attention has been paid in the social work administration literature to this obviously important issue. Using data from the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), the authors look at how states have organized their human service systems at three times (1986, 1997, 2006) over a 20-year period. Specifically, the article looks at change and continuity in: 1) the structures and functions of the 50 designated state human service agencies, and (2) preferences for larger centralized umbrella-type agencies versus multiple smaller more specialized human service agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how a shift toward decentralized and automobile-based patterns of American metropolitan development was a major aspect of the national defense buildup that took place just before Pearl Harbor. It suggests that the continuing and seemingly permanent clash between what are now standard contemporary suburban development practices and the ideas of architects about the design of cities and metropolitan areas can be traced back to that pivotal time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-five million Americans play golf on the nation's 16,000 courses each year. These golf courses constitute a significant national landscape feature. Since 1878, when the game arrived in the United States, golf has filtered down the urban, economic, and social hierarchies to become accepted by and accessible to most Americans. During the ensuing thirteen decades the number, location, and layout of the nation's golf courses have responded to many of the same driving forces that impacted the nation, including decentralization, growth of the middle class, war, economic depression, suburbanization, and the increasing role of the federal government. Four epochs of golf-course growth and diffusion show the growing acceptance of the sport and depict where courses were most likely to be constructed as a result of the prevailing forces of each epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about international relations between Canada and the U.S. related to environmental politics on a trans-boundary scale. International environmental regimes have undergone a transformation from a system based on centralized nation-state governance of natural resources to a devolved collaborative system of management. Between the 1960s and 1990s, both nations increased levels of regulatory pressure and created new intergovernmental mechanisms of environmental management. Since the early 1990s, both federal governments have increased collaborative decision-making through stakeholder groups, private public partnerships and flexibility in enforcement.

The article offers a look on the significance of using individual parcel assessments to improve stormwater management in the U.S. According to the author, U.S. localities facing extreme challenges in meeting unfunded surface water quality mandates are increasingly turning to decentralized stormwater management. In this article, it argues that conditions are currently favorable for U.S. localities to follow the example of many German cities. Three different applications of individual parcel assessment of impervious surface are presented.

Semiconductor capacity planning is a cross-functional decision that requires coordination between the marketing and manufacturing divisions. We examine the main issues of a decentralized coordination scheme in a setting observed at a major US semiconductor manufacturer: marketing managers reserve capacity from manufacturing based on product demands, while attempting to maximize profit; manufacturing managers allocate capacity to competing marketing managers so as to minimize operating costs while ensuring efficient resource utilization. This cross-functional planning problem has two important characteristics: (i) both demands and capacity are subject to uncertainty: and (ii) all decision entities own private information while being self-interested. To study the issues of coordination we first formulate the local marketing and the manufacturing decision problem as separate stochastic programs. We then formulate a centralized stochastic programming model (JCA). which maximizes the firm's overall profit. JCA establishes a theoretical benchmark for performance, but is only achievable when all planning information is public. If local decision entities are to keep their planning information private, we submit that the best achievable coordination corresponds to an alternative stochastic model (DCA). We analyze the relationship and the theoretical gap between (JCA) and (DCA), thereby establishing the price of decentralization. Next, we examine two mechanisms that coordinate the marketing and manufacturing decisions to achieve (DCA) using different degrees of information exchange. Using insights from the Auxiliary Problem Principle (APP), we show that under both coordination mechanisms the divisional proposals converge to the global optimal solution of (DCA). We illustrate the theoretic insights using numerical examples as well as a real world case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses issues on community and lay control of public education from New York City, New York to Chicago, Illinois. Various meanings of the word community; Community school boards in New York City; School-based decentralization; Discrepancies between participatory promises and actual practices.

The article examines the progress of professionalization within a highly traditional political and social setting. The impact of such characteristics as a decentralized personnel system, fragmented political authority, and an absence of top-level support is assessed in the context of current initiatives to upgrade the professional orientations and capabilities of the state's workers. The primary theme is that, despite the lack of an integrated professionalism movement in state government, remarkable advances have occurred, and are continuing at an impressive pace. The impetus for these changes is found to be in the various employee groups that are striving to enhance their professional skills and status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the changes in the concentration of manufacturing in the United States. Industrialization of a nation; Importance of manufacturing as a livelihood; Interest in decentralization; Distribution of facilities; Effect of the war; Freight rates.