Collaborative Networks for Effective Ecosystem‐Based Management: A Set of Working Hypotheses

Ecosystem‐based management (EBM) represents a comprehensive approach to better govern the environment that also illustrates the collaborative trend in policy and public administration. The need for stakeholder involvement and collaboration is strongly articulated, yet how and for what purposes collaboration would be effective remains largely untested. We address this gap by developing and evaluating a set of hypotheses specifying how certain patterns of collaborations among actors affect their joint ability to accomplish EBM. Content analyses of management plans drawn from five EBM planning processes in Sweden are combined with analyses of the collaborative networks through which these plans have been developed. Our results indicate that system thinking and the ability to integrate across different management phases are favored by collaborations between different kinds of actors, and by project leaders being centrally located in the networks. We also find that dense substructures of collaboration increase the level of specificity in the plans in regards to explicating constraints on human activities. Having many collaborative ties does however not enhance the overall level of specificity. Our results also show that different network characteristics can give rise to similar EBM outcomes. This observed equifinality suggests there is no single blueprint for well‐performing collaborative networks.     

Policy Innovativeness and Interstate Compacts

Are some American states inherently more innovative than others? This question has confounded researchers for more than four decades. In this study we develop a measure of collective policy innovation that measures formal cooperative policy arrangements among the states, compare the measure to existing measures of internal state policy innovation, and assess whether existing innovativeness measures explain policy cooperation among the states. This test of the innovativeness concept addresses internal and external validity concerns that have long plagued this research tradition. Our multivariate analyses indicate that policy innovativeness is often a statistically and substantively important determinant of compact participation. These results suggest that (i) innovativeness is a meaningful and durable state attribute, (ii) several existing indices successfully capture the underlying latent concept, and (iii) innovativeness provides analytic utility in multiple empirical contexts.     

Engaging Local Knowledge in Biodiversity Research: Experiences from Large Inter- and Transdisciplinary Projects

Abstract

The management of biodiversity represents a research topic that needs to involve not only several (sub-) disciplines from the natural sciences but, in particular, also the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, over the last couple of years, the need for the integration of other kinds of knowledge (experience based or indigenous knowledge) is increasingly acknowledged. For instance, the incorporation of such knowledge is indispensable for place-based approaches to sustainable land management, which require that the specific ecological and social context is addressed. However, desirable as it may be, such an engagement of the holders of tacit knowledge is not easy to achieve. It demands reconciling well-established scientific procedural standards with the implicit or explicit criteria of relevance that apply in civil society — a process that typically causes severe tensions and comes up against both habitual as well as institutional constraints. The difficulty of managing such tensions is amplified particularly in large integrated projects and represents a major challenge to project management. At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research — UFZ, several integrated research projects have been conducted over the past years in which experience has been gained with these specific challenges. This paper presents some of the lessons learned from large integrated projects, with an emphasis on project design and management structure. At the centre of the present contribution are experiences gained in the coordination and management of LEGATO (LEGATO stands for Land-use intensity and Ecological EnGineering — Assessment Tools for risks and Opportunities in irrigated rice based production systems, see www.legato-project.net), an ongoing, large-scale, inter- and transdisciplinary research project dealing with the management of irrigated rice landscapes in Southeast Asia. In this project, local expertise on traditional production systems is absolutely crucial but needs to be integrated with natural and social science research to identify future-proof land management systems.     

产地农产品批发市场的功能创新与发展

文章运用产业经济学和市场经济理论,分析了产地农产品批发市场在我国存在和发展的社会经济条件及其在农产品市场流通体系中的重要地位;立足国情,探析产地市场作为农业经济组织所具有的内在特性与社会职能,探索性地提出了产地市场是一个能够长效拉动我国农业经济和农村社会发展的经济组织形式。文章认为,产地农产品批发市场具有组织生产、一体化经营、组织农产品加工、农业科技服务和农民教育培训、提高农产品质量、保障农产品安全、促进农村社会发展等重要功能。     

20世纪50年代中国在引进基础上的技术创新

20世纪50年代中国的技术引进和技术创新活动集中在“一五”时期和“大跃进”时期,虽然这两个时期在引进基础上的创新活动都是在重工业优先发展战略下的体制框架内进行的,但在引进技术的行业构成、规模、项目建设的实施和技术的消化乃至技术创新机制、成效等方面都有所不同。“一五”时期采用了全面、系统、灵活多样的方式和重点攻关,在消化、吸收引进技术方面取得了明显的成效,某些领域实现了技术再造,技术创新能力得到了迅速积累,但从总体上看仍处于对引进技术的翻版、修改阶段。“大跃进”时期的技术创新机制被严重干扰,群众运动代替了深入细致的科学研究,在群众性技术革新运动中引进基础上的创新活动格外活跃,通过技术革新运动学会了自行制造一些成套设备、生产工艺,但并没有从产业部门或行业整体上真正实现引进基础上的再次创新,其整体水平依然停留在对引进技术的“初级模仿”阶段。     

毛泽东与中国科学技术的自主研发

毛泽东将科学技术视为革命者完成自身历史使命的重要工具,他洞见先进技术在后发国家追赶发达国家中的作用,将大力发展科学技术视为国家的重要职能,在西方国家封锁禁运、苏联毁约的困境下,千方百计引进先进科技并努力促进自主研发,果断地发展高科技产业,提高中华民族的国际地位,为中国进一步发展打下了基础。回顾毛泽东与中国科学技术自主研发的历程,有助于我们深刻认识和实践新形势下中共中央、国务院做出的建设创新型国家的重大战略决策。     

毛泽东对中国社会主义现代化战略的思考与选择

以毛泽东为代表的中国共产党人总结了历史经验和教训,开辟了一条先谋求民族独立、创造现代化的前提条件,再集中力量进行现代化建设的正确的救国之路;改革开放以前中国虽没有全面实现现代化,但中国共产党第一代领导集体也已经制定了一个适合国情的发展战略,并在此基础上进行了艰辛的探索,奠定了中国经济、社会继续发展的坚实基础。     

新信息环境下西部图书馆文献保障体系模式的发展创新

信息技术的飞速发展为人类创造了一个全新的网络环境,促使图书馆资源建设和发展模式发生了深刻变革。本文从分析西部图书馆用户需求的新特点和图书馆服务现状入手,探讨新信息环境下西部图书馆信息资源建设工作的改进模式与文献保障体系。     

中学语文教学与创新教育

创新教育需要渗透到各科教学中。语文学科也毫不例外，并且只有对本学科不断创新，不断注入活水，它才有发展前途，才有存在的必要。语文教学法进行的是母语教学，是一门基础性的、工具性的学科教学。     

(Un)related variety,urban milieu and tourism-company differentiation

High tourism growth in single-asset tourism cities is often associated with a standardization of supply of products and services by tourism entrepreneurs. However, and in contrast to this common-sense view, tourism growth in specific urban tourism milieus in the ‘sun-sea-sand’ tourism city of Antalya has stimulated tourism entrepreneurs to differentiate their products. Contrary to most economic-geography literature on spatial clusters, evolutionary economic geographers argue that inter-industry relations of (un)related variety are crucial in inter-firm differentiation. The aim of the paper is to define the factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation in the single-asset tourism city of Antalya. The empirical research is theoretically informed by evolutionary economic-geography literature, and pays much attention to the role different urban sub-milieus play in tourism-firm differentiation. It is the first research on the relation between (un)related variety and tourism-firm differentiation in tourism studies. The empirical research is based on primary data collected by a firm-level survey (hotels, restaurants, jewellery- and retail-trade firms) in the city of Antalya. The factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation are explored by using quantitative methods of analysis (an econometric logit-regression model and a correspondence analysis). The main result of the empirical research is that investments in firms in related sectors, in our case jewellery companies and hotels, are positively and significantly related to tourism-firm differentiation. In addition, the location tourism firms in areas visited by a mix of consumers (tourists and locals) also is positively and significantly related to inter-firm differentiation whereas urban milieus visited by locals only have a negative effect.