This article examines the politics of 'seeing' civilians in Afghanistan with a focus on the 2009 Kunduz air strike. Drawing on the literature on professional vision and professional knowledges, I ask how divergences in the 'ways of seeing' between different professional communities can be explained, and how they are resolved in practice. 'Seeing,' I argue, is based on talking. The vocabularies with which we describe the world and understand our relationships shape how we 'see'. As a consequence, Afghans gathered around a truck can appear an 'immediate threat' or not -- depending on the ideological prisms at work. The article suggests that we need to treat professional vision as necessarily contested and examine how professionals are socialized into accepting one way of seeing as valid. Seeing is based on talking, and we need to talk about how we see (violence).
This paper will provide insight into the personality dimensions that can be attributed to performing arts awards, and thus generate a scale to measure these dimensions. This area of work rests upon the idea that there is self-concept congruency between a viewer and product or service, and that there are instances where attributes of a human nature can be, in fact, attributed to them. The study will look particularly at a mixed sample of televised performing arts awards shows (The Academy Awards, The Prime-Time Emmy Awards, The Tony Awards, The Grammy Awards and The Golden Globe Awards) and the various motivations and interests of viewers to watch, or not watch, such shows. Based upon its position in the literature and its intended contribution, this study will propose a four-step scale development process.
Available data indicate that economic conditions, exports performance and foreign direct investment from Malaysia increased significantly in the 1990s. Existing literature on the internationalization of firms is based on the study of firms from developed countries and does not directly apply to the case of firms based in developing economies, and Malaysia particularly. Based on this phenomenon, this study attempts to examine the process of internationalization among Malaysian firms into the foreign markets and compare the internationalization process of Malaysian firms with other developed countries. This study will contribute to the knowledge gap with empirical data from rapidly internationalizing firms, in respect of the Malaysian firms' experiences, organizational learning and capability creation that will offer fruitful approaches to understanding the dynamic of firms' expansion. The resulting model could assist policy makers to improve existed support programs for businesses to overcome barriers and enhance performance in internationalization process.
Despite the prevalence of formal and informal standards for employee attire, research on its role is limited. Social psychological theories suggest that work attire can be a meaningful, expressive symbol associated with one's occupational identity. Organizational theories suggest that work attire can affect both individual and organizational outcomes. Bridging these perspectives, this study considers work attire's potential to influence micro and macro organizational dynamics. A framework of the dimensions influencing factors and outcomes of work dress is used to assess the results of a poll of members of the Canadian Forces, an organization whose work attire is highly conspicuous and rigidly homogeneous. Though a slight majority of participants responded that their uniform did not impact their operational focus, comments indicate both organizational influences and individual concerns with specific attributes of attire. Attitudes toward work attire may be indicative of broader issues of organizational identity.
This paper identifies some of the challenges facing expatriates using an autoethnographic account of situations experienced by the author during her first year of work at a financial services company in Hong Kong. These experiences reveal an erratic business world of apparent nonsense and uncertainty, incomprehensible to an outsider. The challenges facing expatriates stem from the stress and anxiety affecting their work, family and social interactions within the foreign culture. Success in the new environment is dependent on the expatriate's ability to adjust to the new culture. An overview of the current research on the expatriate experience is provided to help the reader make sense of the autoethnographic situations.
Working in collaborative and dispersed (C&D) settings is now common for project teams, especially for those active in multinational companies or in international contexts. The concept of "collaborative maturity" has recently been proposed by various authors in order to identify and measure the competence of a firm working in C&D mode. Many models of collaborative maturity have been proposed, reflecting the increasing importance of this area of research. However, the existing literature is spread among multiple journals in various fields of research. For a better understanding of collaborative maturity and how it is measured, a thorough literature review is conducted and an extension of existing research is proposed. This will serve as the theoretical background for future empirical research. The results should be useful for project managers and academicians with an interest in C&D projects.
Social problems, such unsustainable development, can be too large for any one organization to tackle alone so are increasingly being addressed through cross-sector multi-organizational collaborations. One of the approaches being taken is formulating and implementing a collective (alternatively named collaborative) strategy. Despite the increasing usage of collaborative strategic management in practice, there is relatively little literature on this approach, particularly when considering the implementation of the collaborative strategy. This paper builds on existing interorganizational collaboration theory and organizational strategy implementation theory to determine: 1) a conceptual process model of collaborative strategic management; and 2) factors which affect each phase of cross-sectoral social-oriented collaborative strategic managment.
The paper identifies the characteristics of firm activities that constitute its technology scanning dynamic capability, which enables the firm to translate information about customer needs into information about tangible ways to introduce new products and services to satisfy those needs. The ability to find a specific actionable way to address customer needs is proposed to be measured by a latent construct called technology scanning. Using the literature on marketing, innovation management, knowledge management, new product development, and economics, five dimensions are identified for a technology scanning scale. A strong presence of 'technology scanning' ensures that the firm's resources are targeted to find the solution of the problems that matters most, the ones that were identified as a consequence of high level of market orientation of the firm. This work would shed some light on how managers might solve the problems and needs of the customers identified through market orientation practices. When market orientation guides technology scanning activities, the outcomes are more desirable to the firm.
Information technology-based alliances are rapidly spreading in organizations, which calls upon researchers to develop an adequate theoretical lens to examine this phenomenon and its key associated outcomes, such as the business performance of alliance firms. However, strategic alliances are mostly examined from a transaction cost economics perspective, and the results on performance are inconclusive at best. This paper proposes an alternative lens - the resource-based view - and applies an extended version of it to explain the performance of firms in IT-based alliances. A conceptual model is developed that examines the impact of shared information technology resources on firm performance. Also, a measurement scale for these resources is developed and preliminarily validated.
Entrepreneurship is a recognized concept both for research and practice. It is possible to find university courses, research published in specialized journals, associations dedicated to entrepreneurship promotion and governmental support. In a regional economic development context, a special form of entrepreneurship could achieve other objectives. Social entrepreneurship is an emergent concept earning more popularity than ever around the planet. However the concept is not well known. The objective of the paper is to present an overview of the social entrepreneurship concept.
This paper examines the role of affect in marketing positioning strategy and individual positioning judgements. We examine affect in both the marketing and positioning literatures and argue that vestiges of the dual mind perspective are alive and well in positioning. Viewing 'thinking' and 'feeling' as entirely separate (as in utilitarian vs. hedonic product distinctions) runs counter to advances in neuroscience and devalues individual differences and brain functioning. As a result of our own coding of positioning dimensions, we advocate for a greater understanding of the complex interplay between affect and cognition in positioning strategy and judgements.
Potential synergies between international trade and tourism are viewed optimistically by governments, yet research to assess their association is limited. To gain an understanding of trade and tourism relationships, this paper reports on a study which examines both product-related and tourism-related place image effects on consumer behavior simultaneously. Using the U.S. as the country of focus, key product and travel relationships are measured by structural equation modeling of consumer data from South Korea. Findings support the cross-over effect between one's beliefs about a country as a destination and as a producer, and one's willingness to travel to it and/or buy its products, and most strongly, that product beliefs affect views of travel destinations.
This paper provides a critical review of literature on management controls and their context. The review indicates that more emphasis has been placed on organizational than environmental factors and that the effectiveness of different controls in different contexts remains practically unaddressed. In general, research has been ad hoc and focused on results-oriented financial controls, short-term efficiency, and individual level of analysis. Even for commonly studied topics (e.g., budget controls), evidence has often been inconsistent and limited to manufacturing organizations, with little integration and refinement of previous theoretical models based on new evidence. Further research is required to investigate the relative importance of different financial and nonfinancial controls in different types of organizations in order to develop more comprehensive performance measurement and management frameworks.
A study of citations in four prominent journals indicates how deeply Hofstede's conceptualization dominates the understanding of culture in international business research. The implications of this intellectual hegemony for the development of the field are examined After considering some critiques of Hofstede's approach, three diverse alternatives to the value-based approach are discussed.
Since 2014, Carleton University Library has been adding to the ways it practices collection development. In addition to the subject liaison firm order model, we have added 3 successful user-centred ways to acquire material. We ended our approval plan and used its selection framework to create a DDA plan. We started a textbook purchasing program in Reserves, and we instituted print purchase on demand procedures in ILL. This poster provides an overview and key takeaways for each initiative.
Research emphasizing evolutionary and resource-based perspectives of the firm highlights the importance of core capabilities as sources of superior performance, and views capabilities in computer-based IT systems as instrumental in leading to strategic advantage. However, the asymmetrical results from such systems present a somewhat confusing picture as to the key issues that managers should be addressing. We present an approach to IS capability development that applies a combined evolutionary and resource-based perspective. We propose that IS capability is determined along three strategic dimensions and will result from effective and sustained efforts in three complementary areas that are discussed in this paper. We use three case studies to illustrate the use of the proposed IS capability framework in analyzing information systems in organizations.
Partial least squares (PLS) is sometimes used as an alternative to covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM). This paper briefly reviews currently available SEM techniques, and provides a critique of the perceived advantages of PLS over covariance-based SEM as commonly cited by PLS users. Specific attention is drawn to the primary disadvantage of PLS, namely the lack of consistency of its parameter estimates. The instrumental variables (IV) /two stage least squares (2SLS) method of estimation is then described and presented as a potential alternative to PLS that might yield its perceived advantages without succumbing to its primary disadvantage. Preliminary simulation results show that: PLS parameter estimates exhibit substantial bias when the number of items is moderate; SEM-based methods yield lower bias; and IV/2SLS estimates may indeed provide a viable ordinary least squares (OLS)-based alternative to PLS.
This survey study of senior municipal administrators examines the use of evaluative criteria in managerial performance evaluation and extends previous findings in the public sector context. The results reveal that the use of evaluative criteria is very similar to that found in Otley and Pollanen's (2000) public-sector study, but significantly different from those reported in several private-sector studies. Substantially lower proportions of budget-based criteria are found in both public-sector studies than in private-sector studies. Performance is higher under low- than high-uncertainty conditions and in larger than smaller organizations. The findings suggest that different evaluative criteria may be appropriate in the public and he findings suggest that different evaluative criteria may be appropriate in the public and private sectors, and that uncertainty and organizational size may affect performance.
The ethnographic treatment of "rites de Passage" is discussed with reference to
material relating to religious initiation. It is suggested that the major transitions
engendered through the Tibetan Buddhist Tantric W a n g Kur rituals may be profitably
analyzed not simply as changes in social status but rather as tools for the re-ordering
of phenomenology which are designed to engender long-term alterations in the
initiates' experience of the world. The initiation provides a rationale and instruction
conjunctive with ritual technique which is consciously designed to globally and
permanently alter the consciousness of the practitioner. Suggestions for studies of
rites of passage which take into account this dimension of the ritual control of
experience are offered.
Libraries are quickly becoming spaces for more than just books and journals. At Carleton University MacOdrum Library, we used Minecraft to introduce elementary and high school students to the power of gaming as a tool to foster education, research and collaboration. In May 2015, we encouraged students to take part in a project that engaged them with a local project called the LeBreton Flats Redevelopment Project. The redevelopment project led by the National Capital Commission (NCC), shortlisted four developers and published their proposals for the community to see. Using the criteria presented by the four pre-qualified proponents, the students were asked to research and propose their own ideas for the space. Using a scale version of the space in Minecraft, the students built their proposed plan for the space in a 1:1 scale replica of LeBreton Flats.
Usable security has unique usability challenges because the need for security often means that standard human-computerinteraction approaches cannot be directly applied. An important usability goal for authentication systems is to support users in selecting better passwords, thus increasing security by expanding the effective password space. In click-based graphical passwords, poorly chosen passwords lead to the emergence of hotspots ' portions of the image where users are more likely to select click-points, allowing attackers to mount more successful dictionary attacks. We use persuasion to influence user choice in click-based graphical passwords, encouraging users to select more random, and hence more secure, click-points. Our approach is to introduce persuasion to the Cued Click-Points graphical password scheme (Chiasson, van Oorschot, Biddle, 2007). Our resulting scheme significantly reduces hotspots while still maintaining its usability.
Energy modeling and optimization studies can facilitate the design of cost-effective, low-energy buildings. However, this process inevitably involves uncertainties such as predicting occupant behavior, future climate, and econometric parameters. As presently practiced, energy modelers typically do not quantify the implications of these unknowns into performance outcomes. This paper describes an energy modeling approach to quantify economic risk and better inform decision makers of the economic feasibility of a project. The proposed methodology suggests how economic uncertainty can be quantified within an optimization framework. This approach improves modeling outcomes by factoring in the effect of variability in assumptions and improves confidence in simulation results. The methodology is demonstrated using a net zero energy commercial office building case study located in London, ON, Canada.
The use of open linked data in libraries is quickly developing as means of connecting digital content from the web to local library collections. In the world of cataloguing, metadata, and authority control, using controlled vocabularies through open linked data presents the possibility of providing library patrons with access to a seemingly unlimited expanse of digital resources. Encouraged by this potential, the Carleton University Library is currently implementing open linked data models within its institutional repository in order to connect users to digital content within our repository, our ILS, and beyond. This poster presents the ideas and processes behind this innovative project, and hopes to inspire other libraries to implement open linked data concepts in order to enhance the discoverability of their own digital collections.
Learning Outcomes:
• Clear explanation of open linked data concepts using diagrams to illustrate key points
• How libraries of all sizes can utilize linked data for authority control to expand access to digital collections
• How libraries can use linked data to promote and expand access to OA publications
What happens in a department when one introduces EBLIP into the daily workflow? The researcher reflects on the challenges and rewards of the first year as a Collections Assessment Librarian, a newly created position in the library.
What contributions are considered sufficient to justify authorship credit? As universities show increasing interest in both interdisciplinary work & research metrics, the library is in a unique position to help researchers across disciplines navigate through this important area of scholarly communication.
Collection space is an issue within the library. The assessment librarian examined statistics from various resources that are typically collected in the library, but not normally looked at as a whole. These Collection Growth Reports will help library staff to make evidence-based purchasing and weeding decisions.
Older Americans, even those who are long retired, have strong willingness to work, especially in jobs with flexible schedules. For many, labor force participation near or after normal retirement age is limited more by a lack of acceptable job opportunities or low expectations about finding them than by unwillingness to work longer. This paper establishes these findings using an approach to identification based on strategic survey questions (SSQs) purpose-designed to complement behavioral data. These findings suggest that demand-side factors are important in explaining late-in-life labor market behavior and may be the most appropriate target for policy aimed at promoting working longer.
In order for computer generated imagery to recreate the characteristic visual appearance of phenomena such as smoke and fog it is necessary to compute the way in which light interacts with participating media. In this work we present a novel technique for computing volumetric single scattering lighting solutions for particle-based inhomogeneous participating media data sets. We seek to calculate volumetric lighting solutions for particle-based data sets as such data sets have the advantage of being spatially unbounded and relatively unrestricted with regard to memory as compared to uniform grids. In order to perform the calculations which are required for computing such a lighting solution, we introduce a novel octree based data structure. We refer to this new data structure as a density octree. The design of the density octree allows for efficiently computing light attenuation throughout the spatial extent. Using our data structure, we are able to produce high quality output imagery of arbitrary particle data sets in the presence of arbitrary numbers of lights.
This paper introduces the Vanguard Research Initiative (VRI), a new panel survey of wealthholders designed to yield high-quality measurements of a large sample of older Americans who arrive at retirement with significant financial assets. The VRI links survey data with a variety of administrative data from Vanguard. The survey features an account-by-account approach to asset measurement and a real-time feedback and correction mechanism that are shown to be highly successful in eliciting accurate measures of wealth. Specifically, the VRI data reflect unbiased and precise estimates of wealth when compared to administrative account data. The VRI sample has characteristics similar to populations meeting analogous wealth and Internet access eligibility conditions in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). To illustrate the value of the VRI, the paper shows that the relationship between wealth and expected retirement date is very different in the VRI than in the HRS and SCF—mainly because those surveys have so few observations where wealth levels are high enough to finance substantial consumption during retirement.
This paper investigates the relationship between stock share and expectations and risk preferences using linked survey responses and administrative records from account holders. The survey allows individual-level, quantitative estimates of risk tolerance and of the perceived mean and variance of stock returns. Estimated risk tolerance, expected return, and perceived risk have economically and statistically significant explanatory power for the distribution of stock shares. Relative to each other, the magnitudes are in proportion with the predictions of benchmark theories, but they are substantially attenuated. MBA graduates have more stable beliefs, more knowledge about their account holdings, and less attenuation.
Older households face health-related risks, including risk of being in need of long-term care and mortality risk. How these risks affect financial portfolio choice of households depends on household preferences for long-term care and bequest. Using linked survey-administrative data on clients of a mutual fund company, this paper finds that the desire to have enough resources for long-term care and bequests are overall strong but also heterogeneous across households. The estimated relationship between actual stock share of households and the strength of these preferences is qualitatively similar but quantitatively much weaker compared to the predictions from the life-cycle model with the estimated preference heterogeneity. Based on the predictions from the model, this paper discusses what financial instruments would better meet the needs of households.
Elizabeth Smart 's writings--her theory and practice of art--
present patterns of change and constancy. Art, initially
constituted in an entwined and supportive inter-relation
of nature, love/passion, God, ir.spiration :and will, is in
its maturity generated from within a dissolution of the
supportive context. Art finds its power of expression in
opposition to nature and in the absence of God. By Grand
Centnl Station I Sat Down and Wept presents art in its
true creativity: creating unity from a central visionary
perspective. From this point onwards art falls away from
its metamorphic principle of transformation, in an enforced
exile, and in the later works becomes an expression of the
radical separation of nature (and love/passion) from the
visionary perception. Art without a supportive environment is
actualized in a self-referential creation, a "magic marriage
of words," that is still, however, a transformation (of tragedy
into comedy) and an expression of a potentially redemptive
God-like wrath and will.
"I began my sabbatical research with what seemed a defined but narrow
focus: the information literacy needs of graduate students. The Information
Literacy Standards of the Association of Colleges and Research Libraries
(ACRL) provided a reasonable foundation upon which to build, and a
qualitative research design, sampling a number of graduate students at
Carleton University, is a productive strategy.
My project has since evolved in unexpected but distinctly broader and
more challenging directions. I found, through ongoing reviews of existing
literature, as well as through my own personal experience and discussions
with colleagues, that some work has already been done to identify the
concerns and needs of graduate students. Further, I discovered that there is
a growing body of research aimed at identifying gaps and suggesting best
practices." (from introduction)
People's satisfaction from some goods and services depends on
their relative as distinct from their absolute position as
consumers. Such items are called "positional goods", and a
restriction of their supply in the situation of general income
growth is conducive to expenditure escalation as in an arms race.
If education is a positional good in this sense, arrangements are
needed that will best prevent such an outcome. The introduction of
education vouchers of a value egual to the average per capita
public school expenditure, it is argued, will only hinder not help.
This is because some recipients will be tempted to obtain more
education with marginal additions to their vouchers from their own
pockets. Vouchers are thus welfare reducing because they encourage
rather than discourage "arms race" situations. Using a formal
median voter model we show that concerns over possible escalation
of expenditure will prompt a majority of voters to reject a
universal voucher system. We examine, as an alternative, a
selective voucher system that will remove the escalation problem.
Under this system only low-income families will receive vouchers.
We demonstrate that the median voter will favor such a selective
voucher system provided that the voucher-induced increase in
competition lowers costs and/or improves guality of education.
This report provides key findings and recommendations from a study of work-life conflict and employee well-being that involved 4500 police officers working for 25 police forces across Canada. Findings from this study should help police forces across Canada implement policies and practices that will help them thrive in a "sellers market for labour."
The study examined work-life experiences of 25,000 Canadians who were employed full time in 71 public, private and not-for-profit organizations across all provinces and territories between June 2011 and June 2012. Two-thirds of survey respondents had incomes of $60,000 or more a year and two-thirds were parents.
Previous studies were conducted in 1991 and 2001.
“It is fascinating to see what has changed over time and what hasn’t,’’ said Duxbury.
Among the findings:
Most Canadian employees still work a fixed nine-to-five schedule – about two-thirds.
Overall, the typical employee spends 50.2 hours in work-related activities a week. Just over half of employees take work home to complete outside regular hours.
The use of flexible work arrangements such as a compressed work week (15 per cent) and flexible schedules (14 per cent) is much less common.
Fifty-seven per cent of those surveyed reported high levels of stress.
One-third of working hours are spent using email.
Employees in the survey were twice as likely to let work interfere with family as the reverse.
Work-life conflict was associated with higher absenteeism and lower productivity.
Succession planning, knowledge transfer and change management are likely to be a problem for many Canadian organizations.
There has been little career mobility within Canadian firms over the past several years.
The study was initiated as Canada’s contribution to the Wilson’s Centre Global Women’s Leadership Initiative Women in Public Service Project initiated by Hilary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. In partnership with the Centre for Women in Politics and Public Leadership, Gender Equality Measurement Initiative, and Centre for Research on Women and Work at Carleton University and the Public Service Commission of Canada.
Abstract:
This study was undertaken to determine whether women in leadership positions in the Canadian federal Public Service (PS) have had an impact on policy, programs, operations, administration or workplace conditions, what that impact might be, and how to measure it. Drawing from qualitative interviews with current and retired Executives and Deputy Ministers in the Canadian federal public service, it provides recommendations and considerations around gender and impact moving forward.
This study uses an exploratory qualitative design to examine the lived experience of one group of service users on community treatment orders (CTOs). The study was designed and completed by four graduate students at Carleton University School of Social Work.
Despite the unique features of CTO legislation in Ontario, many findings from this study are remarkably similar to findings of research conducted in other jurisdictions. What is unique in our findings is the lack of focus on the actual conditions and provision of the CTO. The issue for our participants was less about the CTO itself, and more about the labels, control and discrimination associated with severe mental illness.
Cette étude utilise un concept qualitatif et exploratoire pour examiner les expériences vécues d’un groupe qui utilise les ordonnances de traitement en milieu communautaire (OTMC). Cette étude a été designée et complétée par 4 étudiants de l’école de service social de l’université Carleton.
Malgré les nombreux aspects uniques de la loi gérant les OTMC de l’Ontario, plusieurs résultats de cette étude sont remarquablement similaires aux résultats découverts dans de différentes juridictions. L’élément unique de cette recherche est le manque de focus sur les conditions véritables et les provisions des OTMC. La problématique encourue par les participants n’était pas au sujet des OTMC en soi, mais plus tôt au sujet de l’étiquetage, du contrôle, et de la discrimination associé aux troubles de santé mentale sévères.
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
- Opportunity for on-site food production comes from public and political support for ‘local food’, combined with a shortage of land for new producers
- GIS study of Ontario healthcare properties shows 217 with more than one acre of arable land available, and 54 with more than five acres
- Case studies demonstrate the benefits of a ‘farmer’— independent, staff member or community group—and/or labour force dedicated to the project
- Initial and on-going viability correlates to the extent of institutional support, particularly staff time for project coordination
- Institutional motivations for on-site food production initiatives vary, include mental and physical therapeutic benefits
See more at the Project SOIL website.
Since the early 2000s the Internet has become particularly crucial for the global jihadist movement. Nowhere has the Internet been more important in the movement’s development than in the West. While dynamics differ from case to case, it is fair to state that almost all recent cases of radicalization in the West involve at least some digital footprint. Jihadists, whether structured groups or unaffiliated sympathizers, have long understood the importance of the Internet in general and social media, in particular. Zachary Chesser, one of the individuals studied in this report, fittingly describes social media as “simply the most dynamic and convenient form of media there is.” As the trend is likely to increase, understanding how individuals make the leap to actual militancy is critically important.
This study is based on the analysis of the online activities of seven individuals. They share several key traits. All seven were born or raised in the United States. All seven were active in online and offline jihadist scene around the same time (mid‐ to late 2000s and early 2010s). All seven were either convicted for terrorism‐related offenses (or, in the case of two of the seven, were killed in terrorism‐related incidents.)
The intended usefulness of this study is not in making the case for monitoring online social media for intelligence purpose—an effort for which authorities throughout the West need little encouragement. Rather, the report is meant to provide potentially useful pointers in the field of counter‐radicalization. Over the past ten years many Western countries have devised more or less extensive strategies aimed at preventing individuals from embracing radical ideas or de‐radicalizing (or favoring the disengagement) of committed militants. (Canada is also in the process of establishing its own counter‐radicalization strategy.)
The analysis of official development assistance has always struggled with the contradiction between its more altruistic motivations for global development and its easy adaptation as an instrument for the donor’s pursuit of self-interested foreign policy objectives. In the international system foreign aid may thus become a forum for both cooperative and competitive interactions between donors. This chapter explores the interdependence of aid by reviewing the literature on donor interdependence, with a particular focus on donor competition for influence in recipient states. We then present a simple theoretical framework to examine donor competition, and provide some preliminary empirical testing of resulting hypotheses. We conclude that while the evidence about competition is fixed, the behaviour of some donors is consistent with their pursuit of influence in certain recipient states.