Post‐acquisition integration processes in publicly owned professional service companies: Senior professional behaviour and company performance

The client relationships and tacit knowledge of professionals are professional service firms' (PSFs') major value creating resources producing challenges in generating post‐merger and acquisition value and risks of reducing the productivity or losing key professionals and their clients. The recent emergence of publicly owned PSFs and rapid growth through consolidating smaller privately owned firms potentially increases this risk by integrating small firms and their professionals into large public companies that may be governed very differently. This study explores post‐acquisition integration processes: professional behaviours and associated performance implications in two highly acquisitive publicly owned accounting companies. In one company, the integration process was rapid and heavily directed by senior management, while in the second company, integration was more gradual, initially undirected but then facilitated by senior management. The findings suggest that integration processes can impact the behaviour of professionals and acquiring firm performance. This research contributes to the understanding of post‐acquisition integration processes in PSFs and decision‐making and professional behaviour in recently emerged publicly owned PSFs. The study contributes to knowledge‐based theory by identifying factors that can affect the decision authority of executives and how organisational behaviour can constrain the implementation of executive integration decisions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Revisiting production and ecosystem services on the farm scale for evaluating land use alternatives

Urbanization pressure increases the demand on remaining open spaces to deliver food and biomass, as well as other ecosystem services, but it is often paired with a reduced capacity to deliver these services. This calls for an integrated and innovative use of the remaining space.However, current spatial planning paradigms are not always adapted to face these new challenges. In many regions, an important aspect of spatial planning in relation to agriculture is still the pragmatic and monofunctional allocation of land use between vocal stakeholders. This is rarely paired with a regional view on the effective or desired quantity of services provided by this open space. Since land use policies increasingly need to strive for resilience on top of diversification of services, assessments of the servicing capacity and sustainability of land uses are needed.This paper presents a framework to assess all ecosystem services (i.e. marketable and non-marketable ES) delivered by conventional as well as innovative land uses. The framework is then used to assess land use strategies at the scale of an unconventional case farm in Flanders, Belgium. The analysis combines spatial and economic analysis of land use alternatives and illustrates some shortcomings of usual ecosystem valuation tools. Our findings illustrate that land use evaluation might be biased against unconventional land management alternatives. The proposed framework provides land planners with a way to assess and arbitrate between land sharing and land sparring options more accurately. The approach can help to optimize land use from the societal perspective, and allows for benchmarking farm-level land use alternatives by comparing the services they deliver.     

Renaturing cities using a regionally-focused biodiversity-led multifunctional benefits approach to urban green infrastructure

If a ‘Renaturing of Cities’ strategy is to maximise the ecosystem service provision of urban green infrastructure (UGI), then detailed consideration of a habitat services, biodiversity-led approach and multifunctionality are necessary rather than relying on the assumed benefits of UGI per se. The paper presents preliminary data from three case studies, two in England and one in Germany, that explore how multifunctionality can be achieved, the stakeholders required, the usefulness of an experimental approach for demonstrating transformation, and how this can be fed back into policy. We argue that incorporating locally contextualised biodiversity-led UGI design into the planning and policy spheres contributes to the functioning and resilience of the city and provides the adaptability to respond to locally contextualised challenges, such as overheating, flooding, air pollution, health and wellbeing as well as biodiversity loss. Framing our research to encompass both the science of biodiversity-led UGI and co-developing methods for incorporating a strategic approach to implementation of biodiversity-led UGI by planners and developers addresses a gap in current knowledge and begins to address barriers to UGI implementation. By combining scientific with policy learning and defined urban environmental targets with community needs, our research to date has begun to demonstrate how nature-based solutions to building resilience and adaptive governance can be strategically incorporated within cities through UGI.     

三峡工程对河流生态系统服务功能影响预评价

根据三峡工程对河流生态系统服务功能影响的特点,建立了评价指标体系,预评估了三峡工程全面竣工正常运行后,对河流生态系统服务功能的6项正面影响和5项负面影响。结果表明,防洪和发电是三峡工程的主要功能,年功能价值分别为106.84×108元和211.70×108元;旅游、减少有害气体排放、改善川江航道和水库养殖也是三峡工程的重要功能;6项正面影响的年功能价值总计489.70×108元。库区污染、泥沙淤积和水库淹没是三峡工程的主要负面影响,年损失值分别为24.06×108、7.22×108和6.27×108元;对生物的影响和对河流生态系统的占据,也是不容忽视的负面影响;5项负面影响的年功能损失值总计37.83×108元。     

Beer,beef, and boards: the role of intermediaries in payment for ecosystem services arrangements in northwestern Montana

Payments for ecosystem or ecological services (PES) are voluntary, often market-based approaches to protecting environmental values. In the rural United States, some landowners receive PES through government led conservation programs, but little is known about their involvement in market based arrangements. We analyzed three examples of market based PES arrangements in northwestern Montana: watershed restoration and craft brewing, niche meat production, and certified timber supplies. We find that intermediaries were working between buyers and sellers in each case to set conditions for transactions and undertake the mechanics of implementation. These findings align with existing conceptualizations of intermediaries as crucial links in PES arrangements, but also suggest that intermediaries for market based PES arrangements are not always facilitators or neutral nongovernmental actors; they may actually be from the private sector and drive the process by serving as buyers. This research contributes to stronger understanding of the possibilities for local market based conservation in the rural West.     

Using Public Participation Geographic Information Systems to Identify Places of Watershed Service Provisioning

In this study, we used public participation geographic information systems methods to collect spatial data identifying places that stakeholders in Mobile Bay, Alabama think are important providers of watershed services. These methods allowed us to spatially analyze participatory data from general public respondents and directly compare them with other scientific data in a geographic information systems database. This study identified which places in the region participants believe are important providers of specific watershed services, including fish nurseries, storm protection, flood protection, and water quality protection, which would likely have public support for conservation. Additionally, we assessed the accuracy of participant watershed service identification using land cover data to identify inconsistencies and participant knowledge gaps. This information can be used to target outreach education efforts. We found that the accuracy with which participants correctly identified places with the necessary land cover to provide each service varied considerably. We believe this to be a useful tool for managers to elicit stakeholder input and to identify knowledge gaps regarding the provisioning of watershed services.     

Evaluating losses in ecosystem services in nature reserves in Sichuan,China

Nature reserves have developed rapidly over the decades in China and play a significant role in the function of ecosystem services. The function of ecosystem services in nature reserves, however, has tended to decline in recent years due to natural hazards and human activities. Based on land use, the variation of ecosystem services value (ESV) during 2000–2010 in national nature reserves in Sichuan was evaluated. We analyzed the comprehensive effects of natural disasters and human activities on the decline of ESVs. Total ESV in the national nature reserves in Sichuan was approximately 2741.35 million US$ in 2000, 2616.81 million US$ in 2005, and 2499.06 million US$ in 2010, representing a decrease of 242.29 million US$, or 8.84%, in the decade. Forestland, grassland, wetland, and water bodies played vital roles in the function of ecosystem services, with an aggregated ESV of 99% of the total. The largest proportion of the total ESV was the protection of biodiversity at 48.6%. ESV of all land use types and single ecosystem services continued to decline during 2000–2010. A mechanism of adaptable risk prevention should be established, and unreasonable human activities should be avoided to protect ecosystems and to improve the functions of ecosystem services.     

生态工业园建设研究——基于与传统工业园差异上的论述

从建设的角度,生态工业园较传统工业园存在巨大差异性,它涉及：①企业生产链的构建和完善;②生态工业园与所在社区的共建;③公共服务平台的构建等传统工业园建设中未涉及或较少涉及的新领域。其目的是实现资源的最大利用与环境的最小污染。构建生态工业园需要宏观上的政府政策支持以及微观上的以政府占主导地位的各个生态工业园规划领导小组的具体实施。     

荒漠生态系统服务功能及其价值研究

荒漠生态系统是整个生物圈中分布较广的一个系统，是陆地生态系统中的一个重要的子系统，对这一广大区域的生态系统服务功能的正确认识，是经济发展和生态环境建设的重要依据。本文从生态系统服务功能的角度归纳了荒漠生态系统类型以及荒漠生态系统服务功能，主要有旅游服务、涵养水分和水源、保持水土、净化水体和空气、营养元素循环、物质生产、污染物降解、有机质、截留降水、涵养水分、土壤C的积累、农田生态系统服务、单位面积及区域生态系统服务价值等，以及评价荒漠生态系统服务功能价值的模型和方法。为正确评价荒漠生态系统服务功能提供依据。     

海上突发环境事件生态系统服务损失评估进展

评估海上突发环境事件对生态系统服务造成的损失,对落实生态损害赔偿制度、保证生态系统服务与功能正常发挥具有重要意义.基于生态系统服务的定义,明确了生态系统服务损失的内涵,是除直接经济损失外,生态系统产生的供给、调节、文化和支持等公益服务的损失.阐述了国内外关于海洋生态系统服务损失评估的研究现状及实践,重点介绍了美国自然资源损害评估（NRDA）体系中生境等价分析法和资源等价分析法的基本假设与主要步骤,通过等价分析法确定生态恢复工程的规模,并结合生态系统服务价值评估的研究成果确定损失.我国学者借鉴NRDA体系等开展了大量研究,提出环境损害鉴定评估、溢油生态损害评估等方法,并在"塔斯曼海"号溢油、蓬莱19-3油田溢油等典型案例中进行应用及优化,比较了不同评估方法差异及影响因素.评估损失必须首先确定事件对海洋生态的影响范围与影响程度、受体类型及敏感度等关键因子,可采用现场监测、遥感及扩散模型等方法确定影响范围与程度,在实践中一般需要综合应用、互相补充.从管理和技术层面,分析了我国海上突发环境事件生态系统服务损失评估研究现状与应急管理需求的差距,在此基础上建议:①建立健全法律体系,细化生态损害评估的责任、内容和要求,明确将生态系统服务损失纳入生态损害赔偿;②构建技术评估体系,根据化学品性质、生态系统类别及特征等,分类出台一系列技术标准;③建议在遥感遥测技术、化学品泄漏数值模型等方面进一步开展研究,提高准确度和时效性.