Arctic: A Rreimagined Strategic Resource Base for Russia

Russia’s Arctic ambitions are gaining attention as global warming provides Russia with an opportunity to access the untapped energy reservoirs lying in the seabed of the Arctic. Russia’s new Arctic strategy aims to utilize the Arctic as a ‘strategic resource base’ to fulfill its socio-economic needs. Moreover, the interrelated projects of Yamal LNG and the opening of the Northern Sea Route as a global shipping route show the Russian interplay of geo-economics and geopolitics. Similarly, the Russian strategies of the Northern Fleet’s revival, Sino-Russian cooperation, regional diplomacy, informational campaigns, and international law show Russia’s efforts to highlight its ambitions in the region. This paper argues that the melting ice in the Arctic coupled with evolving regional dynamics will enhance the Kremlin’s position in the region.

A well – a wellspring – a jewel

Fresh water in the city is considered as the most important strategic resource for the existence of mankind. The article reveals religious, mythological and everyday symbols of water as a necessary element of national spiritual cultures. It also describes architectural peculiarities of wells as centers of attraction for citizens, meeting places and magic rituals in different regions of the world. The importance of fresh drinking water as an element of urban infrastructure is emphasized.

The Climate of Publicity

Chapter 6, The Climate of Publicity, examines the media plans, mobilization efforts, and marketing devices that climate advocates use to promote “the planet” to various publics as an object of concern. While PR appears in the world as a neutral technology of legitimation, this chapter demonstrates the degree to which the practice is culturally determined and the way its conception of publics as situational, contingent, and self-interested plays out. Drawing on interviews with environmental advocates, movement leaders, NGOs, and climate communication teams, we show how PR, conceptualized by environmentalists as a strategic resource against established systems of power, ultimately reproduces those systems of power, leaving unchanged the substance of response to the “super wicked” problem of climate change.

Formation and implementation of economic mechanism of brand-technologies of trading enterprises

In today's market, the strongest brand is a strategic resource in the fight against competitors. For many business owners and executives, building a strong brand is a key economic determinant of competition success or failure. The main problem of brand introduction is the understanding that it exists in the understanding of consumers and creates value, not just a trademark, which is present in the state register of trademarks. The aim of the article was to create the economic mechanism of brand technology commercial enterprise. The process of forming an economic branding mechanism consists of four successive steps. Authors believe that the formation of the brand needs to be stages through which consumers in the process of interaction with the brand. In this context, the task of brand managers would be to create conditions for the promotion of consumers from stage to stage using a variety of marketing tools (e.g., advertising, sales promotion, etc.).

EXPRESS: Unbundling the Effects of Internationalization on Firm Performance in Emerging Economies: The Moderating Effects of Strategic Resource Decisions

We investigate how strategic resource decisions—concerning slack resources and strategic marketing ambidexterity—influence the relationship between internationalization and firm performance of emerging market firms. Based upon the resource-based view, we synthesize two dominant, yet divergent, perspectives that explain the respective resource slack advantages and liabilities in the internationalization literature: the flexible capacity and the efficient capacity perspectives. We also explore the moderating role of strategic marketing ambidexterity which comprises a bundle of marketing activities covering both exploitation-dominant actions and exploration-dominant actions. We empirically examine our hypothesized relationships with data from a sample of 1,683 firm-year observations for the period between 2005 and 2018 and find that distinct forms of resource slacks have contrasting effects on the relationship between internationalization and performance. Our results provide strong evidence for positive moderation effect of unabsorbed slack resources and a negative moderation effect of absorbed slack resources on the internationalization-performance relationship. We also indicate nonsignificant moderating effect of strategic marketing ambidexterity, demonstrating that internationalization attains higher firm performance regardless of its exploration-dominant or exploitation-dominant strategic emphasis in emerging economies.

Influence of Strategic Resource Allocation by Laikipia County Government on Service Delivery in Level 3 and 4 Public Health Facilities

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the influence strategic resource allocation by Laikipia county government on service delivery in level 3 and 4 public health facilities. Methodology: The target population comprised of a sample of 74 medical practitioners. The respondents were doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, radiologists, teaching staff and administration staff. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Primary data was collected through questionnaires. Simple random sampling technique was used in guiding the selection of the study sample. A pilot study was conducted in 10 percent of the study sample from Naivasha County. Before administering the instruments, they were subjected to validity checks and reliability tests. Data analysis was done using tools in the SPSS version 25. Analysis involved computation of descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and inferential statistics such as Pearson Correlation and regression analysis. The data was then presented in tables and narrations. Results: The study established that the connection between the strategic resource allocation services and service delivery was statistically positive and significant hence the model can be used to predict the results of level 3 and 4 public health facilities in Laikipia county. It had an R value of .851 and an R square value of .723. Explained further it indicated that strategic resource allocation model forecasted 72.3% change on service delivery. Strategic resource allocation had a β=.324, P=449. Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: Though there were resources enough to obtain various medical supplies, there was a gap in ensuring that departments got all the requirements they were in need of. The study discovered that mis-balance between departments getting required resources in which they are dispensed to. The study recommended that there should be clear resource tracking within the departments. There should be easy and less bureaucratic replenishing of the resources since these departments have generated them. There should be policies put into place to factor in quick, reliable and quality replenishing within various departments of hospitals.

Strategic resource allocation and performance of Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company, Kenya

Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company has consistently struggled to achieve its envisioned accepted performance range of 80-90% set by the Water Sector Regulatory Board standards, for instance, the company performance was estimated at 76% against business plan target of 80% despite having unlimited access to government subsidies, donor grants, commercial loans and enabling policy environment based on performance review of Kenya’s water services sector 2017/2018. This study sought to establish the influence of strategic resource allocation on performance of KIWASCO. The study adopted a correlation research design with a sample size of 68 respondents selected through Stratified random sampling and data collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of correlation and regression were used. The study established a significant influence of resource allocation (p<0.001) on organizational performance at 5% level of significance. It was concluded that for desired performance of KIWASCO to be realized, effective resource allocation should be done to increase investments in infrastructural expansion and rehabilitation, wastage reduction, improved service quality, maximized consumer services and improved cash flow. The study recommends that the WASH sector reforms should prioritize resource allocation for implementation of strategies. Future research should explore the moderating role of strategic leadership in similar companies and trends across business periods within similar regulatory context.

Humour as a strategy for news delivery: the case of Meduza

In this article, humour is viewed as a strategic resource for informing in media discourse. It is analyzed through the case of “Evening Meduza”, a Russian-language nightly newsletter, received via email or Telegram messenger. A media linguistics analysis of polycode hypermedia text is used to identify communicative linguistic means, contributing to a comic reinterpretation of news on the paratextual, intratextual and visual-illustrative level. News messages in the newsletter are created in the format of compressed “packagings” (a term borrowed from Chafe) with embedded links, following which an addressee goes to the page with source text or concomitant informational resources. Humour is analyzed in packagings as well as in whole text and paratext blocks. Humorous means are revealed in three vectors of analysis: empathy in packaging texts, paratextual focus interaction, and news visualization. The change of narrative perspectives in text packages allows the authors to shift the focus of contrast within a newspiece and create humorous content while showing empathy to readers with different presuppositional expectations. The author’s signature always includes a prepositive ironic addition (attribution) that highlights one of the issue’s news elements and forces the audience to reread the newsletter in order to understand the semantic relation. Subheadings create a comic contrast, focusing on individual parts of the reference content while preparing the reader to perceive the news of the day interconnectedly. A mandatory humorous component in the block “And – picture” was found to show the news event in a visual semiotic code using a demotivator style that expresses a pun.