Abstract. Recent UK government policy on climate change, and wider policy movement within the UNFCCC, emphasise the building of adaptive capacity. But what are the institutional constraints that shape capacity to build adaptive organisations? This paper synthesises theory from social learning and institutional aspects of multi-level environmental governance to help unpack the patterns of individual and collective action within organisations that can enhance or 1 Contact author 2 restrict organisational adaptive capacity in the face of abrupt climate change. Theoretical synthesis is grounded by empirical work with a local dairy farmers group and two supporting public sector bodies that are both local actors in their own rights and also shape the operating environment for other local actors (the Environment Agency and the Welsh Assembly and Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies). Providing space within and between local organisations for individuals to develop private as well as officially sanctioned social relationships is supported as a pathway to enable social learning. It is also a resource for adaptation that requires little financial investment but does call for a rethinking of the personal skills and working routines that are incentivised within organisations.

This paper reviews the central contributions to the crisis management liter ature, addresses its various dimensions and details the major phases within which crises occur. The paper seeks to develop a schematic model for crises and concludes by advocating that management needs to acknowledge the lim itations of its contingency planning in order to allow for more effective deci sion making. The model suggests that there are three phases within a crisis: the precipitation phase in which the potential for a crisis is created, the operational phase of the crisis, and the post-crisis phase. The resultant model provides a framework for the subsequent analysis of crisis events.

The factors controlling the highly alpha-selective C-glycosylation of ribose derivatives were determined by examining the stereoselective reactions of 18 ribose analogues differing in substitution at C-2, C-3, and C-4. The lowest energy conformers of the intermediate oxocarbenium ions display the C-3 alkoxy group in a pseudoaxial orientation to maximize electrostatic effects. To a lesser extent, the C-2 substituent prefers a pseudoequatorial position, and the alkyl group at C-4 has little influence on conformational preferences. In all cases, the product was formed by stereoelectronically preferred inside attack on the lowest energy conformer.

This article explores the possible barriers to effective organizational learning from crisis events. A number of themes are considered including learning from crisis, learning as crisis and learning for crisis. One of the key issues to emerge from a systematic study of crises is the striking similarity between the underlying causes of such events. The article outlines the nature of the crisis management process and identifi es a number of barriers to the learning process. A key argument developed in the article is that the barriers to learning can themselves serve to generate the conditions which will allow an incident to escalate into a crisis. The article concludes by suggesting ways in which organizations can develop more effective learning capabilities for crisis events.

Electrostatic effects exert strongly stabilizing influences on cations, in many cases controlling the conformational preferences of these cations. The lowest energy conformers are ones where the positive charge is brought closest to substituents bearing partial negative charges. These conformational biases, along with stereoelectronic effects, can control the stereoselectivity of reactions involving carbocationic intermediates.