Jane S. Cromartie

Professor Ph.D., University of Florida Phone: (504) 280-6977 Office: KH 330 Email: jcromart@uno.edu

Current Research Interests:

Global strategy; multinational cooperative agreements; the effects of nation-specific antitrust and competition policies on multinational joint ventures; and the effective application of the focus group methodology in public policy research.

Recent Research and Publication Activities:

Cromartie has been working for several years with Willem Burgers to study the effects of differing nation-specific competition policies on multinational cooperative strategies. This research combines their joint backgrounds and interest in strategy with Burgers' research on multinational joint ventures and Cromartie's earlier work in public policy. Their first paper "Competition, Cooperation, and the Impact of Antitrust on U.S. International Competitiveness," was published in Fall 1991, by the International Trade Journal. "U.S. Firms in Global Alliances: The Problem of Antitrust," was subsequently published in the Journal of Global Competitiveness. "When Do Antimonopoly Practices Become Anticompetitive?" was present ed at the 1994 meeting of the Atlantic Economic Society, and in 1995 "Competitive Cooperation in the Global Economy: The Case of the Automobile Industry," was presented at the yearly meeting of the American Economic Association. "Negotiating Global Alliances: the Problem of Antitrust" is currently under review by the Columbia Journal of World Business. Additional pieces are in various stages of completion.

CERE Project:

More recently, Cromartie has also been extensively involved the Consortium for Environmental Risk Evaluation (CERE) project, resulting from the passage by Congress of Public Law 106 in October, 1993. Under the CERE umbrella, and directed by CERE's co-principal investigators at Tulane University and Xavier University of New Orleans, teams of social science researchers representing more than 15 colleges and universities around the country worked to systematically inventory and evaluate the risks to public health and safety posed by the conditions at six federal nuclear weapons facilities across the US. (Hanford, Washington; INEL, Idaho Rocky Flats, Colorado; Fernald, Ohio; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Savannah River, South Carolina).

The Xavier/CERE objective was to identify and classify the concerns, levels of concern, and perceptions of risk held by citizens who, while potentially disproportionately affected by conditions at the sites, have been previously underrepresented in site-related decision-making. From November, 1994 through June, 1995, as a methodological consultant to the Xavier/CERE team, Cromartie was placed in charge of the design and operationalization of the focus group portion of the CERE project, as well as the analysis of the resulting data.

In January and February of 1995, 44 focus groups were conducted with persons living in areas downwind and downgradient from each site, as well as with members of African American, Asian American, and Hispanic populations living in areas surrounding and affected by each site. All research designs and protocols were reviewed by the CERE National Advisory Committee, composed of experts in social science research from universities throughout the U.S.

The final Tulane/Xavier CERE Report to Congress and to the Department of Energy is to be submitted by the end of 1995. At the beginning of 1996, the data generated by this project are to be released for academic research and publication. An initial review of focus group-based research in business and in public policy indicates that this may be the largest and most tightly controlled set of focus group data ever developed. A great deal of interest nationally in its use has resulted in the formation of a consortium of scholars from several universities to explore the data for academic publication. As an invited member of this consortium, Cromartie is examining several aspects of the use of the focus group methodology in public policy analysis.

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