Market and institutional forces in industrial relations: the development of national collective bargaining, 1910–1920

This article reviews recent trends in the historiography of British industrial relations, and highlights a growing emphasis on the influence of employers and impersonal economic forces. In response, the article argues for a renewed recognition of trade unions as a proactive force in the development of industrial relations systems. This view is supported by analysis of the influence of market and institutional forces upon the spread of national collective bargaining. The conclusion is that commercial pressures on employers were relatively unimportant in a process driven by human agency, institutional forces, and wider economic pressures.     

Does management experience change the ethical perceptions of retail professionals: A comparison of the ethical perceptions of current students with those of recent graduates?

The purpose of this study was to extend the previous research on ethics in retailing. Prior research of Dornoff and Tankersley (1985–1976), Gifford and Norris (1987), Norris and Gifford (1988), and Burns and Rayman (1989) examined the ethics orientation of retail sales persons, sales managers, and business school students. These studies found the college students less ethically-oriented than retail sales people and retail managers. The present study attempts to extend the research on ethics formation to a geographically and academically diverse sample, and to determine if retail management experience in the form of a professional practicum or internship, or entry level management training programs, such as experienced by recent graduates, are critical factors in the formation of business ethics. The sample consisted of thirty-three students majoring in Human Ecology with a concentration in Retail Merchandising and 51 recent graduates of the retail Merchandising program. The series of fourteen vignettes developed by Dornoff and Tankersley (1975–1976) was used. An acknowledged limitation of this study is the validity of the questionnaire developed by Dornoff and Tankersley due to the method of development and new laws concerning warranties and credit etc. which have occurred since 1976. The instrument was used, however, to maintain consistency with earlier studies for the purpose of comparison of groups. No significant differences were found in the students' perceptions of the fourteen actions presented in the vignettes, but the range of the responses in the post-internship tests increased in many cases. The alumni appeared to be slightly more ethical than the students but not as ethical as the managers surveyed in 1986 by Norris and Gifford. Indications are that the critical point of ethics formation may be at the mid-management level and that internships and management training programs have little effect on the ethical perceptions of participants. These findings are consistent with studies such as Gable and Topol (1988), and Jordan and Davis (1990) which showed high Machiavellian scores among young retailing executives, often buyers, as opposed to upper level retailing management. Scales with measure Machiavellianism, or manipulativeness, have been used as an alternative method of examining business ethics.Dr. DuPont is director of the Retail Merchandising Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She held numerous executing retailing positions with Federated Stores and Associated Dry Goods before entering academia. Dr. DuPont has established and supervised retail merchandising programs at two state universities. She has published work related to retail internships, human relations, and employer evaluation and motivation.Dr. Craig teaches in the Textiles and Apparel area at The University of Texas at Austin. She did a dissertation concerning entrepreneurship in the apparel industry.     

Land conservation and tenure security in Kenya: Boserup's hypothesis revisited

Land conservation technologies used by farmers are known to play an important role in improving farm incomes and household welfare in the long run. For this reason substantial investments have been made in research to improve agricultural technologies in various parts of the world, from the development of new crop varieties to new practices of land management. This paper explores the impact of land rights among other factors on adoption of soil and water conservation practices. The study further tests for Boserup's hypothesis (correlation between population density, land conservation and property rights) using panel survey data collected from farming households. The key findings of the paper are that property right regimes and population density affect both the decision to conserve land as well as the type of conservation practices used by farmers. The results further suggest a positive correlation between land tenure security and population density, thus supporting Boserup's hypothesis. The findings call for pursuit of both short-term and long-term policy measures that offer incentives for land conservation through government initiatives and participation of local communities.     

Forecasting UK house prices: A time varying coefficient approach

Previous studies of UK house prices, developed from the demand and supply ofhousing or from the asset market approach have been poor in terms of robustness and ex-post forecasting ability. The UK housing market has suffered a number of structural changes, particularly since the early 1980s with substantial house price increases, financial market deregulation and the removal of mortgage market constraints through competition. Consequently, models which assume that the underlying data-generating process is stable and apply constant parameter techniques tend to suffer in terms of parameter instability. This article uses the Time Varying Coefficient (TVC) methodology where the underlying data-generating process in the UK housing market is treated as unstable. The estimation results of the TVC regression of UK house prices is compared with those obtained from three alternative constant parameter regressions. Comparisons of forecasting performance suggest the TVC regression out-performs forecasts from an Error Correction Mechanism (ECM), Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and an Autoregressive Time Series regression.     

New development: Private finance over public good? Questioning the value of impact bonds

This article contrasts the proposed benefits of social impact bonds (SIBs) with the more mixed performance of initial projects, and reviews the early literature, revealing a similar divide between initial optimism and subsequent critique. Despite this, SIBs continue to receive high-level support, while expanding their reach through controversial new ‘development’ and ‘environmental’ impact bonds. This situation deserves more scrutiny in the accounting literature.     

‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards: Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments

This article examines the content of 200 posts on newspaper discussion boards by workers in a cluster of Japanese foreign investments in Poland. The conclusions are first, that the material experiences of workers generate a set of themes in relation to the labour process with regard to wages and working conditions, bullying and monitoring that exhibit similarities across countries. Second, we argue that an analysis of the discourse used is shaped by political and institutional conditions, which reveal national differences in how workers perceive and locate their exploitation. Finally, in relation to debates about workers’ resistance and the use of the Internet we argue that the interaction of themes related to the material experience of work are intertwined with institutionally embedded understandings of exploitation, which not only enable a shared framework for venting, but also provide the basis for a community of resistance.