Unfair Terms in Contracts: Proposals for Reform in the UK

The English and Scottish Law Commissions have made radical proposals for simplifying UK law on unfair terms in consumer contracts, combining the Regulations that implement the Directive and the earlier legislation into a single instrument that is to be written in language that would be clear and accessible to consumers and businesspeople. The article discusses some of the difficult policy choices involved in combining the different approaches of the two existing instruments, what is needed in order to make the legislation understandable to the lay person, and the extent to which the case of Commission v The Kingdom of the Netherlands requires Member States to use the language of the Directive when implementing it. The Law Commissions also proposed to extend the broader controls found in the Directive to business-to-business contracts, but the proposals did not find favour with the business community.     

The generality/specificity issue in consumer innovativeness research

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of personality in shaping consumer innovativeness by testing a model of the hierarchical relationships between a global (broad or abstract) personality trait, its domain-specific manifestation in a consumer context, and overt consumer behavior. A survey of 465 adult consumers measured global innovativeness, domain-specific innovativeness for two product categories (clothing and electronics) and self-reported purchase of new clothing and electronic items. Three hypotheses were tested. First, global innovativeness is more highly correlated with domain-specific innovativeness than it is with the purchase of new items. Second, domain-specific innovativeness is more highly correlated with the purchase of new items than is global innovativeness. Finally, the association between global innovativeness and new product purchase is mediated by domain-specific innovativeness. All three hypotheses were supported for both product categories.     

A non-co-operative bargaining model of membership expansion in a producer co-operative

This paper presents a non-co-operative bargaining model of membership expansion in a producer co-operative. The emphasis is on examining the distribution of the resulting surplus between the existing partners and the new member. In the presence of a number of alternative candidates, the existing partners can use the threat of switching negotiating partners to extract additional surplus from the negotiations. The degree of symmetry between the competing candidates necessary for these threats to be credible is specified, as is the nature of the dependence of the parties' payoffs on the various parameters of the model. Potential sources of misallocation within the model are identified.     

Business ethics: Restrictive or empowering?

There is a tendency in the business ethics literature to think of ethics in restrictive terms: what one should not do, and how to control this. Drawing on Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, the paper focuses on, and draws attention to, another more positive aspect of ethics: the capacity of ethics to inspire and empower individuals, as well as groups. To understand and facilitate such empowerment, it is argued that it is necessary to move beyond Kohlberg's justice reasoning so as to appreciate the value and importance of feeling and care. Accordingly, we draw upon case study material to review the meaning of Kohlberg's higher stages — 5, 6 and 7 — to question the meaning of ethical reasoning. With such deeper understanding of particular ethical codes or practices, it is thought that members of organisations may come closer to thespirit, as opposed to the letter, of ethical conduct in organisations. This, we argue, is consistent with the degree of trust and integrity demanded by leaner, post-bureaucratic ways of organizing and conducting business as well as being personally beneficial to the people involved.Bjørn Kjonstad has recently completed his Masters dissertation. He has subsequently been ordained in the Western Buddhist Order and is currently devoting himself full-time to the work of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.Hugh Willmott is Reader in the Manchester School of Management having previously held appointments at the Aston Business School and Copenhagen Business School. He has taken refuge in the Kagyu Order of Tibetan Buddhism. His most recent books have beenLabour Process Theory (Macmillan, 1990 co-edited with David Knights),Critical Management Studies (Sage, 1992, co-edited with Mats Alvesson) andSkill and Consent (Routledge, 1992, co-edited with Andrew Sturdy and David Knights) andMaking Quality Critical (Routledge, 1994 co-edited with Adrian Wilkinson). Their common theme has been a critical examination of the changing organization and management of work in modern society.     

On the commercialization of accountancy thesis: A review essay

Hanlon's thesis on the commercialisation of accountancy is examined in relation to contemporary changes in the organization of work and the concentration and Intelnationalization of the accounting industry. Attention is drawn to the tensions between Hanlon's empirical materials and his exegesis of theoretical debates. An appreciation of the value of his book for highlighting the wider significance of accounting to a shift from Fordist to more flexible forms of accumulation is balanced by a discussion of various limitations. These include the neglect of non-audit business undertaken by accounting firms, and the sketchy treatment of the links between these firms and other key players that have supported and legitimised the progressive commercialization of accountancy.     

Investigation of institutional changes in the UK housing market using structural break tests and time-varying parameter models

This paper investigates the effects of institutional changes within the UK housing market in recent decades using structural break tests and time-varying parameter models. This approach is motivated by models of institutional change drawn from the political science literature which focus on the existence of both fast-moving and slow-moving institutional changes and the interactions between them as drivers of the dynamics of asset prices. As a methodological contribution, we use several time-varying parameter models for the first time in investigations of institutional change. Our findings support the existence of both structural breaks and continuous variance in parameters. This contributes to our understanding of the housing market in two respects. Firstly, the dates of structural breaks appear to better match unexpected market shocks rather than remarkable political events, and this supports prior institutional theory. Secondly, assessment of the effect of slow-moving institutional changes shows that people’s biased expectations rather than the economic fundamentals have increasingly played an important role in driving housing prices in the short run although fundamentals continue to drive house prices to converge to their long-run equilibrium.     

The dark side of transfer pricing: Its role in tax avoidance and wealth retentiveness

In conventional accounting literature, ‘transfer pricing’ is portrayed as a technique for optimal allocation of costs and revenues among divisions, subsidiaries and joint ventures within a group of related entities. Such representations of transfer pricing simultaneously acknowledge and occlude how it is deeply implicated in processes of wealth retentiveness that enable companies to avoid taxes and facilitate the flight of capital. A purely technical conception of transfer pricing calculations abstracts them from the politico-economic contexts of their development and use. The context is the modern corporation in an era of globalized trade and its relationship to state tax authorities, shareholders and other possible stakeholders. Transfer pricing practices are responsive to opportunities for determining values in ways that are consequential for enhancing private gains, and thereby contributing to relative social impoverishment, by avoiding the payment of public taxes. Evidence is provided by examining some of the transfer prices practices used by corporations to avoid taxes in developing and developed economies.     

The influence of personality on active and passive use of social networking sites

Managers are more and more interested in social networking sites because they provide opportunities for strengthening relationships with customers as well as site content and service. Using social networking sites effectively, however, depends on understanding both the psychological attributes and social interactions of participants. This paper addresses these topics by presenting the results of a two‐study inquiry into the importance of two personality traits (consumer innovativeness and expressiveness) to active and passive use of social networks among Italian consumers. In Study 1 ( n = 753) it was found that innovativeness is positively related to active and passive use. Study 2 ( n = 277) revealed that self‐identity expressiveness and social identity expressiveness positively influence only active use. These results suggest that managers need to distinguish bet‐ween, and differentially encourage, joining and browsing such sites on the one hand and actively contributing to them on the other. Managers can also enhance the impact of their social networking sites by taking into account social and self‐identity expressiveness to increase affiliation and market share and by encouraging consumers to use these sites actively. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.