The Health and Safety at Work Act and Retail Managements

A decade ago managemertts in Great Britain were confronted by new workplace health and safety law. They had in many cases experienced the need to comply with statutory requirements before but the 1974 Act brought unique reportsibiliries which were viewed wit11 trepidation. This article focuses upon the influence which the Act has exerted on retail stores' management. It examines the health and safety systems which have evolved in the stores and considers the degree to which they have met the intention of the Act. In addition, the arricle reveals why theories of employee participation can be difficult to translate into practice.     

Hippies,Greenies, and Tree Huggers: How the “Warmth” Stereotype Hinders the Adoption of Responsible Brands

Past research has highlighted the difficulty faced by responsible consumers, individuals who wish to make environmentally and socially responsible consumption choices. Individual buyers, it is argued, act within a network of structural and social relationships that make responsible alternatives intrinsically hard to pursue. This paper maintains that one such barrier is the perception that users of responsible brands are not worthy of social emulation. Consumers are less likely to adopt brands positioned explicitly on their positive environmental or social credentials because of the stereotypes attached to the users of these products. Two empirical studies demonstrate that users of responsible brands are perceived as stereotypically warm. Warmth, however, is not an appealing feature in a consumption context. Warm groups are not envied and envy plays a central role in fueling a desire to emulate a consumption group. The study is the first to examine the possibility that a group‐level stereotype limits the potential attractiveness of responsible brands. The significant implications of this insight for both scholarly research and marketing practice are examined in detail. The presence of a warmth stereotype, which has a negative influence on the social perception of responsible brands, suggests that the development of niches of responsible or ethical consumers is intrinsically problematic.     

Structural replacement or structural inducement: government ties of Chinese business executives

We suggest that the structural replacement thesis, which proposes that managers in Chinese nonstate-owned enterprises (NSOEs) possess more government ties than managers in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is theoretically incomplete because it considers only the motivation of managers of NSOEs. The extensiveness of social ties is influenced also by the capability and opportunity for social actors to cultivate these social ties. We introduce the structural inducement thesis, which holds that SOE managers have more government ties than do NSOE managers, as an alternative to the structural replacement thesis. Our analysis of 250 Chinese managers' ties supports this structural inducement thesis. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Trust in Creating Effective Alliances: A Managerial Perspective

The popularity of alliances in business has exploded over the past few years along with an increasing interest in the role of trust in economic transactions. This paper details the nature of alliances and the crucial role played by trust in creating and managing alliances. Evidence of the emergence of trust are further given within the context of alliances established by small and medium-sized Swiss enterprises where both planning and mutual trust constitute essential ingredients.     

The evolution of cognitive radio technology in Europe: Regulatory and standardization aspects

Cognitive radio (CR) is considered a promising technology that could provide important benefits in the telecommunication domain. In Europe, the number of research projects, standardization activities and public consultations by the European Commission and regulatory authorities testify to the growing interest in CR. The introduction of CR in the telecommunication market may require new regulations or changes to the way spectrum is licensed and the conditions under which it can be used. The concepts of CR can be applied to various operational scenarios, which are described in this paper.This paper identifies the main challenges for the deployment of CR technology in Europe, provides an overview of the activities by European regulatory and standardization bodies to address the identified challenges and describes a roadmap with potential actions to support the adoption of CR technology.     

Information acquisition and export entry decisions in small firms

Consistently low usage of export promotion programs and incentives has been observed among small firms. This has led researchers to argue that these firms operate on a limited information basis and deprive themselves of cheap export market knowledge. This study disputes these conclusions and finds that small firms discriminately use alternative sources to acquire foreign market information and assistance. Furthermore, such information acquisition, irrespective of source, is found to have a substantive and significant association with new export market entry. The implications of these findings for government export policy, small firm decision makers, and export literature are explored.