Reviving resistance: the Japanese factory floor in Britain

Studies of British-based Japanese manufacturing companies often assume an absence of worker resistance stemming either from high levels of employee commitment or from extensive control systems. This article, based on three case studies of Japanese manufacturing transplants, disputes this assumption, arguing that the control of labour continues to pose a challenge to management     

INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2008: THE AMBIGUITIES OF DEMOCRATIC CHANGE

The ‘normal’ politics of 2008, in between the big electoral events of 2004 and 2009, illustrated the ambiguities of democratic change. Hung gubernatorial elections in North Maluku and South Sulawesi led local elites to ask Jakarta to intervene. A long campaign of demonstrations and violent intimidation by fundamentalist groups against the unorthodox Islamic group Ahmadiyah persuaded the government to impose a semi-ban on the group. At the same time, a senior intelligence officer was put on trial over the 2004 murder of the human rights activist Munir. And the Corruption Eradication Commission continued to arrest powerful people for corruption, although these arrests also began to stimulate increasingly organised resistance. All in all, politics in 2008 demonstrated an openness, and even a willingness to learn, that augurs well for the future.     

Megaw and the public sector: A union response

One Civil Service union ‐ the Institute of Professional Civil Servants ‐ welcomed the Megaw Report on the grounds that it would help restore internal relativities. Unions representing the great majority of civil servants, however, came out strongly against it. The general secretaries of the Civil and Public Servants Association and the Society of Civil and Public Servants prepared a note for the TUC's public service committee on the implications of Megaw for the public sector as a whole. The following is based on that note.     

Market segmentation in hotels: a move up-market with the ‘club’ concept

The market for hotel services is segmented into identifiable and quantifiable groups. Some parts of the hotel and catering industry are beginning to cater for different market segments within single establishments by means of the introduction of different classes of accommodation. This trend raises questions about the level of segmentation which is possible, and profitable.     

EXPLORING THE MENTAL MODELS OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGISTS: THE CASE FOR A PROCESSUAL APPROACH

Recently there have been a number of studies published which seek to further our understanding of the competitive structures of markets. These studies have used aggregated perceptual data in an attempt to uncover industry-level mental models of business environments. In this article we argue that such studies are predicated on the assumption that there are high levels of consensus within and between organizations in a given industry concerning the bases of competition and the positioning of particular organizations. In the present study we employ a similar methodology but focus on the mental models of individuals in order to examine empirically the nature and extent of such consensus. the research was carried out in the UK grocery retailing industry. Twenty-three managers from two organizations were each interviewed using a variant of the cognitive taxonomic interview procedures devised by Porac and his associates. the study revealed considerable variation in terms of the nature of the cognitive categories elicited from the participants and the overall complexity of their taxonomies relating to competitive structures, both within and between the organizations. However, the study also revealed considerable intra-organizational agreement regarding the categories which describe the self-identity of the research participants’organizations and their major competitors. We consider the implications of these findings for understanding processes of strategy development and implementation in organizations.     

Design and Costs of a Measurement Protocol for Trades in Soil Carbon Credits

Previous work has demonstrated that in the absence of transaction costs, contracts that pay producers per carbon (C) credit are more efficient than those that tie payments to changes in management practices. In this paper we develop a measurement protocol to support contracts for C credits and estimate its implementation costs using an empirical example. We find that the costs of implementing a measurement protocol for soil C credits depend on: the price of credits; the regional heterogeneity in C values as well as assumed error and confidence intervals. We find that the upper estimate of measurement costs associated with a contract that pays producers per C credit can be as little as 3% of the value of a credit. These contract measurement costs are less than the efficiency gains from implementing a per‐credit contract. Des travaux antérieurs montrent que si la transaction ne coûte rien, les ententes prévoyant la rémuné ration des agriculteurs par cré dit carbone (C) sont plus efficaces que celles oè les paiements sont lié s à l'adaptation des pratiques culturales. Dans leur article, les auteurs proposent une mé thode de calculpour de telles ententes et estiment ce que coûterait son implantation au moyen d'un exemple empirique. On constate que, pour les cré dits C du sol, le coût de mise en æuvre dépend du prix des cré dits, de l'hé térogénéité régionale de la valeur des crédits ainsi que dxe l'erreur présumée et des intervalles de confiance. On se rend compte que la plus haute estimation du coût des ententes rémunérant les agriculteurs enfonction des crédits C ne dépasse pas trois pour cent de la valeur du crédit. De tels coûts sont inférieurs aux gains de productivité résultant de l'adoption d'une entente articulée sur les crédits C.     

Reviews

INNER CITIES.

MacGregor, S. and Pimlott, B. (eds) 1990: Tackling The Inner City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, £35.00 cloth.

RECYCLING.

Geoff Wright, 1990: The Need to Restructure the Economics of Recycling (SWAP

Report No 1). Leeds: Save Waste and Prosper, £1.95.

POPULISM.

Norman Pollack, 1990: The Humane Economy: Populism, Capitalism and Democracy. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, $40.00 cloth.

PRESSURES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTONOMY.

King, D. and Pierre, J. (eds) 1990: Challenges to Local Government. Sage Modern Politics Series Volume 28 sponsored by the European Consortium for Political Research. London: Sage, £30.00 cloth.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE MARKET.

Bennett, R.J. (ed) 1990: Decentralisation, Local Governments and Markets: Towards a Post-Welfare Agenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press, £40.00 cloth.

LABOUR MARKET POLICY.

Adnett, N. 1990: Labour Market Policy. Harlow: Longman, £9.95 paper.