A study of political activism in labour courts

We analyse 1234 judicial decisions to estimate political activism amongst judges arbitrating dismissal disputes in Australian labour courts. The political colour of the appointing political party and judges’ work background affect probability of employee success by about 10% points.     

Service-for-equity arrangements: Untangling motives and conflicts

Many professional service organizations have adopted a little understood contractual form: service-for-equity. Based on in-depth case studies of 12 major professional service providers with a combined experience of 179 equity-for-service deals, this paper documents 18 intended and unintended consequences, emanating from and expanding beyond agency theory, of adopting such a contractual form. Six propositions are developed which speculate how these consequences, categorized under client development, service operations, financial management, and organizational behaviour, affect long run performance. Assuming these propositions cannot be rejected through empirical analysis, the paper also provides managerial guidance for effective implementation of equity-for-service arrangements.     

Global Commodity Chains and African Export Agriculture

The last twenty years or so have seen a new conjuncture in international trade in tropical agricultural products. That conjuncture combines both changes in the organization of the (Northern) manufacturer and consumer segments of the global commodity chains for those products, and in marketing arrangements in their (Southern) countries of origin, associated with structural adjustment and liberalization. This introductory essay provides the context for the case studies that follow, first by introducing some of the key concepts and analytical issues in the global commodity chain (GCC) approach and other recent relevant literature such as the French 'convention' theory. It then sketches an historical framework for examining international trade in tropical agricultural products, with brief illustrations of the specific trajectories of Africa and some African countries within that framework. Finally, it shows how a number of issues are explored in the case studies presented, including how current changes might affect the future prospects of smallholder ('peasant') production of tropical export crops.     

“The people's will”: Canadians and the 1898 referendum on alcohol prohibition

The 1920s American alcohol prohibition is notorious but not unique. Quite a few countries went through a vigorous struggle. But it is in Canada in 1898 that the very first national referendum on prohibition in the world took place. In this article, we focus on this rare and neglected event in Canadian history, in which the government came close but finally did not impose prohibition.In our empirical analysis, we use census district-level data to investigate how the shares of Yes, No and Abstentions vary according to four sets of factors: religious, demographic, social and economic. Our results confirm the literature on temperance and prohibition with religion [Evangelicals against Catholics and Anglicans] as the key explanatory variable, followed by the heterogeneity of the population, measured by the proportion of foreign-born. Urbanization has also the expected (although small) impact. Results for wealth are mixed. The economic interest rationale is not confirmed but that can be explained by the historical context.     

Assessing GIS for retail location planning

Proprietary GIS is rapidly becoming a popular tool in the retail industry for site location analysis. GIS vendors have been quick to exploit this market. At the same time, however, vendors have recognized the limitations concerning the level of spatial analysis available in many of these packages, and have invested in new techniques to add to the kitbag of available GIS solutions. The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the use of proprietary GIS for retail location planning, using data built up for the city of Leeds in the UK. The paper addresses the appropriateness of simple functions such as mapping, overlay and ‘buffer and overlay’, which have been used in many examples of retail planning. Following this appraisal, we move on to look at more ‘sophisticated’ techniques, such as spatial interaction models, which have only recently begun to appear in proprietary GIS, but to date have received very little evaluation in the literature. In particular, we examine the ease of use of such methods and compare their results with much simpler forms of analysis. Finally, we compare the results from models run within GIS packages with those from more customized software.     

Large Shareholdings and Corporate Control: An Analysis of Stake Purchases by French Holding Companies

The paper analyses the value creation benefits of the holding form of organisation in France by empirically examining the effects of non-controlling stake purchases on target shareholder wealth, operational performance and bidder shareholder returns for a sample of 122 stake purchases in French listed companies. The evidence puts into question the ability of holding companies to create value for the firms they purchase stakes in or their own shareholders, adding to the current debate on the relative role played by large shareholders and the external market for corporate control as ultimate disciplining devices.