PROPRIETORIAL CONTROL IN FAMILY FIRMS: SOME FUNCTIONS OF 'QUASI-ORGANIC' MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategies of managerial control which are used by the proprietors of family-owned business enterprises. Interviews with the proprietors and senior managers of businesses in the building industry illustrate the ‘quasi-organic’ nature of management structures. These grant some autonomy to senior managers without threatening proprietorial decision-making prerogatives. Although the family firm has certain distinctive features, similar control strategies designed to ensure that delegated decisions are ‘reliable’ and ‘responsible’ are evident in various types of business enterprise. There is, then, scope for further comparative research within a conceptual framework which does not entirely divorce the family firm from other business organizations.     

Class,Entrepreneurship and the Service Sector: Towards a Conceptual Clarification

Opportunities for entrepreneurship within modern economies are concentrated primarily within the service sector. On the basis of recent empirical research this paper develops a conceptual framework which differentiates entrepreneurs according to the relative mix of capital and labour utilised. Four sub-categories within the entrepreneurial middle class are identified and the implications for social mobility on the basis of capital accumulation are explored. In particular, attention is drawn to the significance of employment relationships as a factor which limits the growth of labour-intensive businesses. Despite its neglect within sociological theory the entrepreneurial middle class continues as a significant force within contemporary economies, and several areas for future research are suggested.     

Women in management: towards a research agenda

Relationships between specific supervisory support behaviours and training transfer among subordinates were investigated in the context of a team-building training programme. Ninety-nine employees who attended outdoor team-building training and their supervisors rated the extent to which trainees transferred each of twenty-one trained skills to the work-place. Additionally, trainees responded to an open-ended question regarding what, if anything, they applied from the training to the work-place. Ratings of transfer, provided by both trainees and their supervisors, and coded responses to the open-ended question indicated that: (1) most trainees transferred only a small to moderate amount of skills from the outdoor training; (2) the amount of training transfer varied across trainees; and (3) skills reportedly transferred the most concerned seeking and listening to the views and ideas of other team members.

Trainees also rated whether their supervisors displayed each of twenty-seven specific supervisory support for training behaviours, derived from a comprehensive list developed by Broad (1982). Partial correlations were computed between each of the twenty-seven supervisory support behaviours and an overall measure of training transfer, controlling for trainees' ratings of the quality of their relationship with their supervisor. This analysis suggested that the supervisory support behaviours most critical for transfer of this team-building training were: (1) supervisors' use of skills and terminology from the training programme; (2) creating opportunities for trainees to make decisions based on newly learned skills; (3) reinforcing trainees' use of trained skills; (4) creating opportunities to practise new skills; and (5) providing feedback on skill use. The implications of these results for training practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

The Restructuring of Market Socialism in China: The Contribution of an “Agency” Theoretical Perspective

Most discussions of the development of market socialism in China adopt an “institutional approach” in which socioeconomic and political organizations are described as a complex set of arrangements determined by the policies and role of the Communist Party. Such institutions are often seen to be little more than passive forces responding to the imperatives and stipulations of the party. However, the character and continuing development of market socialism is far more complex than this. It is made up of interacting forces that are the outcome of the purposive actions of economic agents that, although created and nurtured by the party, create tensions within the socioeconomic structure and thereby shape the direction of societal change. It is these that constitute many of the defining characteristics of market socialism. There are, the tensions between the imperatives of an emerging market economy and the political imperatives of the party. But there are others that are determined by the goals and values of a diversity of agents within both the state‐owned and privately owned sectors of the economy. For an understanding of these, we argue in this article for the need to adopt an “agency approach,” that is, one that focuses on the key roles of actors and agencies in shaping institutional arrangements of the sort that constitute present‐day market socialism. This, we argue, does not displace an “institutional” theoretical perspective but complements it, thereby offering a more complete insight into the generic character of a socioeconomic structureÑin this case, Chinese market socialism. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Labour relations in transition in Eastern Europe

This article discusses the emerging models of labour relations in Bulgaria, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland. It focuses on the institutions of trade unions, tripartism, collective bargaining and participation and considers the degrees of similarity and difference between the countries.