The Role of Ideas in Understanding Industrial Relations Policy Change in Liberal Market Economies

This paper analyzes the uneven processes underpinning industrial relations policy liberalization in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. Drawing upon 140 elite interviews and building upon ideational comparative political theories, the paper highlights the role of ideas in the policy change process. It identifies how particular ideas can be used to construct policy problems, how these ideas can gain legitimacy through battles with competing ideas, and how policy legacies can influence whether ideas take root. The findings from the comparative case analysis expose a critical difference between “positive legacies” and “negative legacies” to account for different liberalization trajectories.     

Has Adoption of IFRS Increased Non–North American Institutional Investment in the Canadian Stock Markets?

We investigate whether non–North American (non‐NA) institutional investment in firms listed on the Canadian stock markets increased between the pre‐ and post‐IFRS adoption periods relative to such investment in firms listed on the U.S. stock markets. Prior to IFRS adoption, Canada had high‐quality financial reporting standards that were similar to the U.S. standards. As consequences of IFRS adoption, Canadian financial statements became more comparable with European and other IFRS country financial statements and less comparable with neighboring U.S. financial statements. Thus, a question of interest is whether the enhanced comparability with non‐NA companies was beneficial in terms of attracting non‐NA investment to Canadian companies versus U.S. companies. We find that there was no significant change in non‐NA institutional investment in Canadian firms relative to U.S. firms for the very largest (fifth quintile) and for smaller (first, second, and third quintiles) Canadian companies. However, intermediate‐sized Canadian companies in the fourth size quintile lost non‐NA institutional investment relative to their U.S. peer companies, suggesting that non‐NA investors cared more about comparability with U.S. peer companies than non‐NA peer companies for companies in this size quintile.     

Real-Time Pricing and Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets*

We analyze the effects of the adoption of real-time pricing (RTP) of electricity when generating firms have market power. We find that an increase in consumers on RTP contracts decreases peak prices and increases off-peak prices, increases consumer surplus (both for switching and non-switching consumers) and welfare, while decreasing industry profits, with these effects being magnified by the extent of market power. We illustrate these results by calibrating our model to the New Zealand electricity market, and find that taking into account the market power of generating firms increases the efficiency gains from RTP adoption by 41%.     

THE EFFECTS OF NEWS WHEN LIQUIDITY MATTERS

We analyze the impact of news (information shocks) in economies where liquidity matters, including those with endogenous credit limits, and those with assets serving as collateral or media of exchange. Although we also consider news about productivity and credit conditions, a leading case concerns monetary policy announcements. Real or monetary news has big effects on markets, potentially causing cyclic or boom–bust responses, even though we focus on the unique transition consistent with stationarity after shocks. In particular, policy announcements may induce instead of reduce volatility. We also discuss the implications for the inflation puzzle, forward-guidance puzzle, and other apparent anomalies.     

Operating cash flow asymmetric timeliness in Australia

Operating cash flow (CFO) asymmetric timeliness occurs when CFO reflects bad news more quickly than good news. We examine the presence and determinants of CFO asymmetric timeliness in Australia, where substantial differences in reporting requirements of cash flow components, in characteristics of listed companies and in the degree of conservative financial reporting produce contrasting findings to those in the United States. We find supportive evidence for the novel ‘sticky cost behaviour’ explanation and also the product-pricing strategy, but not the life cycle hypothesis. These findings are useful for investors and analysts concerned with forecasting the future values of companies.     

Governance, organizational capabilities, and restructuring in transition economies

This paper focuses on the links between governance, firm capabilities and restructuring following the large-scale privatization process in Central and Eastern European transition economies using an integrative approach. Restructuring in these countries has been motivated by political and institutional changes and less so by market forces. Accordingly, political processes have produced political solutions such as “give-away” privatizations to insiders. These privatizations, in contrast to divestitures to outside owners, have realized less substantive restructuring because non-market incentives, such as too much managerial equity ownership, have created managerial entrenchment. In addition, we propose a connection between governance and organizational learning suggesting that learning is inhibited by excessive managerial ownership and lack of board knowledge regarding its oversight function. Furthermore, this entrenchment and poor board functioning may be perpetuated in financial-industrial groups, which have emerged as substitutes for market intermediaries in emerging economies. Thus, we propose that outside ownership involvement and the development of organizational capabilities may facilitate restructuring in the Central and Eastern European context. Our theoretical arguments are supported by case study evidence from transition economies.     

New Approaches to Business Process Redesign: A Case Study of Collaborative Group Technology and Service Mapping

Whether it is called reengineering, quality function deployment, quality circles, continuous improvement or total quality management, business process redesign (BPR) is occurring in many organizations. In the broadest sense, BPR includes nearly any kind of systematic effort by companies to realign their business processes so that they are more competitive. Successful business process redesign can lead to dramatic improvements in productivity and quality. But BPR typically requires vast amounts of time and money to implement, since extensive employee input is necessary during the redesign process. Group Decision Support Software (GDSS) provides a viable alternative to the traditional BPR approach. GDSS is defined as computer-based information systems used to support intelligent, collaborative work.This technology allows multiple users to meet and discuss topics simultaneously via a computer network, thus increasing employee commitment while decreasing time and cost.This paper describes a business process redesign project that was conducted for a division within a large government agency fall of 1993. The BPR was done using a type of Group Decision Support Software called Group Systems V. A services marketing tool called service mapping was also used to identify customer needs and interfaces. Data were collected throughout the project to measure employee attitudes about the redesign process and the GroupSystems technology. Time to complete tasks was also recorded. The results of the study showed that the business process redesign was accomplished more effectively in a shorter period of time than with traditional BPR methods previously used. Participants also indicated that the service mapping tool provided a perspective that is missing from many BPR approaches: an understanding of the service from the customer's perspective.     

Social assistance and dignity: South African women's experiences of the child support grant

Many women interact with the South African social security system in relation to the Child Support Grant (CSG), which is social assistance payable for children living with low-income caregivers. This paper explores women's accounts of how the CSG serves to protect and respect dignity, a foundational value in the South African Constitution. Drawing from focus groups and in-depth interviews with female CSG recipients of working age, it is argued that whilst the experience of using the CSG does protect dignity in certain important respects, other aspects including the application process, the small amount of the grant and negative discourses associated with the status of being a CSG recipient were experienced by many as erosive of dignity.