Quaker Business Ethics as MacIntyrean Tradition

Journal of Business Ethics - This paper argues that Quaker business ethics can be understood as a MacIntyrean tradition. To do so, it draws on three key MacIntyrean concepts: community,...     

Advertising to the masses: the effects of crowding on the attention to place-based advertising

Advertising situated in environments where people congregate or pass through on their way to somewhere else benefit from being placed in such high traffic areas. However, these strategically placed ads also suffer from conditions of human crowding that prevents them from being noticed and processed. We undertake a study of place-based advertising in a shopping mall using facial recognition software to determine the effect of human density on the attention directed to advertising. We find that as human density increases, attention to advertising decreases, but only to a point where it begins to increase again. Our research also finds that human density plays a moderating role on the motivation to process advertising.     

中国"以电子政务拉动信息产业发展"政策的再评估

电子政务是中国信息化战略的重中之重，但其实际发展与预期间存在着明显差距。本文以中国“以电子政务拉动信息产业发展”政策为研究重点，把这一政策放在中国信息化历史中加以考察，分析中国信息化新阶段ICT市场的新变化和新挑战，针对电子政务实践与预期间的差距，对该政策提出我们的看法。     

Measuring Employment Security in Europe Using Surveys of Employers

Using results from surveys in which employers were questioned about their freedom to shed staff, we develop a measure of employment security in Europe. We seek to identify which institutional factors are correlated with the responses of employers and find that they appear to reflect the strength of legal restrictions and trade unions and the prevalence of atypical employment. Our results are used to compile an index of employment security that has both a temporal and a cross‐country dimension.     

CREDIBILITY, MACROECONOMIC FUNDAMENTALS AND MARKOV REGIME SWITCHES IN THE EMS

The main objective of this paper is to use the Markov regime‐switching modelling framework to describe and analyse the credibility of a number of countries participating in the European Monetary System during 1980–1998. Our credibility indicator, based on Hughes Hallet et al.'s (1997) methodology, is subject to discrete regime shifts and is made dependent on macroeconomic fundamentals. We carry out extensive testing to assess the specification of the Markov regime‐switching model and the potential existence of permanent breaks. A contribution of our paper is the specification of a multivariate Markov switching model that allows us to examine whether macroeconomic variables have asymmetric effects on credibility. Another contribution is the specification of a regime‐switching model with time‐varying transition probabilities, which enables us to determine whether changes in macroeconomic variables can trigger switches between the low and high credibility regimes. We find strong evidence of regime switching behaviour in all countries. Both the level of credibility and the transition probabilities display an asymmetric response to changes in macroeconomic variables, with the stance of fiscal policy exerting the most systematic influence in all countries.     

On Measuring the Value of a Nonmarket Good Using Market Data

We use line integral theory to lay out in a more general theoretical framework the conditions under which it is possible to measure with market data the welfare effects of a change in a nonmarket good. We present in detail a numerical method of measuring the value of nonmarket goods using market data, under either weak neutrality or weak complementarity. Our numerical method is more flexible than the existing analytical method because it can be used with any well-behaved Marshallian demand function, and can be used even when the willig condition does not hold.     

The proletarianisation of academic labour

This article looks at industrial relations changes, conflict and control in higher education, particularly among university academics. It suggests a tendency towards proletarianisation, and a focus on the academic labour process is useful in explaining growing conflict. An apparent HRM agenda and (reluctantly) increasing managerialism are forms, not causes, of change which is driven by funding pressures similar to those affecting other HE systems.     

MNE competitiveness: A scenario-driven technology transfer construct

To compete effectively, multi-national enterprises (MNEs) must establish market presence in their global rivals' home courts and/or profit sanctuaries. Technology transfer is often used as a means toward that end. The technology adoption decisions of an aggressor MNE and a defender MNE are investigated in a model that features indirect moves and changes in strategy through technology transfer. Each firm may adopt a strategy that incorporates the transfer of high technology or appropriate technology. The strategic decision situation is modelled as a closed-loop sequential equilibrium in discrete time. In contrast to results in the technology adoption literature, the aggressor MNE may successfully transfer technology first, to be imitated later by the defender MNE. This and several other scenarios emerge from the model which, by incorporating the cost of social adjustment and risks involved in technology transfer, ties technology to the competitive interaction of MNEs and specifies conditions for creating competitive advantage through technology, both locally and worldwide.