maastricht: the case for EMU

Peter Spencer, chief UK economist of Lehman Brothers, explains how the Maastricht agreements could lead to European Monetary Union - an end to be desired.     

Launching a new middle donor programme and making it work

• In 2009, WaterAid identified an opportunity. The opportunity was to create a middle donor programme with the objective of raising a significantly higher net contribution from existing supporters who fell between the mass Direct Marketing programme and the bespoke Major Donor programme. This paper provides a step by step guide to anyone considering launching or redefining their organisation's approach to middle donors. It describes the creation of the business case, development and implementation of an operational plan and, most importantly, provides top tips based on the lessons WaterAid learned as we put theory into practice.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Micro-interaction dynamics in group decision making: Face games, interaction order and boundary work

Drawing on Goffman's face theory, this paper documents and interprets the micro interaction dynamics underlying group decision making within a consultancy task force. Our analysis suggests that decision making is an instance of strategic face-to-face behavior where individuals seek to influence each other and reach decisions by means of face-work and self-presentation tactics. Moreover, face-to-face behavior generates an ‘interaction order’ that frames the decision making situation and constrains further interactions among decision makers. We discuss the implications that can be drawn from the observed case by relating our findings to the emergent stream of studies on micro-decision making.     

A step-by-step approach to identifying a partner--and making the partnership work

In an effort to prepare one's facility for certain change, management is looking to "partner" with vendors/manufacturers in an effort to reduce the total cost of supplies. Several opportunities exist, as long as goals and expected outcomes can be identified and realized by both parties. Much thought and work are involved before making such a commitment; however, the payback is certainly worth the investment.     

Do‐it‐yourself DRTV: a practical guide to making direct response television advertising work for charities

Direct response television advertising (DRTV) has been used by charities as a form of promotion for many years; in the case of the UK for over two decades. In that period many charities have tried the medium but only a handful have achieved consistent success. In the process, a layer of mystique has attached itself to DRTV and a number of outright myths have been perpetuated. DRTV should work for many more charities than currently use it. This is in contrast to other media which are in danger of being swamped by overuse by charities. Any charity raising or wishing to raise money from the general public should at least consider this medium. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

The subordination of the gender equality objective: the National Reform Programmes and ‘making work pay’ oplicies

The streamlining of the Lisbon strategy has introduced new integrated guidelines for economic policy and employment strategy and a new report format––the National Reform Programme. In the first year of this new reporting mechanism, Member States have paid less attention to gender mainstreaming and gender equality objectives, not least because the gender equality guideline has been removed. Streamlining has further exposed the narrow and instrumental focus on gender equality measures in the Lisbon process as a means of raising the employment rate rather than a broader concern for equal opportunity. This narrow gender equality approach also dilutes the efficacy of the economic and employment policies that are advanced. Some positive steps to advance gender equality continue to be taken, but the reforms are partial, uneven and coexist with negative developments. We illustrate this with an evaluation of the policy trajectory in relation to the ‘making work pay’ agenda for low‐waged workers (tax/benefit reform, minimum wages, childcare and parental leave). We conclude that this latest reform to the Lisbon process has exposed the enormous amount of political work and capacity building that is needed to mainstream gender issues across the whole field of economic, employment and social policies.     

Search firms: how we work

The executive search consulting business is built on an understanding of the forces driving the health care industry and an appreciation of the importance of the right person to an institution's success. We work closely with our clients in determining position and candidate criteria, and in screening and selecting candidates. We commit all findings to writing and keep our clients regularly and frequently updated. From the professionalism of our consultants to the details of the search process, we believe there is no substitute for high quality, cost efficient, and responsive service.     

Street-lighting projects selection: A rational decision making approach

The study presented in this paper represents a new and fresh approach to the problem of efficiently and optimally allocating scarce resources in the provision of public services—namely, street-lighting. The methodology developed is aimed at introducing more systematic and rational thinking in a way which is both technically and politically feasible. To the best of the author's knowledge, the study presents, for the first time, a procedure for the comprehensive quantitative estimate of the utility accruing from street-lighting. The utility value derived from each street-lighting project depends upon several factors, some of which can be technically assessed and others estimated only by subjective values.

In order to deduce the subjective values, the Delphi method was employed. This method permits derivation of subjective values for groups of interviewees whose assessments may reasonably be assumed to be crucial in determining the relative values of the objectives of the utility function. Those components of the utility function representing subjective values were identified and estimated.

The conventional practice, whereby residents have no explicit say in the planning of the lighting system in their city, was abandoned. Residents' value judgements concerning the relative importance of the objectives to be gained by the lighting system were incorporated into the planning process. An optimization model based on an integer programming algorithm was employed because it permits periodic (e.g. annual) selection of a set of indivisible projects to be realized during a given period. This enables maximum economic and social utility to be derived, subject to budgetary and technological constraints.

The selection process was extended and deepened so as to render it sensitive to benefit from economies of scale and external economies. The optimization process was carried out with the use of an IBM-MPS X (an integer programming algorithm). The methodology was applied to a large and diverse quarter in the city of Jerusalem that is divided into seven semi-homogeneous neighborhoods—in terms of their physical as well as their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. This represents a very different approach when compared to the conventional way in which the planning design and installation of street-lighting projects are currently carried out.     

Economies of extremes: Lessons from venture-capital decision making

An organization's ability to exploit extreme events—such as exceptional opportunities—depends on its capacity strategy. The venture capital industry illustrates the interplay of expensive capacity and negative externalities from high utilization. The cost of adding a venture capitalist provides a strong incentive to run lean, but such leanness may make it impossible to evaluate all interesting investment opportunities. Using concepts from extreme-value theory, we analyze the trade-off between the costs and benefits arising from an increase in the number of evaluated deals. We ground our analysis in 11 years of archival data from a venture capital firm, representing 3631 deals, the decisions made, the reasons for those decisions, and the decision lead times. The firm identified 20% of arriving deals as worth evaluating during the screening process, but was not able to evaluate approximately 9% of those interesting deals due to a lack of capacity. We show that the value of increasing the number of deals evaluated increases with the tail weight of the distribution of deal values. When the right tail is light, increasing the number of deals evaluated may provide too modest a benefit to justify the cost. When, however, the right tail is heavy, the value of increasing the number of deals is likely to more than compensate for the cost of capacity. Our results provide new insight into the relative value of a chase capacity strategy that emphasizes responsiveness versus a high-utilization heuristic that emphasizes productivity. Our approach can be applied to other search operations such as personnel selection, quality circles seeking to identify root causes, and making employee capacity available for innovation.     

Good people: a work in progress

• This article provides some evidence, some insight and some opinion based on a continuously evolving research programme conducted by the Good Agency which attempts to define the reasons that people give to charity. Conclusions are drawn from a variety of research resources and live testing across a wide client base over the last 8 years

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Woman's work: Seeking identity through occupations

Most adult women now hold full-time jobs outside the home, and the proportion is growing. While women's labor market experiences and successes have come closer to men's experiences and successes, their attachment to a labor market career, at least for married women, is not the compulsion that it is and has been for men. While many women have won the right to go off to the corporate citadel every morning, they have more often than not retained the obligation to bear most of the responsebility for the home. Ideally, postfeminist women woumen would like to be able to strike a balance between the responsibilities of the job and home. In reality, they are forced to choose between the two. Women have a right to seek identity through work as well as through parenthood-as men have always done. Those few women who insist on the right to meaningful work and the right to a family will have to push for changes in the work place as hard as they had to push to gain admittance to the jobs in the first place.     

Making it work in free agent work: The coping practices of Swedish freelance journalists

Studies of post-industrial work have shown how workers are increasingly shouldering the risk of and the responsibility for social protection, work shortages, professional training, and securing a stream of continuous incoming work. This study of Swedish freelance journalists examines how these free agents cope with a situation whereby the need exists to actively bear the full responsibility for attracting and contracting, producing, and billing their work as journalists. The empirical material shows how freelancers engage in various coping practices to secure both sufficient amounts of work and the accompanying economic compensation. Freelancers who “make it work” are often those managing to embed themselves in long-standing relationships with clients and colleagues, thus ensuring a long-term work horizon and a steady income. Even so, the inherent “responsibilization” of contemporary work is amplified and intensified by the freelance work mode. This study makes two contributions: Firstly, it provides knowledge of free agent work in a Swedish context, a national setting that is often presumed to be a “role model” for good working conditions. Secondly, it highlights the specifics of managing work that entails a continuous stream of sequential and parallel assignments of limited duration and the ongoing “employment management work” this entails as regards making sure assignments keep “coming in”.