Partnerships and the private recruitment industry

This article, based on a postal survey and qualitative interview‐based research, examines the relationship between major private recruitment bureaux and their clients in the UK, with particular attention to the recruitment and selection of temporary workers. The private recruitment industry is growing and large bureaux are seeking closer partnership arrangements with clients. Contracts for labour services are being developed on a 'preferred' supplier basis – similar in type to the approach taken for the purchase or supply of goods or components. However, formal preferred supplier contracts with temporary work bureaux were used by only a minority of clients, usually larger organisations or those having projects or workplaces with high volume demand. While such bureaux seek models of relational contracting or partnering, many clients prefer less fully engaged or 'semi‐distanced' relations facilitated by the informal dimensions of inter‐organisational contacts.     

Competition,innovation and regulation in the pharmaceutical industry

This article discusses the impact of regulation on competition and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Prompted by concern over attempts at regulating the industry on the European level, we discuss the two basic forms of regulation which we observe to be typical, quality regulation (licencing) and price regulation. In doing so, the analysis focuses on the research segment of the pharmaceutical industry and discusses forms of competition by innovation. Following a recent paper by Nelson, the specific characteristics of competition in the pharmaceutical industry are developed as well as their welfare implications. Regulatory behavior vis-á-vis the industry is analysed in terms of a behavioral model initially proposed by Stigler, and an attempt is made to incorporate into the analysis the experience of regulation in both Europe and the United States of America.     

An analysis of process industry production and inventory management systems

The process industries — those firms that add value by mixing, separating, forming and/or chemical reactions by either batch or continuous mode — continue to lag behind the discrete industries in the identification and implementation of effective production and inventory management (P&IM) techniques. A contributing factor is that the process industries have traditionally been lumped together and contrasted from the discrete industries as a whole, thus leading to misunderstandings regarding individual process industries. From site interviews and the literature, we identified four critical dimensions — planning resource requirements (for materials and capacity), tracking resource consumption, control of work-in-process (WIP), and degree of computerization — represented by seven variables by which to contrast and analyze process industries. Based on in-depth field studies of 19 diverse process plants, we find that there exist at least four distinct types of process industry P&IM systems: (1) simple, (2) common, (3) WIP-controlled, and (4) computerized.     

Empirical comparison of just-in-time and stockless materiel management systems in the health care industry

Despite the limitations, this study is the first comparative empirical investigation of two relatively new materiel management systems applied in hospitals. The results show that hospital managers have significantly rated the possibility that more effective use of some materiel management resources can be achieved by adopting either a JIT or stockless system over conventional materiel management systems.     

Closing the innovative loop: moving from the laboratory to the shop floor in biotechnology manufacturing

Innovation is a hallmark of successful technology-intensive start-up companies. This paper considers manufacturing as a knowledge-generating activity integral to product innovation in entrepreneurial biotechnology firms. The model of the virtual corporation has been advocated as a means to focus on the resources of start-up companies; yet regional specialization in technical applications and product categories suggests that manufacturing may be a knowledge-generating activity that can provide a potential source of regional advantage. This paper considers the manufacturing strategies that bio-entrepreneurs would like to pursue and explores barriers to forward integration. While capital constraints may force firms to licence and subcontract manufacturing, it was found that entrepreneurs believe that it is important to undertake manufacturing and, when they are financially able, they invest in manufacturing facilities. The authors conclude by providing a framework for considering when it might be most appropriate for biotechnology firms to invest in manufacturing.     

Consumer safety and the regulation of industry

The need for regulation to protect the consumer from unsafe products stems from the lack of full information. The extent of these imperfections is examined and it is argued that there are market pressures on manufacturers to produce safer products and that voluntary regulation can play a useful role before mandatory regulations are introduced. In setting targets it must be acknowledged that there are differences between products and between consumers and particularly that there will be costs associated with attempts to cure the consequences of imperfections. Recent trends in the US and British safety policy are assessed in this light.     

出租客运的性质、地位及其应有的管理模式

采用经济学和运输经济学的理论与方法,分析了我国出租客运行业的基本属性、定位、资源配置机理、发展动力机制以及高技术风险特征,认为出租客运行业不具备一般市场竞争领域的特征,政府应对该行业实施管制。结合我国城市发展的多层次性,提出了大型中心城市出租客运行业的管制模式:政府监管企业,企业监管车辆及其运营。     

Agglomeration in an innovative and differentiated industry with heterogeneous knowledge spillovers

This paper introduces an agent-based simulation model to study the technological development, the economic performance of firms and the evolution of agglomerations in a differentiated industry. The analysis is based on the interaction and behavior of firms, which might share knowledge but at the same time are competitors on the goods markets. Firms do not only compete with quantities they can also introduce process and product innovations. The level of knowledge of a firm describes the capabilities to perform innovations. Knowledge can be accumulated by investing in R&D and by knowledge spillover, which depend on geographical and technological proximity. Simulation runs show that there is an incentive to agglomerate in young industries and that geographical proximity enhances innovation, especially the number of product innovations.      

Business strategy,human resource systems,and organizational performance in the Spanish banking industry

Although human resource (HR) systems in the form of bundles of HR practices and their impact on organizational performance have attracted considerable attention, the role that business strategy could play in this relationship remains uncertain, particularly in service industries. In order to avoid any confounding effects, this study analyzes the performance impact of adopting different HR systems in an empirical setting in which employees are vital if the company is to remain competitive, the firms belong to the same industry and the primary activities involved are the delivery of services to customers. Based on survey data from 86 banking institutions in Spain, three HR systems were identified, two of which rendered better organizational performance when matched to defender strategies, thus supporting a contingency explanation of the adoption of HR systems. Findings showed that even in an industry under strong universalistic pressures to adopt certain predictable HR practices, matching HR systems with a business strategy pays off.     

Externalities, efficiency, regulation, and productivity growth in the U.S. electric utility industry

This paper examines the decomposition of total factor productivity growth for firms subject to regulation, given the production of a bad output. The production of good and bad outputs provides benefits and costs to society. Corporate socially responsible firms recognize the cost to society of producing the bad output. The paper separates the production technology and regulation effects from both the scale and technical change components. The paper also examines the measurement and decomposition of productivity growth when not accounting for production of the bad output. Using a 1992–2000 panel of 34 U.S. investor-owned electric utilities, results indicate that improvements in the scale, efficiency change, and technical change components contributed to positive growth. Not accounting for production of the bad output led to, on average, an overestimation of both the rate of productivity growth, and the contributions of scale economies and technical change to changes in productivity growth.

Top management team's vision and human resources management practices in innovative Spanish companies

The objective of the article is to analyse whether the strategic vision of the top management team (TMT) and the way employees working in teams are rewarded and assessed affect companies' innovation performance. The study was carried out on a sample of 97 Spanish companies belonging to the three most innovative sectors based on number of patents registered. The results indicate that the top management team's strategic vision alone does not explain a company's innovation performance. Innovation also requires the existence of compensation practices based on the ideas generated and developed by project teams. These results offer relevant implications for the TMT and the managers of the research and development (R&D) and human resources (HR) functions about the way teams should be rewarded and supported in order to improve the company's innovation efforts.     

In search of competence: aligning strategy and competences in the telecommunications industry

Competence management and management by competences are new concerns among academics and professionals. In this paper we argue that the most appropriate way to advance in the construction of a new managerial approach is by relating competence to the strategy of the organization. To make that operational we develop an analytical framework. Since competence has slightly different meanings in the North American and European literature, we first proceed to a revision of conceptual approaches. The analytical framework was empirically tested in a field survey conducted among companies in the Brazilian telecommunications industry.     

The effectiveness of regulation in the electrical energy industry

There is a gap between what federal and state regulatory commissions are authorized to do and what they are doing to regulate the electrical energy industry. It has been argued that a pricing scheme in the industry has evolved akin to the pricing scheme a discriminating monopolist might employ for different classes of consumers that are spatially diffuse. The attention of the paper is focused on the effectiveness of regulation in the industry, given the characteristics of it. The method of analysis chosen is to construct two models which are polar opposites and compare the results with what was actually the situation in 1973. The conclusion indicates that it is justifiable to argue that the electrical energy industry on the whole is not allowed to behave as a spatial monopolist. It is not correct to conclude that monopolistic tendencies are absent. Specifically, the pricing structure does depart from the competitive criterion which requires price to equal marginal cost for each consumer sector and all regions. Further, little electrical energy is transmitted interregionally.     

Uncertain availability,spatial location and regulation: An application to the airline industry

This paper presents an analysis of industries characterized by both uncertain availability and spatial location of the product. The analyis is applied to the US airline industry and is used to analyze the differential effect of price regulation on different markets and firms. From this analysis we obtain insights into which firms and markets may have benefited most from the deregulation of the industry in 1978. Previous works on the regulation of the airline industry implicitly assume that markets have the same demand structure. If airline services are of homogeneous quality, men we do not expect the unregulated solution to depend on demand structures. If on the other hand airline services vary in their quality component, then different markets may have different equilibrium price-quality combinations depending on the characteristics of demand. This paper explores the implication of different demand structures on the impact of (de)regulation.     

Across the great divide: a literature review of management accounting and operations management at the shop floor

Management accounting’s ability to provide relevant information in production environments has long been discussed in the fields of management accounting (MA) and operations management (OM). Researchers from each field play a major part not only in disseminating their research results, but also in channelling their perceptions of management accounting in production environments through journal publications. The thesis of this paper is that via an examination of the paradigms, theories, and methods in the fields of MA and OM our understanding of the prevailing assumptions about management accounting in production environments in the academic community can be enhanced. The review shows a divide between the fields where the field of OM is oriented towards problem-solving, and the field of MA is more theory oriented. The review points out that the understanding of practice is a divider between the fields, but it also suggests that incorporation of practicing production members into research is a promising path forward. The paper then concludes that OM problematizes management accounting in production environments as a starting point for their research agenda and that both fields portrayal of management accounting in production environments need to be nuanced. There is a need to challenge the research expectations and to accept unconventional research methods to enhance knowledge about management accounting in production environments.

     

The central role of human resource management in the search for sustainable organizations

The aim of this article is to present the main contributions of human resource management to develop sustainable organizations. The relationship between human resources and organizational sustainability, which is based on economical, social and environmental performance, involves some important aspects concerning management such as innovation, cultural diversity and the environment. The integration of items from the triple bottom line approach leads to developing a model based on a strategic and central posture of human resource management. Based on this model, propositions and recommendations for future research on this theme are presented.     

制造企业员工绩效管理创新思考

制造企业的人力资源绩效管理是提升企业核心竞争力的重要手段,实施绩效管理对制造企业的发展有着非常重大的意义。文章剖析了我国制造企业人力资源绩效管理现状,对其当前的操作流程及其在具体的实施过程中存在的问题进行了分析,并提出了制造企业员工绩效管理的创新思考对策。     

辽宁省装备制造业产学研合作创新绩效提升研究

文章基于协同创新五维基因密码理论,探讨如何提升辽宁省装备制造业产学研合作创新绩效,以期为辽宁省大力发展装备制造业产学研合作创新提供参考。