The Fable of Land Reform: Leases and Credit Markets in Occupied Japan

Development officials and scholars routinely argue that land reform can raise productivity. It may not always do so, they write, but it can—and during 1947–1950 in Japan it did. Land reform may sometimes raise productivity, but it did not raise it in Japan. The claim that it did is a fable, a tale people tell and re‐tell only because they wish it were true. A lease is a credit transaction—a way for local elites (tied to local information networks in ways that banks can never be) to extend funds to farmers. Elites could lend money directly, but would need to create a security interest to protect their loans. Doing so requires legal procedures, however, and most local elites in prewar Japan lacked the university education necessary to manipulate those procedures. By contrast, a lease lets local elites protect their funds simply by retaining the right to evict tenants who fail to pay. As such, it represents a way for investors and farmers jointly to economize on credit market costs. The Japanese land reform program effectively banned this transaction‐cost economizing credit‐market strategy, expropriated the wealth of the investors who used it—and cut the rate of growth in agricultural productivity.     

PENSION REFORM,POLITICAL PRESSURE AND PUBLIC CHOICE – THE CASE OF FRANCE

An ageing population and generous public sector pensions have put significant pressure on the funding of the French pension system making a reduction in the scope of state pension schemes imperative. Yet, as public‐choice theory would predict, lobbying by interest groups has made reform difficult to achieve.     

“But we can't go back”

In 2004, a provincial cancer agency in Canada developed and implemented a provincewide Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) to enhance organizational leadership and relationships. Research using a quasi‐experimental survey design determined whether LDI implementation influenced the emotional health and leadership practices of LDI participants. An ethnographic approach (18 focus groups and 13 individual interviews) explored participants' perceptions of the LDI. This article presents qualitative findings that contribute to understanding the statistically significant findings of increasing levels of cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and burnout for most LDI participants. The LDI was regarded as a critical strategy for helping leaders grow and cope with change and help in changing organizational leadership culture to be more collaborative and inclusive. However, an organizational history of short‐lived, flavor‐of‐the‐month development initiatives and growing skepticism and disengagement by leaders represented in the themes of Catch‐22 and “there is no going back” contributes to understanding why these quantitative measures increased. Few studies have explored the hypothesis that real organizational development happens through a series of planned stages. In this study, leaders experienced escalating frustration because change was not seen to occur fast enough in “others” and reported that this was necessary before they would alter their own behavior. Leadership development programs in general need to reflect the reality that it takes considerable time, patience, and effort to effect fundamental change in leadership culture.     

On Modernizing Local Public Finance

Abstract . Urban economists tend to agree that land value taxation is both equitable and efficient. Then why won't American urban areas reform their property taxes into a land value tax? One explanation may be that the climate of opinion is that the taxation of wealth is wrong. This may be another of the legacies of the Great Depression. In the 20 years preceding, levels of property taxation increased very substantially; this was associated with rapid urbanization and big increases in public expenditures. Even with the collapse of property values urban governments extended expenditures and hence taxes on real property—as they did again with inflation in the 1970s. But in the 70s residents were predominantly owner-occupants—a result of counter depression policy. Their hostility to taxing unrealized capital gains is the obstacle advocates of land value taxation have to overcome.     

Urban Ethnographies in the United States

Books reviewed in this article: Gamm, Gerald, Urban Exodus: why the Jews left Boston and the Catholics stayed Pattillo‐McCoy, Mary, Black picket fences: privilege and peril among the black middle class     

The Dark Side of Deeply Meaningful Work: Work‐Relationship Turmoil and the Moderating Role of Occupational Value Homophily

How are close personal relationships experienced by people in deeply meaningful work? Drawing upon in‐depth interview data with 82 international aid workers, I offer three distinct contributions. First, I find that people who experience their work as deeply meaningful have high work devotion. I identify boundary inhibition as a mechanism to explain why they participate more willingly in overwork and erratic work, despite giving rise to time‐ and trust‐based conflict in their relationships. Second, I find that people with high work devotion often also experience emotional distance in their personal relationships when their close others don’t value their work – a context I call occupational value heterophily. This disconnection‐based conflict compounds the time‐ and trust‐based conflict and engenders an emotionally agonizing situation, which I call work‐relationship turmoil. Third, when close others do value their partner’s work – a context I call occupational value homophily – it fosters an emotional connection and offers an avenue for work‐relationship enrichment. These findings draw upon deeply meaningful work to detail the multi‐faceted work‐relationship experience among those with high work devotion.     

‘Riding along on the crest of a wave’: tracking the shifting rationale for non‐union consultation at FinanceCo

This article seeks to evaluate why, within the context of a fast‐moving and turbulent business environment, certain staple employee involvement (EI) practices remain so enduring. Using case study research, the article tracks the shifting justification for non‐union consultation in a medium‐sized clearing bank. It is demonstrated that the underlying motive is contingent and dynamic, changing periodically in response to a variety of stimuli. Developing Marchington et al.'s influential metaphor, it is argued that such ‘long‐wave’ involvement is related to the flexibility of the consultative process. The malleability of the intervention is seen to complement quite disparate business objectives contributing to its longevity. More broadly, the study underlines the need to build micro‐, macro‐ and sector‐level analyses into explanatory models of EI.     

Examining the Draw of Diversity: How Diversity Climate Perceptions Affect Job‐Pursuit Intentions

Organizations must target talented applicants, who will often be demographically diverse, to attract the most competent and competitive workforce possible. Despite the bottom‐line implications of attracting the best and brightest, surprisingly little is known about how and why diversity recruitment strategies affect recruitment outcomes (e.g., job‐pursuit intentions). To gain insight into this question, we conducted an initial experimental study (N = 194) to test the premise that other‐group orientation moderates the relationship between perceived organizational value of diversity and job‐pursuit intentions. In a follow‐up experiment (N = 255), identity affirmation was examined as the mediating mechanism for the interaction observed in the first study. Mediated moderation analyses supported the proposed model. Collectively, the studies indicate that job seekers high in other‐group orientation are more intent on pursuing employment with organizations deemed to value diversity because they feel that their salient identities are likely to be affirmed. No such indirect effect is present for those lower in other‐group orientation.     

Privileged Accumulation Spaces and Restrictions on Development of State‐Business Relations in Argentina (1966–1989)

The aim of this work is to explain how the state‐business relation has influenced economic development in Argentina. I will make a historical and systemic analysis of the Argentinian case to illustrate how and why state‐business relations supporting privileged accumulation spaces (PAS) increased development restrictions from 1966 to 1989. During this period, successive governments shared a common view about the central role the state had to perform for industrialization, especially by supporting the growth of big domestic industrial companies. This view would only radically change in 1989, when neoliberal structural reforms were implemented. To support this hypothesis, I suggest a methodological strategy that combines several techniques and sources in order to analyze the evolution of three complex variables and their multiple relations: state economic intervention, business behavior, and performance by large corporations.     

Transformation of Urban Life in China

Tang, Wenfang and William Parish Chinese urban life under reform: the changing social contract. Dutton, Michael Streetlife China Yang, Mayfair M‐H. (ed.) Spaces of their own: women’s public sphere in transnational China Davis, Deborah S. (ed.) The consumer revolution in urban China     

Uncovering competitive and institutional drivers of HRM practices in multinational corporations

Current international human resource management (IHRM) literature focusing on multinational corporations (MNCs) presents evidence of both similarities and differences in the HR practices adopted in different global locations. However, the drivers behind this duality require more detailed investigation. This article focuses on exploring why MNCs position themselves within global markets as they do, exploring how extant theory can help explain the drivers behind both global and national HR practices. Based on a worldwide sample of in‐depth interview‐based case studies of well‐known MNCs, we explore the ways in which different firms react to both institutional and competitive pressures in selecting their approach to HRM. The findings uncover a differentiation between external global competitive isomorphic pressures, external national institutional isomorphic pressures, and internal processes of strategic choice and competitive differentiation. It is suggested that MNCs face all three drivers of HRM simultaneously, leading to different patterns of practice adoption, adaptation and innovation.     

Testing the Political Replacement Effect: A Panel Data Analysis*

This article tests for the existence of the political replacement effect, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson: [American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, pp. 115–131]. They argue that the implementation of market‐oriented reform is crucially driven by the political calculus of incumbent governments: they implement economic policy change if such a choice is not expected to reduce their chances to retain power. This implies a non‐monotonic relationship between the level of political competition and the extent of economic reform. We test this hypothesis using data for 102 countries over the period 1980 to 2005. Our results strongly support the theory.     

Do stakeholder groups influence environmental management system development in the Dutch agri‐food sector?

This paper presents the results of a survey that included 492 companies in the Dutch agri‐food sector with respect to the influence of stakeholder groups on the companies' level of environmental management system (EMS) implementation. It is concluded that primary stakeholders (government, clients) are more relevant for EMS development than secondary stakeholders (such as environmental organizations). The results suggest that small and medium‐sized companies are able to accommodate to demands with respect to the implementation of internally oriented care systems (I‐EMSs). I‐EMSs focus at the single firm or location. In general, they are predominantly influenced by governmental and other ‘non‐commercial’ stakeholder groups. For the implementation of externally oriented EMSs (E‐EMSs), which focus on the supply chain and network, qualitative rather than quantitative relationship characteristics between companies and the government are important. Moreover, commercial stakeholder groups (such as suppliers, clients and competitors) influence E‐EMS levels significantly. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

TRAFFIC LIGHTS: WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION,DANGER AND DELAY

Since my 2006 article in Economic Affairs proposing traffic system reform, there has been a growing interest in the subject. Trials in deregulation have produced the results that students of the subject predicted – congestion‐free roads and sociable interaction between road‐users.     

EVIDENCE ON THE IMPACT OF TARIFF REDUCTIONS ON EMPLOYMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

This paper analyses the evidence on the impact of tariff reductions on employment in developing countries. We carry out a systematic review of the existing empirical literature, and include both, ex post econometric evidence and ex ante Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) simulation studies. The synthesis of results suggests that the effects of tariff reductions on employment are country and trade policy specific. When looking across higher quality econometric studies that control for the endogeneity of tariffs, only a couple of studies have statistically significant results, and these suggest that employment is likely to decrease slightly in the short run following trade liberalization. This is consistent with the notion that there are winners and losers from trade policy reform. These results are in contrast with the CGE findings, which by design incorporate projections of the medium‐run economy‐wide knock‐on effects suggested by economic theory. The synthesis of CGE studies suggests non‐negative effects of trade liberalization on aggregate employment and moderate inter‐sectoral labour reallocation effects.     

Structure and Governance in Industrial Districts: Implications for Competitive Advantage

The existing research on industrial districts is fragmented, and yields conflicting advice for managers about the benefits and costs of locating in an industrial district. We resolve much of this ambiguity by synthesizing and integrating the existing research, and developing a typology of districts based on the continuous dimensions of need for coordination and centralization of control. In so doing, we elucidate why different types of industrial districts have different structures, and different competitive implications. We introduce four archetypes of industrial districts (based on extreme values of our two dimensions), and for each we discuss the benefits and costs of locating in the district, the sources of competitive advantage for members of the district vis‐à‐vis non‐members, and the sources of competitive advantage a district firm may gain over other members of the same district.     

Estimating the distribution of welfare effects using quantiles

This paper proposes a framework to model welfare effects that are associated with a price change in a population of heterogeneous consumers. The framework is similar to that of Hausman and Newey (Econometrica, 1995, 63, 1445–1476), but allows for more general forms of heterogeneity. Individual demands are characterized by a general model that is nonparametric in the regressors, as well as monotonic in unobserved heterogeneity, allowing us to identify the distribution of welfare effects. We first argue why a decision maker should care about this distribution. Then we establish constructive identification, propose a sample counterparts estimator, and analyze its large‐sample properties. Finally, we apply all concepts to measuring the heterogeneous effect of a change of gasoline price using US consumer data and find very substantial differences in individual effects across quantiles.     

Leadership for Undergraduate STEM Reform: Weaving a Communal Web

Successful reform of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education requires good leaders; therefore, leadership development will be key if the national calls for reform (e.g., Vision and Change) are to be answered. The Partnership for Life Sciences Education (PULSE) is focused on whole‐department reform, which will require recruiting and supporting grassroots reformers who lead their colleagues through the change process. Department leaders will require (a) support networks that extend within and beyond each institution, (b) development of leadership skills and competencies, and (c) a mutually agreed‐upon strategic plan that inspires all to action. The STEM Department Evaluation Rubric is presented here as a tool to help establish that shared vision. Successful leaders will also need resilience, good humor and moral imagination, because the challenges are many but the rewards are substantial and sit at the core of the mission of our institutions.     

The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the importance of context

This article develops a context‐sensitive approach to analyse how and why voice operates in small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), an area that remains under‐theorised and under‐researched. By building on a priori frameworks with proven ability to unpack complexity and take account of the wider context of SMEs, this article explores how resources (human and social capital) and constraints (product market, labour market and strategic orientation) interact to shape voice practices. The article finds significant differences between ‘reported’ compared with ‘actual’ practices in situ, and identifies different types of firms (‘strategic market regulation’, ‘strategic market‐led’ and ‘non‐strategic market‐led’) along with the factors that influence the form and practice of voice. Overall, the article argues that researchers should further pursue research that appreciates the layered nature of ontology and the role played by firm context to explain complex organisational phenomena, if we are to advance our understanding of voice practices in SMEs and beyond.     

China's Emergent City‐Region Governance: A New Form of State Spatial Selectivity through State‐orchestrated Rescaling

This article examines the emergence of city‐region governance as a specific state spatial selectivity in post‐reform China. The process has been driven by the state in response to the crisis of economic decentralization, and to vicious inter‐city competition and uncoordinated development. As part of the recentralization of state power, the development of urban clusters (chengshiqun) as interconnected city‐regions is now a salient feature of ‘new urbanization' policy. I argue in this article that the Chinese city‐region corresponds to specific logics of scale production. Economic globalization has led to the development of local economies and further created the need to foster ‘regional competitiveness'. To cope with regulatory deficit at the regional level, three mechanisms have been orchestrated by the state: administrative annexation, spatial plan preparation and regional institution building, which reflect recent upscaling in post‐reform governance.