Understanding the volunteer market: the what,where, who and why of volunteering

Although the work of the voluntary sector is growing, the number of people volunteering is not increasing at a comparable rate. This paper argues that the key to an organisation's success in recruiting and retaining its volunteers is to have an understanding of its target group. As a means to developing this understanding the paper reviews the prior research on volunteering and outlines the current situation in the voluntary sector with regard to the donation of time. The review shows that those who volunteer are an extremely diverse group, active in a wide variety of contexts. This makes the definition of a volunteer a more complex task than one would expect. It also demonstrates that individuals and organisations may volunteer for reasons other than purely altruistic motives. Finally, the paper identifies gaps in this area of research and presents topics for further research. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

The Future of Japanese Manufacturing in the UK

The expansion of Japanese FDI into the UK manufacturing sector during the 1980s and early 1990s gave rise to the debate on the Japanization of British industry. The paper argues that this debate was constructed from a Western perspective. It did not locate the strategies and structures of Japanese subsidiaries within the broader context of how Japanese multinational corporations were evolving in this period. The necessity to look at these issues from a more global perspective is reinforced by the changes which have occurred since the mid 1990s in the environment for Japanese multinationals. The global economy offers more choices to firms about their location as well as facing them with a more competitive environment. In the Japanese case, this is leading to a growing differentiation between standardized mass production (which can be located in Asia and Eastern Europe) and science–led sectors of industrial production (which necessitate location near to centres of research and development expertise in the USA and Europe). This means that Japanese firms are reconsidering the strategy and structure of their subsidiaries in the UK. Standardized mass production will only survive in the UK as long as costs can be pushed further down and productivity increased, both of which are difficult conditions to meet given possibilities elsewhere in the world for cheap mass production. The growing area of investment will be in science–based manufacturing, though here the UK will be competing against the USA and Germany for Japanese investment. Here, however, the organizational and management characteristics of Japanese subsidiaries will make the necessary connections with local managers and local networks of expertise difficult to achieve. Thus Japanese subsidiaries in the UK are in a period of prolonged uncertainty about their role in the future. These changes open up the necessity for a new agenda of research which goes beyond the Japanization approach and is concerned with the organization and management of Japanese multinationals in an era of global competition.     

Risk aversion, generalized correlation and investment in manufacturing capacities

This study analyzes the relationship between product demand correlation and risk on the investment in dedicated and flexible manufacturing capacities. It is proved that for a risk averse (or risk neutral) decision-maker, increased generalized correlation between output demands reduces the values of both dedicated and flexible manufacturing investments for all multivariate distributions. It is shown that no such monotonic relationship generally exists for the capacities themselves because of an economic tradeoff between risk and return. It is also proved that increased generalized correlation reduces the value of flexible capacity relative to dedicated capacity for the risk-neutral decision maker. However, contrary to the extant literature, flexible capacity is still shown to be potentially valuable even if product demands are perfectly positively correlated. Finally, it is shown that increases in the risk of product demand, holding correlation (of product demand) constant, reduces the value of the investment in manufacturing capacities when output demands are either jointly normal or independent.     

Pharmaceutical innovation and R&D investment in the UK

Expenditure on research and development by the pharmaceutical industry in the UK has increased five-fold in real terms since 1964, whilst the rate of introduction of novel medicines and their sales, allowing for inflation, have remained approximately constant. One of the reasons the industry has been able to afford the higher investment in R&D is because its marketing has become far more international. In the UK the average effective patent life of new products has decreased to less than 5 years at launch, making it difficult to see how development expenditure for most products can be recouped before patent expiry without significant international sales.     

The Japanese way of manufacturing and production management

As Japan has achieved a stable economic growth, Japan and Japanese companies are currently receiving world-wide attention. In this article some characteristics of Japanese manufacturing methods and production management are introduced, including flexible automation, group technology, the Toyota production system, the QC circle, lifetime employment, and product development. In addition, some financial aspects of Japanese companies and the government-industry relationship in Japan are also considered.     

The UK corporate tax reform and business investment decisions

The 1984 Finance Act made fundamental changes to the UK corporate tax system. Evidence from a detailed study of sixty past investment decisions is used to assess the likely effects of the shift from a high-tax, high-allowance system to a system of low taxes and allowances. This suggests that 100% allowances have had little impact on the scale of investment since 1979, reflecting limited taxable capacity and the importance of market considerations in investment decisions. Timing effects were more common, especially among small firms sampled. The post-tax cost of capital will fall for some firms but few appeared to use strict cost of capital criteria in assessing investments.     

The management of labour in Japanese manufacturing plants in China

While there is now considerable scholarship concerning Japanese management practices in their overseas production operations in Europe and North America, little is known about Japanese investment in other parts of the world, especially in Asia. This paper draws on on-going research into the nature and operations of Japanese manufacturing investments in China. The paper focuses on interviews primarily with Chinese managers in twenty plants in three locations within China, to examine their personnel polices and practices, and draw from this their overall industrial relations strategies. The main findings were, first, that, despite claims of cultural similarity between China and Japan, personnel management practices were generally not transferred from Japan to the plants in China. Second, practices that may appear as Japanese inspired were often informed by local practices. Third, there was diversity in the forms of practices used, indicating neither sophistication nor a singular recipe of management methods. Thus, the paper seeks to challenge proponents of Japanization who claim, essentially, that Japanese management techniques are predicated on the construction of particular forms of social relations around work that allow sophisticated, and integrated, production-management systems to function. Instead, depending on a complex interrelation between location industry and the history of each plant, managers sought to use various local and 'universal' (generic to capitalism) strategies and practices to control and utilize labour.     

Market size and seasonalities: The case of the UK investment trust industry

The particular characteristics of the UK mutual funds industry provide ideal ground for examining the pertinence of the ‘Small-size effect’ and the ‘tax-loss-selling’ hypothesis. The evidence indicates the presence of a modest-size premium for smaller investment trusts, but, rather surprisingly, size in general does not appear to be a determining factor of market performance. Moreover, in spite of some variation in the rates of return around the turn of the tax year, the evidence as a whole does not unambiguously support the tax-loss-selling hypothesis. However, there is ground to believe that the overall poor performance of the UK investment trust industry could be due to the tax regimen governing the industry's operations during the period 1965–80.     

Foreign direct investment and productivity spillovers in the Chinese manufacturing sector

In this paper a simple simultaneous model is constructed to examine whether there are productivity spillovers from both the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI) and competition between local and foreign firms. The model is tested on the data from China’s latest industrial census in 1995. The results indicate that the extent to which spillovers occur varies with different types of ownership of local firms and of FDI. While collective- and private-owned enterprises benefit from demonstration and contagion effects from foreign presence, productivity gains of state-owned enterprises largely come from competition with foreign firms. Productivities of local and foreign firms are jointly determined. Evidence also suggests that market-oriented FDI tends to generate spillovers mainly via competition with local firms.     

Pricing behaviour in UK manufacturing and service industries

This paper reports the findings related to pricing behaviour of 1775 manufacturing and service firms. Its objectives were to examine the nature of pricing objectives at differing stages of market evolution and for companies of differing size and to examine the association between pricing objectives and performance. Princing objectives were found to vary with stages of market evolution and firm size. Both positive and negative relationships between pricing objectives and performance were revealed.     

Spatial patterns of Japanese investment in the US automobile industry

Here the author examines the locational strategy of Japanese car manufacturers and their component part suppliers in the US at both the regional and local scale. This is compared briefly with the strategy pursued by Japanese investors in the UK auto industry     

国际分工格局下的中国制造业与外资引入

文章首先概述了中国制造业的发展特征,在中国制造业日益纳入国际分工的格局下,对制造业的比较优势进行了实证分析,在此基础上明确分析了中国制造业"世界制造中心"的定位和国际竞争力,最后阐述了制造业在对外开放中外资引入的选择性吸收策略。     

Variations in strike activity within UK manufacturing industry

Stephen Creigh and Peter Makeham seek to explain inter-industry variations in both stoppage frequency and stoppage incidence at a highly disaggregated level. They develop and then test a simple model which relates strike activity to the conditions under which bargaining takes place and to bargaining structures.     

The determinants of foreign direct investment: An analysis of US manufacturing industries

This study explores the determinants of foreign direct investment by analyzing the variation across US manufacturing industries in the extent of outward foreign direct investment. Three types of industry characteristics are hypothesized to explain this variation. Empirical support is found for four sources of ownership-specific advantages favoring foreign direct investment, new technology created through research and development, marketing abilities, organizational techniques and capital cost advantages. Support is found for the role of production scale economies in favoring centralization and hindering foreign direct investment, but results suggest only a weak role for transport costs in favoring decentralization and foreign direct investment. Producer concentration, perhaps reflecting oligopolistic competition, is positively related to foreign direct investment.     

Diversification and R & D activity in Japanese manufacturing firms

This his paper examines the influence of diversification on R & D intensity in Japanese manufacturing firms. Then alternative definitions of the diversification index are used. The results show that diversification is not a factor favorable to R & D activity. The finding that advertising intensity is positively and significantly related to R & D activity should also be noted.     

White-collar human resource management in large Japanese manufacturing firms

This article explains white-collar Human Resource Management practices in large Japanese manufacturing firms. It first deals with the structural characteristics of white-collar HRM systems and some of its constraints. Then, the article discribes the personnel staff organization and analyzes in detail the four basic HRM functions: selection, development, appraisal, and rewards with data collected in two large Japanese firms. Implications for Western managers are suggested in the conclusion.     

Testing of seasonal fractional integration in UK and Japanese consumption and income

The seasonal structure of quarterly UK and Japanese consumption and income is examined by means of fractionally based tests proposed by Robinson ( 1994 ). These series were analysed from an autoregressive unit root viewpoint by Hylleberg, Engle, Granger and Yoo (HEGY, 1990 ) and Hylleberg, Engle, Granger and Lee (HEGL, 1993 ). We find that seasonal fractional integration, with amplitudes possibly varying across frequencies, is an alternative plausible way of modelling these series. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labour management during recessions: Japanese manufacturing enterprises in the 1990s

In the first half of the 1990s Japan experienced a prolonged recession. How have Japanese firms reacted to the changed economic context? Using identical surveys administered in 1991 and 1995 this article examines changes in labour management and strategy and concludes, despite some significant modifications, that the basic configuration of Japanese labour management has remained intact.