Invoking Satan or the Ethics of the Employment Contract*

ABSTRACT Studies of mergers of organizations focus upon the financial and economic outcomes, with little attention paid to the effect on the people working in the merging organizations. This paper reports the findings of a study of the impact on managers of an organizational merger. Rather than the cool calculations of accountants and economists and the rational application of a managerial logic, we found the impact on these managers was upon their emotions, which seemed sometimes too buffeted to allow them to continue in their work. A narrative analysis of the stories told by these managers suggested they experienced their involvement with the merging organizations as akin to a Faustian contract, whereby they had sold their souls to the organizational devil and were now reaping the costs. When we came to write this paper we found that using the usual rubrics of academic writing suppressed the sheer emotionality of their experiences. We have therefore followed the imperative of our conclusions, and written our analysis in the form of a play, based upon Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus, which allows us to use our interviewees’ own words to illustrate the impact of the merger. The play is, of course, in the format of a tragedy: it has four main characters – the narrator, the manager, Faustus and Mephistopheles – and five acts. We use the Prologue to insert our own words, where we argue for a turn away from the ‘hard’ school of human resource management towards one that is ethically informed. Programme notes contain the technical details which justify our research methods. We remain totally unapologetic for intruding emotions into the rational world of academia.     

改进预算还是超越预算

本文通过对传统预算存在的问题进行分析,引出了当前较为流行的两种弥补传统预算管理缺陷的模式,即"改进预算"和"超越预算"。针对我国预算管理中存在的问题,结合国外学者的研究及我国企业目前面临的市场环境分析,试图探索出适合我国国情的预算改革方向。     

对影响企业当期损益的利得的探讨

利得是企业通过非日常活动实现的,会导致所有者权益增加的,但与所有者投入资本没有关系,是一种具有偶发性特征的经济利益的净流入。因为其发生对多个财务报表都存在直接影响,所以常被当作粉饰企业财务报表的工具。本文基于对多个企业利用影响当期损益的利得进行利润操纵案例的总结和分析,归纳会计核算中常见的错弊以及如何甄别其错弊的技巧和方法。     

对企业物流业务外包或自营问题的新思考

为了使总成本更具有竞争力,商品制造和商品流通企业决策层最关心的就是自身物流业务的外包或自营的问题.我们可以基于交易成本理论和组织边界相关原理来对此问题进行探讨,并可综合将企业的物流业务性质划分成四个部分分别考虑,以对企业的相关决策有所帮助.     

如何避免或减少护理差错的发生

护理差错是指护理人员在治疗护理过程中因责任心不强、违反操作规程或技术问题等原因造成工作过失或疏忽,给病人带来或轻或重的伤害和痛苦,影响其治疗,甚至危及生命。那么如何避免或减少护理差错?     

混凝土框架柱二阶效应计算方法研究

经过刚度折减的二阶弹性分析来考虑框架二阶效应的简化设计方法已被工程界广泛接受,而我国主流设计方法还是使用传统的η-l0法,这种设计方法常常不准确。文章通过实际算例分别按两种方法计算出各柱端弯矩和配筋,通过比较得出两种方法在不同情况下,在结构的不同位置上的具体差异,最后根据结论,提出在实践设计中该如何有效利用折减刚度法的建议。     

Private or public: debating the meaning of tenure legalization

Hernando de Soto’s book The mystery of capital has renewed debate about illegality in low–income housing in Latin America, Asia and Africa. De Soto and others argue that property titles provide the poor with collateral for loans to improve their housing or set up a business. Critics argue that incorporation into the formal market will displace the original inhabitants. In this article I analyse these debates about legalization as expressions of the dualisms that have shaped western thought. The relation between legal and illegal can be understood as a variant of the public/private dichotomy. Challenging the opposition of legal to illegal, I argue that the difference between them is not as great as the proponents of legalization assume. This questions the efficacy of legalization as an engine of change. In Mexico, the beneficiaries of legalization have little interest in formal credit, preferring loans from friends or relatives, and legalization does not lead to displacement. The failure of theories about legalization to predict the outcome is a product of their reliance on dualistic thinking and of the exclusion of the private from their accounts of the process. Le livre d’Hernando de Soto, The mystery of capital, a relancé le débat sur l’illégalité de l’habitat à faible revenu en Amérique latine, Asie et Afrique. Selon de Soto et d’autres, les titres de propriété procurent aux pauvres une garantie pour emprunter afin d’améliorer leur logement ou de créer une entreprise. Les opposants affirment qu’une intégration au marché officiel déplacerait les habitants d’origine. L’article analyse ces débats sur la légalisation en tant qu’expressions des dualismes qui ont façonné la pensée occidentale. On peut appréhender la relation entre le légal et l’illégal comme une variante de la dichotomie public–privé. En contestant l’opposition légal–illégal, on peut affirmer que la différence n’est pas aussi importante que le supposent les partisans de la légalisation, ce qui remet en cause l’efficacité de celle–ci en tant que moteur de changement. Au Mexique, les bénéficiaires de la légalisation s’intéressent peu au crédit officiel, préférant les prêts entre amis ou parents, et cette légalisation ne provoque pas de déplacement. Les théories sur la légalisation ont échoué dans leur prédiction des résultats, car elles s’appuient sur une réflexion dualiste et excluent le privé de leur évaluation du processus.     

Lead, follow, or get out of the way

The more we know about the individuals who work for us, the better understanding we will have of them and the better job we will do in motivating them. Regardless of whether you work in credit, production, accounting, sales, engineering, personnel, or purchasing, you will have one problem in common with all managers. The problem is people. They take up by far the greatest portion of our operating budget. People are difficult. They have their strengths and weaknesses, their ups and downs, their joys and sorrows; and you don't have to be managing people for long before you find out that people don't like change.     

流动还是迁移

当金融危机在美国开始兴风作浪时,很少有人想到,首先遭到冲击的中国人,不是写字楼中的白领而是背井离乡到城里打工的农民.春节的爆竹声尚遥远时,农民工们却要打点行装,提前回家.……     

Concordat or contract

The New Labour Government in England is seeking to promote public/private partnerships in health and social care as a key component of its political project. This article reports the findings from the first phase of an ongoing qualitative research study exploring the relationship between a private sector company and their public sector partners at four study sites. These findings indicate that organizations within the NHS do not view the development of public/private partnerships as a priority and furthermore currently have a limited ability to engage in strategic planning with the private sector. The findings are explored in the broader context of the evolution of ‘managed competition’ in health care systems and the role of partnership in that process.     

浙江商人的战略取舍：卖OR不卖——独家调查阿里巴巴、正泰、苏泊尔、奥康的实战案例

当苏泊尔引进法国SEB的战略投资案，被突然高调地放在舆论聚光灯下时，外资并购民营企业也随之成了惹人注目的话题。     

Crowdworking: working with or against the crowd?

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - Our current labour market is affected by massive changes like digitalization, automation and globalization, which gives rise to completely new...     

Unraveling the Genetic Component of Multifactorial Diseases: Dream or Reality

The etiology of many human diseases is complex and very likely involves a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors. A popular strategy to detect genetic risk factors is to perform a systematic screening of the genome searching for linkage. The power of such and approach depends very much on the unknown characteristics of the genetic factors and the main difficulty is to establish a good trade-off between false positives and false negatives. Besides, a precise localisation of the risk factor will generally not be obtained. The set up of a candidate gene stratery is necessary to go further in genetic factor identification. It is likely that for multicfactorioal diseases the only genetic risk factors that can be detected are those with fairly strong effect. Even in that case, it is important to design strategies which increase the power of detection and provide for a better evaluation of the associated risks.     

浅析水准误差的来源及消除或减弱的方法

本文对水准测量中的误差来源进行了分析,提出了消除或减弱误差的方法。     

Knotting the action net, or organizing between organizations

This paper presents a study of a successful organizing process, namely the knotting together of different types of action by “translating” them into one another. The connections thus established were then stabilized to form a unit that can be designated as an “action net”. This instance of organizing occurred in the course of a project in the Swedish health care sector, with a view to establishing coordination between care units in three separate organizations. Different laws regulated their tasks, their operations were financed by different principals, and the everyday work of their members was undertaken at different point in time and in different places. Despite this, the participants in the studied project were able to establish a lasting net of connections that contributed, in the eyes of the environment, to an instance of “good care”. In this paper we examine in detail the creation of an action net, and offer a tentative theory of organizing in action nets.