Employment Systems in Japan's Financial Industry: Globalization,Growing Divergence and Institutional Change

This article examines growing divergence and change in the employment systems of Japan's financial industry from the early 1990s until shortly after the so‐called Lehman Shock. This was a period which saw accelerated deregulation and globalization strongly impact the country's financial markets, leading to intensified competition over human resources. Foreign multinational corporations introduced into Japan's local product and labour markets new global ‘rules of the game’; in response, some native firms were forced to alter core aspects of a traditional employment model. The result was the emergence of diverging patterns of employment. The present study will demonstrate that the interaction of two key factors — national ownership and variation among core products and services offered — is shaping employment diversification, mediated by firms’ individual policies and practices. This research contributes to the debate on the effects of globalization on the divergence and change of employment systems.     

European Integration and Pension Policy Change: Variable Patterns of Europeanization in Italy,the Netherlands and Belgium

This article investigates how European welfare states respond to reform pressures arising from European integration. We focus on the field of public pensions and examine the impact of two institutional variables that mediate the impact of reform pressures: the extent of public pension provision and the number of national political veto points. We argue that, all else equal, member‐states with few veto points and a relatively small public pension sector are the most likely cases of policy change in response to Europeanization, whereas member‐states with a high number of veto points and extensive public pension commitments are the least likely candidates for policy change. We test these arguments in four cases of Europeanization in three countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy).     

How Capitalism Endogenously Creates Rising Income Inequality and Economic Crisis: The Macro Political Economy Model of Early Industrial Relations

A major economic issue today is the causes and consequences of wage stagnation and rising income inequality. This paper uncovers, describes, and formalizes the macro political economy model developed by pre–New Deal institutional/industrial relations economists to explain these issues. The model is formalized in a three‐part diagram and used to explain the role of inequality and wage stagnation in causing the Great Depression and World Financial Crisis and the appropriate policy responses.     

Patterns of Continuity and Change in Managerial Attitudes and Behaviour in Industrial Relations, 1980-1990

In this paper, data are reported from a longitudinal study of managers' attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations based on a sample of fellows and members of the British Institute of Management. An account of two surveys, carried out in 1980 and 1990, follows an examination of theories of the managerial role in industrial relations and the presentation of a research model. Managerial attitudes and behaviour are then analysed with respect to views on trade unions, personal commitments to collective representation, collective bargaining, employee participation and involvement and views on the role of government. The findings have an added significance because survey dates roughly correspond with the so-called ‘Thatcher years’. The conclusion is that some major changes in industrial relations have occurred during the decade in question, but there are also substantial continuities which cannot be ‘read off’ directly from the dramatic alterations in the political, economic and legal environment.     

Implementation of Social Innovations in Subsistence Marketplaces: A Facilitated Institutional Change Process Model

Implementation of social innovations in subsistence marketplaces often fails as a result of not bringing about institutional change. In this article, we study the process through which social enterprises facilitate local communities in effecting the process of institutional change as they introduce social innovations. Analyzing rich ethnographic data from 19 social enterprises, we develop the process of “facilitated institutional work” for implementing social innovation. We present a process model for implementing social innovation with four distinct stages involving social enterprises—(1) legitimating themselves within local communities, (2) disrupting aspects of the local institutional environment, (3) helping re‐envision institutional norms or practices, and (4) resourcing the institutional change process. The four stages relate to important concerns that local communities have in working with social enterprises implementing social innovations. These community‐level concerns revolve around the following questions: (1) Why should we allow an external social enterprise to be involved in our affairs? (2) Why do we need to change? (3) What should we change and what should we sustain? and (4) What role should we play in implementing change (such as in mobilizing resources)? This article demonstrates that bringing about institutional change is often necessary for implementing social innovations in subsistence marketplaces. The findings depict a participatory approach in which social enterprises work with local communities to bring about the institutional conditions necessary for implementing social innovation.     

The Dive and Disruption of Successful Current Products: Measures,Global Patterns,and Predictive Model

This study examines the diffusion of pairs of substitute products (current versus new) in five categories across 86 countries between 1977 and 2011. The study finds that current products reach a peak at about 56% of market penetration. Subsequently, they suffer a dramatic decrease in penetration of 286%, which we call the dive. A dive occurs in 96% of current products in five categories across 86 countries between 1977 and 2011. On average, the time from takeoff of new product to a peak in penetration of the current product is 6.6 years and to the dive of the current product is 8.4 years. The total time‐to‐dive includes a hidden discontinuance period (10.4 years), from the introduction of the new product to the peak of the current product, plus an overt time‐to‐dive (1.8 years), from the peak to the dive of the current product. The hidden discontinuance period and the overt time‐to‐dive are shorter, and the dive is steeper in emerging markets than in developed ones. A discrete‐time hazard model shows that the introduction of the new product, prior penetration of the current product, the population density of the country, and prior dives in other countries predict intercountry the hazard of a peak. Subsequently, takeoff of the new product, relative percentage growth in penetration of the current product prior to a peak, the length of the hidden discontinuance period, and prior dives in other countries predict the hazard of a dive. The models can predict the occurrence of a peak with true positive rate of 62% and a true negative rate of 87%, and a dive with a true positive rate of 82% and a true negative rate of 61%.     

DQ5030型斗轮机回转轴承的更换

斗轮机是一种大型的机械设备,当其仅是回转轴承需要检修更换以及检修时间紧迫时,我们采取了把回转以上部分整体顶起更换轴承的简便办法。 1.斗轮机简介 斗轮机型号DQ5030,连续取料500t/h,回转半径30m,总高14.925m,如图1所示。回转轴承以上部分重量152t。 回转支承装置的大型交叉滚子轴承如图2所示,其齿圈(外圈)3用52个M36×330mm的螺栓与门架上的固定平台相联,内圈1用36个M36×330mm的螺栓与回转平台相联,回转轴承重7.2t。     

Resisting algorithmic control: Understanding the rise and variety of platform worker mobilisations

Algorithms are seen as effective  for managing workers. Literature focuses mainly on the functioning and impact of algorithmic control on workers' experiences and conditions. The ways in which platform workers have organised collectively to regain control have received far less scholarly attention. This paper addresses this gap by making sense of the mobilisation dynamics of two platform-work categories: crowdwork (Amazon Mechanical Turk) and work on-demand (food-delivery couriers). These are salient mobilisation cases, as these workers have resisted algorithmic control by adopting specific organising modes, action repertoires and collective solidarities. By analysing a combination of extant literature and policy reports concerning each category of mobilisation forms at a global level over 5 years, the study elucidates why and how these workers were able to act without the involvement of traditional trade unions by showing that specific supportive communities and political activism traditions were crucial in the rise and variety of mobilisation.     

张掖市甘州区土地利用的时空结构分异研究

土地利用变化时空分异在很大程度上都反映于土地利用结构的时空分异,描述土地类型空间结构分异最常用的方法就是比较分析不同土地利用类型在空间方位上的差异。但考虑到此方法的一些缺陷,本文在上述方法的基础上,引入了年均变化强度指数指标来描述土地利用的时空结构分异特征。为了便于比较某一研究时期土地利用变化的强弱或趋势,可计算各空间单元的年均变化强度指数,它实质就是用各空间单元的土地面积来对其年均变化速度进行标准化处理,使其具有可比性,得出各不同用地类型的时空结构分异情况,对出现这种情况的原因进行综合分析评价,从而达到全面把握土地变化规律的目的。     

Science,practice and the System of Rice Intensification in Indian agriculture

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is claimed to be a novel approach to rice cultivation that is both more productive and more sustainable than conventional methods. Such claims have been challenged or dismissed by many rice scientists, however. Despite the lack of clear and unequivocal endorsement by science, SRI seems to have spread widely and rather quickly to many rice-growing regions, including various areas of India. This paper discusses how and considers why SRI seems to have attracted the support of diverse stakeholders in Indian rice farming. As such, the SRI phenomenon should be taken seriously. Nevertheless, many scientific questions remain to be answered, concerning the biophysical mechanisms involved in SRI and their effects on plant performance and crop yields, the true spread of SRI practices among farmers and the system’s impacts on farm livelihoods, rice production and resource use. Indian enthusiasm for SRI implies a level of dissatisfaction with conventional approaches to rice intensification and a demand for new methods that can address the perceived problems and challenges of agriculture in the future.     

Interpenetration of organization and market : Japan's firm and market in comparison with the U.S.

Resource allocation mechanisms used in the market and within the firm are quite often a mixture of the pure market principle and the pure organization principle. Market principles penetrate into the firm's resource allocation and organization principles creep into the market allocation. Interpenetration occurs to remedy the failure of pure principles other in the market or in the organization. After presenting this new perspective, we analyze resource allocation mechanisms in Japan and the U.S. One conclusion is that interpenetration patterns are rather different between the two countries due to institutional, economic and societal differences. We also analyze the ways in which these differences affect Japanese and American corporate behavior in such areas as diversification strategy, corporate financing, and innovation and venture business activity.     

Developing Japan's R & D staff: in search of a new personnel management?

The traditional system of managing corporate manpower resources in Japan has fostered incremental innovation, diversification and organic growth. The establishment of R & D labs for frontier research has brought debate about the need to reform, or even abandon, traditional methods. The evidence to date suggests marginal rather than wholesale change.     

It's Been A Hard Day's Night: The Concentration and Intensification of Work in Late Twentieth‐Century Britain

This paper presents evidence on trends in work pressure in late twentieth‐century Britain. The main findings are: (1) Average hours of work levelled off at the start of the 1980s, following a long historic fall, but have not increased since. However, the dispersion of hours has increased, and working hours have been concentrated into fewer households. (2) Work effort has been intensified since 1981. Intensification was greatest in manufacturing during the 1980s, and in the public sector during the 1990s. (3) Between 1986 and 1997 there have been substantial increases in the number of sources of pressure inducing hard work from employees.