‘A Land of Milk and Honey’? Reengineering the ‘Past’ and ‘Present’ in a Call Centre*

ABSTRACT This article explores how managers, in the Call Centre of a Bank, (re)defined, and drew boundaries around ‘past’ cultural conditions, in relation to the introduction of a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) regime. Managers represented the ‘past’ negatively, in terms of conflict and coercion, whilst the ‘present’ was largely described as a Shangri‐La of teams and consensus. This eschewing of the ‘past’ and sublimation of the ‘present’ stood in opposition to the representations of the staff. Both the ‘staff’ and ‘managers’ seemed to reject or embrace discourses that challenged or coincided with their understanding of how things are or should be. In view of this, their understanding of the past/present is inseparable from a consideration of power and identity. The article examines the interplay between discourses and individuals, arguing that it is bound up with fear and anxiety, hope and aspiration, memory and nostalgia, among other, everyday life experiences.     

Environmental management: from ‘fit’ to ‘stretch’

Environmental management is a budding discipline that studies the development and shaping of environmental policy in business. This article discusses what progress has been made in theory building in the field of environmental management, and what priorities should be set for future research. The level of ambition of a company with respect to its environmental performance is seen as the result of the following three variables: the coincidence of increased eco-efficiency and market opportunities; the internal structure and culture of the company (including the influence of a number of important actors in it) and the pressure from the immediate and wider social environment to take environmental measures. Research in the field of environmental management can improve our understanding of the conditions under which companies will strive for higher eco-efficiencies. It is argued that such research must concentrate on the interaction of the three variables mentioned above and on how they affect the actions of companies. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The ‘science’ and ‘practice’ of HRM in small firms

This paper looks at the ‘science’ and ‘practice’ of human resource management in small firms. While there is growing evidence that the practice of human resource management in small firms is characterized by informality, there is less evidence about the science, or explaining why this is the case. We look to writing on strategic human resource management, which has at its heart the resource based view of the firm, for possibilities offered to understanding the science of human resource management in small firms.     

Beware of ‘Good’ Outliers and Overoptimistic Conclusions*

The main goal of this paper is to warn practitioners of the danger of neglecting outliers in regression analysis, in particular, good leverage points (i.e. points lying close to the regression hyperplane but outlying in the x‐dimension). While the types of outliers which do influence regression estimates (vertical outliers and bad leverage points) have been extensively investigated, good leverage points have been largely ignored, probably because they do not affect the estimated regression parameters. However, their effect on inference is far from negligible. We propose a step‐by‐step procedure to identify and treat all types of outliers. The paper of Persson and Tabellini [American Economic Review (2004) Vol. 94, pp. 25–46] linking the degree of proportionality of an electoral system to the size of government is discussed to illustrate how the choice of a measure and the existence of atypical observations may substantially influence results.     

Temporary Liaisons: The Commitment of ‘Temps’ Towards Their Agencies*

abstract The majority of research on organizational commitment has focused on commitment in traditional, ongoing and open‐ended relationships. The commitment of employees in non‐standard work arrangements such as temporary employment has been subject to much less theoretical and empirical investigation. In this study, we examine the affective and continuance commitment of temporary workers towards their agency and its determinants. We distinguish two groups of determinants: the process by which the temporary worker chose a particular agency and the support provided by the agency. The findings can be summarized as follows: (1) affective commitment among temps is generally higher than their continuance commitment; (2) having more alternative agencies to choose from (i.e., volition) does not enhance the commitment of temporary workers; (3) a public choice for a particular agency raises both types of commitment, whereas the perceived agency dependence created by the choice increases continuance, but not affective commitment; and (4) both types of commitment are positively influenced by agency supportiveness, reflected in the way the agency deals with problems, the career support it provides, and the way it keeps in close contact with its temporary workers. Finally, the results suggest that factors raising affective commitment may ‘spill over’ to increase continuance commitment.     

‘House poor’ or simply ‘poor’?

This paper defines a set of indicators for distinguishing housing affordability problems resulting from high rents from those chiefly arising from low income. In place of the common ratio of rent to income, it uses a residual income indicator with indicators of over-consumption and over-paying for housing services. The indicators are computed for a sample of renter households in Switzerland, one of the countries with the greatest rental share. They help define more precisely who needs general income assistance and who needs specific housing aid (only one fourth of the former).     

The ‘New Political Economy’ and British Economic Policy for India*

Abstract . James Mill, as a high official of the East India Company, had the opportunity after 1819 to establish economic policy for India. In fact, James Mill's Utilitarian philosophy of government and his advocacy of Ricardian rent theory as the basis for revenue policies in India set the pattern for the development of modern India. Both James and John Stuart Mill (who succeeded his father with the company) defended the company against its critics, such as J. R. McCulloch and Richard Jones, who argued that the revenue policy was inhibiting economic development. Modern Indian institutions are an amalgamation of Benthamism, Fabian Socialism, and Brahminism.     

The sophistication of ‘naive’ modeling

The relatively high predictive power of a naive market share model is due to (1) its similarity to the reduced form representation of the underlying model and (2) the comparison with forecasts generated from structural models that are likely to be misspecified.     

Combating environmental repercussions through ‘TQEM’ and ‘ISO 14000’

Business is totally dependent on society although we sometimes do not experience it that way. All business, even in their most limited form, confront environmental issues, some more than others. Business leaders will be actively addressing social and environmental issues. These companies will be going for certification to ISO 14001 (EMS) and progressive organizations have moved beyond EMS requirement, seizing control of environmental operations through Total Quality Environmental Management (TQEM). Industry leaders are incorporating environmental thinking into every aspect of their operations. As a long‐range plan towards TQEM, an organization can have a road map and a clear model for achieving excellence in the area of Environmental Management. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Community Leadership and the Construction of Political Legitimacy: Unpacking Bourdieu's ‘Political Capital’ in Post‐Apartheid Johannesburg

Apart from local monographs and normative texts on community participation, research on community leadership constitutes a blind spot in urban leadership, urban politics, social movements and urban studies. This article, based on case studies in post‐apartheid Johannesburg, contributes to theorizing community leadership, or informal local political leadership, by exploring Bourdieu's concepts of ‘political capital’ and ‘double dealings’. Considering community leaders as brokers between local residents and various institutions (in South Africa, the state and the party), we examine how leaders construct their political legitimacy, both towards ‘the bottom’ (building and maintaining their constituencies), and towards ‘the top’ (seeking and sustaining recognition from fractions of the party and the state). These legitimation processes are often in tension, pulling community leaders in contradictory directions, usefully understood under Bourdieu's concept of ‘double dealings’. Community leaders are required, more than formally elected political leaders, to constantly reassert their legitimacy in multiple local public arenas due to the informal nature of their mandate and the high level of political competition between them — with destructive consequences for local polity but also the potential for increased accountability to their followers. We finally reflect on the relevance of this theoretical framework, inspired by Bourdieu, beyond South African urban politics.     

The Business School ‘Business’: Some Lessons from the US Experience*

US business schools dominate the business school landscape, particularly for the MBA degree. This fact has caused schools in other countries to imitate the US schools as a model for business education. But US business schools face a number of problems, many of them a result of offering a value proposition that primarily emphasizes the career‐enhancing, salary‐increasing aspects of business education as contrasted with the idea of organizational management as a profession to be pursued out of a sense of intrinsic interest or even service. We document some of the problems confronting US business schools and show how many of these arise from a combination of a market‐like orientation to education coupled with an absence of a professional ethos. In this tale, there are some lessons for educational organizations both in the US and elsewhere that are interested in learning from the US experience.     

From ‘social club’ to ‘integrated membership scheme’: developing membership schemes strategically

Changes in the economic and political climate have resulted in income generation becoming increasingly important for cultural organisations and one method of achieving this is to develop closer relationships with individuals, for example, members. Friends' schemes (also known as membership schemes, societies and organisations) exist in a variety of formats and provide organisations with a range of benefits in addition to their income‐generation potential. These include advocacy, influence and a stable volunteer base. This paper makes a contribution in three areas of cultural management: it presents the findings of a study of friends' schemes within large museums and galleries in London and identifies distinctive typologies of scheme; creates a framework that practitioners can use as a diagnostic tool to analyse their own scheme; and finally, provides strategic direction to assist in the evolution of membership schemes. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

The Bridge to the ‘Real World’: Applied Science or a ‘Schizophrenic Tour de Force’?*

abstract This article concerns those publications which have received considerable attention in an academic as well as in a practical context. In these rare cases, it seems that it was possible to transfer scientific findings more or less directly into managerial implications. This widely shared view is contrasted with a socials systems perspective. From this point of view there cannot be a direct application of scientific knowledge. This also holds true for the classic examples of applied science. It is argued that even in these cases there is no evidence of linear knowledge transfer but rather ‘Applied Science Fiction’ (ASF). ASF comprises all techniques with which the scientific system reacts to external application pressure without having to relinquish its own self‐referential logic. Different forms of ASF are introduced. These are retrofitting, reputation, symbolic labels and undisciplined eclecticism. The ASF‐concept will be illustrated by Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy. Paradoxically, however, the conventional concept of application and ASF are a barrier for the sustainable relevance of management studies.     

Institutionalization of ‘The Property Mind’

This essay discusses the idea of ‘the culture of property’ and whether it combines the economic and cultural explanations of gentrification. To explore the idea of a culture of property in the case of Singapore, it examines both what motivates Singaporeans to invest in real estate (e.g. nostalgic feelings, duty, guilt, moral economy, face, filial piety towards ancestors and a way to remember their origins as reasons for investing in properties in China), and the institutions in the property state of Singapore (e.g. the possibility of owning and selling public housing, collective sales legislation that encourages collective profitmaking and the pension system) that increase Singaporeans' appetite for property and make them watchers of the property market. Lastly, the essay discusses the consciousness of evictions and of class differences and notes the random and unfair nature of the property market. It ends with a call for further research on real estate and property development, and their role in increasing urban inequality.