International pharmaceutical supply prices: Definitions — problems — policy implications

In cases where the buyer and the seller of goods and services are companies belonging to the same group the prices charged for goods and services are called ‘international delivery prices’ or ‘international transfer prices’. The peculiarities of research-based companies are such that attempts to ascertain in practice what constitutes an ‘appropriate’ international delivery price are beset by a number of problems. Any scheme that is devised to solve the problems of international transfer prices should feature general ‘rules’ on how the various countries ought to share in central costs. As international transfer prices are a prerequisite for an efficient world economy based on the division of labour an agreement should be reached on the design and content of suitable delivery price systems for a research-intensive industry.     

Discounting inflation — a note

The aim of this paper is to clarify the confused issue of the effect of inflation on the discounting procedure for investment appraisal. The standard approach is considered, together with the impact of inflation, and the problem of how to adjust the standard approach to take account of inflation. The point is made that it is usually easiest to estimate expected returns in current prices, in which case the discount rate should reflect the real opportunity cost of capital, to avoid mixing real returns and nominal interest in a manner which leads to the rejection of worthwhile projects. An example is given of how the real rate of interest can be computed from the nominal rate of interest and the rate of inflation, and the difference this makes to discounting a sample project. The paper then illustrates how real rates of interest have frequently been negative over the past decade and how this implies that projects may be acceptable even if the sum of future undiscounted returns is less than the initial outlay. The conclusion drawn is that investors should maximize economic profit defined as the surplus over opportunity cost, which reduces the deterrent of nominally high interest rates, for the maximization of surplus over opportunity cost has the corollary of minimization of opportunity loss.     

Business formation — a network approach

This article suggests that the key to entrepreneurial success is to be found in the ability to develop and maintain a personal network. In elaborating this proposition I regard the environment of the business venture as “enacted”. The inexperienced new entrepreneur needs support to create a personal network and to manage the enacted environment. The concept of the “organizing context”, defined as a clustered sociocentric network, is introduced to provide a tool with which the entrepreneur can deal more efficiently with the different subprocesses that create his or her reality. The approach supplies a framework within which various forms of entrepreneurship — indigenous, corporate, etc. — can be compared and analysed beyond their institutional differences. The interaction between various forms of entrepreneurship and organizing contexts is empirically illustrated from case studies.     

Teamworking and performance: the extent and intensity of teamworking in the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98)

This article uses the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey to address two main issues: whether a relationship between teamworking and performance can be said to exist; and, if it can, how that relationship might be explained. For the first of these we construct a variable that measures the extent of teamworking within an establishment. This is found to be positively and significantly related to productivity and financial performance. To address our second main issue we examine the idea that the key factor in performance is the degree of teams' decision-making autonomy. We look at this by constructing a measure of teamworking intensity. This is found to be positively and significantly associated with productivity and quality levels. Taken alongside other studies, these results are used to suggest that, in looking at the teamworking-performance relationship, the focus of attention should be on the structural properties of teams rather than the individual team members' experiences of work.     

2014 – a year of widening monetary divergence

The Fed's December decision marks a change in active monetary policies. It is a natural consequence of the divergence in global growth that was one of the key developments of 2013. Over the course of the year, US and UK activity strengthened, remarkably so in the case of the UK where at the beginning of the year the talk was of a triple‐dip recession. Chinese activity held up, if below the stellar growth rates of the pre‐crisis years. Japan is beginning to see some dividend from Abenomics, but rather less than expected; while the Eurozone economy is slowing again after showing some brief strength in Q2, and may fall back into recession. Diverging growth was clearly signalled by diverging broad money growth earlier in the year…     

The Consultancy Process — An Insecure Business?

This paper examines the practices and perceptions of management consultants and their clients. The existing literature, which emphasizes managerial anxiety in accounting for the persistent use of consultants and, relatedly, the transience of management ideas is critically developed. It is argued that such accounts tend to be abstracted from the power relations of organizations and capitalism and to portray management as passive victims of confident consultants. An alternative interactive model is proposed, which is based on reciprocal and self-defeating concerns of clients and consultants to secure a sense of identity and control. This is explored empirically, highlighting the hitherto neglected active role of managers in resisting consultancy and the pressures and anxieties experienced by consultants. The account selectively draws on secondary sources as well as interview, documentary and survey research of IT strategy consultants and clients in the UK financial services sector.     

Macro/Micro — The False Division?

Is the teaching of economics based on a false perception of the nature of the subject? Professor Frank Tinari, of Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, presents a radial proposal to unify bath micro-economics in a single framework that analyses responses to scarcity.     

The Effect of ‘Simplicity’ on the Strategy–Performance Relationship: A Note*

abstract The concept of ‘simplicity’ ( Miller, 1993 ) in strategy making suggests a preoccupation with a single goal, strategic activity, or function. Prior research indicates that simplicity may, under certain conditions, benefit firm performance, but it may also limit an organization's perspective and blind it to the breadth and variety it needs to sustain its success. This field study investigates the role of simplicity as a moderator of strategy–performance relationships. Using moderated hierarchical regression analysis, simplicity was found to enhance performance among firms using cost leadership and focus strategies among a sample of 32 firms. The findings suggest that the strategy making styles and practices of strategic managers influence the character of the whole organization and often have an important impact on organizational outcomes.     

Technology and growth — measures and concepts: a case study of Denmark

Listed according to GDP per capita, Denmark ranks twelfth in the world and fourth in the European Economic Community (EEC). However, traditional technology indicators such as R&D intensity rank Denmark surprisingly low in the hierarchy of developed countries — surprisingly low in relation to the general assumption that high GDP is often associated with a high R&D effort [1]. This is particularly the case in a country which, like Denmark, lacks important natural resources and has relatively high wages for the unskilled workforce.Although there is no strict theoretical reason for this assumption, especially in a neo-classical/neo-factor proportion approach, the discrepancy between the levels of GDP and R&D makes it interesting to determine whether technology stems from sources other than immediately measurable R&D efforts.In the following we outline the Danish economy, and then see how knowledge and technology may be produced to explain the discrepancy between Denmark's economic level and its level of R&D.     

Budgeting — an unnecessary evil

Almost 30 years ago — in 1970 — the largest commercial bank in Sweden, Handelsbanken, was in a major crisis. Profitability was low and the bank was in conflict with the authorities. As a result of the crisis the executive director left the bank, as did several of the top officials.At this point the board of the bank asked me to become executive director. At that time I was head of a provincial bank in the northern part of Sweden – Sundsvallsbanken. I had been at that bank for ten years. Before that I was a professional economist, head of a major research institute and an associate professor at the University of Stockholm. I did not have any practical business experience and knew nothing about banking, but after 10 years in Sundsvallsbanken, I had learned a lot and developed some firm ideas about how to run a bank with a large network of branch offices.     

‘Totally Un‐Australian!’: Discursive and Institutional Interplay in the Melbourne Port Dispute of 1997–98*

ABSTRACT We examine how discourses are mobilized and deployed by actors in an inter‐organizational domain during a critical industrial relations event. We identify the ways that business interests and union interests in the Melbourne Port industrial dispute of 1997–98 related to each other. We weave concepts from domain theory and organizational discourse theory in deriving the concept of the discursively ordered domain. This suggests that the main processes that occur in a domain are actors’‘mapping’ texts onto discourses and discourses onto interpretive schemes which make certain courses of action rational and sensible. Methodologically, we join an institutional‐historical analysis and a text‐based discourse analysis to gain a well‐rounded understanding of the situation. We extract several discursive frameworks which the major actors mobilized to make sense of the situation, and draw linkages to the actions that those positions made possible. The main findings are that actors in the two networks performed complex mapping in different ways, the material and symbolic outcomes of the dispute are products of those mapping processes, and the material and discursive aspects of the domain interweave. We discuss the value of the concept of discursively ordered domain for mutually enriching domain theory and discourse analysis and for understanding critical events such as major industrial disputes in new ways.