Single‐loop project controls: Reigning paradigms or straitjackets?

This article reports on the results from an ongoing research program to study the role mental models play in project decision making. Project management belongs to the class of multiloop nonlinear feedback systems, but most managers do not see it that way. Our experimental results suggest that managers adopt simplistic single‐loop views of causality, ignore multiple feedback interactions, and are insensitive to nonlinearities. Specifically, the article examines single‐loop models of project planning and control, discusses their limitations, and proposes tools to address them.     

Brexit — velvet divorce or messy breakup?

• We use a ‘scenario tree’ approach to look at the possible outcomes of the negotiations around the UK's exit from the EU. Given how little common ground there is between the two sides, we find that a relatively loose relationship is the most likely outcome, with the UK set to leave the EU in early‐ 2019.
• The negotiating positions of the UK and EU are diametrically opposed. The UK wants to end the free movement of labour, cease making contributions to the EU budget and regain ‘sovereignty’ from Brussels, while retaining as much access to the single market as possible. But the EU's starting position is that single market access is dependent upon agreeing to the four freedoms and that this is non‐negotiable.
• So far all signs are that the UK will prioritise the ability to control immigration over single market access. Thus remaining a member of the EEA is very unlikely to be viable over the longer‐term – our scenario tree analysis gives it a probability of just 6% – although it may be adopted as an interim step. Remaining part of the customs union is also unlikely (18%) as it will preclude the UK from making FTA with third countries.
• If the EU takes a mercantilist approach, it will have little incentive to come to an agreement with the UK over single market access for services, given the UK's large trade surplus with the EU for these activities, implying that UK firms may face growing non‐tariff barriers after the UK has left the EU. The UK's large deficit on goods trade with the EU gives a better chance of agreeing a FTA for goods, though with any FTA requiring agreement from all 27 EU members, the UK would have to be prepared for lengthy negotiations and make extensive concessions. Therefore, we think that a reversion to WTO rules (37%) is slightly more likely than agreeing a FTA (36%).

     

Investigations of sexual harassment allegations: Legal means fair—or does it?

Sexual harassment investigations are among the most sensitive and explosive of all HR activities, yet HR managers typically do not receive training in how to conduct these investigations. As a result, and despite the best efforts of the HR manager, the parties involved often believe they were not treated fairly. Our article focuses on the central question of providing fair treatment during the emotionally charged atmosphere of a sexual harassment investigation. We integrate the organizational justice literature with case law and move through five “stages” of an investigation. Lessons in each stage are highlighted, dilemmas are discussed, and guidelines are offered. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Carbon risk management and corporate competitive advantages: “Differential promotion” or “cost hindrance”?

Given the strengthening of carbon regulations and the launch of emission trading scheme in China, companies are facing tremendous pressure to reduce carbon emissions, suggesting the necessity of understanding whether carbon risk management may affect corporate financial benefits. Therefore, this paper empirically demonstrates the influence of carbon risk management on corporate competitive advantages. We find that the relationship between carbon risk management and corporate competitive advantages is a “kuznets curve” that exists only among firms with weak product competition. And this relationship tends to be weakened in firms with a distant administrative hierarchy. We conclude that the influence of low carbon management on corporate competitive advantages is complicated and subject to the firm's political relevance.     

External transparency or internal capture? The role of third‐party statements in adding value to corporate environmental reports11

The paper seeks to evaluate the extent to which verification statements appearing in published corporate environmental reports promote organizational transparency and the empowerment of external parties. To this end, a detailed content analysis was performed on such statements appearing in reports short‐listed for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Environmental Reporting Awards for the first seven years of the scheme since its inception in 1991/92. Key issues focused upon included those of verifier independence, degree of rigour applied to verification work, whether the performance dimension is meaningfully addressed in verification statements and the extent to which such statements may be considered to ‘add value’ for external constituencies. Our analysis of the basic characteristics of these ‘leading edge’ statements raises fundamental questions concerning the independence of verification. There is much evidence of auditee control over the process, with an overriding emphasis on the environmental management systems at the expense of commentary on performance‐based ‘first order’ audit. The disturbing conclusion revealed is that current verification practice exhibits a ‘managerial turn’ rather than representing corporate commitment to external transparency and accountability. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Offshoring of routine tasks and (de)industrialisation: Threat or opportunity—And for whom?

Offshoring, or overseas sourcing of routine tasks, generates efficiency gains that benefit consumers and workers with skills similar to those whose very jobs are threatened by offshoring. Essentially, the interaction between offshoring, footloose capital and agglomeration economies locks the comparative advantage of advanced nations in complex or strategic functions while labour services in ‘routine’ tasks, the coordination of which is easily codified, are provided by low-wage developing nations through the fibre optic cable. In this framework, the partial-equilibrium view that offshoring is necessarily detrimental to workers in advanced nations is misguided because the implicit counterfactual—that keeping the off-shored jobs would have no macroeconomic impact on the economy—is not warranted. In addition, inasmuch as routine tasks create few positive feedbacks, trade in tasks can be an impediment to income convergence, unlike trade in goods. In short, this paper qualifies the views that offshoring hurts workers in the North and accelerates income convergence between the North and the South.     

Employee performance,well‐being,and differential effects of human resource management subdimensions: Mutual gains or conflicting outcomes?

The human resource management (HRM) literature supports the idea that coherent systems of HRM practices can induce attitudinal effects when perceived subjectively by employees. Recently, scholars have proposed that subdimensions of HRM systems exist and account for variance in outcomes. This study explores differential effects of three subdimensions of HRM systems (skill‐, motivation‐, and opportunity‐enhancing HRM practices) on employee innovative behaviours and well‐being. Our predictions are based on the mutual gains perspective, which specifies positive relationships between HRM practices and employee performance, and the conflicting outcomes perspective that links HRM practices to higher job demands and stress. Using data from the Finnish 2012 Practices of Working Life Survey, we find support for both the mutual gains and conflicting outcomes perspectives; however, we also show that the effects of the subsets of HRM practices are heterogeneous.