Unnecessary Conflict: NHS Management's View of the 1989–90 Ambulance Dispute

This article gives the NHS management's view of the 1989–90 ambulance dispute. It is a factual and objective account of events before, during and after the dispute.     

救护车辆配置优化设计

针对当前医疗急救资源难以满足实际需求的情况,为了提高救护效率,缩短急救服务的响应时间,对救护车辆的配置调度进行了研究。在提出联合排队模型的基础上,给出了一系列评价急救系统性能的指标,并用C++语言实现了该算法。最后以苏州市内环线急救系统为例,验证了模型的有效性。结果表明,联合排队模型可以对急救系统的救护车辆配置进行有效评价,据此可以提出合理的调整意见。研究结果可为城市急救系统的救护车配置、调度等问题提供决策依据。     

Just Tell Me! Making Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems Fair

This study investigates fairness perceptions of alternative dispute systems utilizing a policy capturing design and a sample of four hundred and fifty non‐union, non‐management employees from seven organizations. The communication surrounding the decision, the level of employee input, and the composition of the grievance panel had larger effects on overall fairness perceptions than did outcome. Unfavorable outcomes that were reached by fair processes generate higher distributive justice ratings than favorable outcomes reached by unfair processes.     

Shadow of the contract: how contract structure shapes interfirm dispute resolution

This paper investigates how contract structure influences interfirm dispute resolution processes and outcomes by examining a unique dataset consisting of over 150,000 pages of documents relating to 102 business disputes. We find that the level of contract detail affects the type of dispute resolution approach that is adopted when conflict arises, and that different approaches are associated with different costs for resolving the dispute. We also find that the effect of contract choice on dispute resolution approach is moderated by the degree of coordination required in the relationship, and that the effect of dispute approach on costs is moderated by the degree of power asymmetry between the parties. Thus, even after controlling for various attributes of the exchange relationship and the dispute, the choice of contracting structure has important strategic implications. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

构建争议评审制度相关问题探讨

良好的争议解决方法能够促进建设工程顺利平稳地进行、减少当事人双方所投入的成本并维持融洽的商业合作关系.文章通过实地调研和文献查阅,对争议评审制度及其在我国的发展进行了介绍,并就我国建设工程争议评审制度当前所存在的问题进行了三个方面的概括和总结--缺少法律支持、评审条款存在问题以及评审专家缺乏.结合国际惯例,文章对争议评审制度构建提出了改进意见:尽快对争议评审进行法律界定,制订与之呼应的示范文本,构建高素质的专家队伍.     

中国视阈下的中小企业工资集体协商制度思考

劳资纠纷已经成为影响中国经济社会发展的重要因素,而中小企业则是劳资纠纷发生的重灾区。工资协商制度是避免阶级极化现象造成社会恶果的选择,如何在中国中小企业推行工资协商制度则成为解决中小企业劳资纠纷高发的关键。工资协商制度在中国中小企业推进中存在＂一刀切＂、工会职责缺失、制度缺位、错位等问题,因此,要让工资协商制度在中小企业中顺利、彻底推行,必须让政府、工会从中小企业实际出发,从企业发展与社会、劳工发展的角度对三方恰当定位,实现三方共赢。     

Fact‐Finding Effectiveness: Evidence from New York State Fact‐Finding Effectiveness

In a collective‐bargaining environment characterized by increasing fiscal and taxpayer pressures, this article examines the continued viability of fact‐finding as a dispute‐resolution mechanism in New York State's public sector. This is an important question because fact‐finding is the final dispute‐resolution procedure for most unionized employees in New York and many other states. Whether fact‐finding effectiveness was measured by the proximity of fact‐finder recommendations to the final settlement or by outright acceptance of the fact‐finder report, regression results show that New York fact‐finding has successfully met the challenges of the intensified environmental pressures in the 1990s. No significant decline was found in its ability to move parties toward the compromise outcome. Part of the fact‐finding's continued success can be attributed to the policy shift by New York's Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in 1991 in the role of the fact‐finder from an accommodative to a more adjudicative function. The well‐reasoned adjudicative fact‐finding report has more potential to bring public pressure to bear on the extreme positions of the parties. Mediation was better left to the professional PERB mediators. Finally, it also was found that fact‐finders who were full‐time neutrals were more effective under this more adjudicative style.     

Mexico's international telecommunications policy: Origins,the WTO dispute,and future challenges

Mexico is by far Latin America's largest trader and the country with the most free trade agreements. Notwithstanding the success of its trade policy, the liberalization of its telecommunications sector was limited and generated a dispute at the WTO. This article offers an overview of Mexico's trade policy, with special emphasis on its policy regarding trade in telecommunications services and the 2002–2004 Mexico–United States dispute over telecommunications at the WTO. The dispute is the first one over trade in telecommunications services at the WTO and has generated interest among many developed and developing countries.     

Policy risk,strategic decisions and contagion effects: Firm‐specific considerations

Research summary : In this article, we investigate the firm‐specific environment and its impact on firm strategy focusing on adverse changes in the policy environment and their effect on divestitures. We argue that experiencing a negative change in the firm‐specific policy environment causes firms to reassess their exposure to policy risk and their ability to manage their policy environment, making them more likely to divest. Operationalizing negative shifts in the firm‐specific policy environment through formal policy disputes between firms and governments, we find that following a dispute, firms are more likely to divest both in the country where the dispute occurs and in other countries in the same region. However, the impact of disputes on divestitures is firm specific, applying only to firms directly involved in a dispute . Managerial summary : What is the impact of change in the firm‐specific environment on firm strategy? We argue that when firms directly experience a negative change in their policy environment that is specific to them, they negatively reassess their exposure to policy risk and their ability to manage their policy environment, which makes them more likely to undertake a divestiture. We analyze formal disputes between firms and governments that arise from adverse changes in policy and find that, following a dispute, firms are more likely to divest in the country where the dispute occurs and in other countries in the same region. However, the impact of disputes on divestitures is firm specific as it applies only to firms directly involved in a dispute . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Dual Transformation of Workplace Dispute Resolution

This study examines the impact on grievance rates of variation in the structure of nonunion dispute resolution procedures and in systems of work organization. Nonunion dispute resolution procedures that feature nonmanagerial decision makers had higher grievance rates than nonunion procedures with managerial decision makers. Grievance rates also were lower in workplaces that had adopted self-managed teams.     

Mediator Tactics and Sources of Conflict: Facilitating and Inhibiting Effects

Sometimes mismatches between tactics used by mediators and causes of the dispute may reduce the likelihood of achieving a settlement. Data from collective-bargaining disputes suggest that when party inflexibility was a source of the dispute, added mediator pressure increased the likelihood of a settlement, but discussing alternatives reduced the likelihood of a settlement. However, mediation success improved in cases where there is a high level of interparty hostility and mediators focused on negotiation processes.     

Informal Employment Dispute Resolution among Low‐Wage Non‐Union Workers: Does Managerially Initiated Workplace Voice Enhance Equity and Efficiency?

The decline of collective industrial relations has shifted the focus of industrial relations research to the study of individual employment disputes. In this article, we investigate whether employer‐initiated workplace voice is associated with improved resolution of individual complaints or grievances workers make against employers. We find that our measure of workplace voice is associated with less serious problems, more informal methods of dispute resolution, more satisfactory outcomes for workers and lower quit rates. However, these findings need to be set against generally low rates of satisfactory dispute resolution for all employees in our sample.     

Firms and Innovative Conflict Management Systems in Ireland

This article examines the practices adopted by firms in the Republic of Ireland to manage conflict involving groups of employees, focusing in particular on the uptake of ‘alternative dispute resolution practices’. The article reveals that conflict management practices take the form of ‘systems’, and it estimates the incidence of innovative conflict management systems, incorporating alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices, as involving about 30 per cent of firms. A series of influences are shown to be associated with innovative, ADR‐based conflict management systems, especially commitment‐oriented HRM practices and whether unions are recognized.     

Do Public-Sector Strike Bans Really Prevent Conflict?

This article examines the effectiveness of strike-ban laws in reducing industrial conflict at the municipal level of government. Our central findings are that job actions were higher in states that had no law or no finality in the law, publicity campaigns were used as a pressure tactic in the bargaining process, and grievance delays were greatest under final offer arbitration. Thus dispute costs are highest in jurisdictions that provide no finality in dispute resolution whether or not an explicit framework for bargaining exists.     

Improved Metrics for Workplace Dispute Resolution Procedures: Efficiency,Equity, and Voice

Many debates surround systems for resolving workplace disputes. In the United States, traditional unionized grievance procedures, emerging nonunion dispute resolution systems, and the court‐based system for resolving employment law disputes have all been criticized. What is missing from these debates are rich metrics beyond speed and satisfaction for comparing and evaluating dispute resolution systems. In this paper, we develop efficiency, equity, and voice as these standards. Unionized, nonunion, and employment law procedures are then qualitatively evaluated against these three metrics.     

What makes countries initiate WTO disputes on food-related issues?

This paper analyses relevant determinants for the probability to initiate a dispute on policy measures under the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system. The empirical analysis differs from existing assessments by focusing on agro-food-related disputes and provides a more in-depth analysis of specific country and sectoral characteristics not considered in previous studies. Contrary to recent analyses of overall trade disputes, the results show that some determinants such as legal capacity and monetary means are not statistically significant. Own protectionist behaviour, endured protectionism, and the duration of WTO membership, however, could be identified as relevant determinants with the expected direction of impact.     

物业管理中管理与服务关系协调研究

随着物业管理行业的运作和推广,纠纷已成为阻碍物业管理发展的障碍。通过调查分析发现,纠纷产生和升高的主要原因便是人们对物业管理中管理和服务的关系混淆不清、认识不全面。分析了纠纷产生的原因,全面论证了管理和服务的辩证关系。指出实施物业管理需要重视几种关系,以帮助各参与方认清物业管理的属性,澄清在物业管理中管理和服务的辩证关系。     

论我国民诉调审分离的不合理性

在法院审判制度改革的道路上,国内一些学者提出我国法院应该建立调审分离制度以替代原来的调审合一制度。基于我国的基本国情,调审分离不能有力保护当事人的合法权益,不能有效限制主审法官对案件的不当影响力,也不能提高法院解决案件的效率,因此,当前的民诉调解制度改革应该另辟蹊径。     

Australian Labor Relations Through American Eyes

This article describes how Australia's conciliation and arbitration system emerged in the eighteen nineties and the key role it still plays in that county's labor relations. The respective roles of unions, management, and conciliation and arbitration are discussed, as are dispute resolution procedures at the national, industry-occupational, company, and plant levels. The functions of strikes and other forms of "industrial action" are examined.     

Hitting the Bricks: An International Comparative Study of Conflict on the Waterfront

Although many longshoremen have a deserved reputation for militancy, the waterfront has been remarkably peaceful in some countries. The propensity of longshoremen to strike is explored in an historical and international comparative context, looking beyond industry-level variables to determine the nature and causes of industrial action. The incidence of strikes on the waterfront depended ultimately on the propriety of labor regulation, most notably the operation of different "dock labor schemes" in combination with union leadership, management policy, and the efficacy of dispute resolution procedures.