Managerial and supervisory custom and practice

The term ‘custom and practice’ is more usually associated with the behaviour of workers rather than managers and supervisors. In addition, previous studies have been of large plants with strong workplace organisation. Peter Armstrong and John Goodman discuss managerial and supervisory custom and practice in the context of a study in a medium-sized factory in England.     

Culture and effort: British and Irish work-related values and attitudes

This paper examines British and Irish work-related values and attitudes. It is set in the context of the importance of eliciting high work commitment and effort from employees as a necessary condition for enhanced competitive performance. More specifically it seeks to establish if British and Irish work values and attitudes conform to what we would expect from Hofstede's indices. On the basis of the original international research presented here, Hofstede's indices are found not to be very reliable predictors of work values and attitudes in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The results suggest that work effort is associated with different values in these two countries.     

高校体育文化的发展与创新

高校体育文化是高校师生们在长期的教与学的过程中,共同创建和积累起来的一种文化现象。它是高校实施素质教育不可缺少的重要组成部分,也是提升外在形象的重要手段。文章从高校体育文化的相关概念出发,分析了体育文化的作用及现状,论述了高校体育文化建设的措施,最后提出了只有在不断探求与创新下,高校体育文化才能得到稳步长足的发展。     

Innovation and HRM: Absences and politics

This article analyses the role of HRM practices in the implementation of an innovative cross-functional approach to new product development (concurrent engineering, CE) in Eurotech Industries. Contrary to CE methodology stipulations, and despite supportive conditions, HRM received scant attention in the implementation process. Organizational power and politics were clearly involved in this situation, and this article explores how their play created such HRM ‘absences’. The article builds on a four-dimensional view of power in order to provide a deeper understanding of the embedded, interdependent and political nature of HRM practice and innovation.     

Prices and investment with collateral and default

This paper uses the framework of an OLG economy with three-period lived agents in which a durable good serves as collateral for loans, to study the effect of an unanticipated income shock when the economy is in a steady state equilibrium. We focus on the consequence of default on loans when the value of the collateral falls below the value of the debt it secures. We analyze the impulse response functions of the price and production of the durable good and show that there is an asymmetry between the response of the price and investment of the durable good to a positive and a negative income shock arising from default on the collateralized loans. We show that this asymmetry can be seen in the data on housing prices and construction and is attributable to the default on mortgages in periods of decreasing prices which acts as a turbo mechanism magnifying the decline in investment.     

波动和相关的一致性与差异及传染的阶段特征

本文首次分析了市场波动和相关的一致性与差异,并进而考察金融危机期间传染的阶段特征。研究表明,危机期间,高波动与高相关具有较高的一致性,其他时期则存在差异;几乎不会出现高波动低相关的情形,但并非总是波动性的增加引致了关联水平的上升,关联水平的上升也可能会先于波动性的增加;危机初期,市场需要对复杂的信息进行不断地识别和过滤,以至于波动机制、相关机制都存在较为频繁的转换;次贷危机、欧洲主权债务危机的传染具有系统性特征。     

Financial participation and recruitment and retention: causes and consequences

Using a sample of over 5000 establishments in Germany, we analyze the antecedents and effects of profit sharing (PS) and employee share ownership (ESO) with respect to the ability of firms to meet their recruitment and retention objectives and to achieve employment growth. We draw on both economic and behavioral perspectives to argue that firms that adopt PS and ESO plans do so in order to attract and retain employees. Using logistic regression and a propensity score matching technique, we find that firms that face higher recruitment problems, and those that have greater employment growth objectives, are more likely to use ESO and PS. Unlike ESO, PS enhances firm-level employment growth. However, neither ESO nor PS help firms to fully resolve recruitment and retention problems.     

高校宣传思想工作面临的挑战与对策

高校作为我国意识形态工作的前沿阵地，肩负着学习研究宣传马克思主义，培育和弘扬社会主义核心价值观，培养中国特色社会主义事业建设者和接班人的重要使命，加强和改进新形势下高校宣传思想工作具有极端重要性。本文通过分析高校宣传思想工作面临的主要挑战、存在的突出问题及工作着力点，就进一步做好新形势下高校宣传思想工作、加强高校意识形态阵地建设提出了对策建议。     

Fragmentation and parts and components trade: Comparison between East Asia and Europe

This paper argues that fragmentation theory is well suited for explaining the mechanics of international production/distribution networks in East Asia, in contrast with the traditional horizontal product differentiation model fitted for intra-industry trade in core Europe. Using finely disaggregated international trade data, patterns of international trade in East Asia and Europe, particularly trade in machinery parts and components, are carefully examined, and the gravity equation approach is applied to check the validity of the theoretical framework.     

Actual and counterfactual growth incidence and delta Lorenz curves: Estimation and inference

Different economic growth episodes display very different distributional characteristics, both across countries and over time. Growth is sometimes accompanied by rising and sometimes by falling inequality. Applied economists have come to rely on the growth incidence curve, which gives the quantile‐specific rate of income growth over a certain period, to describe these differences. This paper introduces a mean‐independent analogue, the delta Lorenz curve, which gives the cumulative change in income share up to each quantile. We also develop estimation and inference procedures for both functions of quantiles. We establish the limiting null distribution of the test statistics of interest for those functions, and propose resampling methods to implement inference in practice. The proposed methods are used to compare the growth processes in the USA and Brazil during 1995–2007. Although growth in the average real wages was disappointing in both countries, the distribution of that growth was markedly different. In the USA, wage growth was mediocre for the bottom 80% of the sample, but much more rapid for the top 20%. In Brazil, conversely, wage growth was rapid below the median, and negative at the top. Wage shares fell in the USA up to the 83rd percentile, and rose in Brazil up to the 65th percentile.     

Make and Use Approaches to Regional and Interregional Accounts and Models

Institutional, or sector-by-sector input–output tables have traditionally been used in regional and interregional modelling. This paper examines the origins of this tradition and argues instead, both theoretically and empirically, for the integration of make and use submodels within models of production, demand and interregional trade, outlining the manner in which they can be integrated. Further, it is argued that structural rather than reduced-form models represent a sounder theoretical base. Finally, a Danish interregional model (LINE) based on a social accounting matrix framework that employs these principles is presented. The paper also deals with the issue of data construction at the regional and interregional levels, based on the make and use approach. It is argued that when data are constructed at a low level of sectoral and spatial aggregation under accounting consistency constraints, data quality and validity are high.     

Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises and Sustainability: Managers' Values and Engagement with Environmental and Climate Change Issues

This article reports on an in‐depth, qualitative study into the pro‐environmental engagement of small businesses in the east of England, with respect to climate change in particular. Managers of environmentally pro‐active small businesses were asked about the pro‐environmental measures they had implemented in their firms, their motivations for doing so, and their understanding of climate change. The managers in this study had a relatively good understanding of environmental issues in general and climate change in particular, and had implemented a range of pro‐environmental measures in their firms. Their understanding of climate change was a holistic one, which sat within their overall understanding of environmental and social issues. While economic arguments and external pressure played a role in their pro‐environmental engagement, perhaps the most notable motivation for managers in this study to engage with environmental and climate change issues was personal values and beliefs. Environmentally engaged managers exhibited an internal locus of control. Some of these findings contrast with the views of key informants in local government and business advice organisations, who tend to emphasise the business case and cost arguments when trying to encourage small businesses towards greater environmental engagement. These findings suggest that public policy and business advice in this area should perhaps focus more strongly on personal values and a sense of being able to contribute to environmental protection in their engagement with small businesses. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Technology transfer and the restructuring of science and technology in central and eastern Europe

Profound changes which have occurred in central and eastern Europe (CEE) have left science and technology systems in those countries in a dilapidated state. Reform efforts have focused on restructuring and privatising research institutes and promoting technology transfer between domestic institutions and between domestic and foreign institutions.¹ Both of these reform initiatives are aimed at increasing levels of innovation. Emphasis has been put on introducing the market mechanism. This paper looks at these reforms in CEE, particularly in Poland. The following broad points emerge: First, the track record of efforts to promote technology transfer need to be understood and interpreted in conjunction with a fuller understanding of institutional change, innovation and learning. Technology transfer is meant to encourage innovation, but a range of things need to happen if technology transfer initiatives are to work. Gibbons (Gibbons M. et al., 1994) observed, for example, that effective innovation requires new configurations of knowledge (and skills). The coordination activities required to effect these new configurations within and between organisations and institutions impose their own demands on actors engaged in technology transfer, which rapid privatisation or liberalisation policies in CEE do not begin to address. Reform policies which have focused on introducing new economic incentives need to address change at micro and meso levels. Creating new institutional practice depends not only on creating economic incentives but on wider reform processes, such as creating new organisational practices and encouraging the emergence of new sorts of institutions which can facilitate links. Second, the reform process is a social and political one. Changing the emphasis of policy towards technological development requires a change in power relations so that technological development and innovation, rather than success in science, are prioritised. These political battles greatly influence the pace and nature of change, and in CEE the promotion of technology and innovation is taking place in a context of social upheaval. Social consequences of reform in general and in science and technology in particular are difficult and uncomfortable, and change in this area is perhaps not yet a political priority in some CEE countries.     

A study of HRM and recruitment and selection policies and practices in Taiwan

In this paper, the authors present and discuss the findings of a survey of human resource management (HRM) and recruitment and selection policies and practices in a sample of manufacturing industry in Taiwan. The results indicate that there is a general desire among HR professionals in participant companies that HRM policies are integrated with corporate strategy and that HRM should be involved in decision making at board level. Evidence was also obtained that some HRM decisions are shared between line management and HR specialists and that line managers had a particularly influential role in decisions regarding recruitment and selection, training and development, and workforce expansion/reduction. There was also some evidence supporting an assertion that certain recruitment and selection practices were culturally sensitive and this was supported by evidence of association between recruitment and selection practices and country of ownership.     

逆向工程技术的应用及国内外研究的现状及发展趋势

随着世界工业制造及设计技术的进步及各国经济相互影响日趋加大,人们对产品的各方面要求也越来越高。产品不仅要有方便实用的先进功能,还要具备美观的造型和个性的外观。而且外观和造型的好坏已成为产品的重要竞争因素。逆向工程技术广泛的应用在设计和制造中。     

Money and its Economic and Social Functions: Simmel and European Monetary Integration

A bstract This essay tries to put Georg Simmels The Philosophy of Money into the context of current monetary discussions in economics. Part I looks at the contribution of Georg Simmel in context and offers remarks about the changing structure of economics as a discipline composed of many different subdisciplines. It is argued that Simmel is able to transcend subdisciplinary borders, to great benefit for today's scholar. Part III explains Heinsohn and Steiger's recent contribution to monetary economics in terms of transactions and property rights; although the contribution has been made more in the context of post-Keynesian economics, this is the only way to comprehend and integrate it into the mainstream of scholarly discourse. This examination shows that Simmels approach, transgressing interdisciplinary borders, has merits even today. Part IV looks at the perplexing phenomenon of European monetary integration with a similar interdisciplinary perspective in mind. In this case, it is not monetary economics but constitutional political economy which is the unifying concept to explain the peculiar features of European monetary integration.     

高校科技成果转化创新管理模式研究

本文首先从背景和意义入手,对当前我国高校科技成果转化的现状进行了分析,之后通过对分析结果的研究提出了一些改善措施,以期能够为业内的研究和应用者提供参考和借鉴,更好地促进相关工作的改革和发展。     

论中小企业与县域经济

中小企业的发展，改革了县域经济的产业结构，促进县域经济迅猛发展，为我国综合国力的增强作了贡献。浙江台州各地的县域中小企业既有困难又具很大的发展潜能，因而除了政府在导向上，从“抓大放小”转向“抓大扶小”，加大扶持力度给予优惠的政策环境外，还应从以下五个方面扶持。即：发挥所有制多元化优势，扶持一批实力企业上规模；发挥“小而优”“小而特”优势，引导条块结合，块状聚集，发展块状经济；利用灵活机制优势，多形式多渠道局长与大企业的协作关系；利用传统出口商品渠道，发展外向型经济，帮助建立社会化服务体系。     

Trends and prospects in state and local finance

This article reviews trends in the national total of the expenditures of state and local governments for the period of 1929–1982. The principle conclusions are that growth of federal grants has played a significant role in the growth of these expenditures, and that even after allowing for the effects of relative price, income, and federal grants, a relatively large unexplained positive residual remains. Part of this upward drift in expenditures, especially for the period of 1950–1970, can be accounted for by the growth in school-age population. The article ends with a brief discussion of future prospects for subnational governments.     

Performance appraisal and culture: practice and attitudes in Hong Kong and Great Britain

This article compares the practice of and attitudes towards performance appraisal for managerial and professional staff in Hong Kong and Britain, and considers the extent to which actual practice and employee preferences are in alignment. Findings suggest that appraisal may be more widespread in Hong Kong than in Britain. However, British appraisal tends to be more participative and to place greater emphasis on discussing objectives, development and career plans. Hong Kong appraisals appear to be more directive and Hong Kong respondents perceive a higher level of 'negative' appraiser behaviour. In spite of this, Hong Kong respondents show if anything slightly more confidence in the utility of appraisal than do British respondents. They show stronger support for appraisal's use for reward and punishment and less support for the objectives-setting and training and development uses than do the British sample. Hong Kong respondents are more likely than their British counterparts to favour involving a more senior manager in appraisal, and they are less likely to prefer more frequent appraisals. There was little evidence that Hong Kong respondents had a stronger preference for group-based appraisal criteria, although they did show more support than the British sample for the use of personality as a basis for appraisal. Overall, the suggestion is that appraisal has been adopted in Hong Kong organizations but that the practice of appraisal has been adapted to suit the cultural characteristics of the society.