British employers and the Social Chapter: some survey evidence

This note reports the results of a survey of firms operating in Britain concerning the impact on their costs and operations of the Social Action Programme. We find that the realised and anticipated adverse impacts of the legislation are rather limited, although both do appear to be greater for firms which are relatively large, skill intensive, and which have a substantial amount of trade with other EU countries. In particular, the survey results provide little evidence to suggest that the imposition of a minimum wage of £3.50 per hour would have a substantial adverse impact on employment. Evidence does, however, suggest that firms which pay relatively low wages are likely to be affected more than others by the legislation.     

Performance trends in the construction industry worldwide: an overview of the turn of the century

This paper presents an exploratory study to assess the efficiency level of construction companies worldwide, exploring in particular the effect of location and activity in the efficiency levels. This paper also provides insights concerning the convergence in efficiency across regions. The companies are divided in three regions (Europe, Asia and North America), and in the three main construction activities (Buildings, Heavy Civil and Specialty Trade). We analyze a sample of 118 companies worldwide between 1995 and 2003. Data envelopment analysis is used to estimate efficiency, and the Malmquist index is applied for the evaluation of productivity change. Both methods were complemented by bootstrapping to refine the estimates obtained. A panel data truncated regression with categorical regressors is used to explore the impact of location and activity in the efficiency levels. The results reveal that the efficiency of North American companies is higher than the European and Asian counterparts. Other important conclusion points to a convergence in efficiency levels across regions as in North America productivity remains stable, whereas in Asia and Europe productivity improves.     

The employability of new graduates: a study of differences between UK universities

The non-stationarity tests of Phillips-Perron (1988) (PP tests) suggest that Australian macroeconomic output possesses a stochastic rather than a deterministic log-linear trend. Kwiatkowski et al. (1991) argue that such tests have low power and propose the KPSS test, in which the null is stationary. However, the KPSS test results reinforce the PP findings for Australia. Cochrane (1988) variance ratio (VR) tests further suggest that there may be a very strong random-walk component in the Australian business cycle. Rappoport and Reichlin (1989), however, argue that all such tests are biased in favour of the stochastic trend alternative if there are trend breaks in the data. Following up on this point, the paper finds that, in Australia's case, the stochastic trend alternative is statistically dominated when the data are allowed to be characterized by a probabilistic, regime-switching, segmented trend specification. Therefore, to the extent that real business-cycle theories of the business cycle gain support from stochastic trends in real output, this latter piece of Australian evidence does not strengthen their case.     

Up Around the Bend: Linear and nonlinear models of the UK economy compared

A variety of methods - including vector autoregression (Bayesian and nonBayesian) and neural networks - are used to construct models of the UK economy, and their forecasting performance is compared.     

The determinants of student loan take-up in the United Kingdom

Survey data are used to identify the variables which influence the decision of undergraduates at a British university to take up subsidized loans for maintenance support. Inferences are drawn about the existence and magnitude of any gender and class biases in the willingness to enter a debt arrangement with the Student Loans Company. It is established that women are significantly less likely to take out a loan of this kind than are men, but that low parental occupational status does not deter students from taking out a loan. There is some evidence that vocational relevance of the subject read positively influences student' willingness to enter a debt arrangement     

When partnerships don't ‘match‐up’: an evaluation of labour–management partnerships in the automotive components and civil aviation industries

Following the agenda for partnership research set out recently in this journal, ‘exemplar’ case studies from the automotive and civil aviation industries are subject to the litmus (process) test of academic pluralists and the acid (outcomes) test of academic radicals. On both tests, the results have been disappointing, especially for trade unions and their members. However, while mutual gains from partnership agreements are not probable in a UK context, they are still possible, as comparative research in the civil aviation sector serves to illustrate.     

Trade union participation in CSR deliberation: an evaluation

Whereas there has been considerable interest in the concept of political corporate social responsibility (CSR), trade unions have been largely omitted from such scholarly discussion. This article explores the potential of trade unions as the other in political CSR and the contribution of trade unions to deliberative democracy with the firm. We discuss the importance both of the legitimacy and the efficacy of the other in political CSR. We proceed to assess trade unions as legitimate and effective deliberative partners with the firm towards CSR, evaluating the contribution of trade unions to deliberative democracy and also the potential outcomes for trade unions in adopting this role.     

The Management of Universities; Scottish Economic Society/Royal Bank of Scotland Annual Lecture, 1999

This paper surveys the literature concerning the operation of incentive mechanisms within and across higher education institutions. A principal-agent model of intra-institution resource allocation is developed, and its implications are compared with some of the resource allocation models currently in operation in British universities. At the inter-institutional level, the model is adapted to the case where a funding council serves as principal to many agents—the universities. Evidence on the scale and scope economies, and on the technical efficiency of UK universities is presented. It is argued that the received models of resource allocation should be amended so as to encourage the development of the university system in the direction of the sustainable configuration and so as to allow for differences in efficiency across budgetary units.     

Agonism and the Possibilities of Ethics for HRM

This paper provides a critique and re-evaluation of the way that ethics is understood and promoted within mainstream Human Resource Management (HRM) discourse. We argue that the ethics located within this discourse focuses on bolstering the relevance of HRM as a key contributor to organizational strategy, enhancing an organization??s sense of moral legitimacy and augmenting organizational control over employee behaviour and subjectivity. We question this discourse in that it subordinates the ethics of the employment relationship to managerial prerogative. In response, we suggest a different model of the relationship between ethics and HRM??one that finds the possibility of ethics in the contestation and destabilization of HRM. Such ethics arises through resistance to moral normalization and the constraint of freedom and difference. The contribution of our paper is in theorising the possibilities of a relationship between ethics and HRM that does not place HRM at its centre, as chief intermediary of the ethics of the employment relationship, but rather sees HRM as being a powerful player in a set of what Mouffe calls ??agonistic?? socio-ethical relations.     

''Don''t Know Much About History…'': Revisiting the Impact of Curriculum on Subsequent Labour Market Outcomes

Regression and neural network models of wage determination are constructed where the explanatory variables include detailed information about the impact of school curricula on future earnings. It is established that there are strong non‐linearities and interaction effects present in the relationship between curriculum and earnings. The results have important implications in the context of the human capital vs. signalling and screening debate. They also throw light on contemporary policy issues concerning the desirability of breadth vs. depth in the school curriculum.