The Manpower Law of 2003 and its implementing regulations: Genesis,key articles and potential impact

This paper reviews Indonesia's Manpower Law 13/2003 and related regulations, against a backdrop of slow employment growth, business concerns about the legislation and government attempts to change it in 2006. The paper focuses on severance rates and dismissals, short-term contracts and out-sourcing, and minimum wages, also briefly discussing other articles, and comparing the law with those in neighbouring countries. It suggests that certain articles have contributed to significantly higher wage costs and reduced flexibility in the management of labour in Indonesia's formal sector, even though compliance is by no means universal within the private sector. Key provisions, especially large increases in severance rates, and needs criteria imposed for the purpose of setting minimum wages, are also out of step with labour market policies in other developing countries. Circumstantial evidence suggests that these measures have adversely affected the investment climate and damaged prospects for a recovery in employment.     

Of course that is not the whole (toy) story: Entrepreneurship and the cat's cradle

Reading and analyzing the Toy Store story imply a critical inquiry into how the act of storytelling can be understood. The entrepreneurial story is situated within the context of the plea to downplay the focus on the individual entrepreneur. As this discussion did not share some of the critical debates on the status of the subject, a narrative study of entrepreneurship might refocus on the storytelling entrepreneur rather than on the process of storytelling. To prevent this, storytelling is conceived as an enacted performance that balances complexity and coherence and that draws upon but is not enclosed by a range of cultural and masternarratives.     

An Economic Analysis of the Eutrophication Problem of the Barwon and Darling Rivers in New South Wales

The focus of the paper is the 1000 km toxic blue-green algal bloom which afflicted the Barwon and Darling Rivers in 1991. Factors which contributed to the bloom are increased water use for irrigation, drought and nutrient pollution, mainly phosphorus from sewage treatment plants and other point sources. A model for finding the optimal allocation of nutrient removal amongst point sources is developed in which the blue-green algal externality impacts on a number of locations on the rivers. The cost of pollution function is unknown but our results suggest that if the marginal costs of phosphorus removal are low, the equilibrium level of phosphorus at each location is likely to be below that which reduces the recreational value of the rivers.     

The Development and Diffusion of Radical Technological Innovation: The Role of Bus Demonstration Projects in Commercializing Fuel Cell Technology

North American, European and Japanese governments have legislated to control Greenhouse Gas emissions and have promoted alternative technology as part of strategies to address climate change. Governments worldwide have sought to encourage adoption of alternative automotive technology by funding demonstrations and in-service trials. Among other initiatives the automotive industry has explored applications of a radical technological innovation—fuel cells—to power a range of vehicles from forklifts to buses. This paper examines the rationale and actions of various stakeholders to facilitate adoption of fuel cell technology in vehicles through a specific market segment—that of fuel cell buses (FCBs)—and explores the progress of FCB projects in North America, Europe and Japan. It examines the role of demonstration projects and highlights the complexity of the relationship between government and developers, and the multifarious and conflicting objectives of industry players that inhibit progress.     

Management strategy and HR in international mergers: choice,constraint and pragmatism

The article combines consideration of the range of contextual factors that impact on management strategy and HR in the post‐merger period (such as corporate structures and cultures, pressures from shareholders and regulatory and legal environments at national and international level) with an examination of the interests and power of various groups of actors within the firm. Specifically, we apply a framework which integrates the insights of market‐based, institutionalist and micro‐political approaches. We locate our analysis within the relevant international HRM literature, most notably recent debates concerning multinational corporation (MNC) merger dynamics. International mergers and acquisitions provide particularly useful scenarios through which to explore the interdependence between choice and constraint, illustrated here by processes of negotiation, compromise and balance across a range of issues in several case study organisations. The key areas highlighted concern: (1) the integration of HR strategies, and (2) processes of post‐merger rationalisation.     

Liberalizing Europe's Network Industries: Ten Conflicting Priorities

This article, the first of a two-part feature, summarises the general arguments of the inaugural report of a programme to monitor the progress of European deregulation. The author starts by defining Europe's network industries in terms of three phases of market structure: monopoly, monopoly and competition co-existing and, finally, effective competition. In the current second phase, he identifies ten conflicting priorities for policy-makers and the industries.     

Oppression Net

In its early days the Internet was thought to be resistant to regulation and censorship. However, the technology of the Internet has developed in a climate of moral responsibility. The support for self-regulation has taken the initiative from the state and placed it firmly in the grasp of the industry itself. As a result, unprecedented levels of material have been removed from the Net. The dynamic for self-regulation now frequently outstrips government proposals both in extent and effectiveness.     

Developing an eService Strategy

"How do I justify investment in eCommerce to a group of senior managers that get their secretaries to print their emails?" was how one manager interviewed for this study summarised his eCommerce problem. This article is about how firms can develop a systematic strategy for delivering service on the web – eService. It starts with the result of a survey of responsiveness to customers in web-based service delivery, part of a study which also includes case studies of companies seeking to justify such investments. It then focuses on understanding the challenge of eService, developing a strategy and making the case for investment. It concludes with suggestions for implementation, including metrics for assessing eService quality.