‘The times they are a changin’? transformative organizational innovations in financial services in the UK

Much of the management guru-based literature emphasizes the transformational capacity of organizational innovations (OIs). The excellence, quality and reengineering literature purports to abandon hierarchy, bureaucracy and management control; to eradicate conflict and instil an new team and quality-based ethos. Yet much remains unknown about how these OIs are operationalized. Here we question both theoretically and empirically the validity of such transformational claims by reference to our research within financial services. We argue that despite considerable changes, OIs remain both a condition of, and location for, the exercise of organizational power relations. Bureaucratic and hierarchical structures continue to pervade organizations. Work-related pressures and tensions abound concerning issues such as control over the quality versus the quantity of work output, work intensification and job insecurity. All of which impinge upon the performance of OIs, and belie notions of a ‘transformation’ of organizational cultures, structures or strategies.     

Imagination Difficulty and New Product Evaluation

This research examines the role of imagination difficulty on the evaluation of really new products (RNPs) in comparison with incrementally new products (INPs). We extend past research on accessibility utilizing an anticipatory approach where consumers look forward and generate mental images for future product usage. We found that the role of imagination changes based on the newness of the product. Specifically, for RNPs, imagination difficulty is perceived to be diagnostic in product assessment, and thus, higher imagination difficulty leads to lower product evaluations. However, for INPs, which are shown to be less susceptible to context effects, imagination difficulty has a limited impact on product evaluations. In addition, we show that the effect of imagination difficulty on the evaluation of RNPs is moderated by the level of involvement of the consumer. Research and managerial implications are discussed.     

The Demand for Hedging and the Value of Hedging Opportunities

Hedging strategies typically assume that hedging is costless and that only one futures market exists. When these assumptions are dropped, the demand for hedging is shown to depend on basis risk, price risk, and the hedger's risk preference. The marginal and incremental value of hedging opportunities are computed for the general cases of one and two markets and applied to the specific case of Pennsylvania dairy input hedging.     

Race and cesarean delivery in Florida

At a time when the Clinton Administration has set a goal of eliminating racial disparities in health by the year 2010, medical experts are struggling to understand one of the most glaring, and least talked about, disparities of all: death in childbirth. In a study made public this spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported that black women in the U.S. were nearly four times as likely to die during delivery, or shortly thereafter, as white women. The disparity, which has remained about the same for the last four decades, holds true even for women who … are middle class and have health insurance. The findings … have renewed interest among scientists and legislators in a problem that many peoole think no longer exists … Dr. David Satcher, the United States Surgeon General, (says) “the disparity is important. In this country, we have a certain standard of expectation about the risk of women dying in pregnancy, and black women are off the scale right now.” (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Black Mothers' Mortality Rate Under Scrutiny,” Front Page, 8 Aug. 1999 New York Times)     

Corporate Sustainability Performance and Idiosyncratic Risk: A Global Perspective

Does investing in sustainability leaders affect portfolio performance? Analyzing two mutually exclusive leading and lagging global corporate sustainability portfolios (Dow Jones) finds that (1) leading sustainability firms do not underperform the market portfolio, and (2) their lagging counterparts outperform the market portfolio and the leading portfolio. Notably, we find leading (lagging) corporate social performance (CSP) firms exhibit significantly lower (higher) idiosyncratic risk and that idiosyncratic risk might be priced by the broader global equity market. We develop an idiosyncratic risk factor and find that its inclusion significantly reduces the apparent difference in performance between leading and lagging CSP portfolios.     

Jointism and the Role of the Workplace Union in the auto-components Industry

This article is part of a case study history, from the British auto-components industry involving a changing workplace regime from the late 1970s through to the 1990s. Employing the concepts of 'dual commitment' and 'incorporation' we explore, partly through the voices of participants, the process of involvement in that regime. We consider the implications for how trade unions might respond to policies on 'jointism', and for management vis-a-vis the choices on union involvement or anti union strategies.     

Aggregation and the Nature of Price Expectations

Market liquidity requires differences of opinion among traders, but market behavior is often modeled using just one representative agent. This paper aggregates trading activity across many traders, at least one of which has rational expectations. Equilibrium price expectations depend on individual risk preferences and the expectations of all traders. Results indicate that positive feedback traders comprise a statistically significant minority of traders that has grown with the prevalence of commodity pools.