A review of: “CAPACITY UTILIZATION AND BUSINESS INVESTMENT” By Donald C. Streever University of Illinois,Urbana, Ill., 1960 Bureau of Economic and Business Research Bulletin No. 86 76 pp. $1.50

This book is a collection of papers originally written, for the most part, during the period from 1954 through June 1957, and gathered from a variety of sources. One-third of the contributed material comes from sections of other books, and another third from Harvard publications, primarily the Harvard Business Review. The remaining third is about equally divided among other professional societies and corporate manuals.     

EU Enlargement and the Portuguese Economy

The main focus of the present paper is on the emerging and likely future trade effects of enlargement. Though our particular concern is with Portugal, we set the scene by comparing the trade structures of the 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (i.e. the eight CEE accession states plus Bulgaria and Romania) – including an analysis of the individual cases of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – with those of the EU15 as a whole, and with those of the 4 EU cohesion countries. The elimination of trade barriers between incumbents and accession states will have two trade‐related effects on EU incumbents: an increase in bilateral flows with the CEEC and a shift effect as the CEEC displace some incumbent exports to EU markets. The first effect is likely to be strongest for those incumbents for which there is a strong overlap between their export structure and the import structure of the CEEC. Portugal emerges as one of the economies with the least overlap. The displacement effect, we conclude, is likely to be particularly strong in the case of Portugal, given the high degree of similarity between Portuguese exports and those of the CEEC. Portugal appears to be ‘being squeezed from below’ in that, for the majority of its traditional export sectors, the CEEC became progressively more competitive during the second half of the 1990's. Portuguese specialisation was increasingly confined to low‐technology, low‐added‐value sectors with declining demand, as strong FDI inflows to the CEEC led to an increasing preponderance of more dynamic sectors in their export structures. Thus, Portugal is also being squeezed from above. This suggests that there may be substantial industrial disruption, in response to which labour‐market flexibility and dynamic entrepreneurial response is crucial. Intersectoral mobility is generally easier the more highly educated the workforce – an indicator on which Portugal scores poorly. The Portuguese labour market, however, displays a high degree of flexibility, consistent with its long lasting low rate of unemployment. Continued flexibility will help minimise these likely adjustment costs. Besides the trade and industry effects, other topics considered in the paper include the implications of enlargement for Portugal's ability to attract FDI, the likely consequences for Portugal of inward migration from the CEEC to the EU, and the implications of enlargement for Portugal's budgetary relations with the rest of the EU.     

Pflegeberatung ist Vertrauenssache

M?ngeln in der h?uslichen Pflege pr?ventiv begegnen – Vertrauen ohne Kontrolle, Routine, überforderung oder das Nichtbeachten des Beziehungsgeflechtes zwischen Pflegenden und Gepflegten führt oft zu Problemen. Der Gesetzgeber verpflichtete deshalb die Pflegekassen und Tr?gerverb?nde von ambulanten Pflegeeinrichtungen zur Erarbeitung von Richtlinien und standardisierten Verfahren für die Pflegefachberatung. Leider gibt es bislang keine verbindliche Umsetzung.     

The perceived fairness of performance evaluation: The role of uncertainty

This paper investigates the relationship between performance evaluation procedures and managerial perceptions of procedural justice. We examine two metric and two process characteristics. Metric characteristics are the diversity of metrics used by superiors and their reliance on outcome vs. effort metrics. Regarding process characteristics, we analyse the amount of subordinate's voice in the performance evaluation process, and the extent of formalization of the process. Using uncertainty management theory, we argue that justice effects of performance evaluation procedures may not be direct but are instead conditional on the amount of task uncertainty managers face in the their job context as well as on managers’ tolerance for ambiguity. Using a sample of 178 managers from the banking industry, we find that all four performance evaluation characteristics are related to justice perceptions, yet their effect depends on the level of task uncertainty and tolerance for ambiguity. These findings explain some inconsistencies in extant studies on fairness of performance evaluation procedures.     

Car ownership as a mediating variable in car travel behaviour research using a structural equation modelling approach to identify its dual relationship

Car ownership is generally considered an important variable in car travel behaviour research, but its specific role is often not well understood. Certain empirical studies consider car ownership as the dependent variable explained by the built environment, whereas other studies deem it to be one of the independent variables explaining car travel behaviour. This paper takes note of the dual influence car ownership has in explaining car travel behaviour by assuming that car ownership mediates the relationship between the built environment and car use. The relationship is estimated using a structural equation model since it accounts for mediating variables. This approach confirms the intermediary nature of car ownership.     

Communication Quality in Business Negotiations

The quality of a business negotiation process is usually assessed by its economic outcome, e.g. in terms of Pareto efficiency or distance to Nash equilibrium. We argue that this assessment method is insufficient in that it fails to provide a comprehensive analysis of business negotiations. Negotiators engage in highly complex communication tasks, and these communication processes should be analysed along with the outcome in the overall evaluation of a business negotiation. To this end, we will introduce Communication Quality as a new construct for analyzing the negotiation process. Furthermore, it will be argued that Communication Quality itself can affect economic negotiation outcomes both short- and long-term. We will present relevant aspects of Communication Quality, outline a scheme for its operationalisation and measurement, and discuss its probable impacts on business negotiations.     

Operating performance of European bank mergers

With very few exceptions the accepted viewpoint established by (predominantly) US research is that bank operating performance is not improved after merger. In this article we concentrate on European banks and investigate post-merger operating performance for 35 publicly listed bank mergers that were completed between 1992 and 1997. We find that industry-adjusted mean cash flow return did not significantly change after merger but stayed positive. We also find that the merger led to a significant decrease in profitability and capitalisation. Our key finding, in contrast to the US evidence, is that cost-efficiency ratios improved, although the improvement was not large enough to offset the profitability decrease. We also find that low profitability levels, conservative credit policies and good cost-efficiency status before merger are the main determinants of industry-adjusted cash flow returns and provide the source for improving these returns after merger.