Integrating human resource management and corporate strategy: A preview of the 3M story

This article describes the initial stages of an endeavor to bring about an integration of strategic management and human resource management in a major manufacturing organization—3M. The focus is on the agenda of the organization's Vice President of Human Resources for bringing about the innovation through a systematic program of cultural analysis, professional development of line managers and human resource specialists, restructuring of the human resource management organization, and creation of a new partnership between line and human resource managers.     

WHO GETS FORMAL HOUSING FINANCE IN JORDAN?

The role of housing finance in actualizing housing demand is widely appreciated. Many developing nations have established special institutions in an attempt to assure that adequate volumes of financing are made available. Jordan offers an especially interesting case because the Jordan Housing Bank has the resources to serve almost any number of applicants at highly competitive rates. In addition, several other formal lenders make mortgage loans as do some government programs. This paper analyzes the determinants of the likelihood of recent home purchasers actually obtaining a loan from a formal finance institution. We find that purchasers in rural areas are much less likely to obtain such loans. In urban areas, the probability of using formal finance rises steadily with income. Also in urban areas, a household that purchases a unit that is an addition to an existing structure is much more likely to obtain formal financing than an otherwise similar household.     

Do Termination Provisions Truncate the Takeover Bidding Process?

We provide new evidence on termination provisions and the takeoverbidding process. Our central contribution is a novel databasefrom Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents thataccurately measures the incidence of termination provisionsand the depth of competition in takeover deals. We show thatbiased data in prior research produced incorrect conclusionson the relation between termination provisions and judicialdecisions, bidder toeholds, and deal size. Our comprehensivedata also show that termination provisions are positively relatedto takeover competition. Our evidence is consistent with theinformation/commitment hypothesis in which termination provisionsdo not truncate bidding but instead culminate the takeover process.(JEL G34; K22; D44).     

Expropriation and direct investment

The paper considers a model in which private foreign investors make direct long-lived capital investments in a small developing country that is subject to stochastic shocks to production. Depending upon the preferences of the host country, we find that expropriation can occur because of either 'desperation or ‘opportunism’. We show that under reasonable assumptions increased investment makes expropriation less likely to occur, and that the level of investment chosen by atomistic foreign investors may be non-optimal.     

9. An evaluation of the world models

After summarising the findings of chapters 2–8, exercises which demonstrate shortcomings in the general structure of the world models are described. Alterations to the World 3 model, suggested in chapters 3–8, are tested, and comments are made on the results and on world models in general.