Making strategic judgements

Can a case to be made for managers to become less risk-averse or even act in a manner contrary to conventional wisdom? Jules Goddard and Tony Eccles suggest that may be the best strategy during economic turmoil.     

HIGH AND LOW EARNINGS JOBS: THE FORTUNES OF EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS

The focus of the literature on the effect of job changes has been on the consequences of job destruction on the individual worker. In this paper we analyze the impact on the earnings distribution of both job creation and job destruction. We establish a link between job reallocation and the movement of workers into and out of the tails of the earnings distribution. Both job creating and job destroying employers shed jobs mostly from the middle and lower tails of the earnings distribution, although this is cyclically very sensitive. Labor mobility (triggered by job reallocation) is risky: mobile workers will generally end up in the upper or lower tail of the distribution rather than in the middle. If workers move across industry boundaries, they typically move to the lower tails of the distribution. In sum, the fortunes of workers depend on the fortunes of their employers.     

Adoption and impact of improved maize varieties on maize yields: Evidence from central Cameroon

This study uses both the endogenous switching regression and propensity score matching models to analyze the adoption and impact of improved maize varieties on maize yields in central Cameroon. The results show that (i) education level, agricultural training, proximity to an Institute of Agricultural Research for Development branch and farmers’ perceptions of yield and risk of improved maize varieties significantly affect the adoption of improved maize varieties and (ii) the adoption of improved maize varieties enhances maize yields. Therefore, policies designed to stimulate adoption of improved maize varieties should be promoted. Improvement of access to school and agricultural training may serve as good strategies for promoting the adoption of improved maize varieties in Cameroon.     

Consumer soft law in Belgium

Soft law as a device of consumer protection is not very popular in Belgium. The best developed example is the advertising self regulation by the J. E. P. (Jury d'Ethique Publicitaire). The J. E. P. however, has no consumer representatives.Recently consumer organisations have concluded collective contracts with professional organisations in the textile cleaning, travel and furniture branches. These contracts provide an arbitration scheme for the settlement of consumer complaints. The consumer-supplier dialogue is getting under way.This article concludes with some information on guidelines by public authorities in the field of insurance and investor protection and the practice of extension of voluntary trade regulations to all traders of a given branch as a possible model for the consumer-supplier dialogue.

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Nicht-rechtliche Maßnahmen zum Verbraucherschutz — das Beispiel Belgien

Zusammenfassung Der Bericht entwickelt zunächst eine Typologie von möglichen soft-law und Verhandlungsmodellen zur Implementation von verbraucherschützenden Maßnahmen. Verhaltenskodices spielen in Belgien keine Rolle. Eine Ausnahme bildet das Selbstkontrollsystem der Werbung, das auf Gesetz und den allgemeinen Grundsätzen der Internationalen Handelskammer beruht. Die Beschwerdekommission ist — neben einem unabhängigen Vorsitzenden — nur aus Vertretern der Anbieterseite zusammengesetzt; Verbrauchervertreter können lediglich Beschwerden eingeben. Als Sanktion steht der Kommission eine bindende Empfehlung bei Verstößen gengen zwingendes Recht und gegen den Grundsatz der Lauterkeit zur Verfügung: die beanstandete Anzeige erscheint nicht in den Medien. Nicht-bindende Empfehlungen betreffen Verstöße gegen den guten Geschmack; hier ist Zensurrolle problematisch. Verbraucherorganisationen schätzen die Selbstkontrolleinrichtung eher negativ ein.Aushandlungsmodelle haben sich in letzter Zeit im Bereich von Standardverträgen, etwa Textilreinigung und neuestens Pauschalreisen entwickelt. Verbraucherorganisationen achten auf die Einrichtung von Beschwerdestellen, die bindende Entscheidungen erlassen können. Richtlinien werden in den Bereichen Versicherten- und Anlegerschutz verwendet. Vereinbarungen von Privaten mit kollektivrechtlichem Einschlag können durch königliches Dekret nach einem besonderen Verfahren allgemeinverbindlich erklärt werden. Obwohl dieses Verfahren bislang im Verbraucherschutz noch nicht verwendet worden ist, könne es Bedeutung für die Zukunft erlangen.

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Jules Stuyck is Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 41, B—3000 Leuven, Belgium.     

The Architecture of Core Competence

In this article, the author first surveys the explanations given by leading writers for corporate success and then goes on to sketch a definition of what he calls "meta-competence": the corporate capacity for building and sustaining core competence. Delving below the popular explanations for Wal-Mart's success, he then uses Wal-Mart to illustrate his argument.