The nature of the new joint consultation

Drawing upon research conducted in thirteen organisations between 1980 and 1984, the authors illustrate, by the use of case studies, a range of developments in joint consultation. They specifically link their findings on consultation to other industrial relations activity and the nature of the product market in which the companies find themselves.     

Toward a Synthesis of Models of Regulatory Policy Design with Limited Information

We develop a simple, yet general, model that admits as special cases several key analyses of the design of regulatory policy in the presence of asymmetric information. In doing so, we help to identify the central differences and similarities among the diverse analyses in the literature.     

Changing management control strategies: The role of competition between accountancy and other organisational professions

This paper seeks to account for the prominence in management hierarchies of accountants and other financial specialists relative to other professions. It is argued that a key to understanding this is the extent of the adoption of each profession's characteristic strategy for controlling labour. Animated by a desire for collective mobility within the management hierarchies of large corporations, it is shown that engineers, accountants and personnel specialists have all sought to advance by developing, from their original specialised techniques, relatively comprehensive strategies for controlling labour. It is also argued that this perspective offers a useful corrective to the functionalism of many accounts of changes in the mode of control of the labour process which seek to explain later forms of control solely in terms of the problems encountered with earlier forms.     

The changing focus of microarray analysis

In the biological sciences, the advent of microarray technology changed the way experiments were performed. Microarrays were the first mainstream high-throughput technology, generating enormous amounts of data for both the biologist and the statistician to understand. Here, I follow my own experience in microarray analysis, starting during my time at EURANDOM with experimental design and continuing today in my present position at the Netherlands Cancer Institute where the exploitation of data from many different sources is hoped will give greater insight into different aspects of cancer.     

Cannibalism and the Optimal Sharing of the North-East Atlantic Cod Stock: a Bioeconomic Model

This paper shows how intra-stock relations such as cannibalism and growth enhancement, determine the economically optimal sharing of a fish resource between heterogeneous harvesting agents. The sharing of resources between different vessel groups is often left for political decision making. Nonetheless, such decisions may have both biological and economic consequences. This becomes quite clear when different harvesting groups exploit different sections (age groups) of a stock that has intra-stock interactions in the form of cannibalism. A two-agent bioeconomic model with cannibalism is developed and used to determine (i) optimal annual harvest sizes (TACs) for cod, and (ii) the optimal proportion of the TAC that should be harvested by the different vessel groups in the fishery. Applying biological and economic data in a numerical procedure, and comparing the results obtained to previous studies, it is shown that intra-stock interactions such as the presence of cannibalism has a significant impact on who should take what proportion of the TAC, and hence, the standing stock size and discounted economic rent achievable. In contrast to other studies, we find that the optimal harvest requires that both trawlers and coastal vessels should harvest the fish resource. In addition, the results indicate that, from a bioeconomic perspective, the existing trawler fleet’s harvest share in the cod fishery is too high. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Microcultural Differences and Perceived Ethical Problems: An International Business Perspective

This study examines the importance of microcultural differences on perceived ethical problems. This study also sought to identify the relationship between perceived ethical problems and value orientations as shown in the Hunt and Vitell's (1993) General Theory of Marketing Ethics. The data was collected from 173 Javanese, 128 Batak, and 170 Indonesian-Chinese marketing managers in Indonesia. The results indicate that, (1) Religious Value Orientation is positively related to the perceived ethical problems scores, and (2) there are significant differences among the three ethnic microcultural groups relative to their perceived ethical problems scores. These results imply that acculturation training program for expatriates should include aspects of microcultures and ethical perceptions held by the local managers. The establishment of ethical corporate culture and formalised codes of conduct are recommended for future ethics training.     

The Making of a Dealer Market: From Entry to Equilibrium in the Trading of Nasdaq Stocks

This paper provides an analysis of the nature and evolution of a dealer market for Nasdaq stocks. Despite size differences in sample stocks, there is a surprising consistency to their trading. One dealer tends to dominate trading in a stock. Markets are concentrated and spreads are increasing in the volume and market share of the dominant dealer. Entry and exit are ubiquitous. Exiting dealers are those with very low profits and trading volume. Entering market makers fail to capture a meaningful share of trading or profits. Thus, free entry does little to improve the competitive nature of the market as entering dealers have little impact. We find, however, that for small stocks, the Nasdaq dealer market is being more competitive than the specialist market.