The Impact of Employee Share Ownership Plans On Employee Participation and Industrial Democracy

This article examines employee participation in recently-formed employee share ownership plan organisations (ESOPS) in the UK. the various legal/institutional forms of ESOP are outlined prior to considering the nature and determinants of participative institutions and processes. It is suggested that there are three ‘constellations’ of ESOP in terms of employee participation:‘technical ESOPS’, ‘paternalist ESOPs’ and ‘representative ESOPs’. There are relatively few innovations in participation in the first of these, while in paternalist ESOPs, innovations centre on individualistic forms of participation and communication at the level of the workplace. In representative ESOPs employees gain more of a say in strategic decisions through such innovations as employee representation on company boards. It is argued that these differences in the nature of participation are due neither to differences in legal structure nor to variations in the extent of employee share ownership. Instead, participative systems are viewed as the outcome of the philosophies and objectives of those involved in the conversion to employee ownership.     

The role of moral intensity in moral judgments: An empirical investigation

Jones (1991) has proposed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making by individuals in organizations. The distinguishing feature of the issue was identified as its moral intensity, which determines the moral imperative in the situation. In this study, we adapted three scenarios from the literature in order to examine the issue-contingent model. Findings, based on a student sample, suggest that (1) the perceived and actual dimensions of moral intensity often differed; (2) perceived moral intensity variables, in the aggregate, significantly affected an individual's moral judgments; and (3) some dimensions of moral intensity (namely, perceived social consensus and perceived magnitude of consequences) mattered more than others.Sara A. Morris is Assistant Professor of Management at Old Dominion University. Her current research examines corporate codes of ethics, attitudes about corporate social responsibility, and the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.Robert A. McDonald is a doctoral candidate in organizational studies at the State University of New York at Albany. His research interests include ethical decision making, characteristics of moral dilemmas, and leadership power and influence tactics.     

Financing minority economic development

Conclusions A close analysis of the capital-asset pricing model’s assumptions and implications for efficient allocation of resources to investment in capital assets can form the basis for changes in the way capital markets are regulated by the federal government and in taxing policy of the government. In particular, our analysis indicates that the value of currently marketed assets can be increased by the inclusion in portfolios of currently nonmarketed assets.Moreover, the value of nonmarketed assets emerges as a significant instrumental variable for policy makers.The government can increase the value of all currently marketed assets by increasing positive changes in the value of nonmarketed assets.This might be accomplished by requiring by legislation or rule, for example, that a certain proportion of the listed securities on any exchange be comprised of the securities of black firms and other firms whose securities are not now marketed.The government might want, by tax incentive, to promote investment in firms with nonmarketed assets.It might want to increase the funding level of institutions such as MESBIC’S supplying equality finance to small black firms.     

Review of Categorical Models for Classification Issues in Accounting and Finance

Recent studies have extensively used the logit or probit models for classification problems in accounting and finance. More than 289 articles in prestigious journals have used these or similar methods from 1989 through 1996. This paper reviews several categorical techniques and compares the performance of logit or probit with alternative procedures. Intuitive and mathematical explanations of how the models examined differ in terms of underlying assumptions and other attributes are provided. The alternative techniques are applied to two substantive research questions: predicting bankruptcy and auditors' consistency judgements. Four empirical criteria provide some evidence that the exponential generalized beta of the second kind (EGB2), lomit, and burrit (all new to the accounting and finance literature) improve the log-likelihood functions, and the explanatory power, compared with logit and other models. EGB2, lomit and burrit also provide significantly better classifications and predictions than logit and other techniques.     

Global GDP shares in the 21st century — An equilibrium approach

Using a 9-region model of the world economy, we investigate the implications of the diffusion of total factor productivity (TFP) for global GDP shares during the 21st century. The nine regions are: Africa, Asia (excluding China, India and Japan), China, Europe, India, Japan, Latin America, North America and Oceania. According to our projections, TFP catch-up at a plausible rate implies that the share of the high-income regions will more than halve by 2050 and almost halve again in the subsequent 50 years. These projected shares are little affected by variations in demographic outcomes, saving behaviour and international capital flows, but are reduced substantially should TFP catch-up be slower.     

Attitudes of Business and Non-business Students Toward Corporate Actions

This study examined differences in the attitudes of business and non-business students toward economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary corporate actions. The results from a sample of two hundred and forty-two (242) university students indicated differences across three background variables (college major, gender, and race).