Can Social Exclusion Against “Older Entrepreneurs” Be Managed?

This paper investigates how sources of social exclusion and support emerge within an “older” entrepreneur's immediate environment, and how this affects the development of their small business. Based on 22 in‐depth interviews in London, United Kingdom, we suggest how older entrepreneurs with different backgrounds are able to manage social exclusion, and identify four coping strategies—passive negotiation, active negotiation, modification, and avoidance. We argue that, if “older entrepreneurship” (people starting a business aged 50 or older) is to flourish, both entrepreneurs and support initiatives need to become sensitive to the diversity of sources of discrimination and strategies to manage them.     

Utilizing Ultrasound Technology to Improve Livestock Marketing Decisions

This study estimates the value of using ultrasound technology to improve cattle marketing decisions by optimally choosing a particular marketing method. For the particular group of cattle analyzed, results indicate that using ultrasound information to selectively market cattle could have increased revenue by $25.53/head, $4.98/head, or $32.90/head, compared with simply marketing all animals on a live weight, dressed weight, or grid basis, respectively. Even if producers incorporate such information as placement weight, days on feed, and breed into their expectations about final carcass characteristics, our results indicate that ultrasound measures could improve average revenue by $4.16/head.     

The business case for sustainability? An examination of small firms in the UK's construction and restaurant sectors

Studies show that despite a concerted attempt by UK policy‐makers to portray ‘eco‐efficiency’ measures as cost reducing, most owner‐managers of small firms view environmental measures as expensive to undertake. As a result, owner‐managers tend to be highly resistant to voluntarily improving their environmental performance. Given that SMEs are such a vast sector of the economy, this perceived discord between profits and environmental protection is clearly a major barrier to the ‘greening’ of industry. This ESRC‐funded study has sought to unearth the underlying motivations for why SME owner‐managers in the UK resist or accept the idea that there are business benefits for improving their environmental performance. The findings from 40 in‐depth interviews with SME owners in the UK's construction and restaurant sectors and 12 ‘key informants’ from industry and government are presented, followed by a discussion of SME perspectives on the ‘business case’ for sustainability and its implications for policy‐makers. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Human capital accumulation and output growth in a stochastic environment

We study the relationship between growth and volatility in a simple analytical model, where human capital accumulation depends on both deliberate and non-deliberate learning, and where stochastic fluctuations arise from both preference and technology shocks. We derive a number of new results which challenge some of the results in the existing literature. First, we show that the optimal allocations of time to working and learning are both pro-cyclical. Second, we identify a preference parameter (other than the coefficient of relative risk aversion) that is potentially crucial for governing the effect of volatility on growth. Third, we demonstrate how this effect can be either positive or negative under each type of learning, the relative importance of which is irrelevant to the outcome. Fourth, we reveal how the effect may also be different for the two types of shock. Our results may be seen as providing further explanation for the lack of robust evidence on the issue.      

Measuring efficiency in Australian Schools: A preliminary analysis

In this paper, we apply a public sector Data Envelopment Analysis model to estimate the efficiency of Australian primary and secondary schools. Standard microeconomic production theory showing the transformation of inputs into outputs is extended to allow nondiscretionary environmental variables characteristic of educational production. Failure to properly control for the socioeconomic environment leads to inappropriate comparisons and biased efficiency estimates. We employ a conditional estimator that does not allow a school with a better environment to serve as a benchmark for a school with a worse environment. The results suggest that Australian schools are moderately inefficient and that efficiency increases for the quintile of schools with the most favorable environment. Further, efficiency gains are realized with increasing enrollment.     

Curse or Cure? Why Was the Enactment of Britain's 1909 Trade Boards Act so Controversial?

The Trade Boards Act of 1909 was introduced in Britain to counteract sweating. Associated with long hours, insanitary work conditions and inadequate pay — with the accent falling on low wages — sweating probably afflicted some 30 per cent of Edwardian Britain's labour force. Trade boards supporters as diverse as Winston Churchill and R. H. Tawney heralded the legislation as marking a significant break in economic and social thought. Opponents declared that the enactment of the legislation would be ruinous for Britain. The future Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, and his wife denounced trade boards as pallid reformism and campaigned for the licensing of home workshops. On the other hand, proponents of a subsistence minimum wage, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, were disappointed that the legislation did not go further. Initially, it encompassed less than a quarter of a million workers. The rates set were not based on the cost of living but on what the individual trade could bear. On their own, trade boards were insufficient to eradicate Britain's long and historical tradition of being a low-paying economy. Trade boards (and their successors, wages councils) were trapped in their collective laissez-faire origins. However, despite its sanctioning of a statutory national minimum wage in 1998, the British state is still far from being interventionist in the labour market. If Britain is to break with the past, she must also implement a comprehensive framework of minimum rights. Otherwise, the principle of collective laissez-faire will still remain triumphant over the Webbs' alternative conception of a comprehensive labour code.     

Explaining the marketing effort of professional service providers: An exploratory study

A mail survey was done of professionals from major architectural, law, and accounting firms to determine what factors seem to explain how much effort they devote to marketing their firms' services. The results of this exploratory study identified several significant explanatory variables, a few of which had effects in some professions and not others. Additional research in this area is recommended.     

The problem of riches: from trade boards to a national minimum wage

This article explores why, despite repeated shifts in the attitude of friends and enemies alike, wages councils (formerly trade boards) have survived for over seventy years. It examines their value and limitations, and considers the need for more wide-ranging regulation to tackle the problem of poverty wages in the midst of affluence.     

DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF TASK UNCERTAINTY: A LABORATORY AND FIELD INVESTIGATION

This article presents evidence and argument concerning the utility of the concept of task uncertainty for organization theory and practice. The results from two studies, one field and one laboratory, are reported. The results support the hypotheses that: (1) perceptions of task uncertainty are a simple function of the number and analysability of exceptions encountered, and (2) perceptions of task exceptions and search difficulty have distinct relationships with behaviours of interest (communication and decision-making). Given these two findings, it is argued that the concept of task uncertainty should be replaced by the two source constructs.