Doubts Regarding the Human Capital Theory of Racial Inequality

Using wage data developed by Smith (1984), this paper compares human capital and institutional explanations of trends in the racial wage gap since 1890. While a regression including daily schooling variables is consistent with the human capital theory, so is an institutional model which omits schooling variables but adds the influences of isolation in the rural South, discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, unemployment, and government policy. Including schooling and institutional variables together casts doubt on the relative importance of schooling compared to labor market demands and political variables.     

Demand relationships and pricing decisions for related products

This paper presents in terms of price changes the theoretical conditions for optimal pricing when products are demand-related. It then suggests an approach which could be used by companies to provide guidance in the pricing of such products over time.     

Analysis of conflicts in dynamical environmental systems via catastrophe theory

This paper addresses itself to long-term conflicting issues in environmental policy analysis. After a brief discussion of the ‘new scarcity’ and its subsequent potential perturbations of our economic system in the long run, attention will be paid to some elements of catastrophe theory which may be helpful in gaining insight into the future impacts of inertia and conflicts in environmental management. Next, a fairly simple model for integrating natural resources and production will be constructed so as to illustrate the usefulness of catastrophe theory in economic-energy-environmental systems. The paper will be concluded with a brief judgement of using catastrophe notions in the social sciences.     

A work role perspective of accountants in local government service departments

In most of the largest U.K. local authorities the financial control function is highly centralised with no qualified accountant or controller located in each spending department. There now may be the beginnings of a trend towards employing accountants within service departments. The paper analyses how this new segment of public sector accounting appears to be becoming established, how the role of these accountants is being developed and the contrasting occupational values of accountants in service departments and those in the finance department. It is also shown how the existence of a strong accounting profession in local government can lead to different aspects of both the financial control structure and process in comparison with central government such that research results on the latter may not automatically hold at local level.     

A note on linear utility

This note shows how a spectrum of specific axiomatizations for linear utility for decision-making under risk can be integrated under a generalized axiom scheme in which one of the two binary relations used in the axioms parameterizes specific applications.     

CORPORATE CULTURE AND MORALITY: DURKHEIM-INSPIRED REFLECTIONS ON THE LIMITS OF CORPORATE CULTURE

In the May 1986 issue of Journal of Management Studies, Ray argued that Corporate Culture protagonists have stumbled upon the central ideas of the classical sociologist Durkheim, especially those concerning morality. However, this article demonstrates important differences between corporate culture discourse and the Durkheimian concept of morality. Durkheim's views on moral autonomy, his diagnosis of the problematic nature of modern utilitarian values and his insistence on society as the source and the goal of morality are applied as a frame of reference that allows an identification, analysis and discussion of problematic assumptions about man, organization and society in corporate culture discourses. On this basis, the article discusses the relatively limited fulfilment of the promises issued by corporate culture protagonists, which can be observed by reflecting on the past decade, as well as some alternative ideas for organizational culture practitioners and researchers.