The impact of corporate and national cultures on decentralization in multinational corporations

We develop and test a model of multinational corporation (MNC) decentralization in which the allocation of decision rights to subsidiaries is explained by aspects of both internal corporate culture as well as external national cultures. We extend the literature on MNC decentralization by testing the impact of both of these factors as determinants within the same model. Drawing on management control theory as a conceptual platform, we argue that the assignment of decision rights to a subsidiary in the MNC is impacted by corporate innovativeness and shared values, as well by aspects of home and host country cultures. We test our model on a sample of 119 MNC subsidiary managers drawn from a diverse range of industries and locations. The findings provide support to the proposition that corporate innovativeness positively impacts the decision to decentralize, whilst also indicating that home country individualism and host country uncertainty avoidance have a significant influence. The findings challenge established international management logic with respect to shared values—this variable is found to have a negative relationship with decentralization. Overall cultural distance is not found to be significant.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RIGHT TO BUY AND THE SALE OF COUNCIL HOUSES

The history of the 'Right to Buy' local government-owned council houses is examined in this paper. It is seen that the right of councils to sell was transformed into the right of tenants to demand such sales. Peter Walker had a pivotal role in this process. Later, Michael Heseltine and Margaret Thatcher emerged as key political players. The other intellectual drivers of this reform are also discussed.     

The five stages of fundraising: a framework for the development of fundraising

Little research has been undertaken on the development of fundraising in charities, as distinct from fundraising activities and methods. This paper arose out of a wider study of the impact of environmental factors on charity fundraising in the early 1990s. By looking at the development of fundraising in charities of all sizes, it became clear that there was a framework for fundraising. Specifically, the principal characteristics of the framework were based on the need for voluntary income and the influence of staff or volunteers in the fundraising process. This paper outlines the stages in the development of fundraising and their principal characteristics within the context of market orientation and organisation culture theory. It concludes with some implications for fundraising practitioners. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Wage Effects on the Volume of Unpaid Work in Nuclear Australian Households

Using the 1992 Australian Time-Use Survey, empirical estimates are obtained of the determinants of unpaid work in nuclear household by each adult. Eight types of unpaid work are examined. Wage rates and demographic variables are found to exert most influence on household time devoted to unpaid work. The strongest result is the negative effect of the female wage rate on unpaid work undertaken by females.     

WHAT CEREALS WILL INDONESIA STILL IMPORT IN 2020?

Most existing projection models forecast that Indonesia will become a net importer of increasing amounts of basic cereals such as rice, maize and wheat, implicitly providing grounds for the government's continuing pursuit of food self-sufficiency at any cost. A growing urban population, increases in income per capita, trends in planted area and new technologies are determining factors used in these models. The present paper employs a scenario approach based on a combination of time-series models, qualitative assessments and a cross-country analogy with Malaysia to build a picture of likely food cereal production and consumption patterns in 2020. Consequent levels of imports are calculated and estimates of their weight in the Indonesian economy are presented, comparing four periods: 1975, 1990, 2005 and 2020. These estimates are then used in considering policy issues related to food security and self-sufficiency.     

Reshaping accounting research: Living in the world in which we live

This paper is derived from my participation as a faculty guest of the University of Wollongong's Faculty of Commerce 20th Annual Doctoral Consortium. Consistent with the theme of “paradigm, paradox, and paralysis?”, I argue in this paper that accounting practice and scholarship suffer from paralysis created by the imposition of a neoclassical economic paradigm. Starting from the premise that accounting is foremost a practice, I argue that accounting cannot be limited by any one type of understanding. A human practice like accounting is simply to multi- faceted and complex to be sensibly “modeled” in any one particular way. The “flight from reality” (Shapiro, 2005), that occurred because of the empirical revolution in accounting, should be abandoned in favor of a more problem driven approach to accounting research and practice.     

Mario Tiberi. The Accounts of the British Empire: Capital Flows from 1799 to 1914. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2005. ix + 183 pp. ISBN 0 7546 3916 9, $99.95 (cloth).

British economic historians teaching in traditional historyfaculties commonly experience considerable indifference, evenresistance, to statistics among many of their undergraduatestudents. One figure that always seems to impress, however,is the £4000m estimated to have been invested by Britonsabroad by 1914. According to a United Nations survey cited byTiberi, this represented more than 40 percent of all overseasassets at the time. Along with British trading and service activitiesand the global importance of its     

Some human problems in industrial sales forecasting

Forecasters and users of forecasts often assume that their problems are technical in nature. This article points out some nontechnical problems that often plague forecast users and preparers and suggests means of overcoming the nontechnical dilemmas.     

SDIs: Infrastructure,agglomeration and the region in industrial policy

This article reports on the initial findings of an Industrial Strategy Project Research Programme on a key current element of national industrial policy, namely Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs). The ISP Research Programme is concerned with industrial investment. The operational industrial SDIs are examined against the backdrops of the pattern of contemporary industrial location in South Africa and the emergence of a regional industrial policy for the country; the long‐run experience with SDI‐type programmes internationally and in South Africa; and directions in current regional industrial development theory and practice, particularly those interventions aimed at strengthening the economies associated with regional/sectoral clusters or agglomerations typically embedded in metropolitan locations. The preliminary findings of research commissioned on long‐run industrial development in Richards Bay, and the current SDI processes under way in the Fish River SDI (Eastern Cape) and the West Coast SDI (Western Cape) are then presented These findings demonstrate that for the SDIs to meet their intentions in terms of maximising inward investment, creating jobs and catalysing durable regional economic development, the large opportunity present to use SDI processes to build the capacity and social infrastructure for economic development at local and regional level on — and between — both public and private sector sides should be grasped. To this end, it is also suggested that SDIs be closely linked to other government industrial promotion and support activities, notably the cluster initiatives and SMME support programmes, both of which may themselves need, at this point, far clearer regional focus.     

Incentives and the Efficiency of Public Sector-outsourcing Contracts

Abstract.  Outsourcing the provision of traditionally publicly provided services has become commonplace in most industrialized nations. Despite its prevalence, there still is no consensus in the academic literature on the magnitude (and determinants) of expected cost savings to the government, nor the sources of those savings. This article considers the arguments for (and against) outsourcing and then examines the empirical evidence pertaining to whether any observed savings occur and whether they persist over time. In addition, we examine the existing evidence for the 'redistribution hypothesis' and the 'quality-shading hypothesis', which critics have used to argue that outsourcing lowers government expenditure by lowering wages and conditions and/or lower quality services. Finally, we consider the impact of contract design on outsourcing outcomes. While the power of incentives is a strong theme in economics, recent work has suggested that high-powered incentives may be suboptimal for many public sector services, because they may crowd out intrinsic motivation, particularly in instances where agents are highly motivated. We discuss the implications of this insight for the efficiency of public sector outsourcing.