Designing production planning and control systems

This paper presents a contingency model designed to explain aggregate differences in the specifications for production planning and control systems across firms. The specifications for a firm's system, stated broadly in terms of the investment in information processing systems and organizational integrativeness, are related to that firm's competitive strategy and environment. An analysis of data from a limited sample of companies, and a panel of managers, provides insights into the applicability of the concepts used in the model, and its potential usefulness.     

Labour policy in the plantation islands

This article studies the evolution of labour policy in the context of the political economy of plantation islands. In order to analyse the relationship between labour policy and various institutional factors (social, political and economic), the author discusses the development of the plantation system — its origins based on slavery and indentures, and subsequent changes resulting from problems of cultural pluralism, labour productivity, falling world market prices, and a general process of economic modernization. He concludes with a discussion of the changes in industrial relations and government labour policy which emerged after the Second World War as a result of the changed constitutional status of the islands as well as the population explosion.     

Environmental performance: Quality,measurement and improvement

Environmental management is becoming a key business management concern. Effective management requires appropriate and timely data on which decisions can be based. In addition, there is increasing pressure to provide reports on the environmental probity of companies. This requires objective, factual data. This paper considers this aspect from the perspective of the quality of environmental performance. Measurement techniques are outlined and their use in on-going performance appraisal and monitoring to show improvements is discussed. Potential pitfalls in taking reported environmental performance claims at their face value are also considered.     

Consensus analysts' earnings forecasts and security returns

This study examines the information content and informational efficiency of consensus analysts' forecasts in an Australian setting. Consistent with Lys and Sohn (1990) and Abarbanell (1991), analysts' forecasts were found to possess information content but did not incorporate all publicly available information. The empirical analysis in this paper suggests that negative security returns are associated with higher forecast errors. This contrasts with the results of Lys and Sohn (1990) and is consistent with a positive bias in forecasts. However, this did not preclude analysts' forecasts from being viable proxies for the market's expectations of future earnings.Michael Aitken, Alex Frino and Roland Winn are Professor, Senior Lecturer and Associate Lecturer, respectively, at the University of Sydney. The authors thank McIntosh Securities for the use of the McBARCEP database. However, the views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and are not intended to represent those of McIntosh Securities Ltd. The authors also thank two anonymous referees, Wai-Ming Fong and other participants at the Second Annual Asia-Pacific Finance Conference. The corresponding author for this paper is Roland Winn, Department of Finance H03, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.     

Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Product Market Integration and Wages in Unionized Countries

This paper addresses the effects of product market integration on wages. We develop a two–country general equilibrium model of international trade with imperfectly competitive product markets and unionized labor markets. Integration is modelled as either a fall in fixed or variable trade costs. A reduction in fixed trade costs leads to an unambiguous decrease in wages, whereas a reduction in variable trade costs has an ambiguous effect on wages.
JEL classification : F 15; J 5; L 13