Resource allocation in the nationalized energy sector of the United Kingdom

Resource allocation in the energy sector of the United Kingdom is a difficult area to plan, because demand and supply projections need to embrace both the large private sector oil industry and the public sector fuel industries. In addition, relationships between the latter are complex as they involve both competition and co-ordination. One approach to the problem has been to find common ground in the concept of marginal cost pricing, but there are practical difficulties in application. Government has encouraged the use of analytical techniques, such as corporate planning, by the fuel industries as a means of co-ordination in areas where market mechanisms may no longer always be effective.     

The effects of internal and external sources of justice on employee turnover intention and organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and workgroup members

Abstract

Organizational justice research tends to focus on the effects of fair treatment from organizations or supervisors on employee attitudes and behaviors. Thus, there is a dearth of research on the effects of fair treatment attributable to other parties that employees interact with at work such as coworkers and clients. Controlling for organization-focused and supervisor-focused justice, results from our field study of employees working in a healthcare organization demonstrate that perceptions of client-focused fairness uniquely predicts supervisor ratings of employees organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and that perceptions of workgroup-focused justice uniquely predicts organizational citizenship behavior toward workgroups. Further, we find that client-focused justice perceptions uniquely predict employee turnover intention.     

Gender-Based Vicarious Sensitivity to Disempowering Behavior in Organizations: Exploring an Expanded Concept of Hostile Working Environment

The purpose of this study was to explore evidence of gender-based vicarious sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations, expanding the concept of hostile working environment beyond the context of sexual harassment. Male and female graduate and undergraduate students viewed 10 video segments of Anita Hill's interview by U.S. senators during the October 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Clarence Thomas. Although no significant relationship was found between the personal attributes of age and ethnicity to perceptions of disempowering behavior, female participants reported seeing significantly more offensive behavior in the video segments than did male participants. The results are discussed in terms of greater female sensitivity to common forms of disempowering behavior in organizations, and having a disparate negative impact and systematically placing women at a disadvantage in today's workforce.     

The coffee-machine system: how international selection really works

The literature on expatriate selection tends to present lists of criteria, with the implicit assumption that the process is formal and rational. The limited empirical work there is in this area suggests that these criteria have little impact on selection in practice. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of selection systems is needed and presents research showing the outcomes of different kinds of systems, suggesting that closed, informal systems predominate and outlining the practical and research implications of such systems.     

CEO duality,succession, capabilities and agency theory: commentary and research agenda

We offer a new explanation for the relationship between CEO duality and firm performance that accounts for managerial capabilities and succession planning. Our reinterpretation of findings by Worrell, Nemec and Davidson (1997) is consistent with the new explanation. We also make suggestions for future research. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can investors time their exposure to private equity?

Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.     

AN ARGUMENT AGAINST HEDGING BY MATCHING THE CURRENCIES OF COSTS AND REVENUES

One way for multinationals to manage their exposures to foreign currency fluctuations is by matching the currencies of costs and revenues, a practice sometimes referred to as "natural hedging." Proponents of this risk-management technique argue that matching currencies decreases profit variability.
Using the example of a U.S. firm competing with a French firm for sales in France, the authors analyze the desirability of the U.S. firm's matching currencies of costs and revenues by sourcing in France rather than in the U.S. They find that in such settings with limited competition, while matching reduces profit variability, it also causes a reduction in expected profitability–a potential drawback that appears to have been overlooked in previous discussions.
The authors demonstrate that the U.S. firm, by choosing not to match currencies, retains the strategic flexibility to adjust its prices and quantities in order to exploit the competitive cost differentials caused by exchange rate shifts. The expected profit effects of matching depend on the tradeoff between expected cost savings, if any, of sourcing abroad versus the reductions in expected profits due to the loss of strategic flexibility . They argue that the benefits of strategic flexibility associated with sourcing in the U.S. can yield an increase in expected profits that may outweigh the cost savings and hedging benefits of currency matching.     

Rate Level Indexed Mortgages: An Evaluation

In this paper, a new and superior alternative mortgage design is presented and evaluated. The mortgage design is motivated by a desire to reduce the exposure of both borrowers and lenders to risks that result from high and variable interest rates, while at the same time providing a mechanism by which changes in the real value of payments and rates of amortization can be controlled. In addition to a theoretical discussion of the merits of this design a simulation of the mortgage's performance is provided that uses market data from the period 1965 to 1983.     

Institutionalization of Tipping as a Source of Managerial Control

This paper explores, investigates and analyses the rationale, approach and outcomes of the attempts by management to control the behaviour of front–line service workers through the institutionalization of customer tipping. It presents evidence generated from an in–depth case study of a highly successful UK restaurant group to suggest that the management of tipping is a way of controlling the behaviour of front–line service workers. However, rather than view such control as purely exploitative and one–sided, it is argued that there is a degree of 'mutual instrumentality', in that the findings suggest that workers voluntarily and consciously submit to subjugation for purely instrumental benefits.