Flexibility and Standardization: Test of a Contingency Model of Product Design–Manufacturing Integration

This article proposes and tests a contingency model of system integration of product design and manufacturing among producers of goods involving tooling development. The model predicts which combinations of organizational and technical practices will be most effective under conditions of high and low design newness. The results, based on data from 74 firms, largely support the model. Differentiating mechanisms, such as a tall hierarchy and job specialization, are negatively associated with design–manufacturing integration, particularly for new designs. Socio-integrative mechanisms, including such flexible practices as cross-functional teaming and collocation, are positively related to design–manufacturing integration for new designs only. However, the use of in-process design controls is positively related to design–manufacturing integration regardless of design newness, which suggests that some modes of standardization may be beneficial even for new designs.     

Management Discussion and Analysis: An Evaluation of Practice in UK and US Companies

The Accounting Standards Board has proposed the inclusion of an Operating and Financial Review in the annual reports of large UK companies, similar to the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA. This paper explores the nature of the MD&A reports already existing in the case of 42 UK companies which report to the SEC and compares these with a sample of 42 large US companies. Techniques of content analysis and a subjective scoring system were used to quantify the differences between observed practice of UK and US companies within the same set of regulations. UK companies were found to provide more informative reports with respect to disclosure of aspects of risk and uncertainty, as well as providing more forward-looking information. In both the UK and the USA there was no evidence of homogeneity of form and content within or between industry groupings. It is concluded that it is feasible for UK companies to produce the type of report envisaged by the Accounting Standards Board and that a wide range of practice exists within the framework of the SEC regulations. Research into user needs will be required to identify the most useful disclosures.     

Guest editorial: perspectives on sustainable consumption

The typical guest editorial within a special issue of a journal will explain the theme of the special issue, introduce the different contributions that follow, outline the contributions that each makes and identify the common threads that connect them. By contrast, this editorial article seeks to provide an overview which explores the broader context for the challenges that are presented by the pursuit of ‘sustainable consumption’ as a field of scholarship, a form of behaviour and a public policy goal. It explores some of the complexities involved in understanding sustainable consumption, and the ways in which conventional approaches to understanding consumption and consumer behaviour may be insufficient to understand and promote sustainable consumption.     

Financial Capability for All: Training Human Service Professionals to Work with Vulnerable Families

This essay explores the potential for social workers and other human services professionals to build the financial capability of vulnerable populations. These professionals routinely work with the financially vulnerable and are uniquely positioned to provide basic financial guidance and support. Their education in human development, family dynamics, organizational and community functioning, and social policy prepares them to be key partners in creating solutions to financial vulnerability. However, human service professionals need additional training. Although there has been significant progress in developing curricula, additional resources, such as assessment models and practice tools for serving specific populations, would facilitate financial practice. Academic degree programs and continuing education in financial capability must be developed, along with greater clarification about career pathways and credentialing. Building the financial capability of vulnerable families is an ambitious agenda, but one that is essential to well‐being in the 21st century.     

Contents of Volume 4

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 4     

The Best Teachers I Ever Had Were ... at the Unification Theological Seminary

Teaching Business Ethics -     

New evidence on the importance of instruction time for student achievement on international assessments

We re-examine the importance of instruction time for student achievement on international assessments. We successfully replicate the positive effect of weekly instruction time in the seminal paper by Lavy (Economic Journal, 125, F397-F424) in a narrow sense. Extending the analysis to other international assessments, we find effects that are consistently smaller in magnitude. We provide evidence that this discrepancy might be partly due to a different way of measuring instruction time in the data used in the original paper. Our results suggest that differences in instruction time are less important than previously thought for explaining international gaps in student achievement.     

Family logics and environmental sustainability: A study of the New Zealand wine industry

The majority of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the wine industry are family owned and operated providing a unique organisational structure to study environmental sustainability engagement. However, researchers at the intersection of environmental sustainability (ES) and family businesses tend to oversimplify family businesses as homogeneous regarding ES. Therefore, the broader goal of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of heterogeneities among family firms related to ES. The paper aims to understand how family firms portray different aspects of family influence (family goals, family values, culture and ethics, and the imprints of the founders and the next generation) in their ES disclosures. Family logics are used as a theoretical lens to analyse family influence. A qualitative content analysis of 72 corporate websites of family firms operating in the New Zealand wine industry was conducted. Antecedents of heterogeneities were revealed with a discussion of three typologies of family firms: family first, business first and upstarts.