Employment law and The European Community: review article

Book reviewed in this article: Business Transfers and Employee Rights John McMullen Butterworths Harmonization and Hazard: Regulating Workplace Health and Safety in the European Community Robert Baldwin and Terence Daintith (Eds.) EC Social Policy and 1992: Laws, Cases and Materials Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany Kathleen A. Thelen The Power to Manage? Employers and Industrial Relations in Comparative Historical Context S. Tolliday and J. Zeitlin (Eds.) Trouble on Board: The Plight of International Seafarers Paul K. Chapman (Introduction by Clifford B. Donn) Markets, Firms and the Management of Labour in Modern Britain . Howard Gospel Hard Cheese: A Study of Hotel and Catering Employment in Scotland Ian R. Macaulay and Roy C. Wood Working Miracles: Experiences of Jobs and Childcare Usha Brown and Louise Tait Scottish     

Sources, uses, and forms of data in the new product development process

This paper presents qualitative and exploratory research investigating the role that managing knowledge and information plays in new product development (NPD). A set of 20 in-depth interviews uncovered eight basic types of information used throughout the NPD process and three general approaches to managing information needed in the NPD process. Although some exemplary companies seem to do an outstanding job of collecting and disseminating information, the majority of firms struggle. NPD process automation solutions tackle part of the problem, ignoring nonquantitative data forms and the full picture of information use throughout the entire development process.     

The impact of consumer health information on the demand for health services

This paper empirically examines whether consumers use health information, from non-physician information sources, as a substitute or complement for health services – namely for physician visits and emergency room (ER) visits. An indicator of patient trust in physicians is developed and used as a proxy for potential unobserved heterogeneity that may drive both consumers’ propensity to seek information and to use physician services. The results, after correcting for sample selection bias and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, concur with the literature, that consumer health information increases the likelihood of visiting a physician as well as the frequency of visits on average. However, low-trust consumers tend to substitute self-care through consumer health information for physician services. Further, better-informed consumers make significantly fewer ER visits suggesting that information may be improving efficiency in the market.     

Rent Control and The Supply of Housing Services: The Brookline Massachusetts Experience

A bstract . The hypothesis that the short-run and long-run supply of housing services is unaffected by rent control is examined. It has been asserted that total housing services may remain unchanged when tenant supplied services are included and that capital improvements may return to normal after the initial loss in property values. Using data on health code violations and building permits from a town in metropolitan Boston , the analysis concludes that rent control diminishes the total supply of housing services in the short-run and reduces capital expenditures to maintain and improve housing services in the long-run.     

An Empirical Analysis of Tenant Selection Under Federal Rent Supplement Programs: A First Step

The purpose of this study is to consider the question of whether characteristics of applicants for federally subsidized housing can be used in predicting whether one is accepted or rejected by management as a tenant. Using probit analysis, a statistical model was developed for use in assisting management in objectively screening applicants. Factors found significant in determining the probability of acceptance or rejection were credit ratings, character references, length of time employed, and student status. The percent of rent subsidized by government and sex of household head had little effect on applicant acceptance. Although a meaningful model for estimating the probability of eviction could not be developed, low eviction rates resulting from the tenant selection model suggest that it may serve as a reasonable proxy.     

Microfoundations of strategic problem formulation

Before a strategy can be developed, the problem it is supposed to address needs to be formulated. We establish the microfoundations of strategic problem formulation by developing a theory that predicts a core set of impediments to formulation that arise when complex, ill‐structured problems are addressed by heterogeneous teams. These impediments fundamentally constrain and narrow problem formulation, thereby limiting solution search and potential value creation. We establish these impediments as a set of design goals, which, if remedied by an appropriately constructed mechanism, can expand problem formulation to be more comprehensive. Finally, we consider how organizations can improve problem formulation by creating a structured process that satisfies the theoretically derived design goals and detail a specific example of this mechanism (collaborative structured inquiry). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors that influence the length of industrial channels

This article is concerned with the length of channels utilized to market industrial products. Several marketing scholars have proposed that the appropriate channel structure is a function of conditions associated with the market for the product, the nature of the product itself, and characteristics of the producer and middlemen. By means of a survey of industrial product manufacturers, this study identified six characteristics of middlemen, industrial markets, and industrial customers that appear to be significant influences on the length of channels used to distribute industrial products.