Corporate Cultural Change – Is It Relevant For the Organisations of the 1990s?

Partly as a consequence of the popularity of the ‘excellence’ literature of the early 1980s, there was a widespread acceptance that ‘corporate cultural change’ was one of the effective mechanisms within a strategic HRM approach to people management. However, recent research into imposed cultural change programmes in the late 1980s raises doubts about their effectiveness as change mechanisms, as management control devices and as contributors to business performance. This article engages in the current debate concerning the aims, design and implementation of cultural change but goes on to question the relevance of such an idea for organisations in the context of the 1990s. the article extends the many debates within the HRM and corporate culture literature by contextualising them within the emerging features of organisations in the 1990s.     

Measurement of the Socioeconomic Impact of Lake Restoration: An Assessment Model Employing a Benefit/Cost Cross-Impact Probabilistic Approach

A bstract . A number of lake restoration demonstraton projects have been launched by the Environmental Protection Agency as a result of Public Law 92-500. To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these public investment projects requires the development of an assessment model. The proposed Benefit/Cost Cross-Impact Probabilistic Approach (BCCIPA) is one attempt at assessing the interdependent socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the lake restoration project over time, both quantitatively and qualitatively, so that various changes brought about by the project can be investigated and evaluated in two comparative stages for three points in time—before, during and after project implementation.     

Social distance and shopping behavior

This research was designed to see whether a reconceptualization of social distance (as measured by social class variables) between shoppers and stores would provide a basis for understanding store avoidance behavior. A survey of shoppers classified into two distinct social classes investigated their images, including social class images, of two stores that had been selected as representatives of upscale and downscale retailers. A new measure of social distance was proposed and evaluated. Controlling for other functional aspects of store image such as price and personnel, the social distance measure was found to be influential in discriminating shopping frequency groups for the two stores, providing evidence that people tend to avoid stores that are perceived as being socially distant from themselves.     

A COMPARISON OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR TRAINING AND ENTERPRISE COUNCILS IN THE UK

ABSTRACT ** : The use of performance indicators for the evaluation and comparison of efficiency in service provision in the public and related sectors of the economy is continuously developing. While they often represent a step forward, to the extent that they focus attention on the objectives of the organization in question, it is frequently suspected that they fail to take into account non-controllable environmental factors. To do so requires multivariate techniques of analysis. This paper compares the results of three such methods with the raw performance indicators. It confirms the importance of non-controllable factors but also shows that different multivariate methods give results which do not always agree. Understanding the properties of different approaches is essential in drawing conclusions about performance.     

Book Reviews

Ruth McVey (ed.), Southeast Asian Capitalists, Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1992, pp. 218.

Joan Hardjono (ed.), Indonesia: Resources, Ecology and Environment, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. xvi + 262. Cloth: A$50; £25.

Chris Dixon, South East Asia in the World-Economy: A Regional Geography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. xv + 281. Paper: A$29.95; Cloth: npg.

Kym Anderson (ed.), New Silk Roads: East Asia and World Textile Markets, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, for the Trade and Development Series, National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, 1992, pp. xxvi + 24. A559.50.

K. S. Sandhu et al. (comps), The ASEAN Reader, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992, pp. xxvi + 582.

Kim Seung Jin and Suh Jang-Won (eds), Cooperation in Small and Medium-Scale Industries in ASEAN, Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Development Centre, 1992, pp. xiv + 389.