Personnel Policies and Practices in British Trade Unions: An Exploratory Study

Full-time trade union professional employees play a significant role in the formulation and implementation of union policy and are, therefore, an important asset of any labour organisation. In recent years, researchers have begun to focus on this important union resource. This study reports the results of a survey of the internal personnel policies and practices of British trade unions in an effort to gain insights into trade unions as organisations.     

Absence management and presenteeism: the pressures on employees to attend work and the impact of attendance on performance

Absenteeism is an issue that has grown in importance over the past few years; however, little has been done to explore the impact of presenteeism on individual and organisational performance and well-being. This article is based on interviews collected in nine case study organisations in the UK. Two sector organisations (one private and one public) were studied to examine absence management and a conceptual model of presenteeism, with further illustration provided using data from the other seven case studies. This enabled a pattern of presenteeism to emerge, along with the contextual and individual factors which impact on it. In addition to previous research, we found that presenteeism is a complex ‘problem’ and that it is not a single one-dimensional construct, but is continually being shaped by individual and organisational factors. In addition, we found that performance and well-being are more closely related to the organisational reaction to presenteeism and absenteeism, rather than the act itself.     

Security Returns and Tax Aversion Bias: Behavioral Responses to Tax Labels

This article studies behavioral responses to taxes in financial markets. It is motivated by recent puzzling empirical evidence of taxable municipal bond yields significantly exceeding the level expected relative to tax exempt bonds. A behavioral explanation is a tax aversion bias, the phenomenon that people perceive an additional burden associated with tax payments. We conduct market experiments on the trading of differently taxed and labeled securities. The data show an initial overvaluation of tax payments that diminishes when subjects gain experience. The tax deduction of expenses is valued more than an equivalent tax exemption of earnings. We find that the persistence of the tax aversion bias critically depends on the quality of feedback. This suggests that tax aversion predominantly occurs in one-time, unfamiliar financial decisions and to a lesser extent in repetitive choices.     

The Rapid Increase in Generic Prices in the UK: A Failure of Competition or Regulation?

There have been steep rises in the price of some generic drugs since September 1998. These rises have been the subject of an inquiry by the House of Commons Select Committee on Health. This article comments on the pricing of generic drugs and suggests possible solutions to the recent price rises. A fall in the price ofgenerics in the five years prior to September 1998 was a result of regulatory action, rather than strong price competition. However, this regulatory system has now been shown not to have the incentives to encourage suppliers to meet the Government's objective of cheaper generic drugs. This raises the question of whether cost control strategies for primary care prescribing based on the greater use of generics are reasonable.     

Using a mathematical programming model to examine the marginal price of capacitated resources

Accurate information on dual prices of capacitated resources is of interest in a number of applications, such as cost allocation and pricing. To gain insight we focus on the dual prices of capacity and demand in a single-stage single-product production-inventory system, and discuss their interpretation. In particular, we examine the behavior of two different production planning models: a conventional linear programming model and a nonlinear model that captures queuing behavior at resources in an aggregate manner using nonlinear clearing functions. The classical linear programming formulation consistently underestimates the dual price of capacity due to its failure to capture the effects of queuing. The clearing function formulation, in contrast, produces positive dual prices even when utilization is below one and exhibits more realistic behavior, such as holding finished inventory at utilization levels below one.     

The Effect of Social Media on Reputation During a Crisis Event in the Cruise Line Industry

ABSTRACT

This research evaluates social media’s role in shaping perceptions of reputation during crisis management in a cruise line setting. Data were collected from respondents in the United States and Germany (N = 334) to explore the influence of speed and clarity of corporate response, brand familiarity, and cultural values on the perception of corporate reputation of a cruise line experiencing a crisis. Results indicated that speed of response using social media, brand familiarity, and cultural values of the respondent affected perceptions of corporate reputation of a cruise line after a crisis.     

The Basics of Basic Income

Attempting to turn basic income into a realistic proposal involves the reintroduction of elements of the benefit system which are dependent on multiple contingencies and also on income and wealth. The outcome is a welfare system which resembles those that already exist.