Internal labour market processes

This article focuses upon internal labour market processes and reviews current theoretical and empirical material. In reporting two recent studies which indicate the variety of internal processes the authors offer some explanations for such developments, in particular their relevance to issues of managerial control.     

THE IMPACT OF FOREIGN OWNERSHIP AND EFFICIENCY ON POLLUTION ABATEMENT EXPENDITURE BY CHEMICAL PLANTS: SOME UK EVIDENCE

This paper examines the impact of foreign ownership and efficiency on chemical plants' pollution abatement expenditure. The model estimates presented reveal not only which factors are the key determinants of whether any abatement expenditure occurs but also explain how much was spent on the principal categories of pollution control. These chemical plant results present a conspicuous contrast with earlier results based on other industrial sectors. This would suggest that the efficiency–pollution spending relationship is also characterised by industry specific effects.     

Chinese science and technology — Structure and infrastructure

This paper identifies and analyzes the science and technology core competencies of China, based on a sampling of approximately half of the total Chinese publication output in the Science Citation Index/ Social Science Citation Index (SCI/SSCI) [SCI. Certain data included herein are derived from the Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index prepared by the Thomson Scientific®, Inc. (Thomson®), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: © Copyright Thomson Scientific® 2006. All rights reserved. [1]] for 2005. Aggregate China publication and citation bibliometrics were obtained and a hierarchical research taxonomy, based on document clustering, was generated. Additionally, bibliometrics and thematic trends were tracked over the past two decades.The key findings were that China's output of research articles has significantly expanded in the last decade. In terms of sheer numbers of research articles, especially in cuting-edge technologies, such as nanotechnology and energetic materials, it is among the leaders. Compared to the USA, the bulk of China's articles focus on the physical and engineering sciences, while the USA articles (compared to China) focus on medical, social, and psychological sciences.     

Identification and classification of problems associated with evaluating social marketing efforts

The social, cultural, and economic climate of the 1980's present real pressure on social program administrators to evaluate their marketing efforts. Evaluation of social programs presents an array of problems or obstacles about which the social marketer must be aware. This paper identifies and categorizes these problems within a meaningful framework. The typology presented classifies social marketing program evaluation problems as being conceptual, macro- and micropolitical, and methodological. An understanding of the nature of these problems should assist the social marketer in overcoming their effects.     

Investment mobilization and capacity completion in the Chinese and Soviet economies

This paper examines the relationship between the mobilization of resources into capital projects and the completion of new productive capacity in two shortage economies—China and the USSR. Causes of delayed commissioning of new capacity, and the role of unfinished construction in the investment cycle, are analysed. Annual data over a long period are presented for both economies—for the USSR 1928–37 and 1950–83, and for China 1950–82. Changes over time in the relationship between investment mobilization and capacity completion are considered, along with differences and similarities between the records of the two economies under investigation.Department of Economics, University of Warwick. I am grateful for helpful advice and comments received from Julian Cooper and Philip Hanson of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham; from Bob Lewis, Department of Economic History, University of Exeter; from Raja Junankar of the Institute of Employment Research, David Rees of the Department of Economics and colleagues of the Development Economics Research Centre seminar, University of Warwick; and from an anonymous referee.     

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF FULL‐SCALE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE ADOPTIONS ON INVENTORY BALANCES AND TURNS

Supply chain management (SCM) software vendors, analysts, and others claim that firms implementing SCM software stand to benefit by being able to reduce inventory holdings and increase inventory turns. We theorize that full‐scale implementations lead to system‐wide inventory optimization, which in turn leads to cost improvement associated with inventory balances and turns. To examine the question, we develop an analytical model of inventory optimization, then analyze the effects of the model with a numerical experiment, and finally confirm the results with an empirical examination. We find that firm‐wide implementation is significant in explaining improvement in inventory metrics, relative to pre‐implementation metrics for our sample. Our empirical tests indicate that implementing SCM software across only a portion of the firm does not impact inventory metrics, but that the scale of implementation does. More precisely, we find that firms implementing SCM software across the entire company significantly improve both inventory turns and inventory as a percent of revenue relative to partially‐implementing firms and non‐implementers.