Corruption: Where to Draw the Line?

Just what is corruption, and what should, or can, be done about it? The author is Head of the Management Centre at South Bank University, London.     

INPUTS,OUTPUTS AND PRODUCTIVITY CHANGE IN THE AUSTRALIAN SHEEP INDUSTRY

Tornqvist quantity indexes of output and input are computed for the period 1952/53 to 1976/77 from Australian Sheep Industry Survey data. The computation includes estimating the annual service flow from durable inputs. Total productivity in the sheep industry is estimated to have increased by 2.9 per cent per annum during this 25-year period. While the ratio of capital employed per unit of labour has increased, materials, services and livestock have been the inputs for which the quantity used has increased most rapidly. On the output side, there has been a move towards greater diversification with both crop and cattle enterprises on 'sheep properties' increasing in relative importance.     

Why won't managers co-operate? Innovation and productivity in engineering

Drawing from her experience of participant-observation in an electrical engineering factory Caroline White contributes to the debate on Britain's continuing industrial problems. She concludes that the fundamental opposition of capital and labour in the capitalistproduction process explains the failure to tap the workers' reservoir of both commitment and creativity.     

Institutionalization of Tipping as a Source of Managerial Control

This paper explores, investigates and analyses the rationale, approach and outcomes of the attempts by management to control the behaviour of front–line service workers through the institutionalization of customer tipping. It presents evidence generated from an in–depth case study of a highly successful UK restaurant group to suggest that the management of tipping is a way of controlling the behaviour of front–line service workers. However, rather than view such control as purely exploitative and one–sided, it is argued that there is a degree of 'mutual instrumentality', in that the findings suggest that workers voluntarily and consciously submit to subjugation for purely instrumental benefits.     

TURNING FARMERS INTO FORESTERS VIA MARKET LIBERALISATION

Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and public concern over the environment have brought woodland into the public eye as an environment-friendly alternative land use in British agriculture. Survey evidence indicates that whilst it is the inadequacy of the returns from woodland that acts as the principal deterrent to planting, there are also a number of other factors that discourage woodland adoption. Of these, the perceived lack of flexibility that is associated with woodland figures highly. In part, loss of flexibility occurs due to the strength of controls such as felling licences and Tree Preservation Orders that restrict the conversion of woodland back to agricultural land. This paper develops a simple comparative static model of the way in which such restrictions impact on the allocation and price of woodland vis-à-vis agricultural land. Where felling controls are in operation they may reduce as well as preserve the area of woodland, and retard the efficacy of financial incentives. In this light, policymakers may do well to abolish felling restrictions on new woodland (possibly in conjunction with enhanced woodland incentives generally) if expansion of the wooded area is an explicit objective of future agricultural policy.