A New Form of Chinese Human Resource Management? Personnel and Labour‐Management Relations in Chinese Township and Village Enterprises: A Case‐Study Approach

Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) in China have in the last decade played an increasingly important role in the Chinese economy, employing over 120 million workers. This article examines their human resources, personnel and labour‐management relations, based on in‐depth case studies of a selected number of TVEs located in southern China, reflecting the influence of diversification, local labour‐market conditions and marketisation.     

The opportunity cost of duality

A dual representation of a technology, e.g., a cost function, may not contain all of the technological information, but it will contain all of the information about input vectors that would be chosen by a cost-minimizing firm. At least this much is clear for deterministic technologies. The main question addressed in this paper is whether the same can be said about stochastic technologies and their dual representations. Despite some pessimism expressed in the stochastic frontier literature on this question, we argue that there is no extra cost imposed in the stochastic case. Thus, the conclusion of this paper is: Just dual it!     

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Managing careers in downsizing firms

The literature on managing careers has traditionally been based on the twin assumptions of organizational growth and increased opportunities for individual advancement. Large-scale layoffs in the 1980s and continued downsizing in the 1990s, however, have left organizations questioning how to develop the careers of their employees under conditions of diminished resources and have left employees wondering how to manage their own careers under conditions of diminished opportunities. This article examines the issues involved in managing careers in downsizing firms from both the organization's and the individual's perspective. In addition, it explores not only short-term tactics for handling career disruptions which occur at the time of downsizing but also longer-term strategies for managing careers during times of little or no organizational growth. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Indifference,indecision, and coin-flipping

This article operationalizes a non-empty relation as implied if strict preference and indifference jointly do not completely order the choice set. Specifically, indecision is operationalized as a positive preference for delegating choice to a least predictable device.     

Statistical tests for multiple forecast comparison

We consider a multivariate version of the Diebold–Mariano test for equal predictive ability of three or more forecasting models. The Wald-type test, $S$, which has a null distribution that is asymptotically chi-squared, is shown to be generally invariant with respect to the ordering of the models being compared. Finite-sample corrections for the test are also developed. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that $S$ has reasonable size properties in large samples but tends to be oversized in moderate samples. The finite-sample correction succeeds in correcting for size, but only partially. For the size-adjusted tests, power increases with sample size, as expected. It is speculated that further finite-sample improvements can be achieved using Hotelling’s $T^2$ or bootstrap critical values.     

A Comparative Study of the Benefits of Applying Target Cost Contracts Between South Australia and Hong Kong

This article aims to identify and analyze the key benefits of adopting Guaranteed Maximum Price and Target Cost Contracts (GMP/TCC) over and above the traditional lump‐sum contractual arrangement through an empirical questionnaire survey conducted in South Australia and compared with the findings in Hong Kong. The Mann‐Whitney U Test indicated differences in perception between the two groups of respondents on the majority of the identified benefits. The study has provided an in‐depth understanding of the perceived benefits of the GMP/TCC scheme, hence leading to a wider application of those alternative integrated procurement strategies in both regions for reference by the construction community at large.