Global GDP shares in the 21st century — An equilibrium approach

Using a 9-region model of the world economy, we investigate the implications of the diffusion of total factor productivity (TFP) for global GDP shares during the 21st century. The nine regions are: Africa, Asia (excluding China, India and Japan), China, Europe, India, Japan, Latin America, North America and Oceania. According to our projections, TFP catch-up at a plausible rate implies that the share of the high-income regions will more than halve by 2050 and almost halve again in the subsequent 50 years. These projected shares are little affected by variations in demographic outcomes, saving behaviour and international capital flows, but are reduced substantially should TFP catch-up be slower.     

Culture,consumption and choice: towards a conceptual relationship

Abstract Manufacturers and retailers are continually extending the geographical scope of their activities, and the degree of acceptance by local consumer cultures is integral to the success or failure of their operations. It is, therefore, important that cultural influences on consumption behaviour are fully conceptualized and understood. Central to this understanding is a need to address how consumers prioritize their own principles and set them against other criteria, bringing these to bear in the process of choosing particular products. This paper attempts to address the paucity of research in this respect by attempting to integrate areas of literature on culture, consumption and product choice. These relationships are explored through a simple conceptual framework, which is then used to discuss the influence of culture on one particular type of behaviour —‘ethical consumption’— the degree to which consumers prioritize their own ethical concerns when making product choices. The paper concludes by highlighting the general implications of the framework for research.     

Research and development (R&D) beyond manufacturing: the strange case of services R&D

The share of business research and development (R&D) expenditure stemming from the services sector of the economy has been growing rapidly in many (though not all) OECD countries, according to official statistics. The same data sources also indicate, however, that services contribute less to R&D than would be expected given their large shares of employment and output in national economies. In part, incomplete sampling of services in R&D surveys may lead to some underestimation of their R&D activity, but this is unlikely to account for their apparently poor performance. This paper draws on an analysis of existing statistical sources, and on interviews and workshops with service firms' managers. It finds difficulties associated with the ways in which R&D has been operationalised in survey questions. Examination of survey questionnaires suggests that the formulation of these questions, focusing on technological R&D and ruling out much social scientific R&D, disproportionately reduces the reporting of R&D by service firms. But beyond this, the R&D concept itself has some problematic features where it comes to documenting innovation in service firms. This was investigated through a programme of interviews and workshops with service firms, where a lack of familiarity with the R&D concept and R&D management practices was found to be commonplace. R&D performance and innovation activities vary across services of different sorts, even though most service subsectors appear to be low R&D investors. It is thus important to examine services' innovation patterns and processes, to establish what types of R&D‐like activity are underway in these subsectors. While some modification in R&D measurement would be desirable to capture services' activities, effort to understand the non‐R&D elements of services innovation is also important – for management and for policy (given that governments are seeking to create R&D incentives and targets for services and other sectors). There are grounds for expecting (a) services' share of business R&D to continue to grow; (b) this share to continue to be well below what would be expected from the prevalence of services in economic activity, and (c) for many services' innovation to continue to rely heavily on sources that are not directly associated with R&D.     

Budgetary control within the hotel industry

This paper is divided into two distinct parts and within these parts it follows the following lines of progression. The major division in the paper is between a look at the accepted theory that underpins any research in this area with comments on its likely effects on the organizations under scrutiny, and a look at the case studies that were constructed as a result of undertaking research into several hotel and leisure companies with the aim of gaining a representative cross-section of the industry and its budgetary control techniques.     

Social forecasting: From impressions to investigation

Acknowledgement of the insights that have already been gained from survey research and other methods common in social science has been a major omission of social forecasters. The author suggests that experts involved in futures research should broaden their horizons and regard social changes not necessarily as the result of technological ones, but quite often as the cause. Examples of recent survey research are chosen to illustrate some ways in which socio-psychological data can be utilised in forecasting studies.     

An Experimental Study of Auditor Analytical Review Judgements

This paper provides evidence as to how five factors highlighted in the current UK auditing standard are taken into account by auditors in analytical review (AR) judgements. While the relative importance of particular cues was generally found to be consistent with the standard, certain factors were taken into account only to a marginal extent. Little evidence of configural cue usage was identified. The study also provides evidence of a tendency towards conservatism in the way auditors approach AR. The results suggest both that the potential to substitute AR for other substantive procedures may be realised only imperfectly and that the issue of configural reasoning should be addressed in the auditing standard.     

Recognising Uniqueness in the Technology Key Learning Area: The Search for Meaning

The purpose of this study was to investigate areas of significance which were related to the understanding of technology and technology education, identified by teachers introducing the key learning area, technology, into their primary school classrooms for the first time. Working from Australia's national document on technology education, A Statement on Technology for Australian Schools (Curriculum Corporation, 1994), two teachers wrestled with how to fit this new curriculum area into their current classroom programs, their understandings of technology as a phenomenon and with their beliefs about teaching and learning in general. The study showed that the teachers made sense of technology education as it related to, from their perspectives, ideas about and aspects of primary school classrooms with which they felt comfortable. Implications for professional development include the need to acknowledge and value the prior experiences and understandings of primary teachers. The challenge for teachers in implementing technology education is gaining a conceptualisation of the learning area, which in some respects, is very like other more familiar learning areas in the primary curriculum, but in many other respects, unique.