Updating the Determinants of Firm Performance: Estimation using the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey

We examine the determinants of establishment performance in the UK, using cross‐sectional data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to replicate research by Fernie and Metcalf (1995) who used data from the 1990 Workplace Employee Relations Survey; specifically, we test whether employee representation, contingent pay and efforts to boost employee participation affect a set of economic and industrial relations outcome indicators in the manner they suggest. We also re‐estimate the influential WERS90‐based study of Machin and Stewart (1996) on the links between union status and financial performance. In both cases we report very different results.     

Transforming Local Government: Innovation and Modernization

This article is based on research investigating why local authorities innovate and what happens when they do. The authors show how local authorities have responded to the current normative climate for innovation, and explore the interaction between central policy and local action. The article demonstrates the importance of the policy climate set by central government in fostering—or constraining—innovation at a local level.     

The evaluation stage in marketing decision making

Prior to making important decisions, marketing managers go through an evaluation process in which available alternatives are compared. Yet, no systematic discussion of the evaluation process exists in the marketing literature. This article reviews the marketing and behavioral decision theory literature in order to identify factors that may cause errors in the two fundamental elements of the evaluation process—the estimation of probabilities and the determination of the value of outcomes. Propositions are developed that specify circumstances in which marketing management decisions may be influenced by judgmental biases, and procedures are identified for debiasing such judgments.     

On the E-optimality of truncated block designs

Sufficient conditions are found for designs, derived from completely symmetric designs by deleting binary blocks, to be E-optimal. Sufficient conditions are also found for E-optimality of designs obtained from other E-optimal designs by deleting all blocks forming a balanced incomplete block design on a subset of the treatments. The results include many binary and non-binary designs for which E-optimality was previously unknown.     

Whose Capital is It? Putting Owners Back in Control

John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, looks at corporate governance issues. JEL Classification G3     

Mortgage credit conditions in the UK

It is widely perceived that credit conditions for UK consumers, particularly in the mortgage market, have been radically liberalized since the 1970s. The implications for the housing market and consumer spending have been important. This article by John Muellbauer draws on a 1997 paper by the author which examined data from the Survey of Mortgage Lenders to learn, from information about loan-to-value ratios of first-time buyers, classified by region, about changes in mortgage credit conditions. By controlling for economic and demographic influences on credit conditions, a single time-varying index of mortgage credit conditions was extracted from these SML data. This index rises in the 1980s, peaking towards the end of the decade. It retraces part of its rise in the early 1990s before rising again by 1995 to a level not far below the previous peak. The article considers whether more recent data suggest a further liberalisation of mortgage credit conditions. It draws on joint research with others to discuss possible implications for consumer spending, house prices, the volume of property transactions and mortgage defaults.     

"Flexible" Work Practices and Occupational Safety and Health: Exploring the Relationship Between Cumulative Trauma Disorders and Workplace Transformation

This article matches establishment-level data on workplace transformation (e.g., quality circles, work teams, and just-in-time production) with measures of cumulative trauma disorders at these same establishments to explore the relationship between "flexible" workplace practices and workplace health and safety. The results reveal a positive, statistically significant, and quantitatively sizable relationship between cumulative trauma disorders and the use of quality circles and just-in-time production.