Changing patterns of human resource management in contemporary China: WTO accession and enterprise responses

This study examines the increasingly complex challenges facing human resource management (HRM) in China following the country's accession to the WTO and, consequently, the implications for further reform of government policy and enterprise‐level HRM practices. The article concludes that current HR practices among enterprises vary depending on ownership, industrial sector, location and history. The direction of future changes may depend on the level of involvement from external forces as well as internal strategies adopted by Chinese enterprises to survive.     

New evidence on predatory price cutting

This paper presents new evidence on predatory price cutting as a monopolization strategy. The evidence consists primarily of what appear to be repeated expressions of predatory intent in business letters exchanged between senior officers of the old Tobacco Trust. These letters come from the trial records of United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 US 106 (1911). Although they are not entirely free of ambiguity, the tobacco letters are remarkably candid and very interesting.     

Yugoslav ‘self-management’ and industrial relations in transition

This article attempts to examine the changes taking place in the Yugoslav ‘self-management’ and industrial relations system. It looks at the emerging roles of both management and labour in the context of moves to give market factors greater prominence in the economy.     

The Sensitivity of Capital Use to Price in Higher Education

We test whether U.S. colleges and universities adjust their physical capital intensity to differences in factor prices by regressing the square feet of space per student on construction prices across institutions. The results indicate that physical space at selective liberal arts colleges and private comprehensive universities is unresponsive to relative factor prices but do reflect differences in institutional wealth. At public comprehensive universities and two-year colleges the evidence suggests that students enjoy more space per student where building costs are lower.     

Market Timing and Capital Structure

It is well known that firms are more likely to issue equity when their market values are high, relative to book and past market values, and to repurchase equity when their market values are low. We document that the resulting effects on capital structure are very persistent. As a consequence, current capital structure is strongly related to historical market values. The results suggest the theory that capital structure is the cumulative outcome of past attempts to time the equity market.     

Bias and variability in purchase intention scales

Although purchase intention scales are widely used, relatively little is known about bias and variability in the estimated purchase proportions. Psychometric techniques have been developed to correct for such problems, and analytical approaches have shown that most predictive errors can be explained as probabilistic variability. However, there is a lack of systematic empirical work in the area. We address this problem using two meta-analyses of published work. Our results show that purchase intention scales are empirically unbiased. Furthermore, the variability is much less than previously assumed. This finding improves the confidence researchers can have in the use of such scales. Interestingly, purchase probability scales performed even better than purchase intention scales. The greater precision of probability scales suggests that they may be more useful both as direct measures of likely behavior and as dependent variables in consumer behavior research.