Board Pay and the Separation of Ownership from Control in U.K. SMEs

This paper examines Board pay for a sample of 571 U.K. SMEs from 1991 to 1995. Approximately half of the sample were closely-held (i.e., owner-managed) firms which allowed empirical testing of models of the relationship between Board pay and ownership from control characteristics. Consistent with their need to align shareholder and manager incentives, the results indicate that the change in nonclosely-held SME Board pay is significantly related to both external market pay comparisons and “benchmark” profits. This contrasts with the empirical results for the closely-held firms where Board pay awards are typically highly sensitive to current total profits but wholly unrelated to external market pay levels.     

Is the Culture of Family Firms Really Different? A Value-based Model for Its Survival through Generations

The current work represents a piece of research on the family firm of the semasiological, interpretive or culture creation type. In it we carry out a comparative analysis of the organizational culture of this type of firm along with firms not considered to be family firms, using as theoretical framework generally accepted theories in business administration, such as the systems, neoinstitutional, transformational leadership, and social identity theories. Our findings confirm the existence of certain elements of culture, especially values and allow us to propose a value-based model to help family firms to survive through different family generations.     

The role of sharing in the circulation of knowledge

One of the points stressed in ‘A new paradigm in the organization of knowledge’, Futures, 26, 1994, pages 781–786, was the determinant role of sharing in the emergence and configuration of the paradigm of the immaterial. We resume the elements suggested then and develop their analysis in three stages: first, by characterizing the operational singularity of sharing; second, by considering its cognitive and disciplinary incidence; and finally, by pointing out its theoretical consequences, namely in what concerns the thematic of rationality.     

ERPs as 'technologies-in-practice': social construction, materiality and the role of organisational factors

Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) often fail to deliver the organisational benefits anticipated. This paper uses Orlikowski's 'technology-in-practice' framework to analyse the impact of an ERP on branch managers in a large bank. While this framework provides important insights into the impact of ERPs, the case also highlights the significance of organisational factors in shaping how users enact technology at work.     

PRODUCT MARKET STRUCTURE,CAPITAL INTENSITY,AND SYSTEMATIC RISK: EMPIRICAL RESULTS FROM THE THEORY OF THE FIRM

Product market concepts from industrial organization economics are integrated with financial valuation models of the firm to investigate relationships among systematic risk, capital intensity, and product market power. The theory of the firm facing uncertain input and output prices is extended to provide empirical models. Empirical results coincide with hypotheses derived from the theoretical model and pose questions about traditional single period hypotheses found in the finance literature.     

Outlook for the grain market

With all the indications suggesting that the current imbalance between supply of and demand for grain will continue for the foreseeable future, and with a steady surplus both keeping prices down and forcing on governments measures to reduce output and stocks, attention is turning to South East Asia, a region which, due to the rapid growth of both its population and per capita income, seems to offer the best prospects of medium and long-term increases in demand. How realistic are the hopes that South East Asia will be able to absorb a substantial part of the world's grain surplus?     

From Bermondsey to Canary Wharf: The Social Context of Change in Industrial Relations, 1880–2000

This paper presents evidence on some of the key variables that have determined the economic status of different groups in the working population. Economic status is set by the level and security of real income and consumption. These are themselves determined by access to resources in the areas of the labour market, public services and social security, and in housing. The paper reviews the period between 1880 and 1990, and puts forward the likely situation in the year 2000. The century began with an agenda set by the problems of falling real incomes and poverty. It is likely to end with the problems of economic and demographic ageing as the main focus.     

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING IN SPAIN

This paper provides an analysis of the present situation concerning local government accounting in Spain following recent reforms introduced in the early nineties. It presents a picture of the main features of Spanish local finance—budgeting and accounting, the measurement focus, and the basis of accounting—and analyses the financial reporting system adopted by Spanish municipalities. This is followed by a critical review of several weak points in the reform which in the author's view will encourage further developments.     

A new measurement procedure for attitudinal research. Analysis of its psychometric and informational properties

Since measurement errors have strong effects in all relationships (statistical or otherwise) studied, there is an increasing interest in the data quality, which is the major justification for this research. This paper aims to present a new measurement procedure, the letter scale, which avoids many of the problems connected with the response modalities traditionally used in attitudinal research, especially the ordinal categorical scales. This paper analyzes the error composition of the scores obtained with this new measurement procedure. The validity of the procedure is also analyzed and the observed variance is assessed to determine which part of the observed variance is “valid”, which part is random error (attenuating relationships) and which is correlated error (magnifying relationships). Structural equation models will be used to provide estimates of the measurement quality: (i) Reliability, (ii) Construct validity, method effect and residual variance. In addition, this letter scale is evaluated under another different perspective, Information Theory measures are also used to assess the amount of information transmitted. The relative merits of this new measurement procedure as opposed to other common response modalities will be discussed in both cases.