Recent declines in fertility in less developed countries,and what ‘population planners’ may learn from them

Significant and rapid fertility declines have occurred in many countries in the poor world over the past decade; many of these were unanticipated by demographers. Despite advances in statistical technique and demographic theory, little is yet known about the demographic rhythms of life in poor countries, or of the social forces behind them. Fertility decline, however, appears to have much to do with changes, economic and otherwise, within the family structure. The impact of ‘family planning’ programmes on fertility decline appears to have been exaggerated. ‘Population planners’ should be sensitive to the fact that a decline in fertility does not necessarily mean that an improvement in the standard of living has occurred, and they should not assume that reducing fertility automatically increases either the quality of life or the prospects for ‘development’.     

Working in steel: steelworkers’ attitudes to change 40 years on

In workplace studies, there are few examples of researchers returning to previously studied sites. A recent study in the steel industry included an attitude survey at a plant previously studied in the 1950s. Despite massive changes at the plant, various important similarities are evident in the two studies. In part, these are seen to reflect the continuing influence of occupational identities and structures on steelworkers’ attitudes.     

ADOPTING JAPANESE-STYLE MANUFACTURING METHODS: A TALE OF TWO (UK) FACTORIES*

Japanese manufacturing methods such as just-in-time production and total quality control are serving as a model of manufacturing organization which many UK manufacturers are currently emulating. This article describes the implementation of just-in-time production and its supporting practices in two factories owned by the same company. Empirical evidence demonstrates a profoundly political dimension to these innovations, requiring a significant rewriting of organizations’ political and cultural maps.     

Worker co-operatives and the promotion of co-operative development in Britain

Worker co-operatives have been the subject of extensive debate in recent years. In this article John Coyne and Nick Wilson place that attention in perspective by outlining the different forms worker co-operatives take. They review recent initiatives to promote cooperative development and discuss the ensuing problems facing the emergent co-operative.     

The causal effect of the number of children on gender‐specific labour supply elasticities to the firm

We estimate the effect of the number of children on the female and the male wage elasticities of labour supply to the firm using instrumental variables estimation in data from the US Current Population Survey (2000–19). Parents' number of children is instrumented with the sex mix of their first two children. We find that the male wage elasticity of labour supply to the firm significantly increases with the number of children, while the female elasticity is not significantly altered. That is, we find evidence that male labour markets become more competitive with the arrival of children. Our results also show that firms have substantial monopsonistic power and, in line with the monopsony theory of the gender pay gap, that male labour markets are more competitive than female markets.     

Weathering the storm: Accountability implications for flood relief and recovery from a local government perspective

This paper investigates the role of accounting and the nature of accountability from the perspective of local government managers in the context of multiple flood events. The flood events occurred in the State of Victoria, Australia during 2010‐11, and rural regions were the most severely affected by this natural disaster. The findings demonstrate that convoluted governance and extensive State and Federal Government funding arrangements resulted in some confusion among local councils and communities as to their eligibility for, and the timing of, financial support. Within this context, the study findings revealed how, as the first point of contact for local residents, small rural shires with limited financial and human capacity used accounting to address the impact of a natural disaster on a personal level.     

Network position and identity: A language-based perspective on strategizing

This article explores processes of strategizing within business networks by showing how managers employ sensemaking to cope with network paradoxes. It takes the linguistic turn to analyze how participants discursively construct their organizations' identities and positions within a ‘designed’ network context. In doing so, the paper attempts to answer the research question posed so provocatively over a decade ago by Håkansson and Ford (2002): by exploring how companies interact in business networks. Our contribution is to show how firms interact by taking a language-based perspective on strategy to help understand the links between network, organizational and micro-levels of social construction. An in-depth discussion of a case study is presented, with particular emphasis on the identity-constructing processes affecting (and affected by) the positioning and strategizing of various network actors. We conclude by reflecting on the theoretical and practical contributions of our analysis, the latter focusing on tensions in Indigenous business development.