Flexibility bites back: the multiple and hidden costs of flexible employment policies

Flexible labour markets are increasingly regarded as the answer to a wide spectrum of labour market and societal challenges from creating jobs to reducing segmentation and welfare dependency, improving public finances and supporting workforce diversity and innovation. The contention is that, contrary to these claims, flexible labour markets generate fundamental contradictions and unsustainable long‐term trends. The jobs miracle is exaggerated and based on low productivity jobs, outsiders often lose most from competition, claimants must work flexibly but still secure a full‐time wage, low‐wage employment is shrinking the fiscal base, jobs are not being adjusted to accommodate workers' changing needs and capacities and the disposable labour model is undermining long‐term productivity.     

Satanic Mills?: An illustration of Victorian external environmental accounting

The paper evaluates a Victorian environmental account of the pollution of the River Wandle. This account was produced during a period of social and environmental crisis, when there were no significant industrial environmental regulations. This problematising external environmental account provides valuable insights into the historical development of social and environmental accounting. Our analysis located this account within an institutional reform programme to create systems of governance to mitigate the damage arising from unfettered industrial growth. We argue that problematising external environmental accounting has a longer tradition than previously recognised in the literature and predates corporate social and environmental reporting.     

Consumer preferences for new technology: apples enriched with antioxidant coatings in Uzbekistan

Food markets in developing countries are experiencing an expansion of new functional products. Even though their market share is small, these food products are usually imported and post a higher price compared to local products. In this article, we investigate the consumer response toward new functional food products in Uzbekistan by focusing on the incorporation of apples enriched with antioxidant coating in the food market. We conduct consumer surveys with two different information treatments. We utilize a dichotomous‐choice contingent valuation methodology to estimate willingness to pay for this product and analyze factors that affect consumer choice. The results suggest that the average Uzbek respondent is willing to purchase functional apples with a 6% discount. The effect of information regarding the potential health benefits of antioxidants is positive and statistically significant. We compare the findings with a previous U.S. study of the same product and discuss how the delivery method provides an additional hurdle in the Uzbek market.     

Performance trends in the construction industry worldwide: an overview of the turn of the century

This paper presents an exploratory study to assess the efficiency level of construction companies worldwide, exploring in particular the effect of location and activity in the efficiency levels. This paper also provides insights concerning the convergence in efficiency across regions. The companies are divided in three regions (Europe, Asia and North America), and in the three main construction activities (Buildings, Heavy Civil and Specialty Trade). We analyze a sample of 118 companies worldwide between 1995 and 2003. Data envelopment analysis is used to estimate efficiency, and the Malmquist index is applied for the evaluation of productivity change. Both methods were complemented by bootstrapping to refine the estimates obtained. A panel data truncated regression with categorical regressors is used to explore the impact of location and activity in the efficiency levels. The results reveal that the efficiency of North American companies is higher than the European and Asian counterparts. Other important conclusion points to a convergence in efficiency levels across regions as in North America productivity remains stable, whereas in Asia and Europe productivity improves.     

The ‘Graying’ of ‘Green’ Zones: Spatial Governance and Irregular Settlement in Xochimilco,Mexico City

This article details the evolving social and spatial dynamics of a planning approach that is now being used to regulate irregular or informal settlements in the conservation zone of Xochimilco in the Federal District of Mexico City. As part of the elaboration of ‘normative’ planning policies and practices, this approach counts, maps and then classifies irregular settlements into different categories with distinct land‐use regularization possibilities. These spatial calculations establish a continuum of ‘gray’ spaces, placing many settlements in a kind of planning limbo on so‐called ‘green’ conservation land. The research suggests that these spatial calculations are now an important part of enacting land‐use planning and presenting a useful ‘technical’ veneer through which the state negotiates competing claims to space. Based on a case study of an irregular settlement, the article examines how the state is implicated in the production and regulation of irregularity as part of a larger strategy of spatial governance. The research explores how planning ‘knowledges’ and ‘techniques’ help to create fragmented but ‘governable’ spaces that force communities to compete for land‐use regularization. The analysis raises questions about the conception of informality as something that, among other things, simply takes place outside of the formal planning system.     

An empirical investigation of organizational memetic variation

The potential of a theory based on organizational memes in coevolution with the environment has been postulated, but remains empirically under-developed. This study explores whether understanding organizational memetic variation is empirically possible and, if so, whether it might, with further development, provide managers with early indications of a misalignment between organizational action (operationalized as memetic variation) and strategic intent—the amount of memetic variation needed to stay aligned with the competitive environment. A method for empirically identifying knowledge-based memes in everyday practice is developed. It stems from modern advances in genetics allowing micro-level changes in genes to be linked to macro-environmental dynamics. Using the concept that memetic variation is caused by everyday, uncontrollable uncertainties of interpretation, memetic variation is reduced to seven categorical types. A highly exploratory quasi-experimental design allows a preliminary comparison of a would-be innovative ‘Portfolio Management Committee’ with self-organizing Internet chat-room settings that are representational of open-source innovation. Results are consistent with predictions showing that higher levels of variation are seen in the latter, despite the former’s strategic intent of innovating to stay aligned with a dynamic environment. Further work is needed, however, to test reliability and validity.      

When Organizations Break Their Promises: Employee Reactions to Unfair Processes and Treatment

Research has shown that the strongest reactions to organizational injustice occur when an employee perceives both unfair outcomes (distributive injustice) and unfair and unethical procedures and treatment. Utilizing the Referent Cognitions Theory (RCT) framework, this study investigates how a form of distributive injustice, psychological contract breach, along with procedural and interactional injustice influences employees' negative attitudes and behaviors. More specifically, the interactional effects of these forms of injustices should be notably greater than those exhibited when an employee of the organization, following a contract breach, perceives both fair and ethical processes and treatment. Three hundred and twenty-two employees from a variety of organizational settings completed measures of contract breach, procedural injustice, interactional injustice, and negative affect toward the organization. Their respective supervisors completed a measure of deviant work behaviors. Results revealed a three-way interaction between contract breach, procedural injustice, and interactional injustice on negative affect and deviant work behavior. The nature of the interaction was further investigated through simple slope analyses. Consistent with the study's propositions, deviant work behavior was higher following a contract breach when both procedural and interactional injustice were high. However, the association between negative affect and breach was high when both forms of injustices were high and when only interactional injustice was high. Study contributions and limitations as well as theoretical and ethical implications are discussed.     

Organizational Dynamic Capability and Innovation: An Empirical Examination of Internet Firms

This paper extends the dynamic capability perspective into the study of innovation by entrepreneurial firms. Drawing from both the resource-based view and the dynamic capability perspective, this paper explores theoretically and examines empirically the different roles played by a firm's resource stock (endowment of resources and capabilities) and its integrative capabilities (ability to recognize opportunities as well as to configure and deploy resources) in the process of firm innovation. Our structural equation modeling results, based on a sample of 120 Internet-based companies, indicate that both the firm's resource stock and integrative capabilities affect its innovation. Additionally, we also found that the relationship between resource stock and innovation is mediated by integrative capabilities. That is, merely possessing well-endowed resource stock per se is not sufficient for innovation. Thus, it is the firm's ability to mobilize its resources and capabilities and align them dynamically with the changing opportunities in the environment that is of vital importance as the firm constantly innovates to survive and create its own competitive advantage. In the hypercompetitive and fast changing Internet-based environment, such a need for dynamic capabilities is especially accentuated. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Human and Social Capital in Rural Development – EU and US PerspectivesHuman- und Sozialkapital in der Entwicklung des ländlichen Raums – Perspektiven aus der EU und den USALe capital social et humain dans le développement rural: Perspectives aux États-Unis et dans l'Union européenne

Human and Social Capital in Rural Development – EU and US Perspectives
Human and social capital play critical roles in rural development, in both the US and Europe. The development of these resources at the individual and community levels is both an ultimate goal of sustainable rural development (RD), and a key means to pursue it. Rural areas face a range of specific issues and challenges for human and social capital. In this article we examine some of these, finding similarity in many issues faced by EU and US rural areas, including the trend toward counter-urbanization in some locations. We also give examples of some apparently useful policy and grass-root approaches in the EU and US used to support farmers and in some cases rural people more generally. We assert that the US lags behind the EU in recognising the value of social capital development, but that it could learn from EU experience in terms of alternative approaches and their successes or failures. Traditionally, policies which promote the enhancement of rural human capital and strengthen social capital in rural areas have failed to attract large-scale RD funding or prominence. They have, however, gained in credibility, and influence within the policy rhetoric, in recent years. We suggest that they deserve a higher profile in RD policies given likely future trends and challenges.