The Environmental Paradox of the Welfare State: The Dynamics of Sustainability

Thus far, there has been a reluctance to instigate a dialogue and engage with the tensions between two literatures with significant insights for each other. The first is the literature on the fiscal sustainability of welfare states, which is invariably predicated upon future growth primarily to manage demographic changes. The second is the post-growth literature, which has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years due to an environmental critique of economic growth. Both literatures contain implications for the analysis of welfare state sustainability. The primary contribution of this paper will be to explore the intractability of the tensions between these discourses and the difficulty of mapping out a progressive policy direction in the twenty-first century which meets both our environmental and social sensibilities. It is claimed that in the post-industrial world the fiscal sustainability of welfare capitalism is dependent upon public expenditure financed indirectly an environmentally unsustainable growth dynamic, but that ironically any conflagration of public welfare programmes is likely to be counter-productive as the welfare state is able to promote de-carbonisation strategies and notions of the public good as well as promoting monetarily and ecologically efficient public welfare services.     

Values underlying personnel/human resource management: Implications of the bishops' economic pastoral letter

The economic pastoral letter states that employees have rights to employment, non-discriminatory treatment, adequate wages, health care, old age and disability insurance, healthy working conditions, rest and holidays, reasonable protection from arbitrary dismissal, notice of plant closings, unionization and collective bargaining. In addition, the bishops call for better cooperation between labor and management. This paper discusses how these rights can be protected by good personnel/human resource policies and procedures. Daniel J. Koys is Assistant Professor of Management at Marquette University. He is co-author of an article on employment, which has been published in Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal.     

Improving Supply Chain Efficiency Through Electronic Payments: The Case of Micro-Entrepreneurs in Kenya and Tanzania

Research suggests that one possible key to development may be the growth of micro-entrepreneurial firms. The current work suggests that improving supply chain efficiency may help these very small enterprises grow. Specifically, it examines the role played by the use of mobile payments to facilitate transactions with suppliers. The study contrasts Kenya, which has widespread adoption of mobile payments by both consumers and small business, with neighboring Tanzania, where adoption, although substantial, has occurred at a much slower rate and achieved far less penetration. Findings support the idea that positive business outcomes such as increased income and increased hiring are related to mobile payment usage.     

Arbitrated Sharing of Traffic in Telecommunication Networks: Technoeconomical Considerations

The technoeconomical aspects of implementing an arbitrated sharing of telecommunication traffic by CO (class 5) circuit-switches are studied. The traffic in question refers voice calls and dial-up modem data supported on network access lines terminated at the circuit-switches. Such time-division multiplexed (TDM) services still remain as the major revenue-earning products of public switched telephone network service-providers (and this status quo is expected to continue over several future years, despite of xDSL and/or IP-network penetrations). As such, this study was motivated to address an engineering effort to realize higher revenue-potentials through prudent sharing of the traffic between the circuit-switches. This arbitration in traffic-sharing is based on the diversity in the dynamics of traffic-demand posed by different subscribers (such as suburban-based residential customers and urban-based commercial end-users). The centum call seconds (CCS) metric is adopted to specify the traffic-load commensurate with the voice/dial-up modem sources. The heuristics of fair-proportioning considerations that let the switches serving a diverse population of subscribers so as to optimally vary (share) the traffic-load between switches via an arbitrated approach is discussed. Relevant metric for arbitration is defined in terms of a cross-entropy based complexity measure and an implementation scheme is proposed thereof. Computed results on traffic sharing algorithm are presented and discussed.     

Pop-Ups, Cookies, and Spam: Toward a Deeper Analysis of the Ethical Significance of Internet Marketing Practices

While e-commerce has grown rapidly in recent years, some of the practices associated with certain aspects of marketing on the Internet, such as pop-ups, cookies, and spam, have raised concerns on the part of Internet users. In this paper I examine the nature of these practices and what I take to be the underlying source of this concern. I argue that the ethical issues surrounding these Internet marketing techniques move us beyond the traditional treatment of the ethics of marketing and advertising found in discussions of business ethics previously. Rather, I show that the questions they raise ultimately turn upon questions of technique and the ways in which technologies can transform the fundamental means by which relationships are established and maintained within a social environment. I then argue that the techniques of e-commerce are indeed transforming the means by which businesses relate to consumers, and that this transformation is affecting the applicability of our previous ways of demarcating the imperatives determining the limits of accessibility between consumers and businesses. Properly addressing the ethical status of the techniques of e-marketing as such necessarily moves us to consider the changes that Internet commerce are having upon the norms that govern individuals in their relations with others.     

How Retailers Determine Which Products Should Go on Sale: Evidence From Store-Level Data

Recent theoretical research on retail pricing dynamics provides an explanation of why retailers periodically put items on sale, even when their costs are unchanged. The authors extend this research to show that more popular items (i.e., those that appeal to a wide range of consumers) are more likely to go on sale. One implication of the proposed model is that a good is more likely to be on sale when demand for the good is at its season peak (e.g., eggs at Easter). This implication is tested using store-level retail price data, and the prediction is borne out for the categories of goods that are examined. Additional tests also support the premise that popularity and frequency of sales are positively related.     

Dimensions of International Negotiations: Structures, Processes, and Outcomes

Cases of international negotiation are compared in terms of their similarities and dissimilarities. Using both primary and secondary source materials, each case is coded in terms of aspects of the issues, structure, situation, processes, and outcomes of negotiation. One analysis consisted of 23 cases in which Austrian delegations participated. Multidimensional scaling results indicated that a key dimension was the distinction between small bilateral talks and larger multilateral negotiations. Bilateral talks were more likely to be characterized by treaties, low turnover, stage-like processes, and no deadlines. Correlational findings also showed that outside influences had stronger impacts on outcomes than such internal factors as bureaucratic support. A second scaling analysis, based on cases published by the Johns Hopkins' Foreign Policy Institute, produced two dimensions, number and complexity of the issues. The groupings of the cases also corresponded to Ikle's distinctions among types of negotiation. Correlational findings indicated relationships among aspects of the negotiating situation and outcomes. The article concludes with a comparison of the two analyses.     

From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Accountability

Confronted with mounting pressure to ensure accountability vis-à-vis customers, citizens and beneficiaries, organizational leaders need to decide how to choose and implement so-called accountability standards. Yet while looking for an appropriate standard, they often base their decisions on cost-benefit calculations, thus neglecting other important spheres of influence pertaining to more broadly defined stakeholder interests. We argue in this paper that, as a part of the strategic decision for a certain standard, management needs to identify and act according to the needs of all stakeholders. We contend that the creation of a dialogical understanding among affected stakeholders cannot be a mere outcome of applying certain accountability standards, but rather must be a necessary precondition for their use. This requires a stakeholder dialogue prior to making a choice. We outline such a discursive decision framework for accountability standards based on the Habermasian concept of communicative action and, in the final section, apply our conceptual framework to one of the most prominent accountability tools (AA 1000). Andreas Rasche is currently working at the chair for Business Administration at the Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg, Germany and is finishing his PhD in strategic management at EUROPEAN BUSINESS SCHOOL, Germany where he is also teaching business ethics. His research interests include the institutionalization of ethics initiatives in multinational corporations (see also www.ethics-in-pratice.org) and reflections about the theory of strategic management. Daniel Esser until recently was a Tutorial Fellow in Development Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is now working for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific where he is involved in the design and management of urban governance programmes and service schemes supporting the poverty reduction agenda for the region.