On the Economics and the Politics of Environmental Protection

A bstract . TWO loci of discussion respecting national policies for environmental protection are synthesized. Most economic discussions are couched in terms of analytical measurements of the social benefits and costs of different policies. But most political science discussions are couched in terms of the procedural obstacles to implementation erected by special interest groups. The standard tool of marginal cost/benefit analysis is applied to reveal how the redistribution of real income among distinct special interest groups determines the extent to which those groups align themselves politically. Many of the apparent conflicts among policy objectives in the area of environmental protection, full employment , and an acceptable distribution of income , can be mitigated by means of a carefully designed program of selective law enforcement and tax-financed subsidies.     

“It's good to talk”? the reform of joint consultation in British Telecom

Here the authors describe a series of changes to the structure and process of joint consultation introduced at British Telecom (BT) in the early 1990s. It describes and analyses the reasons for these changes and accounts for the largely hostile response from BT trade unions. The key claim is that management have refashioned joint consultation to better control and limit union activity in the firm and that the changes form part of a wider policy of union marginalisation at BT.     

The Agenda for Ethics in Human Resource Management

In April this year a Conference on Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management was held at the Management School, Imperial College, London, and jointly sponsored by the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA) and the UK Chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN-UK). We are indebted to the organisers of the Conference, Dr Diana Winstanley, Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Imperial College Management School, Dr Jean Woodall, Reader in Human Resource Management at Kingston Business School, and Professor Edmund Heery, Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School, for the following overview of the ethics agenda emerging for modern HRM as this figured in contributions to the Imperial College Conference. All the papers delivered at the Conference are obtainable from Dr Diana Winstanley, Imperial College Management School, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG, tel: (44)(0) 171-594-9114.     

Corporate diversification,institutional investors and internal control quality

This study investigates the relationship between corporate diversification, institutional investors and internal control quality. Using a sample of firms disclosing internal control information from 1999 to 2011, the results show that corporate diversification is positively associated with the likelihood of internal control weakness. Moreover, this relationship is stronger (weaker) when firms have higher transient (dedicated) institutional ownership, indicating that transient (dedicated) institutional investors increase (mitigates) the internal control problems arising from diversification. This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the role of corporate diversification in the quality of internal control.     

University‐industry collaboration and front‐end success: the moderating effects of innovativeness and parallel cross‐firm collaboration

Collaboration with science‐based and/or market‐based partners is a promising means for firms’ R&D groups to leverage complementary expertise and resources to generate innovative results. However, R&D managers face the dilemma which partner type to choose in different innovative contexts and whether to focus on one partner type or to integrate both types in early stage R&D. Using survey data from 166 heads of R&D groups, this study investigates university–industry collaboration’s impact on front‐end success depending on the degree of innovativeness and the interaction with other industry partners. The results confirm an overall positive relationship between university–industry collaboration and front‐end success. However, innovativeness increases complexity in this relationship. Parallel collaboration with firms and universities can have a mixed impact on front‐end success depending on the degree of innovativeness. This simultaneous collaboration with firms and universities strengthens front‐end success for more radical innovations, while parallel collaboration activities for more incremental innovations do not necessarily strengthen front‐end success. These findings imply that both collaboration types should be used simultaneously in the front end of radical innovation and that firms could reduce complexity by focusing on either firms or universities as partners for incremental innovations.