Animal-companion extremes and underlying consumer themes

Pet expenditures have doubled over the past ten years, reflecting the growing involvement of Americans and their pets. The goal of this research was to explore the meanings and roles pets play in peoples' lives. Consumers caring for multiple animals - ranging from six to 100 - informed this study. Rescuer and caretaker were two themes that emerged from the interviews. Relationship theory helps explain the drivers behind pet-acquisition growth. A consumer-pet relationship framework is used to identify factors that may influence the strength and duration of consumer-pet relationships.     

Creating customer value in the not‐for‐profit sector: a case study of the British Library

• Public sector organisations are being increasingly subjected to both legislative and competitive pressures forcing them to reconsider their relationships with users and customers (Chapman and Cowdell, 1998 ) in order to develop a more overt marketing orientation (defined as focusing on customer needs as the primary drivers of organisational performance (Jobber, 2004 )). The creation of customer value underlies the development of a meaningful marketing orientation, and is a nettle that more public sector and not‐for‐profit organisations will have to grasp. This article considers how a more marketing‐oriented approach was adopted by the British Library in order to clarify and communicate its value proposition to its identified target markets, and in doing so, hopefully achieving a sustainable competitive advantage on an ongoing basis.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technology and policy in cable TV development in the UK

Although cable TV is often viewed in an entertainment context, its importance for technology policy rests with its relation to future national broadband network development. The authors argue that it could provide a means of assessing the benefits and technical direction of this greater project and government support for early cable ventures is advised for this purpose. Government policy should stress incremental technical advance and address the development problems likely to be encountered by cable TV as an infant technology.     

Wages and the Labour Market

In contrast to the traditions of social science, the argument made here is that wage structures are not to be explained by reference to an underlying economic or social rationale through which they contribute to the efficient or smooth functioning of an economy or society. Theories of wages have overstressed coherence and functionality and underplayed conflict and contradictions and the scope for discretionary, random or opportunistic decisions. Wage structures have been held partially in check in the past by institutional and social processes which linked wages across the labour market. Many of these processes, from industry-level pay bargaining to concepts of fair wages, 'going rates' or the family wage, have disintegrated in the 1980s and 1990s. More attention needs to be paid to the role of wages in the redistribution of resources and to the need to re-regulate the labour market.     

The ‘New Competition’ and Working Time

Jill Rubery, who is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester School of Management, and Sara Horrell, Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, draw on a study for the Equal Opportunities Commission to discuss the significance of the competitive conditions said to lie behind changes in working time. They argue that the existing approaches to understanding these changes – they are ‘determined’ by the ‘market/technology’ or relate to a redefinition of power relations within the workplace – are both inadequate. What is required, they suggest, is a more complex analysis of competition which takes into account both the factors that shape market conditions and the factors inside the organisation that influence responses to them.     

Inter-organizational Relations and Employment in a Multi-employer Environment

This study focuses on the employment dimensions of inter‐organizational relations, taking as an example a large regional airport. The dense and complex relationships that emerge in a multi‐agency setting are highlighted to illustrate the tensions and contradictions that characterize the management of workers in an environment where contracting and recontracting predominate. These findings suggest that there is a need, on the one hand, to include inter‐organizational relations in the study of the employment relationship and, on the other hand, to reinsert employment issues into the analysis of inter‐organizational contracting and partnerships.     

The IASC And Japan

The support of Japan, as a powerful nation and world leader, will be critical to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in its aim of promoting the harmonisation of international accounting standards. Japan represents a substantial challenge to the IASC objective; cultural and institutional factors have been regarded as impediments to its preparedness to adopt IASC standards. As deputy chairman of the IASC, the co-author of this paper, Michael Sharpe, has been involved in a number of seminars and discussions in Japan relating to the IASC activities and aims. This paper draws on those discussions, and on recent events and developments in Japan, to suggest that relations between the IASC and Japan are heading in the right direction and to make some prognoses about the acceptance of IASC standards by Japanese regulatory bodies.     

VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE OF SEGMENT INFORMATION BY AUSTRALIAN DIVERSIFIED COMPANIES

This paper reports an examination of economic incentives motivating listed diversified companies in Australia to voluntarily disclose segment information. The study is based on a sample of 65 listed diversified companies. Support is found for ownership diffusion, the level of minority interest in subsidiaries, firm size and industry membership as factors influencing the voluntary disclosure of segment information. No support is found for leverage or diversification into related versus unrelated industries.