Teamworking: a new dynamic in the pursuit of management control

This article examines the introduction of teamworking in the pharmaceutical industry. It was found that the organisation of work contained a mix of benefits and costs. The balance between the two was not random; employees' response was influenced by and connected to prior experiences and expectations, management's business strategies and approach to industrial relations and HRM. The article argues that there was a new dynamic, but one cast within the familiar terrain of management seeking to maintain control and generate consent.     

Managing employee expectations during acquisitions

There is a wide body of evidence that suggests that the management of 'human factors' in post‐acquisition implementation is important and, where it is badly managed, helps to explain why up to half of acquisitions are not deemed to be successful. A central feature in this process is the management of employee expectations. Using research insights drawn from the management and formation of expectations in recruitment and from breaches of the psychological contract, this article reports on research in organisations subject to a takeover within two years of the field work. Detailed findings on two of these cases are used to explore the dimensions of dual expectations in such circumstances. It is suggested that employees in acquired companies have concerns that become expectations concerning both themselves ('me') and their work group ('us'), ranging from immediate job and employment worries on transfer to longer‐term status and behavioural and cultural concerns in the 'new' organisation. These expectations will vary over time and have different facets according to the seniority of the employee, the degree of integration sought by the acquirer and the extent to which expectations formed are proven to be realistic and realisable. The two cases analysed reveal different aspects of unmet expectations in acquisitions. Seven factors were identified as influential in shaping employees' expectations in acquisitions: quality of communication, believability of information, trust in management action, credibility of leadership, fairness of action, consistency of action and communication and logic of management action or behaviour.     

Does money impede convergence?

Inspired by Clower’s conjecture that the necessity of trading through money in monetised economies might hinder convergence to competitive equilibrium, and hence, for example, cause unemployment, we experimentally investigate behaviour in markets where trading has to be done through money. In order to evaluate the properties of these markets, we compare their behaviour to behaviour in markets without money, where money cannot intervene. As the trading mechanism might be a compounding factor, we investigate two kinds of market mechanism: the double auction, where bids, asks and trades take place in continuous time throughout a trading period; and the clearing house, where bids and asks are placed once in a trading period, and which are then cleared by an aggregating device. We thus have four treatments, the pairwise combinations of non-monetised/monetised trading with double auction/clearing house. We find that: convergence is faster under non-monetised trading, implying that the necessity of using money to facilitate trade hinders convergence; that monetised trading is noisier than non-monetised trading; and that the volume of trade and realised surpluses are higher with the double auction than the clearing house. As far as efficiency is concerned, monetised trading lowers both informational and allocational efficiency, and while the double auction outperforms the clearing house in terms of allocational efficiency, the clearing house is marginally better than the double auction in terms of informational efficiency when trade is through money. Crucially we confirm the conjecture that inspired these experiments: that the necessity to use money in trading hinders convergence to competitive equilibrium, lowers realised trades and surpluses, and hence may cause unemployment.     

Erfolgreiche Sanierung in der Insolvenz aus Sicht des Schuldnerunternehmens

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag stellt die M?glichkeiten eines geplanten und gesteuerten Einsatzes des Insolvenzverfahrens zur Sanierung Not leidender Unternehmen dar. Aufbauend auf den Erkenntnissen der Krisentheorie sowie einer ?konomischen Analyse des Insolvenzrechts eignen sich aus Sicht eines schuldnerischen Unternehmens vor allem das Insolvenzplanverfahren auf Basis eines Antrags wegen drohender Zahlungsunf?higkeit in Verbindung mit einem Antrag auf Eigenverwaltung zur Sanierung in der Insolvenz. Der Erfolg der gerichtlichen Sanierung h?ngt dabei ma?geblich von einem effizienten Vorgehen unter Beachtung des aus Sicht der Anteilseigner optimalen Insolvenzzeitpunkts, der Bewertung der Insolvenzeignung des zu sanierenden Unternehmens und der Entscheidung über die Verwertungsart ab.

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Summary This paper addresses the options of systematically managed insolvency proceedings to reorganise nonperforming firms. Crisis theory and an economic analysis of insolvency law suggest an “Insolvenzplanverfahren” based on a motion because of imminent insolvency in conjunction with requesting a debtor in possession solution is the best option for an indebted company. The success of a juristictional reorganisation depends on the optimal time to file for insolvency, a preselection of companies based on the appropriateness for a juristictional reorganisation, and the decision on asset utilisation.

     

Hierarchical Markov normal mixture models with applications to financial asset returns

Motivated by the common problem of constructing predictive distributions for daily asset returns over horizons of one to several trading days, this article introduces a new model for time series. This model is a generalization of the Markov normal mixture model in which the mixture components are themselves normal mixtures, and it is a specific case of an artificial neural network model with two hidden layers. The article uses the model to construct predictive distributions of daily S&P 500 returns 1971–2005 and one‐year maturity bond returns 1987–2007. For these time series the model compares favorably with ARCH and stochastic volatility models. The article concludes by using the model to form predictive distributions of one‐ to ten‐day returns during volatile episodes for the S&P 500 and bond return series. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effectiveness of Delhi's Fire Safety Regulation Amidst Poverty,Ignorance, Corruption and Non‐Compliance

This paper considers the effectiveness of fire safety regulation in Delhi, India. Ten theories are summarised that are used to explain why regulation does or does not work, or why fires might increase. Can imperfect markets generate institutions outside of the political process that produce reasonable results despite challenges of poverty, rising population density, social chaos, widespread corruption and non‐compliance with rules? In Delhi, city fire departments, albeit hampered by dysfunctional or non‐existent regulation, along with social and individual incentives provided by markets, have produced a relatively high level of safety.