如何组织创业团队

当你终于艰难地做出了决定，“我要去创业”，而且你已经有了切入市场的产品或者仅仅是一个点子的话，你最重要的任务就是建立起一个共同创业的团队。在硅谷流传这样一个“规则”，有两个哈佛MBA和MIT的博士组成的创业团队几乎就是获得风险投资人青睐的保证。当然这只是一个故事而已，     

Dynamism and embeddedness: towards a lower road? British subsidiaries of American multinationals

This article examines the effects of changes in the dynamics of the American national business system on industrial relations settlements in the UK subsidiaries of American multinational corporations (MNCs). While institutionalist analyses of country‐of‐origin and host‐country effects must take account of changes in national business systems, such as the rise of the shareholder value ideology in the USA, empirical analysis reveals a pattern of pathway adjustment rather than radical change in employment relations at the UK subsidiary level. This suggests that although US MNCs are embedded within the American business system, their subsidiaries are not passive ciphers but autonomous sites through which influences must pass.     

Improved Methods for Tests of Long-Run Abnormal Stock Returns

We analyze tests for long-run abnormal returns and document that two approaches yield well-specified test statistics in random samples. The first uses a traditional event study framework and buy-and-hold abnormal returns calculated using carefully constructed reference portfolios. Inference is based on either a skewness-adjusted t -statistic or the empirically generated distribution of long-run abnormal returns. The second approach is based on calculation of mean monthly abnormal returns using calendar-time portfolios and a time-series t -statistic. Though both approaches perform well in random samples, misspecification in nonrandom samples is pervasive. Thus, analysis of long-run abnormal returns is treacherous.     

The Proposed State Second Pension

The UK government has recently proposed radical changes in second-tier pension provision, with the existing State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) being replaced by a new State Second Pension (SSP). This paper sets out how the proposed scheme differs from its predecessor and describes the distributional effects of this reform. It shows that the SSP greatly increases the pension entitlements of low earners while maintaining existing benefit levels for higher earners. However, the higher contributions needed to pay for the new scheme mean that, after taking financing into account, people earning more than around £12,000 a year will lose out. Because of the upper limit to National Insurance contributions for employees, these losses will be greatest for people earning at the contribution ceiling.     

Rethinking the concept of community of practice in relation to schoolteachers’ workplace learning

This paper explores two different ways of understanding communities of practice in relation to workplace learning. This is based upon a case study of secondary school teachers working and learning in four subject departments in two English schools. In spite of institutional similarities, the cultures and working practices of the departments were different, and influenced the learning of the workers significantly. In such contexts, a tight conceptualisation of community of practice can form a valuable intermediate scale of analysis, between the individual learner and wider organisational influences on learning. However, communities of practice can also have a valuable meaning in relation to the wider influences and in situations where close‐knit groupings do not exist.     

Gender,choice and constraint in call centre employment

This paper examines the genderised experience of employment in call centres. While existing studies have acknowledged structural and agential constraints on women in the workplace, this paper goes further by illustrating the gendered nature of career choice and progression in a context which, in certain respects, appears to have benefitted women's desires for advancement. Drawing on quantitative and in‐depth qualitative data from four Scottish call centres, the study provides evidence of gender inequality shaped by structural and ideological workplace and household constraints.     

Diffusing 'best practice' in multinational firms: prospects,practice and contestation

This article explores the possibilities and problems of transferring best practice within multinational enterprises. Following a discussion of the literature on the transfer of best practice, we draw on a case study of ABB to highlight some of the issues and problems involved. In particular, we focus on the use of benchmarking as a powerful tool for the diffusion of best practice in ABB. We conclude that under certain conditions the case for the transfer of best practice within multinational enterprises is relatively sound and that the use of internal benchmarking can be a highly effective method of producing such organizational change. However, any form of diffusion has to take into account (a) the local cultural and institutional context and (b) the ability and incentive of local managers to implement best practice.     

‘Too scared to go sick’—reformulating the research agenda on sickness absence

This article argues that our understanding of absence and absenteeism, deriving from seminal studies in the sociology of work and employment, has been overtaken by hugely significant developments in political economy, regulation and employment relations. A new research agenda that addresses the changed organisational politics of absence management and the consequences for employees is urgently required.     

When Rule Makers Become Rule Breakers: Employee Level Outcomes of Managerial Pro-Social Rule Breaking

We extend Morrison’s (2006) construct of pro-social rule breaking (PSRB) in two important ways. First, we explicate the processes through which PSRB may have unintended negative consequences. Second, we provide a conceptual model intended to guide future research into PSRB. The model discusses the mechanisms through which managerial PSRB may lead to negative employee outcomes. Specifically, we propose that when managers engage in PSRB, more complex processes (perceptions of organizational justice, attributions of management by employees, and psychological contract violations) mediate the unintended employee level outcomes of managerial PSRB.