An Institutional Perspective to Finance and Development as an Alternative to Financial Liberalisation

This paper argues that financial liberalisation as practiced recently worldwide engenders widespread financial crises precisely because of the weak foundations of its theoretical framework and poor empirical performance. Financial liberalisation is critically evaluated on both theoretical and empirical grounds, which suggests that an alternative is vitally necessary. Based on institutional theory,a new approach is proposed the focus of which is on ways to affect financial and banking transformation that is more consistent with economic development. We demonstrate how this theoretical approach can be applied in the real world, and indeed how the theoretical propositions we put forward in this contribution, very different from those of financial liberalisation, produce a more developmentally oriented set of policies for the countries that are prepared to pursue them.     

New Development: The Demystification of Knowledge Management for Public Services

The public sector should be cautious about the use of classical and technological approaches to knowledge management. There is a need to face the power struggles and organizational politics associated with knowledge growth and dissemination. Knowledge management should promote the high value of team-based professional work and the desire to retain such staff through a collaborative environment.     

The evolution of the maize seed industry in Zambia

This article outlines the development of maize improvement and the symbiotic seed industry in Zambia over the past seventy‐five years. Although improvement through selection was started in the 1920s, the first locally bred cultivars were not available until 1970. The development of a maize seed industry in Zambia has been remarkable considering the inhibitions imposed by successive government policies of colonialism, federalism and socialist economics. The future of maize breeding and the seed industry depends on the success of recently introduced free‐market economic policies, and on the introduction of legislation to protect the rights of plant breeders and allow full participation by private seed companies.     

A chameleon function? HRM in the ‘90s

This article examines the changing role of the HR function in large corporations in the 1990s. It draws on data collected from a multi-sector case study research project – the Leading Edge Forum Consortium. Activities are analysed along three dimensions: access to strategic decision making, shift of responsibilities to the line, and the function's perceived contribution to business performance. It concludes that devolution to the line remains problematic, and that access to strategic decision making is still contingent on the personal influencing skills of senior HR managers or directors. Nevertheless the recognition of the strategic importance of HRM as a contributor to business performance has risen.     

Middle Managers and the Employee Psychological Contract: Agency,Protection and Advancement

This paper investigates the construction and enactment of the employee psychological contract by a sample of middle-level line and personnel managers responsible for introducing job change in the air traffic control sector. We show how middle managers' concerns with fulfilling their own contractual commitments to senior management are perceived to conflict with meeting obligations to subordinates under the employment agreement. Thus, we illustrate our main argument that middle managers who are exposed to more exacting performance demands and controls do not simply subordinate employee concerns to their own interests. They seek to disguise the presence and outcomes of employee disaffection and to manipulate the impressions of senior management. We conclude that far from increasing individual accountability at middle levels such stringent controls may yield interpersonal rivalry, lower standards of employee treatment and the subversion of corporate aims.     

Weathering Tight Economic Times: The Sales Evolution of Consumer Durables Over the Business Cycle

Despite their obvious importance, not much marketing research focuses on how business-cycle fluctuations affect individual companies and/or industries. Often, one only has aggregate information on the state of the national economy, even though cyclical contractions and expansions need not have an equal impact on every industry, nor on all firms in that industry. Using recent time-series developments, we introduce various measures to quantify the extent and nature of business-cycle fluctuations in sales. Specifically, we discuss the concept of cyclical volatility, and derive a dynamic comovement elasticity between the economy as a whole and the cyclical fluctuations in various performance series. To further enhance our understanding of how consumers adjust their purchasing behavior across different phases of the business cycle, two other notable features related, respectively, to the relative size of the peaks and troughs and the rate of change in upward and downward parts of the cycle, are explicitly considered. Of specific interest in this respect are the notion of deepness and steepness asymmetry. We apply these concepts to a broad set (24) of consumer durables, for which we analyze the cyclical sensitivity in their sales evolution. In that way, we (i) derive a novel set of empirical generalizations, and (ii) test different marketing theory-based hypotheses on the underlying drivers of cyclical sensitivity.Consumer durables are found to be more sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations than the general economic activity, as expressed in an average cyclical volatility of more than four times the one in GNP, and an average dynamic comovement elasticity in excess of 2. This observation calls for an explicit consideration of cyclical variation in durable sales. Interestingly, the combined evidence across all durables suggests that asymmetry is present in the speed of up- and downward movements, as durable sales fall much quicker during contractions than they recover during economic expansions. Finally, key variables related to the industrys pricing activities, the nature of the durable (convenience vs. leisure), and the stage in a products life cycle tend to moderate the extent of cyclical sensitivity in durable sales patterns.     

Regulatory Oversight or Lack of Foresight? Implications for Product Recall Policies and Procedures

The regulatory effectiveness, the impact on industry and consumers of product withdrawal and the associated wider issues relating to crisis management represent an under-researched area. The authors describe the mid-2003 government-ordered withdrawal of almost 2,000 complementary and alternative medicines, across multiple brand names, in Australia and New Zealand. The report is based on an examination of the media coverage of the event and on interviews with key informants in manufacturing and retailing and the regulatory system. This massive, multi-brand recall provides an opportunity to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of the management of a cross-border withdrawal from regulatory and consumer policy perspectives and makes recommendations for the management of future recall events. Lynne Eagle is Professor of Marketing, Middlesex University Business School, The Burroughs Hendon, London NW4 4BT, England; Fax: +020-8411-5357; E-mail: l.eagle@mdx.ac.uk. Lawrence C. Rose is Head of Department and Professor of Finance, Department of Commerce, Massey University (Auckland), Private Bag 102-904 North Shore Mail Centre, New Zealand; Fax: +64-9-441-8177; E-mail: l.c.rose@massey.ac.nz. Philip J. Kitchen is Professor of Strategic Marketing, The Business School, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX; Fax: +44-0-1482-466637; E-mail: p.j.kitchen@hull.ac.uk. Jacinta Hawkins is an Assistant Lecturer, Department of Commerce, Massey University (Auckland), Private Bag 102-904 North Shore Mail Centre, New Zealand; Fax: +64-9-441-8177; E-mail: j.hawkins@massey.ac.nz.