Europe facing its futures

This paper presents a distinctly European view of both futures study and the foremost challenges to be met chiefly in the field of energy and technology. The prospective approach is distinguished from the forecasting approach. The relative decline of U.S. power may prove to pose more serious long-term problems for Europe than its rising energy bill.     

MANAGEMENT CONTROL: THE ROLES OF RULES,MARKETS AND CULTURE[1]

This paper addresses the question of efficacy of Management Control Systems in organizations. It shows that control systems are based on a combination of three underlying approaches — markets, rules and culture — in order to obtain desired behaviours from organizations’ members. These three approaches are then discussed in terms of Hofstede's work-related values characterization. It is shown that each firm or organization defines its own balance among the three bases of control identified above. This balancing is dynamic and organizations must continuously adapt their Management Control Systems to changes in the overall culture(s), in technology and in the competitive forces. The general evolution of Management Control Systems is seen to be towards a lessening of the importance of rules-based controls and towards an increased reliance on controls imbedded in the organizational culture. ^{[2] [2]} We are grateful to Kavasseri V. Ramanathan, Richard B. Peterson, Jeremy Dent, to the participants of the EIASM ‘Accounting and Culture’ Workshop, and to Geert Hofstede for their advice, encouragement and cogent criticism. Financial Support of the Accounting Development Fund at the University of Washington is gratefully acknowledged.
     

The concept of professionalism and the management of salaried technical professionals: A cross-national perspective

Based on a conceptual cross-national framework, the authors demonstrate how differences in a nation's prevailing beliefs about professionalism can affect national practices in managing technology and technical professionals. In the United States, the notion of professionalism has led in some cases to vertical polarization within the firm, a lack of adequate technical training among managers, an overuse of operational control of professionals, an over-emphasis on breakthrough technology, and a de-emphasis on practical production technologies. The authors conclude that a balanced view of professionalism can enhance a nation's competitive position.     

The effect of production uncertainty on the labor-managed firm

The effects of production uncertainty on the behavior of the labor-managed, cooperative firm are examined and it is shown that they generally differ from the case of certainty and the case of the entrepreneurial, profit-maximizing firm. In particular, it is shown that the risk-averse (risk-seeking) cooperative will have a larger (smaller) ratio of labor to nonlabor input employed in production than the risk-neutral cooperative.