Book reviews

Strategic Leaning in Action Tony Grundy London, McGraw-Hill, 1994, 218 pp. ISBN 0-07-707825-X.

The Knowledge-creating Company Ikujiro Nonaka & Hirotaka Takeuchi Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, 382pp, £24.95 (hbk), ISBV 0-19-509269-4.

The Challenge of the 21st Century: Managing Technology and Ourselves in a Shrinking World Harold A. Linstone with Ian I Mitroff Albay, Ny, State University of New York Press, 1994, 406 pp, $19.95 (hbk) ISBN0-7914-1949-5.

Practical Steps for Aligning Information Technology with Business Strategies: How to Achieve a Competitive Advantage Bernard H. Boar New York, John Wiley, 1995, 241 pp, ISBN 0-471-07637-6.

Strategic Innovation: An International Casebook on Strategic Management Charles Baden-Fuller & Martyn Pitt (Eds) London, Routledge, 1996, 461 pp, £16.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-451-12870-6.     

Innovation and the Economy

Unemployment has remained at relatively high levels across most European countries for a generation now. There have been a number of suggested explanations for this, with correspondingly different policy implications. Two of the major hypotheses relate, first, to the impact on the European economies from increased international competition, and 'globalisation' more generally, and, secondly, to the effects of new technology and innovation. The effects of both globalisation and technology on growth and employment in Europe have been researched over the past two years through an EU-funded project, the results of which, relating in particular to innovation, are reported in this Special Issue of the International Review of Applied Economics. (The results relating to globalisation were reported in a Special Issue of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics , Volume 13.) It is clear from the empirical work reported that the effects of technological innovation have been mixed. There is no doubt that some innovation has had a negative effect on employment, without the compensatingly positive effects that new technology usually brings in its wake. However, in high technology manufacturing sectors there is scope for boosting both productivity and employment. But this requires an appropriate policy environment, conducive to increased investment in capital, R&D and the workforce itself.     

Technology,Growth and Employment

The relationship between technology, productivity and employment is a complex one. Increased productivity can lead not just to increased market share, but through falling relative prices can help expand markets, and through product innovation can develop new markets. On the other hand, if demand and hence output does not expand in line with productivity, then an inverse relation between productivity and employment will result. The European Union seeks to improve living standards in Europe by boosting productivity, competitiveness and employment together. How, though, is this to be achieved? This paper looks at the effects on productivity of different forms of investment--in physical capital, in Research & Development, and in human capital. The paper also distinguishes between the high-tech and low-tech sectors. There does appear to be scope for boosting both productivity and employment, particularly in the high tech sectors. But to do so will require increased investment across all three categories--in machinery, in innovation and in people.     

Casual Employment in Australia: A Further Analysis

Casual employment is steadily increasing its share of total employment in Australia. This paper analyses some of the factors that have led to this situation by extending the work of Simpson, Dawkins and Madden (1997). The results, while confirming some of their research and clarifying the role of union membership in limiting the spread of casual employment, also show that the determinants of casual employment in Australia are sensitive to the period of estimation and the form of model used.     

A PROGRAMMING MODEL FOR BANK HEDGING DECISIONS

This study constructs, solves, and interprets a normative model that focuses on the risk management needs of a banking institution. The optimization model is a prototype, and it explicitly incorporates uncertainty via the two-stage linear programming format. Both the traditional asset-liability management and the newer hedging risk management strategies are included. The model suggests that although the specific risk management strategy mix depends on the economic scenario, hedging should be actively considered as a workable strategy.     

Agricultural planning,pricing policy and co-operatives in Vietnam

In the competition between national government and local co-operatives, a central contradiction in socialist rural development, the price system, market control and terms of trade are crucially related to the relative power and capacity of the central government to control ratios of accumulation and consumption. In Vietnam there is a dynamic interaction between government and agricultural producers over pricing policy and paradoxically, it is the co-operative, primarily viewed by the state as a means of providing cheap food, which has strengthened the collective bargaining position of agricultural producers. The government has had to introduce material incentives to expand agricultural production beyond subsistence levels and bow to pressure to alter the previous accumulation/consumption ratios in favour of consumption.