Trade Liberalization and Technology Choice

This paper considers the links between trade liberalization and technology choice in the nonliberalizing country. Trade‐liberalization‐induced changes in relative product prices have direct effects on equilibrium relative factor returns. The consequent changes in relative input costs may also lead producers to switch to alternative technologies, which will in turn induce a further indirect change in relative factor returns. Will this indirect affect exacerbate or ameliorate the direct effect on relative factor returns? It is found that this depends on the relative cost savings across sectors and factor cost shares.     

精益制造将成明日之星

精益制造正在舞台上绽放光芒,是制造商的拯救者!这当然是夸张之言,但精益制造确能让制造商提高竞争力及在新兴的以需求为本的供应链中有效地运作,更可让企业在短时间内生产多种类但小批量产品的订货,以满足客户需要.过去十五年工业形态的不断转变无疑给制造业建立了一个全新的面貌,让制造商更努力地去提高生产效率.……     

The Stability of Judgmental Modelling: an Application in the Social Services

Judgmental modelling has been used on a wide variety of business problems, and with the advent of new technologies is becoming increasingly user friendly. The range of applications has helped develop understanding of managerial decision making processes, especially those related to group decision making. However, to date there has been little evidence of their use in the social services. This paper describes such an application among social workers in the United Kingdom.One of the difficulties facing social workers is deciding how to deal with individuals with mental disorders. The state has various legal procedures which can be brought into operation, ranging from no involvement with the individual through to compulsory hospitalisation. This study shows how a judgmental modelling approach was used to help define the decision variables. A group of experts from a particular social services department worked together on the problem, using a simple computer model to investigate its decision making criteria and the associated processes. The results are fully presented, and the implications for the role of social workers discussed.     

Modernising pay in the UK public services: trends and implications

The emerging character of the UK government's public sector pay reforms during the second and third (New) Labour terms of office is reviewed and contextualised. Three settings are examined where pay reform has been actively employed – with the accent on harmonisation, simplification and devolution of practice, with the express intention of restoring public service workforce morale, while improving services to clients – namely, local government, the National Health Service and the Higher Education sector. The evidence is interpreted as illustrating undoubted change, but also significant areas where progress has been less than intended, measured against the government's original programme goals. Equal pay considerations appear to have dominated all three projects reviewed: the failure to date of public sector managements to capitalise on opportunities the new pay architecture affords them to change local working practices may be attributed to a combination of factors discussed in the article. These have given rise to tensions as efforts have been pursued to transplant private sector pay techniques, somewhat hastily in some cases, without due consideration of the institutional context within which public services and proximal institutions function.     

Public finance foundation

Tight cash limits have continued to keep public sector pay under control. Though the Government may be pleased, their success is making it ever more difficult for public sector managers to recruit staff and use them more effectively.     

A Survey of Sustainability Reporting Practices of Australian Reporting Entities

This study examines the nature and extent of sustainability reporting practices in the various reporting media used by companies listed on the ASX (annual reports, discrete reports and websites). The sustainability reporting practices of the sample are compared with key indicators outlined in the GRI framework. The annual report is found to be the least valuable source of information on corporate sustainability in terms of the number of indicators observed and the diversity of the information provided. The discrete reports and websites provide greater levels of information on sustainability; however the overall levels of disclosure are generally low.     

The Demise of Ethical Schizophrenia?

Business Ethics is a topical issue. The relationship between Business Ethics and Corporate Strategy, however, has been less widely discussed. This article argues that recent developments in society, including a greater awareness of environmental issues, encourage a different way of exploring this relationship.     

The Pay Review Bodies in Britain Under the Labour Government

The current Labour Government's public sector 'modernization' policy has placed new pressures on the 30-year-old Pay Review Body system. The Government is now expecting the six Review Bodies to make recommendations on pay reform and restructuring and key decisions on pay for public sector groups are being taken by Government outside of the Review Body process. Despite these problems, the Pay Review Body system still offers the main parties—the Government, employers and unions—a useful political device for handling pay determination at 'arm's length' in the public sector. While political expediency is the main defence for the Pay Review Bodies, the move to long-term agreements may undermine their role.     

Differentiating education and training needs

This paper adds to the understanding of tourism human resources by the inclusion of culture and ethnicity perspectives. Through examples drawn from a multiethnic environment in Malaysia, the implications of ethnic-driven policies on different ethnic groups' involvement in tourism are examined and the appropriateness of the current approaches to tourism education and training are assessed. The views of tourism students of different ethnic backgrounds are presented with their education needs and employment expectations. The significance of culture, religion and ethnicity factors that affect different ethnic groups' perception and choice of tourism employment are discussed.