New public management and organisational commitment in the public sector: testing a mediation model

This paper focuses on the attitudes of learning professionals towards New Public Management (NPM). In a survey of the UK further education sector (n = 433), NPM beliefs were found to be positively associated with both affective and normative organisational commitment. However, as expected, NPM beliefs were not found to be related to continuance organisational commitment. The results also show that although perceived organisational support mediates the relationship between NPM beliefs and affective organisational comment, it is only a partial mediator of the relationship between NPM beliefs and normative organisational commitment. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and potential directions for future research, are discussed.     

The challenge for women expatriates and spouses: some empirical evidence

This is an exploratory study examining issues associated with women expatriates and their spouses. Individuals representing three groups - organizations, women expatriates, male spouses - were interviewed to identify their experiences and concerns. The authors conclude that this issue will pose a dramatic challenge for international organizations in the coming decades, and that it is timely to investigate the issue in more depth.     

Employee involvement and participation: developing the concept of institutional embeddedness using WERS2004

It is widely accepted that employee involvement and participation (EIP) is a key component of the high commitment bundle of HRM, but that it can take a range of forms in practice. Much of the analysis to date has either treated different forms of EIP as a single construct or has measured EIP by virtue of its presence or absence alone. Drawing on earlier work based on the data from WERS1998 examining the link between various forms of EIP and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment, the authors re-apply and extend these ideas to data from WERS2004. In particular they develop the concept of institutional embeddedness, in order argue that both the depth and breadth of EIP have important associations with commitment though not with satisfaction.

This association held for workplaces employing 25 or more workers, and here it was apparent that the more that employees are involved at workplace level – through a wider number of EIP practices that are held more frequently and include opportunities for workers to have their say – the more likely it is that investments in EIP will reap the reward of organisational commitment. For smaller establishments, given that they tend to operate with relatively few formal schemes, it is likely that managers in these workplaces find alternative ways in which to engage the workforce, and that informal EIP offer similar levels of embeddedness in these situations. A clear implication to be drawn from the findings is that, in a context of lower levels of formality within organisations (large and small), line managers are more than ever the key link between HR policy and the embodiment of actual practice at the workplace.     

Beyond necessity versus opportunity entrepreneurship: some lessons from English deprived urban neighbourhoods

When discussing the motivations of entrepreneurs, it has become commonplace to represent them dichotomously as either necessity or opportunity driven. This paper evaluates critically this dualistic depiction of entrepreneurs’ motives through an examination of the rationales of entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs living in a deprived urban neighbourhood of an English city, a group of entrepreneurs who have been conventionally depicted as largely driven by necessity into entrepreneurship in the absence of alternative means of livelihood. Reporting the results of a face-to-face questionnaire conducted in 2008 with 459 respondents and a further 18 follow-up in-depth interviews, the finding is that forcing individual entrepreneurs’ motives into one or other of these categories grossly over-simplifies their rationales which in lived practice are not only a mixture of both opportunity and necessity but also temporally fluid shifting most often from more necessity- to more opportunity-oriented rationales. The outcome is to reveal that the opportunity versus necessity dichotomy, which uses the perceptions of an entrepreneur’s originating condition as the defining feature of their motivations, is a misleading way of categorising types of entrepreneurship not only because motivations change over time but also because entrepreneurs are frequently driven by both necessity as well as opportunity factors. The result is a call to move beyond the conventional either/or depiction of opportunity versus necessity entrepreneurship and towards a richer, more nuanced and dynamic appreciation of entrepreneurs’ motivations.     

Exploring supply management status,internal collaboration and operating performance

An important internal link in the supply chain is between supply managers and their internal customers. These individuals must collaborate to determine purchase specifications, develop sourcing strategies, ensure supplier performance, and maintain effective supplier relationships. Using power and social networking as the theoretical lenses, we develop and test a conceptual model examining the supply management function’s status, supply manager’s networking behavior, collaboration with the internal customer, and operating performance (lower cost, better quality, faster delivery, and consistent delivery). We also examine the mediating effect of collaboration and networking behavior on the positive effect of status and operating performance. Data gathered in an online survey of supply management professionals are examined using path analysis. Results show that without including the mediators, supply management status is directly related to all four operating performance measures. It is also positively related to collaboration with the internal customer and networking behavior. Contrary to expectations, the supply manager’s networking behavior is not related to collaboration with the internal customer. Collaboration is positively related to all four operating performance measures. However, the supply manager’s networking behavior is only related to one operating performance measure, better quality. Mediation analysis shows that supply management status has a direct effect on faster delivery performance beyond what is explained by collaboration and the supply manager’s networking behavior. The findings suggest that organizations should look for ways to elevate the status of the supply management function to improve internal collaboration and operating performance.     

Financial Innovation and Divisia Money in Taiwan: Comparative Evidence from Neural Network and Vector Error-Correction Forecasting Models

In this article a Divisia monetary index is constructed for the Taiwan economy, and its inflation forecasting potential is compared with that of its traditional simple sum counterpart. The Divisia index is adjusted in two ways to allow for the financial liberalization that Taiwan has experienced since the 1970s. The powerful artificial intelligence technique of neural networks is used and is found to beat the conventional econometric techniques in a simple inflation forecasting experiment. The preferred inflation forecasting model is achieved using networks that employ a Divisia M2 measure of money that has been adjusted to incorporate a learning mechanism to allow individuals to gradually alter their perceptions of the increased productivity of money. The explanatory power of the two innovation-adjusted Divisia aggregates dominates that of the simple sum counterpart in the majority of cases. (JEL C4 , E4 , E5 )     

Technology assessment network building: The International Association of Technology Assessment and Forecasting Institutions

With the globalization of trade and the increased understanding of transboundary problems such as global climate change, the need for understanding the consequences of technological change has never been higher. Institutional arrangements necessary to assess these changes and make decision makers aware of the consequences have not necessarily adapted to these world conditions. In response to this leading technology assessment and forecasting institutions formed an international association of technology assessment and forecasting institutions to assist in the diffusion of technology assessment in the decision-making process. This paper discusses the origins of the International Association of Technology Assessment and Forecasting Institutions (IATAFI) and the goals and vision for the organization. The following articles represent some of the topics discussed at the first IATAFI conference in Bergen, Norway in May 1994.     

Health, Health Care and Social Welfare

This paper reviews the conceptualisation of social welfare in the health economics literature, and the contribution of health and health care to social welfare.     

Trans-organizational innovation: a framework for research

Information and communication technologies, the evolution of a pattern of innovation based on technology fusion and the transition towards a knowledge-based economy are dominant trends. These trends support trans-organitational innovation, which typically involves the design of complex and technologically hybrid products. Trans-organizational innovation involves generating new knowledge out of knowledge inputs which are distributed across disciplines and organizations which may be geographically dispersed. This is critically dependent on management processes associated with learning. Learning is a contextually situated and interaction-intensive process, which during product innovation involves mutual interaction between characteristics of product and those of context. Such interactions continually evolve the designed form and functionalig of a product. Existing research has tended to neglect the complexities involved in trans-organitational innovation. A product-in-context framework for analyzing the trans-organitational innovation process is detailed in this paper. This framework can be used to examine the relationship between critical features at Product and context which mediate learning during trans-organizational product design and innovation and account for product design variation.