Significant Issues for the Future: Some Additional Perspectives

The rational elements of management dominated the questions raised by our Editorial Board members in the previous issue of JPIM when they offered their ideas in, "Significant Issues For the Future of Product Innovation." In this article, the discussion is continued with some other Board members but this time the human side of managements gets its due attention. The issues presented here add to the picture of complexity that is the reality of product innovation but they also may provoke the thinking that can lead to an improvement in management performance.     

Equalising Share-Ownership

More effective marketing of shares in denationalised assets might increase their holdings by older and younger age-groups and women. But Dr Maureen Guirdham and Siew Choo Tan, of the City University Business School, argue that other forms of financial provision may be better suited than investment in shares fo people with lower incomes.     

Directions in Delphi developments: Dissertations and their quality

The general question of whether Delphi users have learned from Delphi research of the past decade is addressed in this article. Within the wider context of Delphi expansion anddevelopment, specific attention is given to examining the nature and quality of the growing number of Delphi dissertations. Although there are some signs for encouragement, the findings from the sample of dissertationsexamined might also give cause for some concern. Findings raise continuing questions related to excellencein the execution of Delphi studies and also to the concentration of applications of the technique in certain fields. It appears that the future of Delphi could be brighter if users of the technique would be more careful in implementing “quality control.”     

对战后资本输出的再认识

<正> 资本输出的理论是列宁于一九一六年所著《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》一书的重要内容,是帝国主义五大特征之一。自列宁所著《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》问世到现在已经历了七十二年的历史。这七十多年以来,世界上发生了巨大变化。资本运动的形式和内容发生了惊人的变化。所以,我们有必要对资本输出和资本国际化运动加以重新认识和研究,这不仅有理论意义而且有实际意义。     

British Telecom – Has Privatisation Delivered Competition?

What are the lessons for the privatisation of British Gas from previous flotations? Peter Curwen, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Sheffield Polytechnic, charts the regulatory tangle in the telecommunications market and argues that privatisation on its own may not be enough to reduce the extent of regulation.     

Female Pay: Has the State Unshackled the Market?

Liberal economists view equal pay legislation for women as a distortion of market signals; interventionists approve of it for this very reason. Dr Zafiris Tzannatos, of the University of Buckingham, contends that unexpectedly, such legislation may have released the labour market from longer-standing prejudicial distortions.