Downsizing and the changing role of HR

This paper examines the changing role of HR in the specific context of downsizing. It highlights the key dilemmas facing HR professionals - on the one hand, the contribution of HRM to the achievement of business results has come under increasing scrutiny and, on the other hand, most of the challenges of downsizing are people-related issues that require sophisticated HR interventions. The paper reports the key findings of a pilot study conducted in sixty organizations in the UK that downsized in the last three years. The key conclusion of the study is that the role of HR has become wide ranging, covering the strategic as well as implementation aspects. The clear message from the study suggests that, unless there is alignment between the two aspects, the envisaged benefits of downsizing are unlikely take place. Key challenges facing HR professionals are managing middle managers, managing careers and managing employee expectations. There are indications to suggest that the process role of HR is likely to become more important in the medium and longer terms.     

空间双寡头竞争下的创新扩散——基于博弈论的模型

关于创新空间扩散的研究一直没有关注空间竞争对于创新采纳的影响.本文在双人博弈的框架下构建了一个空间双寡头竞争模型,假定厂商已经拥有关于创新的信息,单纯地考察空间竞争对于创新采纳的影响.结果表明,即使同质的厂商同时获得了创新的信息,在竞争的作用下,创新的采纳很少会同时进行.先采纳者具有先发优势,且随着运费率的下降,先发优势愈发得以强化.本文还分析了空间竞争和技术扩散反梯度现象间的关系,结论是空间竞争至少是反梯度现象产生的一个原因.     

基于指数随机图模型的专利技术扩散机制实证研究

网络嵌入视角下专利技术扩散路径间存在相关性,但这种网络内生性影响并未在已有研究中得到足够重视。将扩散因素归纳为：专利价值、专利保护、多维同配、结构嵌入,从扩散网络内生、外生因素两个方面构建分析模型,并以石墨烯领域为例,采用指数随机图模型,开展实证研究。实证结果说明：专利价值、技术、地理、组织层面同配性、闭合三角结构嵌入均正向促进专利技术扩散,而专利保护强度反向抑制技术扩散。值得注意的是,专利技术扩散存在强烈的结构嵌入倾向,融合网络内、外生因素的模型能够更好地捕捉专利技术扩散机制。     

Checkmating the Consumer: Passive Consumption and the Economic Devaluation of Culture

Early neoclassical economics embodied a gendered symbolic system that devalued consumption and enabled economists to ignore a basic contradiction underlying their treatment of consumption. According to consumer-sovereignty dogma, the consumer determined which firms would survive by actively pursuing maximum individual utility. While this consumer retained the culturally masculine attributes of initiative and agency, consumption itself was devalued because, from a systemic point of view, it is not important which firms survive. At the macro level, consumption was marginalized through Say's law, which holds that excessive acquisition of commodities for consumption is potentially dangerous, because saving and investment drive the economy. The rise of mass consumption and Keynesian macroeconomics threw into question the cultural gendering of consumption – which had acquired feminine attributes like passivity and frivolity – and rendered the neoclassical devaluing of it increasingly untenable. The postwar, neoclassical synthesis and subsequent developments have reinstated the pre-Keynesian gendering of consumption and devaluation of culture.     

Modelling multinational telecommunications demand with limited data

Forecasting the diffusion of innovations in the telecommunications sector is a constantly recurring problem for national providers. The problem is characterised by short data series making the estimation of model parameters unreliable. However, the same innovation will be diffusing simultaneously in other national markets, although with a different start date. The use of this cross-sectional data in constructing innovation diffusion models is investigated here. Four models for pooling the cross-sectional data are described and two diffusion models are discussed although only one, the Gompertz model is used throughout. Three innovation data sets are used in the evaluation of the models: digital cellular telephones, ISDN connections and fax connections. The pooled diffusion forecasts proved to be more accurate in several comparisons relative to a naïve benchmark and to individual forecasts when available.     

'More is not necessarily better': the relationship between the quantity and quality of training efforts

International comparisons indicate that, on average, Belgian companies spend less on training than their French, German and Dutch counterparts. Encouraging companies to commit to training has consequently been an important policy goal over the last few years. One notable aspect of the policy to encourage training efforts by companies is that the effort is always represented in terms of the resources invested (input), not in terms of the learning achieved (output) or the quality of training programmes (throughput). Government policy is aimed at increasing the level of investment in company training. One of the questions we wish to investigate is whether this input-oriented approach to the training issue is actually effective. Whether companies will succeed in raising human capital to ever-increasing levels may depend not only (and maybe not even chiefly) on the extent of financial investment in training. The investment level does not necessarily determine the quality of the training processes developed by companies. Therefore, this paper focuses on the following research questions: (1) to what extent do companies monitor the systematic development of sufficiently effective training processes? In other words, is qualitative under-investment an issue, alongside financial under-investment? (2) Is the level of financial investment in company training correlated to the quality of training processes? The empirical data confirm that a kind of 'qualitative' under-investment can be reported and that the relationship between the level of investment in training and the quality of the training programmes is weak.     

‘The times they are a changin’? transformative organizational innovations in financial services in the UK

Much of the management guru-based literature emphasizes the transformational capacity of organizational innovations (OIs). The excellence, quality and reengineering literature purports to abandon hierarchy, bureaucracy and management control; to eradicate conflict and instil an new team and quality-based ethos. Yet much remains unknown about how these OIs are operationalized. Here we question both theoretically and empirically the validity of such transformational claims by reference to our research within financial services. We argue that despite considerable changes, OIs remain both a condition of, and location for, the exercise of organizational power relations. Bureaucratic and hierarchical structures continue to pervade organizations. Work-related pressures and tensions abound concerning issues such as control over the quality versus the quantity of work output, work intensification and job insecurity. All of which impinge upon the performance of OIs, and belie notions of a ‘transformation’ of organizational cultures, structures or strategies.     

消费税的调整及燃油税的征收对成品油市场的影响分析

2006年3月21日,财政部、国家税务总局联合下发通知,从2006年4月1日起,对我国现行消费税的税目、税率及相关政策进行调整。与此同时,国家有关部门多次表示燃油税的征收也将适时出台,这些政策的调整将对国内成品油市场产生直接而深远的影响,现就消费税的调整及燃油税的征收对国内成品油市场的影响进行简要分析。