'High-performance' Management Practices, Working Hours and Work–Life Balance

The effects of selected high‐performance practices and working hours on work–life balance are analysed with data from national surveys of British employees in 1992 and 2000. Alongside long hours, which are a constant source of negative job‐to‐home spillover, certain ‘high‐performance’ practices have become more strongly related to negative spillover during this period. Surprisingly, dual‐earner couples are not especially liable to spillover — if anything, less so than single‐earner couples. Additionally, the presence of young children has become less important over time. Overall, the results suggest a conflict between high‐performance practices and work‐life balance policies.     

State-owned enterprises going public The case of China

Public listing is a key reform measure for large state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in China. We find evidence that public listing lowers state ownership significantly, lessens firms’ reliance on debt finance, and allows firms to increase capital expenditure, at least temporarily. We also find that ownership structure affects post‐listing performance. However, we find no statistical evidence of a positive effect of public listing on firms’ profitability. We suggest alternative interpretations of the last finding.     

Neuroeconomics: Why Economics Needs Brains

Neuroeconomics uses knowledge about brain mechanisms to inform economic theory. It opens up the “black box” of the brain, much as organizational economics opened up the theory of the firm. Neuroscientists use many tools—including brain imaging, behavior of patients with brain damage, animal behavior and recording single neuron activity. The key insight for economics is that the brain is composed of multiple systems which interact. Controlled systems (“executive function”) interrupt automatic ones. Brain evidence complicates standard assumptions about basic preference, to include homeostasis and other kinds of state‐dependence, and shows emotional activation in ambiguous choice and strategic interaction.     

The Incidence and Intensity of Employer Funded Training: Australian Evidence on the Impact of Flexible Work

The interaction between the growth of flexible forms of employment and employer funded training is important for understanding labour market performance. In particular, the idea of a trade‐off has been advanced to describe potential market failures in the employment of flexible workers. This study finds that evidence of a trade‐off is apparent in both the incidence and intensity of employer funded training. Flexible workers receive training that is 50–80% less intense than the workforce average. Casual workers – especially males – suffer more acutely from the trade‐off. This suggests that flexible production externalities may seriously reduce human capital formation in the workforce.     

Negotiating the Evolution of the Hr Function: Practical Advice From the Health Care Sector

This paper has two aims. First, to consider explanations for the apparent gap between the paradigm of strategic human resource management on the one hand and actual HR practice on the other. Second, to generate practical advice for senior HR specialists who are aspriring to develop a strategic role for their function. the research underpinning these findings was based on case studies in three hospitals in Adelaide and a comparison of the findings with the situation at Leicester General NHS Trust where the first named author of this article was the HR director and a senior board member. the analysis reveals that specific features of each organisation's history, current structure and management, shape powerfully the nature of the HR function. Moreover, the local shaping factors define the degrees of freedom open to the HR function, so much so, that the notion that it can choose its organisational stance is here challenged.     

Auditor conservatism and voluntary disclosure: Evidence from the Year 2000 systems issue

This study further examines the phenomenon of conservative auditor behaviour by considering the level of voluntary disclosure of Year 2000 remediation information in company annual reports. Previous studies have provided evidence of conservative auditor behaviour by examining the link between Big 6 auditor choice and accruals (Francis and Krishnan 1999; Becker et al ., 1998; Defond and Subramanyam 1998). Protecting their reputation capital increases Big 6 auditor incentives to act conservatively to avoid litigation risk. We propose and find that Big 6 auditor clients disclose more Year 2000 remediation information than non–Big 6 auditor clients.     

Vacancies and Rent Dispersion in a Stochastic Search Model with Generalized Tenant Demand

I model imperfect information, derive a downward sloping market demand curve, and explain vacancies in a partial equilibrium model of a rental housing market. Tenants can be completely described by an exogenous demand curve, perhaps arising from differences in income, preferred location, or tastes, and view vacant units based on a stochastic arrival of rental information. Free entry of these landlords induces excess rental housing capacity (equilibrium vacancies). I determine the equilibrium distribution of rents for vacant units, show that this rent distribution may be discontinuous, and explore the equilibrium vacancy rate to changes in exogenous parameters. The resulting characterization of equilibrium distributions of rents may be amenable to econometric modeling exploring the relationship between market rents and vacancies.