When promises become contracts: Implied contracts and handbook provisions on job security

In this article, policy capturing was used to examine how lawyers, as experts, understand the wording in employee handbook passages that promise procedural protections for employees. Specifically, how the wording of employee handbook passages can create both legal and nonlegal obligations was examined. Forty-six lawyers were asked to make the following judgments: whether the handbook passage constituted a legal or moral obligation and the chances of the employer winning or being granted a summary judgment in a wrongful discharge suit. Five aspects of the handbook passages were examined: verb strength, specificity, contract disclaimers, legalistic jargon, and the employee's signature.     

Free trade and garment work: the impact of NAFTA on service and manufacturing jobs in the Los Angeles apparel industry

This article examines the impact of North American economic integration on apparel‐related employment in Los Angeles and provides a first look at consequent changes in the composite of apparel‐related occupations in the Los Angeles apparel industry. It assesses the effects of new NAFTA‐generated transnational production networks and global production strategies on apparel industry employment, including the creation of ‘new NAFTA jobs’in the greater Los Angeles area, as well as changes in hiring patterns across occupational categories. The article also explores the accessibility of NAFTA‐generated apparel jobs to displaced workers in the labor‐intensive segments of the industry. The findings suggest that the new NAFTA jobs are inaccessible to the thousands of apparel manufacturing workers displaced by the trend in offshore sourcing. Finally, the article discusses the implications and consequences of recent state‐industry partnership programs designed to train and cross‐train sewing operators for jobs that are rapidly leaving the region. Cet article examine l'impact de l'intégration économique nord‐américaine sur l'emploi dans l'habillement à Los Angeles, en procurant un premier regard sur les changements occasionnés pour la mosaïque des métiers de ce secteur d'activités dans cette ville. Il évalue les effets des nouveaux réseaux de fabrication transnationale générés par l'ALENA et des stratégies de production mondialisées sur l'emploi du secteur, y compris la création des ‘nouveaux emplois ALENA’ dans l'agglomération de Los Angeles, ainsi que les changements dans les schémas d'embauche pour les diverses catégories professionnelles. De plus, il explore l'accessibilité des emplois de l'habillement créés par l'ALENA pour les travailleurs déplacés dans les segments industriels à forte main‐d'?uvre. D'après les résultats, ces nouveaux emplois sont inaccessibles aux milliers d'ouvriers de la fabrication vestimentaire déplacés par la tendance à un approvisionnement étranger. Enfin, sont abordées les implications et conséquences des récents programmes de partenariat État‐industrie pour la formation et la formation polyvalente d'opératrices de machines à coudre à des postes qui quittent rapidement la région.     

THE URBAN LEFT IN POWER: Comparing the Profiles of ‘Municipal Socialists’ and the ‘New Urban Left’ in Swiss Cities

Today, many cities in post-industrial societies are strongholds of left and progressive political forces. Almost 100 years ago, left parties had instituted municipal socialism in several European cities. In this article, we compare these two periods of left urban rule by focusing on the long-term changes over the last 120 years in the socio-demographic profile of urban left elites in four major Swiss cities. Our analysis of left elected representatives at six key dates highlights the main differences between the municipal socialists of the interwar period and the new urban left that rules contemporary cities. The former are members of the working class, blue-collar workers without university education, while the latter are members of the upper-middle class, highly educated sociocultural professionals. The results of our analysis contribute to a better understanding of the sociological composition of urban left-progressive political forces, an aspect that is somewhat neglected in recent research on the urban left. We discuss the potential political implications and further research avenues for contemporary debates in urban studies, in terms of urban policy priorities and political mobilization.     

The stock market and competitive analysis

A method is presented for analysing the stock market's implicit assessment of relative strategic position in an industry. The market's overall perception of strategic position is obtained by comparing the value of future growth potential to that of the existing earnings stream for each company. More detail is extracted by using the quality and quantity of future growth, implicit in the relative value of future growth, as a measure of competitive position and product market outlook respectively. The method is applied to a sample of firms from the computer and data processing industry.     

Hellenic women managers in the telecommunications sector: living in transition

This paper reports a research study into the career experiences and perspectives of a sample of women managers in the telecommunications industry in Greece. The study was conducted from a social constructionist perspective, seeking to explore how social and cultural factors affect the managers' perceptions. Tensions are explored between the research participants' relative satisfaction with their career progress and their limited representation at the senior management levels. The strength of cultural expectations on Hellenic women to marry is noted.
(The authors are the primary researcher and her research supervisor, respectively.)     

THE NEGLECTED AND SMALL FIRM EFFECTS

This paper addresses the empirical question of whether the differential attention which companies receive affects the capital asset pricing process. The degree of attention was measured by research concentration rankings based on the number of analysts regularly following the firm's securities. The results suggest: (i) that there is a “neglected firm effect” in terms of superior performance for less researched companies and (ii) that the neglected firm effect persists over and above the small firm effect; namely, the excess returns are not fully attributable to size. The ex-post capital asset pricing model is unable to account for the differences in return across security research ranking. Several possible explanations for the results are considered but not tested.     

Houses of Experiment: Modern Housing and the Will to Laboratorization

This article adds historical and geographical specificity to the link between city building and laboratorization processes. It does so by way of the example of housing in mid‐twentieth‐century Britain. Housing provision at this time saw an intensification of the relationship between architectural design and science by way of the emergent field of building science as well as new social‐science studies of householder satisfaction. The article focuses on two examples of these housing sciences, tracing their role in the production of British modern housing. The first example focuses on a set of experiments conducted on ventilation and heating at Britain's Building Research Station. The second example examines the social science of a post‐occupancy study of multi‐storey flats in Glasgow. The article argues that mid‐twentieth‐century housing construction and provision was structured in and through a laboratory logic that had a complex geography and temporality. In the sciences of housing conducted during this period there is a conflation and hybridization of the space of the laboratory, the site of the house and the action of the experiment.     

Lost in delegation? (Dis)organizing for sustainability

Using actor-networks as our conceptual lens for appreciating complex sociomaterial interdependencies, we explore how a vision to “do things differently” for sustainability becomes enacted and significantly diluted at a major brownfield development project in the UK. We show how visions for sustainability can become substantially delegated into a range of specialised and functionally differentiated practices, with nonhuman mediators producing significant agency. Additionally, extending actor-network approaches, we develop the concept of localised hybridity to consider how the possibilities for progressive sustainability practices are interdependent with mediators in other ‘locals’ across times and spaces. We suggest that greater reflexive attention and inquiry to the types of relational work required to form alliances with nonhuman mediators is crucial to realise visions for sustainability.