ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Environmental reporting within the forest and paper industry

Research on environmental reporting within individual sectors and industries is limited. Generic studies have typically focused on the reporting practices of the world's largest corporates. Some industries and sectors are under‐represented within these studies, limiting the potential for industry‐ or sector‐specific analysis. Forest and paper is one industry frequently under‐represented. This study examines environmental reporting amongst the top 100 forest and paper companies. The scale of environmental report publication is investigated, and the breadth and depth of reporting on the key industry issues of forest management and fibre procurement examined. The results show reporting is more prevalent amongst larger corporates but marked regional variations are evident. Most noticeably, Scandinavian companies are reporting more extensively, both in terms of the number of levels at which they report and the depth of information included on forest management and fibre procurement. Reasons for the marked regional variations in reporting are considered and markets for forest products and preferences within those markets for specific certification schemes identified as potential influencing factors. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Bank and Business Performance Measurement

Given the objective of maximizing the wealth of existing shareholders, this paper discusses some of the issues that arise in attempting to measure the performance of individual businesses within a bank. The paper describes two return measures – return on assets within a business and the return on the 'equity' of an individual business – and discusses the appropriate bench–marks. The paper ends with a discussion of the cost of unused allocated capital and the appropriate performance metric.
(J.E.L.: G30, G31).     

Proportionate Growth and the Theoretical Foundations of Financial Ratios

The article proposes a theoretical framework for understanding financial ratios, showing that the multiplicative character of the financial variables from which financial ratios are constructed is a necessary condition of valid ratio usage, not just an assumption supported by evidence. Also, by assuming that firm size is a measurable statistical effect, the article offers an informed reappraisal of the limitations of financial ratios, particularly the well–known limitation of proportionality. The article is divided into two parts, one where ratio components are viewed as deterministic vari– ables and the other where they are random. Such an approach allows the characteristics of ratios to be more easily understood before generalizing the relationship between ratio components to encompass randomness. In the second part, when variability introduced by firm size is treated as a random effect, it is shown that if the accounting variables Y and X used to calculate a financial ratio Y/X are exponential Brownian motion, and if continuous growth rates are equal and proportionate to firm size, this may lead to ratios which are asymmetric but which do not necessarily drift.     

Shop-floor attitudes to industrial relations change

Whilst the shop-floor workers interviewed showed a high degree of interest in, and knowledge of, the Industrial Relations Bill, there were deep divisions over the necessity of introducing the law into the industrial relations system and of the results of doing so.