The role of entry barriers in the development of the offshore supply sector in scotland

This paper examines the offshore oil supply sector and shows how the entry barriers experienced by new supply firms are imposed not by other supply firms but by the oil companies. This is done to ensure product quality and reliability of service rather than the more general attention to price considerations. The range of entry barriers are discussed in relation to key characteristics of the oil industry. As a spin-off this experience appears to have generated a more responsive attitude towards technological and commercial change throughout Scottish industry.     

The South African labour market, 1995–2015

This study investigates the changes in the South African labour market in the post-apartheid period. While unemployment increased over the 1995–2015 period, employment also increased. Nonetheless, the extent of employment increase is not rapid enough to absorb all net entrants into the labour force, resulting in increasing unemployment, or an employment absorption rate of 65.3%. Unemployment is concentrated in specific demographically and geographically defined groups, most notably Africans, the lowly educated and those aged below 30 years, residing in rural areas in Gauteng. Finally, four worrying findings are observed: youth jobseekers aged below 30 years struggle to find their first job; chronic unemployment is more serious for the relatively older jobseekers (aged 45 years or above) with past work experience; employees working for small, medium and micro enterprises still stagnate at approximately 3.5 million; and jobseekers from the older age cohorts are less likely to actively seek work by enquiring at workplaces and answering job advertisements.     

Disclosure, leaks, and slips: Issues and strategies for prohibiting employee communication

Both popular and social science literature are replete with recommendations for enhancing communication effectiveness, typically defined as improving the clarity and impact of the spoken and written word. However, managing internal organizational processes and external market competitiveness often requires a different communication strategy, specifically silence and non-disclosure, while adhering to statutory regulations. This article summarizes the rationale for communication prohibitions, highlights counter forces mitigating their intended effects, and offers recommendations for successful implementation. The three major counter forces are: employee motivation and perception, changing socio-cultural norms, and organizational structures reflecting virtual teams and project teams. The eight recommendations for combating these forces are subsumed under one of two categories: creating an organizational culture supporting prohibitions, and executing the prohibitions with a minimum of employee resistance. In summary, employees charged with maintaining secrecy and adhering to non-disclosure prohibitions must view those restrictions as reasonable, warranted, equitable, and legal.     

The Rocky Road to Privatization

Abstract . Three main types of privatization are found in the United States: (1) lower proportion of Gross National Product preempted by the public sector, leaving correspondingly more for the private sector, (2) transferring present government enterprises to private organizations; and (3) contracting out the production and delivery of services financed by public funds. Most discussions of “contracting out,” which come from the “public choice” school of economics and public administration, mainly emphasize theoretical economic advantages. They also suppose that the practice can eradicate political machinations. In contrast, this evaluation takes into account the practices’intensely political environment. Many of the advantages attributed to contracting out often are not realized. The practice in many cases can save money. But successes are likely to be achieved only with projects meeting certain narrow specifications.     

Organizational Politics:Tactics, Channels, andHierarchical Roles

This research examines the relationships among the types of self-serving political messages sent in organizations, the channels through which they are sent, and the targets to whom they are sent. Two theoretical streams converge in this study: Communication as Political Behavior and Media Usage Theory. A review and synthesis of these two bodies of literature yielded three hypotheses, each of which received strong statistical support. The data suggest that the process of encoding and transmitting self-serving messages is strongly related to the specific target to whom they are sent (boss, subordinate, or peer) and the channel through which they are sent (face-to-face, telephone, memo, or e-mail).     

The Generosity of Social Insurance, 1971-2002

International comparisons of national social policy rely overwhelminglyon programme spending ratios. However, there are widespreadproblems with this type of data as an indicator of trends insocieties' commitments to social protection. This paper suggestsan alternative approach to understanding social commitmentsand introduces a new international data set of social insuranceprogrammes that is comprised of important characteristics ofthree types of public insurance: unemployment, sick pay, andpublic pensions. The data are available annually from the 1970sfor 18 OECD countries. Looking more closely at trends in twoprogramme characteristics, income replacement rates and programmecoverage, we develop an indicator of expected benefits. Accordingto this indicator, there is considerably more evidence of welfarestate retrenchment in recent years than most analyses of publicspending have suggested. Footnotes ¹ E-mail address: lyle.scruggs{at}uconn.edu     

Valuing recreational fishing in Tasmania and assessment of response bias in contingent valuation*

We report results from contingent valuation studies in each of two Tasmanian fisheries that estimate the value of a day’s recreational fishing. Published studies estimating the economic value of recreational fishing in Australia and New Zealand are limited, although the economic and social benefits associated with this activity are sizable and the importance of understanding the behaviour of recreational fishers for the sustainable management of aquatic resources is well recognised. In our contingent valuation surveys, we use a double‐bounded version of the dichotomous choice question, which improves the statistical efficiency of the estimates relative to those based on a single dichotomous choice question. We test and control for response bias, in the form of anchoring and a shift effect, that may occur in data collected using a double‐bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) elicitation format. We highlight the importance of identifying and correcting for response bias in DBDC models on a case‐by‐case basis. Our estimation results show that there is no significant difference in the willingness to pay for a day of recreational fishing across individuals who caught different number of fish in either fishery. This suggests that high and low catch fishers placed the same value on a day’s fishing.     

The teaching of business ethics: A survey of AACSB member schools

This report presents the findings of a survey of business ethics education undertaken in the Fall of 1988. The respondents were the deans of colleges and universities associated with the AACSB.Ethics, as a curriculum topic, received significant coverage at over 90 percent of the institutions, with 53 percent indicating interest in increasing coverage of the subject. The tabulations of this survey may prove useful to schools seeking to compare or develop their emphases in business ethics. Lyle F. Schoenfeldt is currently the Ernest and Dorothy Niederer Professor of Business Administration. His principal research is in the area of management talent, and as a result is Director of the CBA Fellows Program, a management identification and development effort. He has published numberous research articles and is a coauthor of Human Resource Management (Houghton Mifflin, 1990). He currently serves on the editorial boards of several journals.Don M. McDonald is currently a Ph.D. student concentrating on human resources and labor relations. Stuart A. Youngblood's current research interests focus on unjust dismissal disputes, turnover and absenteeism, and the determinants of ethical decision-making. He has published numerous research articles and is a coauthor of Effective Personnel Management (West Publishing Co., 1989) with R. Schuler and N. Beutell. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Management.