Ethical Outsourcing in UK Financial Services: Employee Rights

Outsourcing is becoming a major option in British business, including the financial services industry, and it raises a number of ethical considerations. The author of this major ethical study contends that "Outsourcing seems to present a particular threat to employees ... because of the factors which have led to outsourcing and the way in which it tends to work." Mike Henderson is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and Senior Lecturer in Financial Services in the School of Financial Studies and Law of Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Pond Street, Sheffield S1 1WB, England.     

Diversification Categories in Investment Real Estate

This paper continues previous work evaluating the benefits of diversification and analyzes the various dimensions within the commercial real estate opportunity set. The database is large and extends through the 1982 downturn in property values. Due to the low levels of systematic risk, current distinctions by region and property type make little sense in a world of costly diversification. More exacting categories combining property type, SMSA growth rate and lease maturity offer promise for more efficient diversification within the real estate portfolio.     

Soviet all-union enterprises as new multinationals of the CIS

This paper examines the restructuring of the former Soviet economy provoked by the break-up of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Particular attention is devoted to the changes taking place in the former All-Union enterprises that have now essentially become new multinationals. The pressures influencing the two parallel developments of internalization and divestment are examined and illustrated using two case studies. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Human capital and the internationalisation of venture capital firms

We examine the neglected area of internationalisation by VCs. Using a representative sample of 195 VCs, we show that the decision of a European VC firm to invest internationally is driven by its human resources. Having more VC executives in general and more VC executives with previous international experience in specific, results in a higher probability of investing internationally. In contrast, more VC executives with experience in the VC industry or with an engineering background lead to a higher probability of remaining domestic.     

A note on the determination of A-optimal type block designs under fixed and mixed effects models

In this paper, we consider the problem of estimating a selected set of contrasts between v treatments using a block design consisting of b blocks of size k. Traditionally, the construction of A-optimal block designs for such situations has been carried out assuming a fixed effects model. In this paper, we show that A-optimal designs constructed under a fixed effects model are robust in the sense that these designs have maximal minimal efficiency when considered among all available designs and under all possible mixed effects models. AMS 1991 subject classifications: Primary 62K05; Secondary 62K10     

Risk,commitment, and project abandonment

This article deals briefly with the most loathsome of business topics — the admission of failure. Rather than actively encouraging project Anti-champions, many organizations experiencing financial duress inadverdently stifle opposing opinion. In some cases recognition is delayed until it is too late. This is unfortunate since failure can be managed like any other business situation. Companies with CEOs that foster open communications between finance and operations are more likely to avoid escalating commitment to failed projects.Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by incapacity. William Blake Mike Devaney is Associate Professor of Finance at South-East Missouri State University. His primary research interest is real estate finance. He has published in the Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, Journal of Real Estate Research, and The Appraisal Journal to name a few. He also enjoys writing on popular business myth and has published on this subject in Business and Society Review as well as others.     

Modeling Disinterest and Dislike: A Bounded Bayesian Mixed Logit Model of the UK Market for GM Food

Mixed logit models represent a powerful discrete choice analytical model but require assumptions about the functional form of the parameter distributions. The use of unbounded distributions, such as the normal distribution, may be regarded as unsuitable where theory indicates that all are negatively affected by increases in an attribute, such as price. Bounded distributions such as the triangular and log-normal are unable to model the case where a section of the population is indifferent towards an attribute, while the remainder are negatively disposed toward it. Train and Sonnier’s bounded mixed logit model accommodates these features and is employed in this paper. A censored normal and Johnson’s S_b distribution are used to model preferences in the UK for food attributes, including price and GM technology. Bi-modal distributions are identified regarding GM food: some are unlikely to ever consume it, some are close to indifference and willing to consume at relatively small discounts while the remainder are fairly unresponsive to further price reductions.     

The Japanisation of British industry? Instances from a high growth area

Here the authors make two arguments, Japanese industry is characterised by distinctive practices, but these predominate in only certain ‘leading edge’ sectors and were introduced mainly to ensure labour supply. Second, Britain's managers are increasingly outside the internal labour markets of large corporations. In this respect British firms are not becoming ‘Japanese’.     

The impact of (more) enlargement on the European Employment Strategy

The European Union (EU) aspires to be the most competitive, full employment economy in the world and has set a number of ambitious targets to be met by 2010 in order that it can achieve this goal. At the same time, it is pursuing an enlargement policy that will witness the accession of an increasing number of less developed nations. This article explores some of the tensions that exist between these two goals as these are manifest in labour market indicators and finds the likelihood of meeting the deadline set for success remote.