Organization and Work Situations: Which sources for the learning process?

ABSTRACT: The observation of economic activity grants an equally important place to learning as some recent theoretical problems. However, what is meant by learning, and what in the productive activity enables the application of the learning process? This paper examines the notion of learning, as far as the firm is concerned, putting the emphasis on two main directions. On one hand, learning is not only a dynamic but also a process: it is not only a matter of going from one point to another, but also a process of construction of knowledge and rules. On the other hand, this process must be understood as an articulation between individual and organizational learning.     

Do Women Cause Unemployment? Evidence from Eight OECD Countries

ABSTRACT: In this paper the authors present the results of preliminary estimates on the effects of changes in the composition of labour forces throughout eight OECD countries during the period 1966-1986. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, the effect of changes in the distribution of the labour force on group unemployment is computed. Second, the impact of this effect is combined with the direct effect of changes in the distribution of participation on total unemployment rates, to calculate a hypothetical unemployment rate which corresponds to what would have occured had there been no compositional changes. The paper challenges the thesis which sustains that alterations in the age-sex composition of the labour force have exerted an upward pressure on the aggregate unemployment rate.     

A future for the corporate planner?

Although not initiated by the event, it seems appropriate that this article is written on the tenth anniversary of the founding of The Society for Long Range Planning. It is entirely coincidental that Ansoff's book ‘Corporate Strategy’, which has evolved into the standard work on corporate planning, also appeared about a decade ago. This fortuitous coincidence has been further emphasized by the recent publication of another book from the same authority which introduces an entirely new factor into the future prospects for corporate planners. An attempt is made here to assess its implications.     

Work Absence — A Signalling Factor for Temporary Workers?

This paper investigates whether low levels of absence increase the probability of permanent employment and reduce that of unemployment for Swedish temporary workers. We investigate two reasons for absence: worker sickness and sickness of a dependent child. Using a competing risk estimation model, we find that sick leave reduces the probability of permanent employment for women and increases the probability of unemployment for men. Absence due to child sickness increases the risk of unemployment for women. Although the influence of sick leave varies substantially among different temporary jobs, replacement and probation workers are generally the most affected.     

Corporate Governance in Asian Countries: Has Confucianism Anything to Offer?

Although Confucianism is a resilient cultural tradition in Asian societies, its role in their corporate governance systems is ambiguous. Confucian values have been pushed to the periphery because of a preoccupation in these countries to emulate corporate governance systems from the West. This article argues that Confucianism has much to offer in enhancing director conduct and corporate governance standards. As the attention of the global business community turns eastwards, it is opportune to revive interest in Confucianism and to explore ways in which it can be integrated formally into companies' governance systems.     

How does crisis management in China differ from the West?: A review of the literature and directions for future research

Scholars often use Western-based frameworks to examine issues in crisis management in Eastern cultures such as China. However, relying on these frameworks may not be useful since in many cases they do not consider contextual factors such as culture. In this review of the literature on crisis management in China we examine two key issues. First, we examine the factors that trigger a crisis in China. Second, we identify distinct crisis management strategies deployed in China. Finally, this paper discusses the managerial implications and directions for future research.     

The Use of the Partnering Concept for Public–Private Collaboration: How Well Does it Really Work?

This paper critically scrutinizes the key success factors and tools described in the partnering literature by exploring how they are implemented in a public–private partnering collaboration. In addition to this the paper investigates to what extent these tools facilitate the relationship between the parties in a partnering process. The empirical data consist of two longitudinal case studies. Both cases are large and complex urban development projects in the Swedish water and sewage industry. The results from the cases were ambiguous and positive; as well, some negative outcomes were present. Further, the processes were in both cases far from easy and it required a lot of effort from the parties in the collaboration to make the collaboration work and establish a culture based on trust, especially higher up in the organization. As could be expected, the reality is thus far more complex and cumbersome than previous studies indicate.     

Can Public Management Contribute to Governance in Developing Countries?

Governance ensures a wide range of desirable values including efficiency, productivity, participation, transparency, and accountability. The wide scope and overambitious demands of governance make it difficult to conceptualize and operationalize. Despite huge investments in time and resources, developing countries seldom succeed in establishing good governance. Based on the experience of Hong Kong, this article argues that many of the desired values of governance can be attained through effective design and the implementation of public management reforms. Public management cannot serve as an alternative for governance, but reforms in this area can help update and adjust institutional structures, processes, and practices in developing countries; they help to ensure the benefits of the desired values of governance without undertaking enormous risks. However, the size of a country and the nature of its political system will influence the degree of success in establishing governance.     

Radio Frequency Identification: A Panacea for Governments?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) has been used to improve business supply chain management for over 35 years. As often happens, private sector technology migrates to the public sector where it is adapted for use. RFID use in governments is spreading far and wide at the federal and state levels with virtually no debate or performance analyses to inform adoption decisions. Implementation of RFID technology impacts government efficiency and effectiveness in many areas. Data show that most RFID applications promise enhanced effectiveness but also pose increased costs. A model is constructed to assist state and local managers in choosing to adopt RFID and to discern the status and impacts of this bold new innovation.

Employee-of-the-Month Programs: Do They Really Work?

This article investigates Employee-of-the-Month as a technique for sustaining improved performance on a data entry task in two experiments. In both experiments, participants competed as members of a fabricated team for a “Check Processor of the Week” incentive. The first experiment assessed the impact of receiving this incentive. In the second experiment, the incentive was enhanced to include a $50 bonus for the winner. Participants always placed between 2nd and 5th place in order to assess the impact of being an unrewarded runner-up. Overall, results suggest that Employee-of-the-Month programs do not sustain improved performance and may even have detrimental effects.     

The Maximum Box Problem for moving points in?the?plane

Given a set R of r red points and a set B of b blue points in the plane, the static version of the Maximum Box Problem is to find an isothetic box H such that H??R=? and the cardinality of H??B is maximized. In this paper, we consider a kinetic version of the problem where the points in R??B move along bounded degree algebraic trajectories. We design a compact and local quadratic-space kinetic data structure (KDS) for maintaining the optimal solution in O(rlog?r+rlog?b+b) time per each event. We also give an algorithm for solving the more general static problem where the maximum box can be arbitrarily oriented. This is an open problem in Aronov and Har-Peled (SIAM J. Comput. 38:899?C921, 2008). We show that our approach can be used to solve this problem in O((r+b)²(rlog?r+rlog?b+b)) time. Finally we propose an efficient data structure to maintain an approximated solution of the kinetic Maximum Box Problem.     

A Time for Change?

Change is now a way of life; however, change is also a difficult and elusive process to manage effectively. Most change models are task focused and look at the practicalities of managing change as an isolated event very much in the ‘here and now’. This article, however, proposes a meta-model for managing the overall change process along a ‘time’ dimension. By placing time as a central concept in change management and addressing the issues related to the past, creating a viable future vision, and identifying what is needed in the present to move to the desired state, HR practitioners can help manage the whole process more effectively and efficiently.     

A future for fishing?

This article outlines the potential in the fishing industry viewed from the present. The author argues that current methods are still relatively inefficient and that increases of 50–100 per cent can be expected in the next 10–20 years. Further that these larger catches can contribute markedly to world protein requirements. The article includes consideration of system fishing and concludes with a picture of the British fishing industry being among the most advanced in the world.     

Strategic Planning in the Malawi Public Sector: Potential Tool for Progress or Regression?

The process of developing strategic plans in the public sector is regarded as one indicator of positive reform in the system. The assumption is that strategic planning ensures that (just like in the private sector) public sector organizations’ operations should cost less but deliver better service. Ultimately the argument is that public sector institutional governance and responsiveness to the citizenry is not only seen but felt. However, strategic planning has to be done in an appropriate manner for it to deliver. For instance an analysis of the underlying motives, the role of leadership in the process as well as the relevance or viability of the guiding strategic planning model significantly affect the nature of expected results. In the early 2000s, the Malawi public sector embarked on a serious drive towards strategic planning process as part of its reform package. In order to ascertain it’s potential to transform the Malawi public service, this paper focuses at critically analyzing the strategic planning process in the Malawi public sector by among other things asking: who initiated and led the process? What approach determined the process? What is the possible potentiality of the adopted strategic planning approach in enhancing the reform agenda in Malawi? Based on interviews with senior officers in key Malawi public sector institutions, the paper concludes that the strategic planning process is ‘transitional and fluid’ hence lacks the clout to effectively enhance reforms in this sector. Another finding is that lack of effective leadership has largely contributed to the status quo.     

International coopetition for innovation: Are the benefits worth the challenges?

International coopetition has rarely been studied in relation to innovation. Further exploration of effects of international coopetition, i.e. the pursuit of simultaneous cooperation and competition, on a firm’s innovation performance is especially important as such a relationship is challenging with a high propensity to fail. This observation formed the point of departure for this study, which aims to increase the understanding of the effects of international coopetition on firm innovativeness and how these effects are conditioned on the magnitude of the organizational adjustments a firm introduces. We use an unbalanced panel of 9839 firms that participated in four waves of the Swedish Community Innovation Survey between 2008 and 2014 as our empirical base. We illustrate that firms that cooperate with competitors internationally are more likely to exhibit higher propensity to introduce radical innovations, yet this effect is conditioned upon the magnitude of organizational adjustments. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the implications of international coopetition and what a firm needs to benefit from it.     

Organizational Resilience: A Valuable Construct for Management Research?

Recently, the concept of resilience has gained new momentum in organization studies. It is held to be a very promising concept to explain how organizations can survive and thrive amidst adversity or turbulence. However, findings from an earlier review about resilience in the organizational and business context show that, although empirical research on the concept has increased, there is still a need for more clarity in terms of its measurement. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review of the organizational resilience construct that covers both conceptual and operational issues. We discuss why researchers criticize resilience for being fuzzy and move on to identify and analyse existing literature under the lens of construct development and taxonomies. With this study, we aim to point out conceptual problems for future researchers to address conceptual clarity and to develop a clearer, more parsimonious concept. We conclude with a suggestion about future measurement.     

Milton keynes: A model for regenerating our cities?

Milton Keynes is one of the most succesful of Britain's new towns. With new towns such as Peterborough and Telford, this can be seen as the latest stage of the New Town Movement which started at the end of World War II. Of these new towns, Milton Keynes is the largest and the most ambitious in its objectives. The problems facing the United Kingdom today are very much greater than when Milton Keynes was first started but, because of a flexible planning approach, the Development Corporation has responded to these changes and has established policies to assist in solving these problems. The key to this success is a more flexible and effective manufacturing base. Today we face unprecedented changes, unique in our history. Although manufacturing and services will provide the wealth to solve these problems, we will only succeed through co-operation between the private sector and local and national government. A study of Milton Keynes, its growth, objectives, successes and failures could provide a useful model for our future planning.     

Why Do Countries Regulate Environmental Health Risks Differently? A Theoretical Perspective

Why do countries regulate, or prefer to regulate, environmental health risks such as radiofrequency electromagnetic fields and endocrine disruptors differently? A wide variety of theories, models, and frameworks can be used to help answer this question, though the resulting answer will strongly depend on the theoretical perspective that is applied. In this theoretical review, we will explore eight conceptual frameworks, from different areas of science, which will offer eight different potential explanations as to why international differences occur in environmental health risk management. We are particularly interested in frameworks that could shed light on the role of scientific expertise within risk management processes. The frameworks included in this review are the Risk Assessment Paradigm, research into the roles of experts as policy advisors, the Psychometric Paradigm, the Cultural Theory of Risk, participatory approaches to risk assessment and risk management, the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, and Hofstede's Model of National Cultures. We drew from our knowledge and experiences regarding a diverse set of academic disciplines to pragmatically assemble a multidisciplinary set of frameworks. From the ideas and concepts offered by the eight frameworks, we derive pertinent questions to be used in further empirical work and we present an overarching framework to depict the various links that could be drawn between the frameworks.