Galbraith's theory of the mature corporation

The present paper deals with the Galbraithian theory of the managerial firm. Galbraith has stressed corporate size and has questioned the effectiveness of the market demand, technology and capital market constraints, which in conventional theory restrict the size of the firm.Galbraith represents the objectives of the corporation in terms of a conventional lexicographic objective function with some minimal level of profits (in terms of cash flow) being ranked the dominant objective. Also in his treatment of the corporate constraints, Galbraith does not move much beyond the current state of knowledge. The assumption of consumer sovereignty has long been relegated to the text-book literature, and the firm's control over the quality of its product (its price elasticity) has been generally recognized. Similarly, it has been known that the capital market is not perfect so that it is unlikely to constrain the expansion of the firm with some given investor determined earning constraint. In his attempt to show the technostructure's ability to plan the rate and the direction of the technological development Galbraith did not, however, meet with wide support from empirical research and analysis. It is extremely difficult to test the firm's control over its production technology, and while the few industry studies available can hardly be used to reject the Galbraithian position, there is not sufficient evidence to support a generalization of Galbraith's conjecture.While individually these constraints have been analyzed and discussed in the literature, Galbraith has combined these results and has been able to show that in the industrial state the qualitative laws of economic common sense do not hold. The importance of this conclusion is not only academic. Efforts to control corporate allocations through rate controls, antitrust litigation, and in other ways emanate from the conventional theory of firms and markets and do not fit the industrial state. In this state corporate size does matter and cannot be treated as random: The larger the corporation the more perfect the control it assumes over its environment and the higher the efficiency with which it plans its over-all operations.We acknowledge the helpful comments of a referee of this journal.     

A Pilot for Improving Depression Care on College Campuses: Results of the College Breakthrough Series–Depression (CBS-D) Project

Abstract

Objective: To implement a pilot quality improvement project for depression identification and treatment in college health. Participants: Eight college health center teams composed primarily of primary care and counseling service directors and clinicians. Methods: Chronic (Collaborative) Care Model (CCM) used with standardized screening to identify, treat, and track depressed students for 12 weeks to monitor predetermined process and clinical outcomes. Results: Of all students receiving primary medical care services between January 2007 and May 2008, 69% (n = 71,908) were screened for depression. A total of 801 depressed students were treated and tracked; most predetermined treatment process and clinical outcome targets were achieved. Conclusion: The CCM for depression shows promise for improving depression identification and care for college students.     

Passenger Rail Security,Planning, and Resilience: Application of Network,Plume, and Economic Simulation Models as Decision Support Tools

We built three simulation models that can assist rail transit planners and operators to evaluate high and low probability rail‐centered hazard events that could lead to serious consequences for rail‐centered networks and their surrounding regions. Our key objective is to provide these models to users who, through planning with these models, can prevent events or more effectively react to them. The first of the three models is an industrial systems simulation tool that closely replicates rail passenger traffic flows between New York Penn Station and Trenton, New Jersey. Second, we built and used a line source plume model to trace chemical plumes released by a slow‐moving freight train that could impact rail passengers, as well as people in surrounding areas. Third, we crafted an economic simulation model that estimates the regional economic consequences of a variety of rail‐related hazard events through the year 2020. Each model can work independently of the others. However, used together they help provide a coherent story about what could happen and set the stage for planning that should make rail‐centered transport systems more resistant and resilient to hazard events. We highlight the limitations and opportunities presented by using these models individually or in sequence.     

紧缩时代的新极端主义和干扰政治

美国主流媒体有关财政悬崖危机等孤立议题的辩论,是一种转移公众注意力的干扰性话语政治学,它旨在强化去政治化和威权主义的新模式,割裂人们对个体困境与公共利益考虑之间的联系。在民主共和两党尤其是共和党极端主义对福利国家、公共利益和责任政府的大肆攻击之下,美国已经变成精神上的威权国家,市场极端主义和极端个人主义甚嚣尘上,想象力、能动性和希望被窒息。在此情况下,批判教育学成为正义、社会责任和民主意义的核心,帮助人们争取集体夺回民主斗争的胜利。     

The Sustainability of Technology Markets

Journal of Management and Governance -     

Mothers' and Fathers' Use of Internal State Talk with their Young Children

The present study extends previous results demonstrating a relation between maternal discourse and child social understanding to include paternal discourse. Emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were considered as two distinctive aspects of social understanding. Participants were 106 children (54 boys and 52 girls) studied at 3.5 and 5 years. Discourse measures came from separate parent–child conversations during a picture‐book task; measures of EU and ToM came from children's performance on social cognition tasks. Differences in parental talk translated into important differences in the influence of each parent on children's social‐cognitive understanding. Mothers' references to emotion and emotion causal explanatory language predicted children's concurrent EU. Fathers' use of causal explanatory language referring to desires and emotions predicted children's concurrent and later ToM. These results highlight important differences between mothers and fathers in their use of internal state language and its impact on children's social‐cognitive understanding.