The Effect of Mergers and Acquisitions on Employees: Wealth Transfer,Gain‐Sharing or Pain‐Sharing?

This paper considers whether gains made by shareholders from corporate takeovers are achieved at the expense of employees, as proposed by the ‘wealth transfer’ perspective. It analyses the contribution of employee lay‐offs, along with employment and wage changes, to the takeover premium and abnormal share price movements. The analysis draws on a unique dataset of British takeovers, combining documentary, share price and accounting data. The results show that lay‐offs planned at the takeover have either no effect or adverse effects on shareholder returns. Wages growth is positively, not inversely, related to shareholder returns from the second year after the takeover, whilst positive employment changes have a similar effect in the following year. Closer scrutiny indicates that labour and shareholders share gains when the firm does well, but share pain when it does not. There is evidence, therefore, that labour and shareholder interests can be complementary, rather than antagonistic, after takeovers.     

Put to the test: For a new sociology of testing

In an age defined by computational innovation, testing seems to have become ubiquitous, and tests are routinely deployed as a form of governance, a marketing device, an instrument for political intervention, and an everyday practice to evaluate the self. This essay argues that something more radical is happening here than simply attempts to move tests from the laboratory into social settings. The challenge that a new sociology of testing must address is that ubiquitous testing changes the relations between science, engineering, and sociology: Engineering is today in the very stuff of where society happens. It is not that the tests of 21st-century engineering occur within a social context but that it is the very fabric of the social that is being put to the test. To understand how testing and the social relate today, we must investigate how testing operates on social life, through the modification of its settings. One way to clarify the difference is to say that the new forms of testing can be captured neither within the logic of the field test nor of the controlled experiment. Whereas tests once happened inside social environments, today’s tests directly and deliberately modify the social environment.     

A majorization comparison of apportionment methods in proportional representation

From the inception of the proportional representation movement it has been an issue whether larger parties are favored at the expense of smaller parties in one apportionment of seats as compared to another apportionment. A number of methods have been proposed and are used in countries with a proportional representation system. These apportionment methods exhibit a regularity of order, as discussed in the present paper, that captures the preferential treatment of larger versus smaller parties. This order, namely majorization, permits the comparison of seat allocations in two apportionments. For divisor methods, we show that one method is majorized by another method if and only if their signpost ratios are increasing. This criterion is satisfied for the divisor methods with power-mean rounding, and for the divisor methods with stationary rounding. Majorization places the five traditional apportionment methods in the order as they are known to favor larger parties over smaller parties: Adams, Dean, Hill, Webster, and Jefferson. Received: 5 August 2000/Accepted: 24 October 2001     

The price of a loaf of bread: some conceptions of family support*

This paper reports on a case study of one local authority, and illustrates the different definitions of the term ‘family support’ employed by the different agencies within the authority. It provides a framework to analyse the contribution of the agencies according to the assumptions they make about methods and efficacy of intervention and access to and termination of intervention. It contrasts the findings from this framework with a needs based model of ‘family support’. Social work and health services tend to operate within a narrow, historically determined range, focusing most heavily on emotional support and behavioural change; whereas users and some of the other agencies are more likely to raise matters such as income maintenance, child care, leisure and education. The findings of the case study are discussed in relation to resources for families, key issues for the implementation of family support identified during the introduction of the Children Act, 1989, and the relevance of Social Services Inspectorate inspections to these issues. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Worlds come apart: Systems theory versus critical theory. Drama in the history of sociology in the twentieth century

This article places an episode in the history of sociological theory into intellectual history in the twentieth century. The perspective is chronological as well as contextual. The themes are two theoretical approaches, both embedded in both American and German history, Parsonian Systems Theory and “Frankfurt School” Critical Theory. The chronology shown spanned mainly from the 1940s to the 1960s. The context of the two theories is a period that is crucial in twentieth century history. The protagonists of the two approaches were, in the 1940s, Americans and Germans exiled in the United States. In the 1950s, both approaches were affected by McCarthyism in different ways. The 1960s, however, were the culmination. The dynamics of the two approaches led into a schism which came into the open on the occasion of the 1964 German Sociology Conference in Heidelberg celebrating Max Weber. The article shows the stages in the evolution of the schism, emulating three acts in a drama. The final split was over whether Weber or Marx should be the classic whose oeuvre was to influence sociological thinking today. My aim is to exemplify how these two authoritative approaches in sociological theory, far from escaping the vagaries and vicissitudes of their times, were embedded in twentieth-century history.     

The Relationship Between Sense of Coherence and Career Thoughts

The authors examined the impact of sense of coherence on the career thought processes of a sample of college students. A. Antonovsky (1987) defined sense of coherence as the global orientation that the world is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. Study participants completed the Sense of Coherence Scale (A. Antonovsky, 1987) and the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1996). Multivariate tests indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and CTI Total and subscale scores; sense of coherence accounted for 14% of the variance. Univariate tests also indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and each subscale.     

Partial strikes under the railway labor act: The need for a doctrine of unprotected concerted activity

In light of use by airline unions of partial-strike tactics, such as concerted refusals to bid for overtime work and so-called ” CHAOS” tactics involving unannounced refusals to fly after passengers have been ticketed and are ready to board, the authors examine whether the Railway Labor Act (RLA) should be interpreted to permit employers to discipline employees for engaging in such tactics, or whether these are a protected form of economic pressure. Although in many respects bargaining duties and economic weapons under the RLA are read consonant with precedents under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (which governs all industries other than rail and air transport), there are a few decisions suggesting that during the period when self-help may be resorted to, employees can engage in partial strike activities as long as they violate no court order but are subject to permanent replacement in limited circumstances. These decisions, the authors submit, fail to take account of Supreme Court decsions since the 1930s that some economic pressures by unions, such as slowdowns and sitins, may not violate the labor laws but nor are they protected by those laws so as to immunize partial strikers from employer discipline. These decisions are not based on unique features of the NLRA. Rather, they give recognition to the background assumptions of Congress that employers may act to protect their property interests as long as they do not run afoul of NLRA or RLA protections and that employees who engage in partial-strike activities are subject to employer discipline even where not strictly necessary to maintain operations. Moreover, these tactics skew the bargaining process by giving employees an essentially risk-free gambit to pressure their economic position through planned disruption of carrier operations. Professor Estreicher is also labor and employment counsel to O’Melveny & Myers, LLP. The views expressed herein are the authors’ and should not be attributed to any organization. Hannah Breshin and Tom Jerman of O’Melveny & Myers, assisted the authors with this article. We also thank Professor Herbert Northrup for his helpful comments.