Being flexible and accommodating diversity: The challenge for multinational management

This article presents an opposing view to the current populist position that corporate culture can be utilised to bind the multinational together. It critically examines the appropriateness of corporate culture as a ‘soft’ control mechanism, concluding that highly committed, inculcated managers (believers) may actually be a barrier to the goals of flexibility, responsiveness and innovativeness in the face of rapidly changing, diverse global operations. However, the calculatively compliant manager is not proferred as an alternative. Rather, we argue that the quest for conformity to a given corporate culture may be counterproductive. The real challenge for multinationals is to develop mechanisms that encourage mixed voices and messages, and support a diversity of perspectives. It is suggested that multinationals might even look at the university model, in which it has long been recognised that knowledge advances in a climate of critique and dissent.     

Wage and nonwage outcomes in collective bargaining: Determinants and tradeoffs

Using unskilled labor wage rates and union contract scores derived from a sample of 500 U.S. manufacturing contracts, this study finds that in 1975 there was considerable variation in unions’ abilities to deliver higher wages and desirable nonwage contractual provisions to their members (though it is clear that the stronger unions have bargained high levels of both wages and nonwage items). There are a variety of union power, employee quality, union preference, and employer cost variables which impact upon the bargaining choices made between wages and nonwage provisions, and it appears that union strength tilts the compensation package toward wages. The authors, associate professors at the University of Illinois, are very grateful to Christopher Pawlowicz, Ronald Seeber, and Roger Wolters for their help in gathering data. They also are grateful to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Department of Labor and to the Research Board of the University of Illinois for financially supporting this research. Such support in no way implies, however, that the Department or the University endorses the methods or conclusions in this study.     

Linear sensitivity measures in statistical disclosure control

The mathematical properties of a class of functions called linear sensitivity measures are investigated. These measures are applied to the problem of maintaining the statistical confidentiality of respondents to a census or statistical survey such as an establishment-based economic survey. Sensitivity criteria in practical use are cast in this setting.     

Public employee unions: A study in the economics of power

This paper examines how public employee unions influence the allocation of public sector jobs. The empirical results indicate that vote maximizing public officials’ employment decisions are influenced by the political clout of highly-unionized employees. The political clout of public-sector unions influences the functional distribution of public-sector jobs by increasing demand for the relatively more organized functions. These results suggest that consideration should be given to the growth of public sector collective bargaining in the allocation of public sector resources. The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful suggestions of Bernard Lentz.     

Informational impediments to the use of capital budgeting models

The primary purpose of this study was to empirically examine whether or not informational impediments impair or alter decision making, with specific focus on capital budgeting decisions. Based on detailed interviews of senior corporate executives, it appears that management information systems (MIS) are less than adequate in providing the information items required to utilize the non-naive methods of capital budgeting. It is therefore suggested that the MIS concept be vastly broadened in regard to such decisions.     

Dimensions of Family Assessment: A Critical Review*

A review of the literature on dimensions of family assessment is presented. Assessment strategies are grouped into four types: single concept notions, theoretical notions, broadly based clinical lists, and empirically derived approaches; and each is critically reviewed. A summary of major assessment dimensions and an ordering of these dimensions using cultural and developmental principles as contextual assessment categories is presented.