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Claims that, in Singapore, there is intense competition among local banks, hence increasing emphasis is being placed on offering a high quality customer service. Investigates how customers choose which banks to use, taking into account factors such as non‐verbal communication (including behavioural/interpersonal communication and environmental – deriving meaning from one’s surroundings); convenience; reputation; supply of information; and cosmetic factors such as the bank’s stationery. Uses a verbal questionnaire survey to examine the effect non‐verbal communication has on bank patrons’ attitudes. Evaluates banks’ businesslike approach, competency, friendliness, warmness, environment, electronic tellers, location and queueing. Makes a number of recommendations on how banks can improve their image and the service they offer.

Outlines the reasons for using stochastic simulation rather than other methods for this development of a capital budgeting model to quantify the risk and uncertainty connected with establishing a new bank branch. Uses net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR) as the profit criteria, explains the variables included in the model, expresses them as mathematical equations and determines probability distributions for those which are random. Compares the results of 5,000 iterations of the simulation for NPV/IRR values and with the evaluation criteria used by the sample bank. Shows that the model gives a better indication of the risk involved in the project.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships of i-deals with the employability of older workers, and introduce two distinct theoretical processes through which these effects occur. On the one hand, a self-enhancement perspective postulates that i-deals enhance self-efficacy through which older workers become more employable. On the other hand, a lifespan perspective postulates that i-deals enhance older workers’ future time perspective through which they become more employable.

Data were gathered among 244 employees via an online questionnaire that had been sent to employees of 45 years or older at eight companies in the Netherlands.

Results showed that task and work responsibilities i-deals are strongly related to older workers’ employability, and that this relationship is mediated by future time perspective and self-efficacy. Location flexibility i-deals were positively related to employability. Financial i-deals and schedule flexibility i-deals were unrelated to employability.

This study introduces two novel ways through which i-deals for older workers can be studied: a self-enhancement and a future time perspective. Both can explain how older workers may enhance their employability by negotiating i-deals.

As the percentage of older workers will increase, there is a great need for organizations to focus on the employability of older workers. The present study shows that organizations are able to increase the employability of older workers by individual arrangements.

Individualization of work arrangements has been theorized to facilitate older workers’ employability, but the present study is the first to investigate how i-deals may contribute to greater employability.

This paper outlines the theoretical models of international cash management and assesses their implications for corporate practice. Corporate practice is then reviewed through the analysis of survey research and case studies. It emerges that whilst the implications of theoretical models are captured in essence by corporate practice, there is scant evidence of companies using sophisticated models in international cash management. The practice of international cash management is largely driven by developments in communications and computer technology, relaxation of regulatory and tax impediments, the internationalisation of banking and the development of new banking prod ucts. International treasurers may therefore be able to find appropriate cash management solutions to meet their business needs with the co‐operation of banks and technology providers. Further academic research should evaluate the extent to which corporate practice is consistent with extant multi‐currency balance and net work optimisation models and also explain why particular approaches to interna tional cash management persist in companies.

Argues that the similarities between US treasury securities (treasuries) and FDIC‐insured large retail certificates of deposit (CDs) should make their prices similar in an efficient market. Considers deposit pricing and substitutability between treasuries and CDs, citing previous research; and presents a study comparing their yields for three maturities using 1986‐1995 data. Presents the results and analyses further to explore the links between changes in treasury yields and lagged changes in CD yields; and upward CD yield stickiness. Finds that CD and treasury yield spreads changed from small and positive to large and negative over the period with little effect on deposit balances; and concludes that those investors who remained interested in insured balances during the early 1990s were either insensitive to interest rates or had high switching costs. Suggests that banks have used this unwillingness to migrate to non‐insured funds to decrease CD rates relative to treasuries for higher profits and asks how long this market segment will continue to accept inferior yields.

Eastern European countries are undergoing a transition from centralized economic planning to more open economic systems. A team of Bulgarian and U.S. researchers have collaborated to study this problem, using a real Bulgarian winery as the focus of their research. System dynamics modeling was selected as a tool to provide better understanding of management issues. A framework for future objective research, and as a pedagogical tool. This system dynamics model generates output on a number of measures. This paper presents initial output from the model, reporting profit ability, risk, and market share measures. These multiple measures create the need for multiple criteria analysis. Three multiple criteria techniques are demonstrated, and their value in the system dynamics simulation modeling process is discussed.

Scholarly and general interest in sustainable careers is flourishing. Sustainable careers are focused on the long-term opportunities and experiences of workers across dynamic employment situations, and are characterized by flexibility, meaning and individual agency. The current paper analyzes and challenges the underlying ideological assumptions of how sustainable careers are conceptualized and advocates the inclusion of the ecological meaning of sustainability and the notion of dignity into the sustainable careers concept.

Using Slavoj Žižek's (1989, 2001) conceptualization of ideology as fantasy-construction, the authors explore how the use of sustainable careers is influenced by fantasies about the contemporary workplace and the role of the individual in the workplace. This is a conceptual method.

The authors argue that the concept of sustainable careers is grounded in the neoliberal fantasy of the individual. The paper concludes by presenting an alternative concept of sustainable careers grounded in a dignity-perspective on sustainability, which offers an alternative theoretical understanding of sustainable careers in the contemporary workplace, sharpening its contours and usefulness in theorizing careers.

This paper is the first to systematically analyze the use and conceptualization of sustainable careers in the literate and to expose the ideological underpinnings of the concept. Propositions are developed to be explored by future research.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Considers the implications for budgeting and performance measurement of the emphasis on strategic management of human and information resources to obtain global competitive advantage. Summarizes relevant research, noting increasing use of economic value added, non‐financial measures and the balanced scorecard; and explaining Simons’ (1995) “levers of control” framework. Illustrates how this can be applied to the budgeting process, stressing the importance of interactive control systems which capture an integrated set of critical performance measures, and uses Skandia (insurance, Sweden) as an example. Lists the ten non‐financial performance metrics identified by Ernst & Young (1997) as important to investors and discusses the ten differences between budgeting in a traditional as opposed to a balanced scorecard environment put forward by Govindarajan and Shank (1992). Concludes that the need for multinationals to be flexible means that control and measurement systems must be aligned with strategic goals, taking account of national cultures, investors’ expectations and demands for employee empowerment.