Search results

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Although, in preparing this paper, the authors have had the chance to consult several reports and studies of the SESRTCIC that they had contributed to over the years, they would like to point out that the views expressed in this study are completely of their own and they cannot and should not in any way be attributed to the SESRTCIC or the OIC.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The ideas expressed in this work are based on those put into practice at the Okuma Corporation of Japan, one of the world′s leading machine tool manufacturers. In common with many other large organizations, Okuma Corporation has to meet the new challenges posed by globalization, keener domestic and international competition, shorter business cycles and an increasingly volatile environment. Intelligent corporate strategy (ICS), as practised at Okuma, is a unified theory of strategic corporate management based on five levels of win‐win relationships for profit/market share, namely: ,1. Loyalty from customers (value for money) – right focus., 2. Commitment from workers (meeting hierarchy of needs) – right attitude., 3. Co‐operation from suppliers (expanding and reliable business) – right connections., 4. Co‐operation from distributors (expanding and reliable business) – right channels., 5. Respect from competitors (setting standards for business excellence) – right strategies. The aim is to create values for all stakeholders. This holistic people‐oriented approach recognizes that, although the world is increasingly driven by high technology, it continues to be influenced and managed by people (customers, workers, suppliers, distributors, competitors). The philosophical core of ICS is action learning and teamwork based on principle‐centred relationships of sincerity, trust and integrity. In the real world, these are the roots of success in relationships and in the bottom‐line results of business. ICS is, in essence, relationship management for synergy. It is based on the premiss that domestic and international commerce is a positive sum game: in the long run everyone wins. Finally, ICS is a paradigm for manufacturing companies coping with change and uncertainty in their search for profit/market share. Time‐honoured values give definition to corporate character; circumstances change, values remain. Poor business operations generally result from human frailty. ICS is predicated on the belief that the quality of human relationships determines the bottom‐line results. ICS attempts to make manifest and explicit the intangible psychological factors for value‐added partnerships. ICS is a dynamic, living, and heuristic‐learning model. There is intelligence in the corporate strategy because it applies commonsense, wisdom, creative systems thinking and synergy to ensure longevity in its corporate life for sustainable competitive advantage.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Despite the apparent orientation of the world economy and markets towards globalisation, it is obvious that this process is dominated by trends of regionalisation and big economic blocs. Needless to say that this inclination towards groupings is dictated by the fierce competition at the world scale, economically and politically. Almost all of these economic blocs group countries with a lot of similarities in their socio‐economic and political structures as well as cultural set‐ups, geographical proximity and apparent vested mutual interests. An immediate question which comes to the mind when one thinks of the Islamic Common Market (ICM), where there is supposed to be free flow of products, capital, entrepreneurship, labour and technology among the members, as well as a common tariff wall against third parties, is whether the Islamic countries qualify for these criteria or not. The Islamic countries are known to be a diverse group in terms of their economic structures and levels of development, political systems, ethnic backgrounds, as well as a diversified social cultural milieu, although most of them draw on a common source, Islam. This heterogeneity has often been taken as the major argument against the feasibility of an ICM. However, we believe that although this heterogeneity creates a lot of problems, it is also a source of strength if it is positively thought of in terms of diversity and is carefully manipulated.

Argues for a reorientation of economic theory around the concept of co‐operative production. Suggests that by definition, co‐operative production exists when different people take different, complementary roles in production. Argues that, while the proposed reorientation has clear roots in the ideas of Adam Smith, it also synthesizes several other key insights of the classical economists, and at the same time leads, by implication, both to the major topics of neoclassical economics and to some important topics of modern applied economics that are often treated in an ad hoc fashion, such as economies of agglomeration, dualism in development and X‐inefficiency.

Information transfer, which means the collection, storage, processing and dissemination of information is now a major resource of strategic national and international importance, without which the socio‐economic development of nations cannot be properly achieved.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.