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1 – 10 of 79Guych Nuryyev and Charles Hickson
This study aims to examine the effect of the crude oil price crash of 2014 on corruption decentralisation. In a corrupt state, a significant decrease in the state revenue might…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effect of the crude oil price crash of 2014 on corruption decentralisation. In a corrupt state, a significant decrease in the state revenue might lead to concentration of power in the hands of the political elite who try to maintain their income, or to a weakening of the elite’s control as the bureaucrats compete for bribes.
Design/methodology/approach
Crude oil price crash provides a rare opportunity to test the effect of reduced state revenue on corruption decentralisation. This study constructs a measure for corruption decentralisation and analyses how it is affected by state income in 18 resource-rich and corrupt states.
Findings
The empirical model suggests that there is a positive relationship between corruption decentralisation and state oil and gas revenue, implying that as the revenue decreases, political elite in the exporting countries manage to maintain their control over the bureaucrats.
Originality/value
The results are important for academics as well as for policymakers, as they allow adjustment of anti-corruption efforts based on the level of corruption decentralisation.
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Charles R. Hickson and John D. Turner
This article suggests that the currency crisis in South East Asia triggered off the present banking crisis. However, the banking crisis would not have happened if it had not been…
Abstract
This article suggests that the currency crisis in South East Asia triggered off the present banking crisis. However, the banking crisis would not have happened if it had not been preceded by a deregulatory banking industry trend in the region during the previous decade. This trend allowed banks to invest in risky illiquid assets. Moreover, such investments were subsidised by deposit insurance funds. The IMF and BIS proposals to cure the banking instability in South East Asia are shown to be inadequate because they rely too much upon depositor and government monitoring rather than the need to constrain bank risk‐taking behaviour ex ante. This paper proposes a return to comprehensive banking regulation to prevent a reoccurrence of similar crises in the future.
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Titus Oshagbemi and Charles Hickson
While there has been several job satisfaction studies, very few of them are about the university teachers or academics in general. The present work examines not only how satisfied…
Abstract
While there has been several job satisfaction studies, very few of them are about the university teachers or academics in general. The present work examines not only how satisfied UK academics are with their primary tasks of teaching and research, but also their satisfaction with their pay. Using a binomial logit analysis on a survey data, the study found a strong positive relationship between pay satisfaction and gender, indicating that women academics are more satisfied than the men counterparts. The study also found that research and teaching satisfaction are negatively affected with increasing age and length of service in higher education respectively. Unsurprisingly, research and pay satisfaction are positively associated with rank. It was found that the engineering staff members are dissatisfied with their research but more significantly, their teaching. The implications of these findings are explored.
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Charles Hickson and Titus Oshagbemi
The core activities of university teachers are in the areas of teaching and research. This article addresses the effect of age on the satisfaction of academics on these…
Abstract
The core activities of university teachers are in the areas of teaching and research. This article addresses the effect of age on the satisfaction of academics on these activities. Towards this end, a questionnaire was designed including several demographic questions such as age, gender, and rank. The questionnaire was administered to 1,102 university teachers in the UK. A total of 554 responses were received, giving a response rate of 50.3 per cent. Our results indicate that age has quite a different effect on academic teaching staff from on academic research staff. For example, the effect of age on teaching satisfaction indicates that the job satisfaction decreases with age but at a decreasing rate. On the other hand, our results for research satisfaction indicate that age affects job satisfaction positively but at a decreasing rate. Other reported regression analyses indicate that both teaching and research job satisfaction increase with rank and that women tend to be slightly more satisfied in their career than male counterparts. The findings from the latter regression analyses reveal somewhat weak relationships.
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The purpose of this article is twofold: to identify the characteristics of research on organisation and management in Arab countries and to find out whether research results…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is twofold: to identify the characteristics of research on organisation and management in Arab countries and to find out whether research results support the culture‐free hypothesis or not. A thorough search of sixteen journals, research monographs, books and theses produced only 35 empirical studies. Most of these studies were exploratory, descriptive, and used small convenient samples. Although some findings supported the culture‐bound hypothesis, major conceptual and methodological weaknesses in these studies throw doubt upon the validity of their results.
Charles Hickson and John Turner
Suggests that banks are different due to plasticity of assets and high debt/equity ratios. For this reason banks need to be regulated. Discusses the most efficient method of…
Abstract
Suggests that banks are different due to plasticity of assets and high debt/equity ratios. For this reason banks need to be regulated. Discusses the most efficient method of regulating banks. Highlights that the move from unlimited liability banking to limited liability banking was inefficient as it led to a more unstable banking system. The unstable banking system required government monitoring of banks. To reduce the costs of monitoring, regulations such as deposit insurance, price and quantity controls and the separation of investment and deposit banking were imposed. Argues that deposit insurance actually has increased banking instability. Suggests that the deregulation process of the last 20 years has led to a more unstable banking system. Argues empirically that bank regulation (apart from deposit insurance) promotes stability rather than creating banking monopolies.
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The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things…
Abstract
The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.
This article examines the application of "resource dependency theory" to transnational corporations (TNCs) operating in host countries like Bangladesh to explain the relationship…
Abstract
This article examines the application of "resource dependency theory" to transnational corporations (TNCs) operating in host countries like Bangladesh to explain the relationship between the TNCs and Bangladesh. Data indicate that while the TNCs' participation in a third world host country is encouraged primarily for promoting its economic development, TNCs are mainly attracted by market size, purchasing capacities (determined mainly by GNP) of the population, and stable political condition of the country. Although examination of the application of resource dependency theory provides some insights into understanding the complicated relationship between TNCs and Bangladesh, several other factors, not explained by resource dependency theory, help explain the behavior of TNCs in a host country
Graham Sewell and Nelson Phillips
Joan undertook the ground-breaking project originally reported in the 1958 pamphlet, Management and Technology, not at one of Britain's great universities, but at the…
Abstract
Joan undertook the ground-breaking project originally reported in the 1958 pamphlet, Management and Technology, not at one of Britain's great universities, but at the unfashionable address of the South East Essex Technical College (then in the county of Essex but now part of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham). The Human Relations Research Unit had been set up at the college, which is now part of the University of East London, in 1953 with support from a number of agencies including funding ultimately derived from the Marshall Plan. Its express purpose was to enhance the performance of industry and commerce through the application of social science. Those readers familiar with the area will know that, at the time, it was economically and culturally dominated by the Ford assembly plant in nearby Dagenham, but it was also home to a diverse range of small- and medium-sized industrial workshops that were typical of the pre-war Greater London economy (Woodward, 1965; Massey & Meegan, 1982). It was into this diverse industrial milieu that Joan and her research team ventured (Fig. 1), completing their main study in 1958.
Caroyln Garrity, Eric W. Liguori and Jeff Muldoon
This paper aims to offer a critical biography of Joan Woodward, often considered the founder of contingency theory. This paper examines Woodward’s background to develop a more…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer a critical biography of Joan Woodward, often considered the founder of contingency theory. This paper examines Woodward’s background to develop a more complete understanding of the factors that influenced her work.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on insights gained from personal correspondence with two colleagues of Woodward, one who recruited her to the Imperial College where she conducted her most prominent work and one whom she recruited while at the college. In addition, Woodward’s original work, academic literature, published remembrances and a plethora of other secondary sources are reviewed.
Findings
By connecting these otherwise disparate sources of information, a more complete understanding of Woodward’s work and its context is provided. It is argued that Woodward’s education, training, brilliance, values, the relative weakness of British sociology and the need to improve the economy helped to make Woodward’s work both original and practical.
Originality/value
The originality of this work is to examine the work of Woodward through the lens of critical biography. Despite Woodward’s contributions, Woodward remains an underappreciated figure. The purpose is to provide her contribution against the backdrop of the British industrial and educational sphere.
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