Search results

Studies the measurement and objective evaluation method of fabric lustre. Selects seven parameters at a two‐dimensional distribution curve of reflected light under natural light and polarized light and refines from them four independent variations by the method of main composition analysis. Using regression analysis with the results of subjective evaluation, finds that fabric lustre has distinct regional distribution on the figures of M1 and M2, so it can be used as a general test method.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategy for latecomers in large developing countries under globalization. The relationship between innovation and learning is deeply studied.

The paper formulates an in‐depth case study on the digital video player industry through consideration of government documents, reports, and research papers; intensive interviews; and questionnaire study.

The firms in developing countries might be able to innovate before they can match the firms in advanced countries in technological capabilities, and innovation is the most effective way of learning. The firms can achieve competitive advantage owing to the effect of the national value network, the nature of architectural technology, and the relationships between them in product development. The national market should be deliberately taken as a strategic asset for the technological learning and latecomers should learn how to exploit the advantage of globalization.

The paper tries to understand how firms in developing countries conduct learning by innovating to build their competitive advantages.

This study aims to investigate scholars’ roles in resolving environmental community conflict, as environmental community conflict is becoming an increasingly serious problem in contemporary China, and it explored the underlying factors and mechanisms that influence successful conflict resolution.

Based on a combination of three types of sources – interviews, participant observation and existing literature, the study compared and contrasted 35 cases through a two-stage study project with 25 environmental community conflict cases in the first stage and ten non-environmental cases in the second.

Results indicate that scholars serve seven roles in community conflict resolution: identification persons for potential sources of community conflict and supporters for the people who evaluate conflict problems before attempting to solve them; advisers for conflict protagonists; leaders of many knowledge-related activities; organizers of entrepreneurial activities for other community members; information brokers between community members and other stakeholders; representatives of the government, firms, community members and other stakeholders; and self-interested participants. While scholars’ participation is important for resolving community conflict, their actions are often not effective. Successful community conflict resolution involving scholars must satisfy eight underlying factors: local scholars’ sustained participation; high capacity; improvement on the organizational level of community members; emphasis on high efficiency knowledge and information transmission; effective finding and use of the community’s social capital; continual optimization on their action strategies; obtainability of some benefits; and non-local scholars’ sustained external support through social capital. The more closely these rules are followed, the more successful scholars’ participation in community conflict resolution will be.

The findings have practical implications for improving the effectiveness of scholars’ participation in community conflict resolution in contemporary China and even in other countries.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

There continues to be a perception that online education is inferior to traditional education. In the U.S. online learning is more developed than in the U.K. This paper provides insights into a U.S. provision and takes a close look at what are per ceived as weak nesses of on line learn ing and ar gues that these are not necessarily inherent weaknesses of this form of educational delivery. Then, results of two major studies, undertaken in the U.S. are provided comparing the effectiveness of online education to traditional education as perceived by current MBA students and past graduates. Results of these studies suggest that students of MBA modules and MBA graduates perceive the quality and effectiveness of online education to be similar to, if not higher than, the quality and effectiveness of traditional modules and programmes.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

We examine the dividend pay out patterns for all UK listed industrial companies featured in the FTSE All Share Index for the period 1992‐1998. Then we match the pay out patterns to different dividend policies. From our empirical observations, we argue that dividend signalling does not universally apply to all firms. We also report our evidence that there is no industry norm for dividend policy, particularly when firms have decided whether to use dividends to signal or not. In addition, we found that the percentage of insiders’ share holdings, market capitalisation and as set book values are statistically significant for determining whether firms use dividends to signal or not.

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.