Search results

Two recent empirical studies of new technology adoption, one focusing on employee resourcing aspects and the other on employee relations, have concluded as follows: in many instances, it may well be “that on balance it is employment policies that are more likely to determine the way in which technological change is implemented” (rather than the other way around); and “it is more sensible to talk of the impact of industrial relations on technological change than the reverse…”. These findings are supportive of the work of Buchanan and Boddy, who have argued that “the changes to structure that accompany technological change reflect strongly and directly the expectations and objectives of management, and weakly and indirectly the characteristics of the technology”. We broadly concur with these views, and, given that there is potentially a good deal of space within which managers and others can decide and act when new technology is adopted, we focus on the part that personnel specialists have played here, on the basis of case studies both authors have conducted of new technology adoption and implementation. But first, we need to review what the relevant social science literature can tell us about this matter.

The stand‐out works this year are a number of comprehensive general discographies. Before reviewing them in detail in Part Two, I would like to single out three of them here for special attention.

The study of birth defects has increased in importance in recent years because the rate of infant mortality due to other causes (such as infection and nutritional disease) has decreased more quickly than has the rate of deaths due to birth defects. Today, abnormalities are detected in approximately 3 percent of newborn humans, and twice as many prenatally acquired defects are found in children after infancy as are discovered at birth. In addition, many of the more than 500,000 miscarriages and stillbirths that occur each year in the United States are due to abnormal fetal development.

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.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective’s implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective's implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

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.

Using an instant response device within the context of a controlled experiment, we find that people’s self‐assessment of susceptibility to normative influence (SNI) differs substantially from the actual, or true, degree to which they are influenced by the actions of others. Actual SNI, a subconscious reaction to the behavior of those around us, can be altered when participants (falsely) believe their peers differ in their willingness to sign a new lease under various rental reduction incentives when their landlord has defaulted on his mortgage. The results are insensitive to eight alternative measures of actual SNI. This study supports the behavioral finance literature relating to herding in that we show people are very much willing to follow the lead of their peers, even in situations where information gain is not the likely derived benefit. Instead, people appear to herd in our study for social reasons.

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.

Cross‐border mergers and acquisitions present significant opportunities for firms wishing to diversify their activities geographically, learn new knowledge, and gain access to valuable resources. Cross‐border mergers and acquisitions present multiple challenges as well. These include the difficulty of evaluating target firms, cultural and institutional differences, and the liabilities of foreignness among others. We compare acquisitions to enter new markets with other market entry mechanisms (strategic alliances and greenfield ventures), and conclude with suggestions for future research to advance our knowledge of this strategy of increasing importance globally.