Search results

The 15 years spanning from the end of the nineteenth century till the outbreak of the First World War formed, perhaps, the richest period in the history of Marxian economics. The main development between the time of Marx's writing and that of the German-Russian debates was the change in the competitive nature of the capitalist system. In the early stages of capitalism, the forces of competition created an imperative for capitalist firms to invest all their profits, or lose out in the competitive struggle to other firms which did. However, as large firms and oligopolistic structures emerged, the nature of competition changed, with price competition no longer the only form, leading to an erosion of this imperative, and an increase in capitalist consumption. Kalecki showed that, in this case, total profits were determined by capitalist's consumption and investment expenditures. The result, according to Kalecki, was a chronic tendency towards stagnation in capitalist economies. The long boom could be explained as ‘exports’ to a market external to the private sector, namely armaments and military expenditures.

This brief paper seeks to identify three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

The paper provides a case study of three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

The first comes from funding uncertainties, given the fiscal conservatism of the new federal government. The second emanates from attempts by the élite “group of eight” institutions to secure all (or almost all) of the available research funding for themselves. The third relates to the research assessment exercises currently being undertaken both by the federal government and by the management of individual universities. It is concluded that the future is very far from clear.

The paper provides a case study of three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

The purpose of the “Introduction” is to provide the motivation and context for the articles of this special issue and an overview and summary of the contributions that follow.

The paper provides an overview and summary of the contributions in the special issue.

It is argued that heterodoxies had gained a considerable and growing influence on research orientations, methodologies, and critical reflections, also on the mainstream publishing practices, even in the mainstream. This has been widely acknowledged as “hip heterodoxy” recently. Thus, many heterodox economists have developed optimistic expectations for the future of the profession. However, that influence has left the main mechanisms of reproduction of the mainstream untouched. These are mass teaching, public advising, journal policies, and faculty recruitment. Above that, the last decade has seen something like a “counterattack” to safeguard these mainstream reproduction mechanisms. The means used for this seem to be journal (and publisher) rankings based on purely quantitative citation measures and “impact factors”. These have an obvious cumulative “economies‐of‐scale” effect which triggers a tendency towards reinforcement and collective monopolization of the dominating orientation. Department rankings and individual faculty evaluations are then based on journals rankings. As a result, there are observable tendencies towards the cleansing of economics departments in a number of countries.

The paper also discusses potential reasons and methods for alternative approaches to measure citation interrelations, networks, cooperation, and rankings among heterodoxies (journals and departments), and for alternatives of publishing and the future of heterodoxies in general. Finally, it draws the picture of the present situation and the foreseeable future of heterodoxies as it emerges from the 11 contributions of the special issue.

This introductory chapter surveys institutional experimentation that has emerged internationally in response to the contraction of the traditional model of employment protection. Various initiatives are discussed according to the particular challenges they are designed to address: the emergence of non-standard employment contracts; increasing sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; intensification of exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; the growth of intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and the emergence of entities that subvert the employment relationship entirely. Whereas post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model as a ‘web of rules’, we argue that nascent institutional experimentation is indicative of an emergent ‘patchwork of rules’. The identification of such experimentation is instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

The study aims to establish and conceptualise entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as a key construct that positively influences small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance. In this paper, a conceptual framework was developed, and three research propositions were outlined: EO (innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking) positively influences SME performance; the economic stimulus packages moderate EO and the differentiation strategy; and the differentiation strategy mediates EO and SME performance. Each of the constructs was defined, and the conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia were identified.

The paper suggests links between EO and SME performance and the effects of economic stimulus packages and differentiation strategies on Malaysia’s service and manufacturing industry. These concepts lead to the development of propositions based on prior empirical studies underpinning the resource-based view theory and contingency approach. The propositions aim to develop further findings and test the hypotheses.

The study proposes three research propositions to conceptualise the relationship between the four main constructs. The study also recommends an empirical approach to conduct and test the research model concerning Malaysia’s service and manufacturing industry.

While studies on EO and SME performance have been conducted extensively, studies on the impact of various economic stimulus packages by the Malaysian government on the existing EO and SME performance relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic are limited. Separately, this study uses a configuration approach to test the mediator and moderator during the COVID-19 pandemic.