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1 – 10 of over 33000At present, China’s forestry development is mainly driven by the traditional production factors such as forestry labor force, land resources and capital and thus the top priority…
Abstract
Purpose
At present, China’s forestry development is mainly driven by the traditional production factors such as forestry labor force, land resources and capital and thus the top priority of forestry development is to optimize forestry production factors. Scientific and effective forestry labor input has a significant role in promoting the development of forestry industry. Given that the actual input to forestry labor is not clear, the accuracy of the forestry industry development may be slightly affected. Based on the monitoring project of collective forest tenure reform (RCFT), this paper uses the survey data of 3,500 rural households in seven provinces of China from 2010 to 2014 and 2016 to 2017 to measure the actual labor force in China, and empirically analyzes and studies the factors influencing the development of forestry industry based on the provincial data of forestry in China, and further discusses the heterogeneous impact of forestry production factors on the development of forestry industry.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the generalized least squares estimation model is used to calculate the actual number of forestry labor in China, and then the Cobb–Douglas production function is selected to explore the influencing factors of forestry industry development.
Findings
The results show that the actual number of forestry labor force in China continues to decline and the degree of reduction varies from different regions. The forestry labor is a major factor that promotes the development of the forestry industry, but this promotion is affected by the low matching degree between the forestry production factors and thus further inhibits the development of the forestry industry. Due to the time lag of the reform, the implementation of RCFT first weakens and then promotes the development of forestry production. Further on, the forestry labor input is heterogeneous in land resource endowment, forestry investment source and the proportion of management personnel.
Originality/value
Therefore, researches show that the feasible way to promote the development of forestry industry is to expand the scale of forestry labor force, optimize the mutual allocation of forestry production factors, enhance the input of human capital in forestry and deepen the RCFT.
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In this paper analysis is made of an important development in British industrial relations; the extension of collective bargaining to include managerial level employees. The…
Abstract
In this paper analysis is made of an important development in British industrial relations; the extension of collective bargaining to include managerial level employees. The questions posed include those such as: Why are managers increasingly joining unions? What kind of union are they attracted to? How do managers behave as trade unionists and how do employers react to the development of managerial unionism on their virgin territory? In suggesting answers to such topical questions, it is argued that although some existing unions are becoming more ambitious in recruitment, managers themselves are now interested in organizing collectively to defend their employment status and declining pay differentials. It is noted that George Bain's explanation of white collar union growth is also applicable to the development of managerial unionization, and that managers' unionism is spreading from the public to the private sector, although managers may, however, have reservations about some manifestations of aggressive trade unionism. But, despite their prevailing attitudes, managers can be militant themselves and may offer a more profound challenge to employers' prerogatives than more traditional unions. It is concluded that employers may try to undermine incipient managers' unions but that in the long term these attempts are doomed to failure not least because they will be countered by public policy.
This paper explores the role of accounting in ecological reconstitution and draws attention to the public value as a topic of strategic interest for developing it.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the role of accounting in ecological reconstitution and draws attention to the public value as a topic of strategic interest for developing it.
Design/methodology/approach
The process of ecological reconstitution described by Latour in the “Politics of Nature” is traced towards a distinct set of accounting practices. These accounting practices, designated here as full-tax accounting, offer indications of the changing shape and role of accounting in ecological renewal.
Findings
Full-tax accounting extends the planetary public towards the inclusion of nonhuman planetarians. It establishes matters of care in multimodal accounts and haunts constitutional processes with the spectre of exclusion. Starting with full-tax accounting, public-value accountants emerge as curators of matters of care.
Research limitations/implications
The association of accounting in ecological reconstitution with matters of care highlights the mediating and immersive effects of accounting practice, inviting accounting scholars to explore these effects more systematically.
Practical implications
Accountants need to reconsider their stewardship role in relation to the fundamental uncertainties implied in planetary public-value accounting, support the process of ecological reconstitution by associating themselves with matters of care and develop ethics of exclusion.
Social implications
Broad alliances among planetary accountants are needed to extend the terms of ecological reconstitution, to gain and preserve attunement to matters of care and defend these attunements, in the atmospheric politics of ecological renewal, against regressive tendencies.
Originality/value
In problematising public value, the paper draws attention to a convergence of interests among scholars in accounting, public sector research and the environmental humanities. It presents a case for planetary accounting in ecological reconstitution that calls for participation from across disciplines, professions, arts and environmental activism.
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Jefferson Marlon Monticelli and Douglas Wegner
This study aims to analyze the dynamics of the institutional change and institutional stability undergone by strategic networks (SNs) in the pharmaceutical industry.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the dynamics of the institutional change and institutional stability undergone by strategic networks (SNs) in the pharmaceutical industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors performed a case study with four Brazilian SNs which followed different patterns of institutional change and institutional stability. Twenty network managers and network members from the pharmaceutical industry were interviewed, and documents were analyzed.
Findings
The results show how and why institutions changed or remained the same. More specifically, exogenous shocks can negatively impact the competitive environment influencing institutional change in SNs. Moreover, endogenous shocks may prevent institutional change and stimulate institutional stability. Continuous interaction between institutions and SNs is the key to institutional change, especially if public and private policies are considered a source of political institutions.
Originality/value
Research has highlighted the endogenous influence of SNs on firms in selecting their partners and arranging their positions in the SNs, but little attention has been paid to how SNs themselves respond to institutions or promote institutional change. This study explains how and why change fails at the network level, additionally pinpointing the main sources of the institutional change and inertia in SNs. As such, network members may use different strategies to stimulate institutional change or stability according to their interests.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that the Jewish religious concept “Tikkun Olam” is a source of practical management wisdom. “Tikkun Olam” combines with the diaspora and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that the Jewish religious concept “Tikkun Olam” is a source of practical management wisdom. “Tikkun Olam” combines with the diaspora and the state of Israel's specific political and economic contexts to provide Jewish people with an important driver and legitimization tool to change the world for the better. Since science and technology innovation has become a powerful tool to impact on today's world, “Tikkun Olam” builds on this profane channel for its present expression and supports the involvement of Jewish people in this matter.
Design/methodology/approach
To substantiate this view, the author analyzes the historical trajectories of the state of Israel and the Jewish diaspora. Some evidence is provided to highlight their specific dynamics and assets for knowledge creation, accumulation and transfer. Drawing on the academic literature, the author discusses what could be Jewish specificities on that matter compared with other nations and diasporas.
Findings
This work shows how a religious ethos can permeate profane life with great efficiency and act as practical management wisdom. While Weber and Sombart point to religious ethoses to explain the emergence of capitalism, the author highlights how “Tikkun Olam” provides Jewish people with an incentive to not accept the world as it is and to engage in its transformation. Sympathetic to a Schumpeter creative destruction attitude, Jewish people are able to leverage their context and their critical knowledge training in a science and technology innovation‐based entrepreneurial drive.
Originality/value
The paper establishes a link between a religious concept and science and technology innovation. Besides discussing existing works on diaspora‐specific contexts and their role in entrepreneurship and innovation, it explains how and why a set of specific values helps a diaspora leverage science and technology potential. In an era of globalized knowledge and increasing population mobility, it reminds policy makers, religious authorities and designers of management curricula that contexts and values are both sides of a transformative coin that links potential to reality. It may help them put educational emphasis on the responsibility to consider the world not only as it is, but also as it should be.
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Antonio K.W. Lau, Richard C.M. Yam, Esther P.Y. Tang and H.Y. Sun
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between product modularity (PM) and supply chain integration (SCI), and to identify factors influencing this relationship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between product modularity (PM) and supply chain integration (SCI), and to identify factors influencing this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach involving in‐depth interviews on three modular and two non‐modular design projects in the Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta region was conducted. Within and cross‐case analyses were adopted.
Findings
Results support the current view that modular design is related to a loosely coordinated supply chain, whereas integrated design is associated with a tightly coordinated supply chain. However, this relationship is affected and explained by four contingency factors: new module/component development, technological knowledge leakage and creation, project team size and supply chain efficiency.
Research limitations/implications
The paper used a case study approach so the generalizability of the study is limited. This approach, however, enabled us to examine explicitly the relationship between PM and SCI, where empirical research was lacking. The rich content of each case suggested how and why modular design affects supply chain management.
Originality/value
The findings of this paper increase the understanding of the dynamics of modular product design and supply chain management. The paper also explores four contingency factors affecting the relationship.
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Aims to test Walton and McKersie’s theory on labour negotiations, specifically in the case of German car manufacturers.
Abstract
Purpose
Aims to test Walton and McKersie’s theory on labour negotiations, specifically in the case of German car manufacturers.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on interviews with industrial actors in Germany’s car industry – an empirical case study.
Findings
The article explains the structural force behind the managerial drive towards production. While German managers act at an enterprise level, a structural force has been responsible for the success of Germany’s post‐WW II manufacturing. Germany’s collective bargaining structure removed wage and working‐time bargaining from local management and opened four managerial options: production, productivity, innovation, and quality. This structure forced management to focus on these four options because they lie within the realm of management prerogative. The article explains how structural divisions between intra‐enterprise level arrangements and extra‐enterprise level collective bargaining at a conceptual level can best be understood.
Originality/value
Argues that a regional and industry collective bargaining structure has supported the success of a competitive car industry in Germany.
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Kirsten A. Way, Nerina J. Jimmieson and Prashant Bordia
Groups’ perceptions of their supervisors’ conflict management styles (CMSs) can have important implications for well-being. Rather than being examined in isolation, supervisor…
Abstract
Purpose
Groups’ perceptions of their supervisors’ conflict management styles (CMSs) can have important implications for well-being. Rather than being examined in isolation, supervisor CMSs need to be considered in the context of supervisors’ emotional ability and the amount of conflict in workgroups. This paper aims to investigate the three-way interactions between group-level perceptions of supervisor CMSs (collaborating, yielding, forcing), supervisor emotion recognition skills and group relationship conflict in predicting collective employee burnout.
Design/methodology/approach
Group-level hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with 972 teaching professionals nested in 109 groups.
Findings
The positive association between supervisor yielding climate and collective employee burnout was evident when supervisor emotion recognition was low but absent when supervisor emotion recognition was high. Groups with high supervisor forcing climate and high supervisor emotion recognition experienced lower group burnout, an effect evident at high but not low relationship conflict.
Practical implications
Supervisors have a critical – and challenging – role to play in managing conflict among group members. The detrimental effects of supervisor yielding and forcing climates on collective employee burnout are moderated by personal (supervisor emotion recognition) and situational (the level of relationship conflict) variables. These findings have practical implications for how supervisors could be trained to handle conflict.
Originality/value
This research challenges traditional notions that supervisor yielding and forcing CMSs are universally detrimental to well-being.
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Kariene Mittendorff, Femke Geijsel, Aimee Hoeve, Maarten de Laat and Loek Nieuwenhuis
The purpose of this research is to get a clear view on how can we judge groups in relation to the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP), and the presence of collective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to get a clear view on how can we judge groups in relation to the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP), and the presence of collective learning in these groups.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature on collective learning and CoPs led to the development of a conceptual model, which was tested through case study research against empirical data from three groups in organizations.
Findings
The groups differed concerning group characteristics, but also concerning the collective learning processes and learning outcomes present. The group that can be characterized as a CoP learns a lot, but the (learning) processes in the group are not always in favour of the organizational learning process.
Research limitations/implications
The conceptual framework was helpful to evaluate the characteristics of CoPs in relation to collective learning. These findings suggest that it will be interesting to expand the model, for example with consideration to the way CoPs experience the need to change.
Practical implications
The developed framework might help managers to judge if groups in an organization have characteristics of a CoP, if they are in balance and what might be needed to develop towards an ideal CoP with a great learning potential.
Originality/value
A first attempt is made to build a framework for judging CoPs for several aspects of their functioning. The research also shows that CoPs are not always stimulating forces for organizational learning.
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It will be recalled that the last monograph treated the significance of the collective agreement in society. If solely a function in society, (though having a legal basis), were…
Abstract
It will be recalled that the last monograph treated the significance of the collective agreement in society. If solely a function in society, (though having a legal basis), were to be attributed to the collective agreement, this would mean that no rights or obligations whatsoever would be created between the parties to it. This is not so in practice. It is of course a fact that no legally enforceable rights and obligations normally accrue, and as already indicated, those are moral ones and are only enforceable in honour, i.e. a gentleman's agreement. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the collective agreement has no juridical significance. Even agreements which are binding in honour only, as for example the kind of agreement found in Balfour v. Balfour, have a known juridical nature. Furthermore, though the collective agreement is only binding in honour, its incorporation into the individual contract of employment makes its terms legally enforceable even though recourse to the courts is seldom had. As a source of rights and obligations of considerable importance the collective agreement must therefore have some juridical significance and cannot remain entirely in the realms of society.