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An analysis of the defense of these cases contrasting them to similar cases on the equity side. The authors explore some technical and real defenses that are uniquely applicable to the commodity futures world.

An important aspect of UK competition policy is the attempt to maintain competitive markets by prohibiting restrictive agreements and cartels involving price fixing, market sharing, etc., the effect of which is to suppress, limit or distort active rivalry between suppliers. Examines UK policy towards restrictive agreements, alongside similar attempts to control cartels in the European Community. Outlines the regulatory frameworks operating in the UK and EC and emphasizes particular points of interest in the application of policy control by reference to selected restrictive agreement/cartel cases. While the attack on formal “open” collusion has been highly successful, it is clear from the work of the Office of Fair Trading and the European Commission that clandestine (”covert”) collusion between suppliers remains an on‐going problem.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

The assignment of targets to instruments in developing countries cannot satisfactorily follow any simple universal rule. Which approach is appropriate is influenced by whether the economy is dominated by primary exports, by the importance of the domestic bond market and bank credit, by the extent of existing restriction in foreign exchange and financial markets, by the presence or absence of persistent high inflation, and by the existence or non‐existence of an active international market in the country's currency. Eighteen observations and maxims on stabilisation policy are tentatively drawn (pp. 64–8) from the material reviewed, and the maxims are partly summarised (pp. 69–71) in a schematic assignment, with variations, of targets to instruments.

Demand-based pricing fixes price according to customers’ perceptions of service value and to their resulting willingness to pay. This pricing approach enables service companies to align their prices to customers’ preferences and to their expenditure propensity. Accordingly, it can generate higher margins than other pricing approaches. Nevertheless, this approach is difficult to implement operationally. Consequently, in order to overcome these implementation difficulties, the purpose of this paper is to provide a demand-based pricing approach based on the user-friendly technique of service blueprint (SB).

The methodology relies on the design science leads. Design science deals with creating artefacts or models for supporting human or organizational purposes; such artefacts have to be assessed against criteria of utility or value for users. Accordingly, an experimental action research is performed for both implementing and testing the proposed pricing approach.

Starting from the main difficulties hindering implementation of demand-based pricing, SB is proved to enable companies to overcome such difficulties and to support its implementation. Moreover, by employing SB, an innovative approach for fixing service prices is provided.

The proposed approach enables managers of service companies to overcome difficulties of demand-based pricing and to employ pricing strategies according to demand-based drivers.

In line with a recent call for research on service pricing, this paper develops a new pricing approach, which is able to promote demand-based pricing.

Using resource dependency theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine what elements in the business environment may be associated with the formation and continuance of cartels.

The authors employ a unique data set of 148 cartel data points from the 1970s to 2008 which have at least one American company involved to quantitatively test causal relationships. The authors also interview key class action anti-trust attorneys for their views and opinions on the impact of these environmental factors on cartel formation and continuance.

The authors find statistically significant relationships between the pursuit and maintenance of industry profits and the dynamism in the industry, and illegal behavior as represented through price fixing by business cartels. The authors find that in the attorneys’ opinion, it is also the pursuit of individual corporate profits and munificence that are associated with these cartels.

This research furthers the understanding of organizational deviance which is critical given its impact on organizations, individuals, regulators, law enforcement, and the general public.

This research is a first step in considering cartel activity in a way that encompasses external influences in a new and innovative manner and as a tool to help researchers and practitioners better understand how organizational deviance, as manifested through illegal corporate activity, can be anticipated, identified, and prevented.

Resale price maintenance has been used as a management strategy for a long time. Even in the face of unfavorable court decisions, the concept, like a Phoenix, continues to rise from its ashes. Much evidence indicates a strong desire by some manufacturers to control their product's prices throughout a distribution channel. However, businesses must be careful not to overstep legal bounds in the implementation of an aggressive price policy. This article looks at resale price maintenance as a management technique and offers guidelines for the prospective marketer.

This paper aims to argue that enterprise culture is producing negative effects. Companies and major accountancy firms are increasingly willing to increase their profits through indulgence in price fixing, tax avoidance/evasion, bribery, corruption, money laundering and practices that show scant regard for social norms and even laws.

The paper locates business behaviour within the broader dynamics of capitalism to argue that hunger for higher profits at almost any cost is not constrained by rules, laws and even periodic regulatory action.

The paper uses publicly available evidence to show that accountancy firms are engaged in anti‐social behaviour. Evidence is provided to show that in pursuit of higher profits firms have operated cartels, engaged in tax avoidance/evasion, bribery, corruption and money laundering.

The paper seeks to bring the anti‐social activities of accountancy firms under scrutiny and thus extend possibilities of research in social responsibility, ethics, accountability, claims of professionalism, social disorder and crime.

It is rare for accounting scholars to examine predatory practices of accounting firms. It shows that predatory practices affect a variety of arenas and stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the critical factors that influence Muslim consumers’ motivation towards the Islamic market mechanism.

The paper also attempts to formulate Ibnomer Mohamed Sharfudddin’s “Islamic Administrative theory and Klaus Hurrelmann’s socialization theory” based on the “productive processing of reality (PPR)” model. The data were collected by distributing a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of 147 participants residing in the major cities in Peninsular Malaysia. The constructs and items used in the questionnaire were derived from the basic guidelines provided in the literature review and Al-Qur’an and Sunnah (Prophet’s deeds) on the conduct of Malaysian business practices.

The results suggest that while awareness of the Islamic market mechanisms exists amongst businesses, in practice, not many obey such rules. However, a significant relationship does exist between the Muslim consumer motivational factors and Islamic market mechanisms.

First, limitation in scope as only two main components (productive service and commodity market) practices was examined. Future research may include other types of variables practices in the Islamic market mechanism. Second, the sample size is small and respondents were restricted to marketing and the academic sector. Future research should be done on bigger sample size and more on diverse sample, such as extended to the manufacturing sector and the service industry because manufacturing firms and the service sector might have different Islamic market mechanism practices and outcomes compared to marketing and the academic sector.

Productive service and commodity market have positive impact on consumers’ motivation towards the Islamic market mechanism. Government’s controlling and monitoring in the market has positive effect on consumers’ motivation in selecting the Islamic market mechanism.

There is a need for more research on how to establish the Islamic market mechanism practice. In addition, the outcomes of this paper are of particular significance to policymakers, as it better informs them as to how best to design the Islamic market mechanism to make it more practical regardless of various religious beliefs.

This research is a rare attempt on the part of scholars and researchers in Malaysia to relate the Islamic market mechanism practices and guidelines on a specific discipline. Based on the researchers’ knowledge, it is the first study investigating the application of the Islamic market mechanism practice in Malaysia.

Growing dissatisfaction with the record of discretionary monetary policy in the United States in the past decade has led to interest in alternative monetary arrangements to restore price level and real output stability, and to allow the economy to grow to its potential, unfettered by macro instability. Several arrangements have come to the fore. These include: (1) a return to the classical gold standard—fixing the dollar price of gold and allowing the money supply to be governed by movements in the nation's monetary gold stock; (2) the Friedman (1960) rule—constraining the monetary authorities to establish and maintain a steady and known growth rate of the fiduciary money supply; (3) Irving Fisher's (1920) compensated dollar scheme—altering the official price of gold and hence the value of the monetary gold stock to stabilize some measure of the price level.