bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Product-Market Pressures and Employers’ Responses
Authors: Wilkinson Frank , White Michael
Published: November 2023

In the crisis which culminated in the recession of the early 1980s, increasing attention was given to the responsiveness of employers to product-market pressures and particularly their need to be more flexible. In this debate the early focus was mainly on the use of labour. Flexibility was regarded as synonymous with the close adjustment by the firm of the labour it employs, the way labour is utilized and the wages paid to changing levels of output, and the prices of products.
Level of Strategy and Regimes of Control
Authors: Rose Michael
Published: November 2023

Written from the perspective of an industrial sociologist, this chapter is concerned with changes in the social relations of workplaces and their relationship to employer strategy. Not only do firms produce goods and services, they can also be thought of as ‘producers’ of social structure. The immediate social ‘output’ of the firm is its own internal organization, which embodies specialist work-roles, authority relations, and ideas explaining and justifying these structures. The social relations of firms, however, have effects on social relations defined more broadly. Occupation remains the main determinant of social status and class. If such boundaries have been blurred, this is a reflection of blurring in work-roles in firms, of changes in reward-structures, in the styles of managing other people, and in the social values and beliefs current in the workplace.
Paternalism as an Employer Strategy, 1800-1960
Authors: Morris Bob , Smyth Jim
Published: November 2023

Employers rarely accept a labour market as a given set of supply functions to which they respond as they construct factor inputs and cost structures. The limited value of the neo-classical sense of a labour market seeking the equilibrium of a market-clearing wage has long been recognized (Wilkinson 1981). In the majority of specific historical situations such a notion is at best of normative value and at worst incomplete and misleading. Employers continually attempt to structure their labour markets to achieve management ends.
Employer Policies and Individual Life Chances
Authors: White Michael , Gallie Duncan
Published: November 2023

A central contrast between theories of the labour market is the role that they attribute to employer policies in determining the rewards that employees receive. In neo-classical theory, it is assumed that employers exercise little independent influence on the terms of employment. The market works in an impersonal way to reward employees in terms of their natural abilities or human capital. Employers merely constitute the passive intermediary through which the directives of the market are implemented. In contrast, segmentation theorists assign employers a major role in determining life chances, to the extent that the rewards of employment are sometimes held to be largely independent of the initial skills and experience of individual employees. In particular, such theories point to an important divide between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ employment practices, which are held to generate quite distinct labour-market segments, offering very different levels of reward to employees.
Introduction: The SCELI Skill Findings
Authors: Rose Michael , Penn Roger , Rubery Jill
Published: November 2023

The chapters of this book are based on the research carried out for the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. SCELI was launched in 1985, just over a decade after Braverman’s (1974) influential publication on the degradation of work. This book had led to a continuing and intense debate over the direction and nature of change in the skill level of jobs, and perhaps more fundamentally over the meaning or social significance of the terms ‘skill’ and ‘skilled work’. Developing alongside this debate over deskilling was a second, over flexibility in work tasks and pressures for new systems of work to meet changing competitive conditions and new (especially electronic) technologies. Intermingling with both these debates, but always retaining its own dynamic, was yet another, over gender and the relationships between social and gender divisions and the meaning and concept of skill.
Patterns of Skill Change: Upskilling, Deskilling, or Polarization?
Authors: Gallie Duncan
Published: November 2023

A central concern of social scientific analysis of work and work organization has been with the way in which economic change affects the level of skill and the distribution of skills within the working population. We can distinguish three broad lines of argument in the literature. The first, which might be described as the ‘optimistic perspective’, postulates that the technological development of the advanced industrial societies implies steadily more complex types of work task and therefore higher levels of skill (e.g. Kerr et al., 1960; Blauner, 1964). This change both results in an upward shift in the overall occupational structure of the workforce (marked in particular by the relative growth of non-manual occupations and the decline of manual) and leads to skill increases within occupational categories. These changes in the character of work tasks and work skills, it is argued, have major implications for patterns of work organization. With higher levels of skill, employers become increasingly dependent upon the willingness of employees to use their initiative. As a result, it becomes counter-productive to manage work organizations in an authoritarian way. Rather, to be effective, they must be designed in a way that allows employees greater discretion at work, thereby increasing their motivation and making the best use of their knowledge and skill.
Job Satisfaction, Job Skills, and Personal Skills
Authors: Rose Michael
Published: November 2023

Skill on the one hand and job satisfaction on the other are both well established subjects for research in the social sciences. But surprisingly, they have created largely separate streams of research. There has been relatively little research on exactly how skill and work attitudes such as job satisfaction interact. Nevertheless, most researchers into work behaviour would no doubt claim that they are closely associated.
The Social Structure of SGI-UK
Authors: Wilson Bryan , Dobbelaere Karel
Published: November 2023

MINORITY movements tend to manifest distinctive characteristics. They recruit differentially from the various sections of the general population, and, in so far as like attracts like (a hypothesis which had considerable immediate plausibility in these cases), it was reasonable to expect that the general demographic characteristics of the membership of SGI would be at marked variance with the population at large. To this end, our sample was compared with national statistics.
The Involvement of the Members
Authors: Wilson Bryan , Dobbelaere Karel
Published: November 2023

RELIGIOUS organizations—and today this includes even the established churches which once could rely on blind or even coerced obedience—depend for their viability on their capacity to summon the allegiance of adherents to participate, to give, or perhaps to perform in one way or another. As voluntary bodies, they have little purchase over their following except to urge compliance on normative grounds and by the offer of present reassurance that— here or hereafter—in the experience of the believer, the untoward, however conceived, will thereby be avoided, overcome, or in some measure neutralized. The benefits of believing the required teachings, practising the prescribed exercises, and leading an appropriate life are the constitutent performances by which salvation (or the best help towards it) may be attained, in whatever way salvation is conceptualized.
What Chanting Achieved
Authors: Wilson Bryan , Dobbelaere Karel
Published: November 2023

As the fundamental activity and the focus of belief in Nichiren’s Buddhism, chanting epitomizes and encapsulates the teachings of Sōka Gakkai International. Faith in chanting is the indispensable element of commitment. It is time-taking, in itself highly repetitive, and an exacting routine. Members have to believe that it is effective or they would have little reason to remain Nichiren Buddhists. What, then, did members believe that chanting achieved? Of the 96 per cent of the membership who chant for particular goals, only 3 per cent said that those goals had not been realized. Thus, 93 per cent of the entire membership who chanted for particular goals believed that those goals were achieved: chanting proved itself.
The British Debate on Trade Unionism: Crisis and Continuity
Authors: Gallie Duncan , Rose Michael , Penn Roger
Published: November 2023

Most studies of British industrial relations and trade unionism over the last decade have been characterized by the twin themes of crisis and discontinuity. During the 1980s, British trade union ism confronted its greatest challenge, and suffered its greatest reverses, since the inter-war period. After a decade of rapid growth, for much of which trade unions exercised significant influence in the corridors of power, they experienced a steep decline in their membership, a marked erosion of their ability to mobilize a depleted following, and, in national political affairs even in the affairs of the Labour Party itself at times-virtual marginalization. Once self-assured actors on the national scene, no less than in the industrial arena, trade unions seemed to have lost confidence in playing any role; indeed they appeared at times to have become increasingly confused over what their role could be, and should be, as the century drew to a close.
Growth and Decline in Trade Union Membership in Great Britain: Evidence from Work Histories
Authors: Elias Peter
Published: November 2023

From the end of the Second World War until the late 1960s, the proportion of the employed population in the United Kingdom who were union members remained around the 40 per cent mark. Between 1969 and 1979, this proportion rose to an all-time peak of 53 per cent. Subsequently, union membership has declined to the rates which prevailed in the 1945–69 period.

A variety of explaanations has been proposed to account for this growth and decline in trade union membership.
The Experience of Trade Unions in Rochdale During the 1980s
Authors: Penn Roger , Scattergood Hilda
Published: November 2023

This chapter deals with the experience of trade unions in Rochdale during the 1980s. The present analysis draws upon two sets of data: structured interviews conducted at thirty-two establishments in Rochdale during the period between June 1987 and February 1988; and a series of semi-structured interviews under taken with local trade union officers between July 1988 and January 1989, supplemented by additional information acquired in the summer of 1989.
Pathways to Social Class
Authors: Bertaux Daniel , Thompson Paul
Published: November 2023

Calling for a broader, new approach to social mobility research, Daniel Bertaux and Paul Thompson here move beyond pure statistics to use qualitative techniques - such as life stories and family case studies - to examine more closely the dynamics of mobility and address more fundamental sociological questions. Up to now, the extensive sociological literature on mobility has been based around the survey method. As a result, we have access to abundant statistical data, but there is little information available to explain how and why people follow particular life paths. To overcome these limitations, the authors have developed an alternative, complementary approach using life stories, case histories of whole families over several generations, or case studies of local communities. Employing the case-study approach does not prevent the identification of structural trends; on the contrary, it allows us to analyse those collective processes through their local effects, restoring the links with the classics of sociological thought. The authors, together with a group of researchers who have worked closely with them, tackle problems such as: - What exactly is transmitted between generations: is it wealth or land, occupational models or skills, social networks, or values and orientations? - What kind of assets can immigrants draw on? - How can a social elite survive the upheaval of a popular revolution? - What is the impact of marriage on the mobility of men and women? - How far can belonging to one locality rather than another, or choosing a particular house, shape mobility paths and aspirations? - Do dreams of mobility matter?
Women, Men, and Transgenerational Family Influences in Social Mobility
Authors: Thompson Paul
Published: November 2023

The currently dominant school of social mobility research has dug itself into a pit so deep and narrow that it has lost sight of what should undoubtedly be some of the principal themes in its field of investigation. Over the last twenty years social mobility researchers have developed increasingly impressive statistical methods, drawing on standardized questionnaires rather than in-depth inter viewing, for analysing one single issue, individual occupational mobility—and this mobility has been evaluated, essentially because of the difficulties in statistical analysis caused by the broken careers typical of women, primarily through the occupations of men.
Heritage and its Lineage: A Case History of Transmission and Social Mobility over Five Generations
Authors: Bertaux Daniel , Bertaux-Wiame* Isabelle
Published: November 2023

At face level, this chapter is a case history of a French male lineage from a rural background, which was able over several generations to create a small family business, develop it, and eventually move into the ranks of the educated middle class: a pattern of slow upward mobility rather typical of French society. The chapter describes how this was achieved, focusing on the transmissions and reappropriations of family assets in successive generations. Through this analysis, the unexpected nature of this family’s cen tral asset is uncovered.
Transmission in Extreme Situations: Russian Families Expropriated by the October Revolution
Authors: Bertaux* Daniel
Published: November 2023

In retrospect, the major social revolutions are seen in their historical truth: not so much as the achievement of the ideals of liberty and equity for which they were waged, and for which so many men and women gave their lives, but as the replacement of one hierarchical order by another. The old power structure crumbles, and with it vanish institutions, social relations, mores, the old social games, in short everything the members of the former ruling class and their allied classes called ‘society’ and whose foundations they thought to be eternal. A society dies, and the upper-class families, at least those that do not emigrate or are not liquidated by political repression, find themselves excluded a priori from the new society in the making.
Social Mobility in Hungary since the Second World War: Interpretations through Surveys and through Family Histories
Authors: Andorka Rudolf
Published: November 2023

Hungary is one of those European societies for which the statistical flows of father-to-son social mobility are best established. As the patterns of these flows appear to be rather similar to those of west European societies with market economies, it has led some scholars to the thesis that the forces unleashed by economic develop ment per se are much more influential on mobility patterns than the actual form of economic relations—whether planned or market based. But the collection of family histories, which give access to the concrete processes through which lives have been actually shaped, yields a picture with more nuances, as we will demonstrate in this paper.
The Wartime Institutional Reforms and Transformation of the Economic System*
Authors: Tetsuji Okazaki
Published: November 2023

Studies of Japan’s wartime economy made rapid advances in the latter half of the 1980s, affording innovative accounts of the wartime economic system. New perspectives viewed Japan’s wartime economy as a planned economic system distinguished from a market economy, and analysed its structure and functions with a broad range of tools of economic analysis including comparative economic system theory.1 Alongside these developments, comparative institutional analysis (CIA) has in recent years been opened as a new field in economics, one which adds theoretical analysis of systems and structures to the objects of existing comparative system theory.
Japan as a Creditor Nation: What is Happening to its Net External Assets?*
Authors: Masahiro Kawai
Published: November 2023

Japan experienced large and persistent current account surpluses throughout the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s while accumulating considerable amounts of net external assets. Based on the external asset-liability data, it became the world’s largest net creditor nation in 1986 and the world’s second largest gross creditor nation in 1988, surpassing the United States in the first category and the United Kingdom in the second. Japan’s ascendance to the status of a leading creditor nation was accompanied by a rapidly deteriorat¬ing net external asset position in the United States. According to the stock data based on market value, the United States became a net debtor nation in the late 1980s for the first time since the end of the First World War and is now the world’s largest net debtor.
The Problem of Land Use and Land Prices*
Authors: Yonosuke Inamoto
Published: November 2023

Until the present, the land problem’ has been distinguished from other social and economic problems by the relatively clear definition of its essential framework. It is characterized by a sharp distinction between agricultural use and urban use, and with respect to both, there can be little doubt that the core of the problem is in the social system or structures surrounding each type of use. In recent years, concerns have arisen over the conditions which underpin land use, with effects on the environment and upon conservation of national land. The rising prominence of such concerns in debates over the land problem marks a shift in the focus of the debate, but the essence of the land problem as one of centring on land use has not changed.
Explaining the End of the Post-War Party System
Authors: Nobuhiro Hiwatari
Published: November 2023

The Murayama Socialist-led cabinet of 1994 marked the end of the post-war party system. Except for a brief interlude in 1947-8, this was only the second time, in nearly half a decade after the war, that the Socialist party’ had been in power. Moreover, this time the Socialists were aligned in a three-party coalition with their rivals the Liberal Democratic party (LOP), who had been ousted only a year earlier after thirty-eight years of single-party rule. The post-war party system, in place since 1955, was characterized by one-party dominance by the LOP and enduring opposition by the Socialists.
Vicarious Memory 2: The Churchgoers
Authors: Davie Grace
Published: November 2023

IF the previous chapter was primarily concerned with the relocation of Europe’s state churches within the voluntary or non-governmental sector, the first two sections of this one have as their principal focus the people or populations that inhabit these changing organizations. Conversely they are also concerned with those people or groups of people who are now out of touch with institutional religion (whatever form this might take) and why such choices have been made. In order to understand the complex nature of what is happening in this respect, it is necessary to take into account not only the changing nature of European religion but the shifting nature of Europe’s demography as a whole. This, moreover, is the context in which to consider the complex relationships between religion and family life. The family is indeed a crucial place of religious socialization, but is itself changingresponding necessarily to profound economic, social, and demographic transformations.
Precarious Memory: Religion in the Education Systems of Europe
Authors: Davie Grace
Published: November 2023

THE education systems of all European societies—as indeed of all Western societies—are under considerable strain as the demands of an industrial economy give way to a post-industrial one. In the former, large numbers of workers, particularly male ones, were able to gain employment in industries where manual labour was in demand (indeed in the early post-war decades it was often in short supply) and where educational qualifications were of less significance than good health and strong shoulders. It is, however, precisely these sections of the economy which have found themselves at the sharp end of economic change and giving way to an entirely different sort of activity—forms of employment which not only give preference to the more highly educated, but also treat men and women alike.
Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes
Authors: Scott John
Published: November 2023

Large multinational corporations shape our lives to an enormous extent. How is the growth, power, and significance of big business to be explained and understood? Focusing on the issues of ownership, control, and class formation, Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes explores the implications of changes in the nature of big business, which affect both the businesses themselves, and the economic and political milieu in which these multinationals operate. Up-to-date empirical evidence is reviewed in a wide-ranging comparative framework that covers Britain and the United States, Germany, France, Japan, and many other societies, including emerging forms of capitalism in China and Russia. Unlike other specialist texts in the area, Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes relates its concerns to issues of social stratification and class structure. The first and second editions of the book (under the title Corportations, Classes and Capitalism) were enthusiastically received, and the present edition reviews new theoretical ideas and empirical evidence that has emerged in the ten years since the second edition appeared. The text has been completely re-written and re-structured, and it relates its concerns to contemporary debates over `disorganized capitalism' and post-industrialism.
A Sociological Perspective on Part-Time Work
Authors: Hakim Catherine
Published: November 2023

Throughout Europe, and in most OECD countries, part-time work has been expanding, along with other types of non-standard employment. There are large differences between countries in national levels of part-time work at the start of the increase, and in the size and longevity of the increase. In Sweden and Denmark, where high female economic activity rates have reached saturation levels, there is little or no further growth in part-time work and even some switching back to full-time jobs instead. In Greece, Italy, and Spain, women’s employment remains at relatively low levels, irrespective of hours worked, as shown in Table 1.1. But in most countries the common experience is of growth in what has until recently been regarded as a somewhat uninteresting or irrelevant labour-market minority group.
Part-Time Work in the United States of America
Authors: Drobnic Sonja , Wittig Immo
Published: November 2023

It is commonly assumed that women pursue part-time jobs because they are relatively easy to combine with household responsibilities. At various stages of family formation, part-time work may offer the flexibility required to meet family obligations, and at the same time allow women to maintain ties to paid employment. Therefore, part-time work is often seen as a means of integrating women into the labour market. Indeed, in a num¬ ber of Western European countries, part-time work has been responsible for most of the growth in women’s employment, and the increase in part¬ time work represents one of the most striking changes in the structure of the labour market since the 1950s. This increase has been especially dra¬ matic during the 1960s and 1970s, with some variations between countries, as illustrated by developments in Great Britain (Beechey and Perkins, 1987; Hakim, 1993), Sweden (Sundstrom, 1991), and West Germany (Quack, 1993).
Some Glosses on ‘Greek and Roman Accounting’
Authors: Macve R H
Published: November 2023

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s paper on ‘Greek and Roman Accounting’ (hencefor- ward GRA) was published nearly thirty years ago. It remains the classic treatment of this subject. Its main (‘very low key’) theme is a démonstration, by detailed examination of the extant evidence, that there is no support for the frequently held belief that the technique of ‘double-entry bookkeeping’ was in use in the ancient Greek and Roman world. This conclusion has been of great importance for the history of accounting and there has been no subséquent successful contradiction of it? The earliest documented use of ‘double entry’ is still believed to be in the thirteenth century AD. From the point of view of the ancient historian, one might suppose that the last word had been said on this matter.
Early Canal Company Accounts: Financial And Accounting Aspects Of The Forth And Clyde Navigation, 1768-1816
Authors: Forrester D A R
Published: November 2023

Economic and accounting historians have tended to study railway developments, and companies incorporated under the British 1856 and 1862 Acts, rather than the earlier experience of parliamentary or statutory companies out of which general, consolidating legislation, and limited liability for companies evolved.
The Ministry Of Munitions 1915-19 And Government Accounting Procedures
Authors: Marriner S
Published: November 2023

‘An extraordinary improvisation beyond precedent without parallel in any country in the world took place in our industrial system. Thousands of persons who knew nothing at all about public business or public departments, thousands of firms which had never been used for warlike manufacture were amalgamated together ‘1 -this was a description of operations by the Ministry of Munitions in April 1918 by its minister, Mr Winston Churchill. At the same time the Financial Secretary, Sir Worthington Evans, claimed that the Ministry itself was ‘the biggest buying, importing, selling, manufacturing and distributing business in the world ‘ dwarfing its nearest rival the United States Steel Trust.2 He produced comparative statistics.3
Introduction
Authors: Mansell Robin , Silverstone Roger
Published: November 2023

The information and communication technologies of the 1990s enable the electronic production and consumption of increasingly vast quantities of information. These technologies are becoming central to the production and use of information relevant to all aspects of business and consumer, educational, and leisure activity. These changes are not inconsequential. Their effects are likely to be both unpredictable and contradictory. They raise profound concerns about the way advanced information and communication technologies influence industry, government policy, and our everyday lives. They raise profound concerns about access and accessibility, and about their capacity to contribute to a more equitable and democratic society. No longer approachable through the uniform visions of singular disciplines, this complex of technological and social interdependencies requires a multidisciplinary perspective. Such a perspective, grounded in the study of the politics, economics, and sociology of information and communication technologies, is developed in the pages that follow. Within it we hope to offer insights into the ways in which the legacies of the history of technical and institutional innovation and the creative capabilities of human agents structure the trajectories of the information and communication technologies that are being developed and used in the late twentieth century.
Contracting For Change
Authors: Walsh Kieron , Deakin Nicholas , Smith Paula , Spurgeon Peter , Thomas Neil
Published: November 2023

There has been much speculation about the introduction of the contract culture in the public services and its consequences for those involved (including service users). This book, which is based on original research, sets out to examine the impact of contracts in three areas of the public service: health, social services, and other government activities. These findings are set in the context of policy development for the public sector as a whole. Detailed case studies in selected areas reveal the varying different patterns that have emerged. A study of the attitudes of those involved illuminates the different perspectives of participants. In the concluding chapters the authors review the policy implications of the study and identify likely future developments.
Introduction: The Corporate Governance ProblemCompeting Diagnoses And Solutions
Authors: Keasey Kevin , Thompson Steve , Wright Mike
Published: November 2023

The owner of a business, when contemplating any change, is led by his own interest to weigh the whole gain that it would probably bring to the business, against the whole loss. But the private interest of the salaried manager, or offi-cial, often draws him in another direction: the path of least resistance, of greatest comfort and least risk to himself, is generally that of not striving very energetically for improvement; and of finding plausible excuses for not trying an improvement suggested by others, until its success is established beyond question.
Governance By Exit: An Analysis Of The Market For Corporate Control
Authors: ‘Sullivan Pauline O
Published: November 2023

The market for corporate control is frequently advocated as an important mechanism of governance in public companies. Takeovers may contribute to governance in a number of ways. The threat of takeover provides an incentive for managers to administer the company in the interests of shareholders. The occurrence of a takeover provides an opportunity for a potential acquiror to scrutinize the performance of the incumbent management team, and replace them if appropriate. In addition, the takeover market may function as an external governance of last resort, utilized only when internal control mechanisms have failed. However, the disciplinary effects of the takeover market may be circumvented when target managers adopt defence tactics to thwart an unwanted bid. Moreover, the available empirical evidence concerning takeover gains is unclear, and at the very least only provides equivocal support for the governance role of corporate takeovers.
Market (United States) Versus Managed (Japanese) Governance
Authors: Kim Hicheon , Hoskisson Robert E
Published: November 2023

In extending Chandler ‘s (1962) work, Williamson (1985: 279) hails the multidivisional (M-form) structure as ‘the most significant organizational innovation of the twentieth century ‘. Chandler described how the M-form structure was first adopted by early diversified firms such as Du Pont and General Motors in the 1920s. According to Williamson, the M-form structure was implemented to manage and allocate resources better among various lines of business through the creation of an internal capital market. Put differently, the M-form replaced the functional form (U-form) as a structure for large diversified firms because the former was more efficient at allocating resources. Although Williamson ‘s theoretical arguments are compelling, scholars who have examined this issue have not fully corroborated his assertion (see Hoskisson et al. 1993 for a review). Some research finds a positive association between M-form adoption (e.g. Teece 1981), while others find a contingency effect with diversification strategy (e.g. Hoskisson 1987). M-form adoption facilitates performance for highly diversified firms but has less effect for firms that have interdependence between divisions (Hoskisson et al.1991). Still other scholars point out unintended negative effects of shortened time horizons (Hill 1985) and lower R & D expenses (Hoskisson and Hitt 1988) associated with the M-form adoption. Another significant criticism is that the Mform can facilitate over-diversified firms (Hoskisson and Turk 1990; Hoskisson et al. 1994) when internal governance is lacking. Diversification can improve firm performance if it is expanded up to a certain level in a discriminatory manner, but excessive diversification creates performance problems. In fact, during the 1960s and 1970s, many M-form firms actively pursued diversification, but its result were disappointing, as Shleifer and Vishny (1991) indicate.
Corporate Governance In Central And Eastern Europe
Authors: Wright Mike , Filatotchev, Igor , Buck Trevor
Published: November 2023

Extensive privatization has now been undertaken across many countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Political factors have often played a major role in both the pace and the form of privatization adopted in a particular country. These political influences have meant that the importance attached to the establishment of corporate governance mechanisms in privatized enterprises has varied considerably. The need for political acceptability of privatization has often meant that greater emphasis has been placed on the need for accountability and/or speed in the sale process. In Hungary, for example, the so-called self-privatization process was introduced as a means of achieving rapid but regulated privatization after the political problems raised by abuses seen in earlier programmes (Karsai and Wright 1994). In Russia, the voucher privatization programme was introduced as means of effecting rapid privatization which would involve widely based individual ownership of firms (Boycko et al. 1993).
Contractual Changes In Schools And General Practices: Professional Resistance And The Role Of Absorption And Absorbing Groups
Authors: Broadbent Jane , Laughlin Richard
Published: November 2023

The ‘new public management’ (Hood 1991, 1995) in the public sector is now well established in the UK. The central features of this revolution are thoughtfully captured by Hood (1995: 94): ‘lessening or removing differences between the public and the private sector and shifting the emphasis from process accountability towards a greater element of accountability in terms of results’. It is this programming of tasks through changes in contractual relationships, in which accounting and accountability systems are inextricably linked, which is at the heart of the ‘new public management’ reforms with consequent ramifications for the role of professionals. The nature of these contractual changes and their effects is the core concern of this chapter.
Quasi-Markets And Quasi-Trust: The Social Construction Of Contracts For Community Health Services
Authors: Flynn Rob , Williams Gareth , Pickard Susan
Published: November 2023

Much of the debate about the emergence and impact of the NHS internal market has focused on acute hospital services and the effects of GP fundholding (see Chapters 2 and 6, this volume). However, as this chapter, and those by Lapsley and Llewellyn (Chapter 5) and Spurgeon et al. (Chapter 9) show, there are other components of health and social care which are increasingly important, and in which the experience of contracting may be different. This chapter examines the particular features of community health services (CHS), and argues that their attributes render contracting highly problematic. After a brief definitional and methodological introduction, the significance of relational contracting, networks, and trust in community health services is outlined. Next, qualitative evidence from case studies is reviewed about the process of conceptualizing and specifying CHS; health authority and Trust contract negotiations; and attitudes of GP fundholders. Finally, we conclude by arguing that the contingencies and contradictions of contracting in the NHS quasimarket—and the elusive and contested nature of trust-are displayed very clearly in community health services.
Rhetoric And Reality In Contracting: Research In And On The National Health Service
Authors: Checkland Peter
Published: November 2023

The rhetoric of ‘contracting’ between ‘purchasers’ and ‘providers’ was strong when it was introduced into the NHS as part of government reforms. It was to be a feature of an ‘internal market’ that would lead to ‘competition’ which would drive up standards. From the start, the rhetoric was stronger than the reality. In view of the fact that the ‘contracts’ were not legally binding, the force of the notion of a ‘contract’ was considerably diminished. In fact the reality of contracting has been that the word is shorthand for a complex social process which has been evolving steadily since the reforms were introduced.
Diversification Process and the Ownership Structure of Samsung Chaebol
Authors: Kang Chul-Kyu
Published: November 2023

The Korean economy has grown rapidly during the last three decades. The annual GNP growth rate from 1963 to 1993 was 9.4 per cent on average, which was the fastest in the world compared with either the developing countries in the same period or the developed countries in the nineteenth century (their early developing period).

The leading type of business group in this rapid economic growth was the chaebol, which can be defined as ‘a business group which is owned and controlled by a person and that person ‘s family ‘. This definition coincides for the most part with Morikawa ‘s definition of a zaibatsu, as ‘ exclusively owned and controlled by the family ‘, and probably also fits the rest of the definition, ‘diversified industrial firms ‘, since it is a business group. In Korea thirty chaebol are famous; their names are announced officially as ‘the thirty largest business groups ‘ every year on the first day of April. They account for 35.7 per cent of total shipments in the mineral and man ufacturing sector, 31.6 per cent of value-added, and 15.9 per cent of employment in the same sector. More than one-half of this share falls to the five largest chaebol.
From Zaibatsu to Corporate Complexes
Authors: Suzuki Kunio
Published: November 2023

Until the end of the Second World War, the zaibatsu wielded enormous economic power within the Japanese economy. The ‘Big Three ‘ zaibatsu in particular, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo, had assembled powerful firms in wide-ranging areas such as finance (banking, insurance, and trust operations), mining, machinery manufacture, and chemicals, with the Mitsui and Mitsubishi zaibatsu each including a global trading company (Mitsui Bussan Kaisha and Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha, respectively). These zaibatsu were broken up in the economic reforms that followed the war, only to re-emerge later as corporate complexes in the form of the Mitsui group, the Mitsubishi group, and the Sumitomo group. Further, these corporate complexes became major components of the Japanese economy, just as their zaibatsu predecessors had been.
A Path to the Corporate Group in Japan:Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and its Group Formation
Authors: Shiba Takao
Published: November 2023

In academic discussion of Japanese business groups, the companies most often used as cases are those in mass-production, assembly-type industries, such as motor vehicles or electronics. This is no doubt due to the fact that companies in these industries tend to have large numbers of subsidiaries, but there are many companies with substantial business groups that are situated in other industries. One such industry is heavy equipment (i.e. shipbuilding and custom machinery), in which participants also tend to be surrounded by groups of subsidiaries. The formation processes of these groups, however, along with their essential character, are rather different from those of the mass-production assemblers ‘ groups. This chapter will illustrate the case of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (MHI hereafter) in order to provide a reference for comparison.
The Subcontracting System and Business Groups: The Case of the Japanese Automotive Industry
Authors: Ueda Hirofumi
Published: November 2023

This chapter will examine the formation of the subcontracting production system and the development of business groups within the Japanese auto motive industry. In the current context, however, the term ‘business group ‘ is distinct both from horizontal-type agglomerations of companies with cross-shareholdings and from vertical-type corporate groups consisting of a central parent company accompanied by diversified subsidiaries. Rather, what is meant is an organization resulting from a collection of parts suppliers surrounding an automotive assembler. There is typically a very large number of suppliers providing parts to a given assembler, and so the designation ‘group member ‘ is applied only to those companies that have either received capital investment from the assembler or maintain unusually strong business ties. Accordingly, those independent parts suppliers that do not have a particularly close affiliation with the assembler are not considered to be members of that assembler ‘s group.
Lone Motherhood: Characteristics, Circumstances, and Consequences
Authors: Kiernan Kathleen , Land Hilary , Lewis Jane
Published: November 2023

In the first part of this chapter we examine a range of demographic, social, and economic characteristics of lone mother families, assessing the extent to which the lone mother families differ from one another and from married couple families. We also compare lone mothers of the 1990s with those of the 1980s and 1970s to see whether there have been any changes in the lone mother population over the last two decades. Additionally, we examine the economic circumstances and sources of incomes of women who were lone mothers in the 1990s. This provides a background to the subsequent policy chapters that deal with employment, housing, and social security. In the second part of the chapter we address two issues, namely: who become lone mothers and what are the consequences of family breakdown for children.
The Theory and Practice of Contracting
Authors: Deakin Simon , Michie Jonathan
Published: November 2023

If there is a single strand which runs through the changes wrought by the neoliberal revolution in economic policy and management in Britain over the past two decades, it is the revival of contract as the foremost organizing mechanism of economic activity. The process which began with privatization and deregulation has been transformed into a radical reshaping of organizational forms and boundaries in both the public and private sectors. Market disciplines have taken new and strengthened forms as a result of the introduction of quasi-markets in the public health and education sectors, the separation into competing units of the former nationalized utilities, and the greater use by organizations in all sectors of outsourcing and subcontracting of goods and services. The task of overseeing these changes has fallen to competition policy, a hitherto neglected area of law and administrative practice whose influence is now felt across a growing range of economic and social issues.
A Longitudinal Study of the Management of Co-operative Strategies
Authors: Buckley Peter J , Chapman Malcolm
Published: November 2023

One way of introducing our research project: ‘The Management of Cooperative Strategies: A Comparative and Longitudinal Study’ is to say that it attempts to confront hypotheses from economics with data derived from the investigative methods of social anthropology. This may have been the original intention, but the reality of the research in practice has transcended that rigid framework. The philosophies of the two subjects (economics and social anthropology) and their use of’empirical data’ are so different that a great deal of effort was necessary in attempting to reconcile what each regards as legitimate knowledge. Attempts to reconcile these subjects (the irreconcilable?) have been made (Buckley and Chapman 1996a, 1997, and Buckley and Casson 1993) and will not be reprised here. Rather, this paper examines the contribution to this project (and to management/economics studies generally) of three ‘big ideas’ imported and adapted from social anthropology. So, this article draws on a three-year longitudinal study of the management of co-operative strategies in a small sample of firms in pharmaceuticals and scientific instruments to examine the nature of the firm, managerial decisions on the boundaries of the firm, and co-operation across those boundaries. It begins with the classic Coasian construction of the firm and pursues the transaction cost economics agenda into the problems of calculation of transaction costs, relationships within and between firms, entrepreneurial behaviour, and managerial perceptions. The paper attempts to take a dynamic perspective.
Contracts, Competition, and Accounting in Recent Legal Enactments for the Health and Education Sectors in the UK: An Example of Juridification at Work?
Authors: Broadbent Jane , Laughlin Richard
Published: November 2023

This chapter is about the way certain forms of laws can be dominated by the logic which is more normally associated with the disciplines of accounting and economics, and the way these resulting legal enactments can sometimes go beyond what is deemed to be acceptable both to society as a whole as well as to the social (organizational) systems which they are attempting to regulate. For the moment we leave aside the particular links into and influence of accounting and economics to consider German critical legal thought which has given considerable attention to the more general concern with this over-intrusiveness of the legal process. This they have described as a ‘juridification’ process. As Teubner (1987b: 3) points out, ‘juridification is an ugly word—as ugly as the reality which it describes’. It involves ‘legal pollution’ (Ehrlich 1976) and ‘overregulation’ (Teubner 1987b: 4). The studies of juridification provide a powerful set of theoretical categories for critically analysing the value or otherwise of societal laws. This chapter not only explores the underlying theoretical nature of this juridification process, it also refines and develops this conceptualization, primarily through Habermasian critical theory. In addition the chapter grounds this theoretical analysis in an empirical clarification of the nature and working out of juridified accounting/economics-dominated laws in the UK public sector.
Inter-Firm Co-operation, Competition Law, and Patent Licensing: A US-EC Comparison
Authors: Gutterman Alan
Published: November 2023

Innovation is a complex process which is increasingly dependent on interfirm co-operation for the sharing of economic risks and pooling of complementary resources. Regulation of inter-firm collaboration is inherently more problematic when patent rights are involved, since the patent grant provides the holder with legal rights which sometimes extend beyond those permitted under normal competition law principles. In this chapter, I examine the requirements for innovation, including inter-firm co-operation; the potential conflicts between the objectives of the patent and competition laws; and attempt to draw insights from comparing the policies followed by competition and antitrust law. regulators in the European Community (EC) and the USA in analysing patent licensing arrangements.
in Taiwan
Authors: Tsai Shu-Ling
Published: November 2023

All industrial societies use educational and labour-market mechanisms to channel young people towards adult positions in the stratification system, yet the nature of these sorting mechanisms vary across societies (see e.g. Ishida, Muller, and Ridge 1995; Kerckhoff 1995, 1996; Konig and Muller 1986; Maurice, Sellier, and Silvestre 1986). Most of our existing know ledge of the nature of the education---labour-market linkage pertains to more developed countries, and to bridge the gap, we explore the experi ence of Taiwan after the extension of compulsory education from six to nine years in 1968.