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The Fruit Control Act, 1924, is an important one as it provides for the establishment of a Fruit Control Board, and is described as an “Act to make Provision for Control of the Fruit Trade.” The following definitions are laid down :—Board is the Export Board of Control, or a Local Control Board established under this Act. Fruit: this term is applied to apples and pears only. Fruit Trees are apple trees and pear trees only. Producers are persons carrying on business as producers of fruit for sale and being the occupiers of orchards registered under the Orchard and Garden Diseases Act of 1908. The Export Control Board may give directions as to grading, packing, handling, storage, shipment, sale, insurance against loss, display at exhibitions, and generally all matters relating to handling, distributing and disposal of fruit. It may also appoint overseas agents to act under its directions. To enable the Export. Control Board to control effectively the export of fruit, the Governor‐General may, under the Customs Act, 1913, prohibit the export of any fruit save in accordance with a licence issued by the Minister of Agriculture in terms approved by the Board. Part I. of the Act applies to fruit grown for export, and s. 3, i, states that this part of the Act shall come into operation by Proclamation approved by the Executive Council. It is, however, provided by s. 3, ii, that the Proclamation shall not issue unless a proposal has been carried at a poll of producers by a majority of valid votes recorded, and (sec. 4) if seventy per cent. of the producers in a district wish their district to be excluded from the operations of the Act, then the Minister of Agriculture shall by notice in the “ Gazette ” exclude that district. In this way the important Otago provincial district was excluded by notice on 15th January, 1925. Since it seems that no provision was made in Part I. of the original Act in the event of persons changing their minds, Otago presumably would have excluded itself for ever from the operations of the Act. The Act was designed to aid fruit growers and to further the interests of the apple exporters, for under s.s. 8–14, the Export Control Board has power to assume absolute or limited control over fruit intended for export after service on the owner of the fruit or by notice in the newspapers. It guaranteed, in fact, the quality of the fruit. Otago fruit growers seemed to have thought better of the matter, and an Amending Act (No. 6, 1932) was passed whereby (s. 2) Otago fell into line with the rest of the Dominion. Part II. of the Act applies to fruit for home consumption. It is not at present operative in any part of the Dominion, as the necessary authority under the Act has not been given by poll of fruit growers. Provision in this case, however, has been made for fresh polls to be taken if ten per cent. of the producers petition that this should be done. It is not as far as we know anywhere implied, still less expressly stated, that the Act shall be made to apply to any fruits other than apples or pears. Still, it seems only reasonable to see in this Act a basis for further legislation of the same kind which may in the future be applied to other fruits. It seems to have operated most successfully as far as apples for export are concerned. During the debate in the Legislative Council on the Fruit Preserving Industry Act of 1913, the then member for Nelson, which is perhaps the most successful apple‐growing district in the Dominion, stated that two years before—that is about the year 1911—there was a shipment of apples to England. “Nothing has been done as far as I can gather in following up that experiment.” The Minister for Agriculture was able to assure him that the apple consignment to England had turned out very satisfactorily. The export trade in apples has perhaps turned out to be far more satisfactory that anyone twenty years ago, either in New Zealand or in this country, could have supposed. The experimental shipment of 1911 was followed by the four years of war with its immense disorganisation, so that the industry, as we know it, may be said to have originated with this Act. In a word, the Act ensures uniformity of the consignments of fresh apples and pears exported from the Dominion to this and other countries. The export of fruit from New Zealand has, as everyone knows, been in operation, with varying success, for a number of years. Otago, for example, had established, through the Otago Provincial Fruitgrowers' Council, its own system of shipping and marketing fruit grown in the Province and intended for export—this indeed appears to have been the chief reason for the refusal of Otago to vote itself into control under Part I. of the 1924 Act. Still, we agree with the member for Egmont when he stated in the course of the debate on the Bill that “ the export of fruit is virtually a new business.” It will be readily seen that the control and guarantee of fruit—apples and pears—for export, and the advice and assistance rendered to the fruit growers must in the long run react on the output of the growers of every kind of fruit in the Dominion, it appears to be only a question of time. The time will have come when New Zealand grows more fruit than it can consume. When the Dominion grows the surplus fruit the amount of imported fruit must very materially decrease. Fresh fruit will still be exported, but we venture to predict that canned fruit will form a not inconsiderable proportion of the fruit trade taken as a whole when that time comes. The jam‐making industry already absorbs a considerable quantity of fruit, and if jam can be made fruit can be canned. Thirty‐five years ago a Mr. W. J. Palmer stated “ Nature has in the most unmistakable manner destined New Zealand to be pre‐eminently a fruit‐growing country… . New Zealand can produce, without artificial aid, almost everything that California has to raise by the expensive agency of irrigation.” If New Zealand can do that, then it is in as good a position to supply us with some of our imported canned fruit, as are the Dominions of Canada, Australia and South Africa, and the United States. Indeed, climatically it is on the whole better equipped than are the other countries just mentioned. Still, things seemed to have moved slowly as regards fruit‐canning in New Zealand. In 1910 and in other years the Year Book observes “ a great deal more might be done in bottling fruits … if only for home consumption.” The total amount of apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums gathered in the Dominion amounts to 2,363 thousand bushels in round figures, and the last four named fruits make but 12·5 per cent. of this total. There would therefore seem to be plenty of room for expansion in the growth of these fruits which presumably form no inconsiderable amount of the fruit which is being canned for home consumption at the present time. Otago heads the list for production in all four, and markedly so for nectarines and apricots. It may be remarked that out of a total of 18 thousand acres returned as under fruit, the average size of a holding is about 7½ acres, the number of holdings decreasing rapidly after the 20–30 acre limit has been passed. New Zealand is therefore technically what we should describe as a land of small holdings as far as the fruit industry is concerned. In 1931 canned and bottled fruit valued at over £60,000 was imported into New Zealand—this figure does not include the value of imported pineapples. The country of origin was mainly Australia, and the fruits for the most part consisted of apricots and peaches. In 1931, 20,399 cwt. of fruit of New Zealand origin and valued at £45,691 was canned, and 16,086 cwt. valued at £29,337 was pulped. The Dominion has evidently still a very long way to go before it becomes self‐supporting in the matter of canned fruits, even though it may be able to grow the fruit itself, while an export trade in canned fruits is presumably still a long way below the commercial horizon.

This study sets out to describe activities within The Netherlands Centre for Social Innovation, one of the earliest national bodies to promote and develop the concept of social innovation.

The paper describes the concept of social innovation and then illustrates how the activities of The Netherlands Centre relate to this concept, within the context of Dutch social and political systems.

It is found that individual and group performance is not directly the result of employee satisfaction or motivation, but of involvement and commitment through workers' representation and work organisation. These measures appear to be much more effective than courses in individual stress management, although there are circumstances in which such courses can help.

The paper describes how one country is attempting to take forward the concept of social innovation. It should be useful to other national development agencies.

The paper helps one to understand how national governments act in relation to emerging work‐related welfare and development concepts.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the need for workplace innovation policies and practices in Europe and evaluate programs that already have been developed.

The paper describes the concept of workplace innovation and trends in society explaining its emergence. The paper then presents and discusses the results of evaluation research as far as this is available.

A growing number of countries is conducting or developing some kind of programme on workplace innovation. These programmes differ in size and governance. Evaluation research shows that simultaneous improvement of performance and quality of working life is possible under certain conditions such as the participation of employees in change projects.

Concepts and designs of evaluation research projects differ considerably. This gives new challenges for companies, trade unions, governments and researchers. In EU2020, little attention is paid to workplace innovation but there is a ray of hope in the draft integrated guidelines for employment policies and in the Flagship Initiative Innovation Union.

Social innovation in the workplace, or workplace innovation, is a new concept, covering to some extent new practices that appear to be relevant for organisations and governments.

This paper aims to focus on participation in the workplace and examines the relative importance of different dimensions of job control in relation to subjective well-being and organizational commitment. These dimensions are job autonomy (within a given job), functional support (from supervisor and colleagues) and organizational level decision latitude (shop-floor consultancy on process improvements, division of labor, workmates, targets, etc.). Interaction with work intensity is looked at as well.

Measurements and data were taken from the European Working Conditions Survey, 2010. The paper focusses on salaried employees only. The sample was further limited to employees in workplaces consisting of at least 50 workers. There are 2,048 employees in the final sample, from Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the UK. In this paper, the focus is not on differences between countries, and adding more countries would have introduced too many country characteristics as intermediate variables.

In the regression analyses, functional support and organizational level decision latitude showed stronger relations with the outcome variables than job autonomy. There was no relation between work intensity and the outcome variables. Two-way interactions were found for job autonomy and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being and for functional support and organizational level decision latitude on organizational commitment. A three-way interaction, of all job control variables combined, was found on organizational commitment, with the presence of all types of job control showing the highest organizational commitment level. No such three-way interaction was found for subjective well-being. There was an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and functional support, as well as an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being: high work intensity and low functional support or low organizational level decision latitude seemed to associate with low well-being. No interaction was found for any dimension of job control being high and high work intensity.

Although this study has all the limitations of a cross-sectional survey, the results are more or less in accordance with existing theories. This indicates that organizational level decision latitude matters. Differentiation of job control dimensions in research models is recommended, and so is workplace innovation for healthy and productive jobs.

Most theoretical models for empirical research are limited to control at task level (e.g. the Job Demand-Control-Support model of Karasek and Theorell. The paper aims at nuancing and extending current job control models by distinguishing three dimensions/levels of job control, referring to sociotechnical systems design theory (De Sitter) and action regulation theory (Hacker) and reciprocity (Akerlof). The policy relevance regards the consequences for work and organization design.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the basic premises according to the pecking order theory (POT) provide an explanation for the capital structure mix of firms operating under Islamic principles.

Pooled ordinary least squares, fixed and random effects regressions were performed to test the POT applying data from a sample of 66 Islamic-compliant firms listed on Saudi Stock Market over the period 2006–2016.

The results show that sale-based instruments (Murabahah, Ijara) track the financial deficit quite closely followed by equity financing and as a last alternative to finance deficit, Islamic-compliant firms issue Sukuk. In the crisis period, these firms seem more reliant on equity, then on sale-based instruments and on Sukuk as last option. The study findings also indicate that the cumulative financing deficit does not wipe out the effects of conventional variables, although it is empirically significant. This provides no support for the POT attempts by Saudi Islamic-compliant firms

This research contributes to the theory of capital structure in re-validating the findings of a previous theoretical and empirical study. It helps understand the capital structure of Islamic-compliant firms in comparison with conventional firms. It highlights some areas where further research on topics related to capital structure of Islamic-compliant firms is needed. The failure of the POT to explain Saudi firms’ financing choices strongly pushed researchers to test the market timing theory for the Saudi Stock Market. Further research studies could re-examine the trade-off theory in the absence of interest tax shield as in an Islamic economy.

From a managerial perspective, this research can serve firm executive managers in their financing decisions to add value to the companies. Furthermore, policymakers, bankers and standard-setting organizations should undertake more collective work to simplify the process of issuing Islamic financial instruments including Sukuk. Moreover, the Saudi Government has to encourage the private sector to be more innovative in developing products and services that are in line with Sharia principles. Finally, to attract investors, the Capital Market Authority has to encourage transaction, efficiency and liquidity of Islamic financial instruments.

The proposed study presents several originalities. First, it explores the implications of relevant Islamic principles on financing preferences of Saudi firms. Second, the present study enables us to investigate what the sudden abundance of liquidity, generated by the record levels of oil prices, implied for the firms’ financing behavior. Finally, it provides further evidence on the impact of financial crisis on the firms’ capital structure choice in a period of considerable slowdown in the world.

The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model offers a financing hierarchy that can be used for examining the POT. As far as the EFN considers growth of sales as a driver for changing capital structure, it follows that shall firms plan for a sustainable growth of sales, a sustainable financing can be reached and maintained. This study uses data about the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from June 30, 1999, to March 31, 2012. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) causality analysis in order to show the generic and mutual associations between the components of EFN. The results conclude that (a) in the majority of the cases, firms plan for an increase in growth sales but not necessarily to approach sustainable rate; (b) in cases of observed and sustainable growth of sales, firms reduce debt financing persistently; (c) firms use equity financing to finance sustainable growth of sales in the long run only, while in the short run, firms use internal financing, that is, retained earnings as a flexible source of financing; and (d) the EFN model is quite useful for examining the hierarchy of financing. This study contributes to the related literature in terms of utilizing the properties of the EFN model in order to examine the practical aspects of the POT. These practical considerations are extended to examine the use of the POT in cases of observed and sustainable growth rates. The findings contribute to the current literature that there is a need to offer an adjustment to the financing order suggested by the POT. Equity financing is the first source of financing current and sustainable growth of sales, followed by retained earnings, and debt financing is the last resort.

This study aims to compare capital structure determinants' effect on the leverage levels of Shariah-compliant (SC) and noncompliant (NC) firms in Pakistan. This study also estimates and compares the capital structure adjustment speed for both firm types.

Based on the Karachi Meezan Index screening criterion, a balanced panel of 117 SC and 68 NC firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2018 was constituted. This study used the generalized method of moments to identify the significant determinants of capital structure and estimate the speed of adjustment. In addition, the F-test was used to check whether the effect of the determinants on the leverage is same for SC and non-SC firms.

The authors found that different determinants affect both firm types' leverage levels (book and market) differently. The authors also found that the adjustment speed of SC firms toward their target leverage ratio is slower than their NC peers. Lastly, significant variation was observed in the results under different screening criteria.

This study fills the literature gap by providing a comprehensive comparison of the capital structure decisions of the SC and non-SC firms. Because this study is limited to Pakistan, generalizability would be an issue.

This study will guide the management of SC and non-SC firms about which factors are reliably important in choosing their capital structure. The findings also call for bringing harmony in the different Shariah screening criteria being in practice.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comparative study that identifies the significant capital structure determinants for SC and NC firms and investigates their effect on the leverage of both firm types. By testing joint hypotheses of same relationship, this study seeks to determine if, because of Shariah restrictions, the capital structure determinants of SC firms are similar to NC firms or they exhibit different behavior. The authors also repeat their analysis using other prominent screening criteria to assess the consistency of their results.

This study aims to measure impact of several firm-specific factors on alternative measures of leverage. The authors also aim to study impact of the subprime crisis on such associations.

The authors utilized an unbalanced panel data of 973 firm-year observations on 47 UK listed non-financial firms for the years 1990–2019. Book-based and market-based long-term and total leverage measures have been used as explained variables. The explanatory variables are profitability, size, two measures of growth, asset tangibility, non-debt tax shields, firm age and product uniqueness. Fixed effect and random effect models with clustered robust standard errors have been utilized for data analysis. To find the effect of subprime crisis, original dataset was split to create pre-crisis and post-crisis datasets.

The authors find that profitability significantly reduces leverage while firms having more tangible assets use significantly more debt in capital structure. Firm size and non-debt tax shield have statistically insignificant positive impact on leverage. Having more unique products reduces use of external debt, albeit insignificantly. Growth, when measured as market-to-book ratio, has inconsistent impact, whereas capital expenditure insignificantly reduces leverage. Age is found to be an insignificant predictor of leverage. After the subprime crisis, firms started relying more on internal fund instead of external debt, more particularly short-term debt. Having more collateral is gradually becoming more important for availing external debt.

Data limitations restrict generalization of the findings.

This is one of the pioneering attempts to show how subprime crisis altered the theoretical domain of capital structure research in the UK.