The purpose of this paper is to describe how The European Court of Justice's (ECJ) recent judgment in Asnef‐Equifax v. Ausbanc has clarified the circumstances in which financial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe how The European Court of Justice's (ECJ) recent judgment in Asnef‐Equifax v. Ausbanc has clarified the circumstances in which financial institutions may exchange information regarding the solvency and creditworthiness of their clients without falling foul of competition law.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper outlines the background to the case, the judgment and provides a comment.
Findings
The judgment shows that in case of any doubt there is no substitute for a rigorous analysis of the affected market in light of the case law and general guidance from the Commission and national competition authorities, before engaging in any potentially controversial activity such as information exchange.
Originality/value
The paper provides insight into how financial institutions may exchange credit information without breaching competition law in the context of the ECJ judgment.
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The study sets out to report and comment, from a competition law perspective, on communication between competitors.
Abstract
Purpose
The study sets out to report and comment, from a competition law perspective, on communication between competitors.
Design/methodology/approach
The study outlines the facts and presents an opinion.
Findings
The study finds that communications between competitors can give rise to serious competition risks. Such risks can be managed by putting in place a compliance programme. Such a programme should make employees aware of topics to avoid and topics that are safe to discuss.
Originality/value
The study shows how employees need to be aware of when an issue falls within a grey area of potentially problematic issues, so that they may seek advice where required. In competition law, prevention is better than cure.
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Steven Cavaleri, Joseph Firestone and Fred Reed
The purpose of this paper is to present a process for managing project problem‐solving patterns. It focuses on shifting the emphasis of project teams toward a more collaborative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a process for managing project problem‐solving patterns. It focuses on shifting the emphasis of project teams toward a more collaborative and knowledge‐based style of dealing with challenges to project performance. The methods proposed in this paper encourage project managers to integrate processes for becoming more agile by tapping into lesson learned and knowledge gained to create higher quality solutions to problems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a conceptual framework for recognizing problem‐solving patterns and transforming problem solving from an individual passive event to a more open, agile active, systemic process. Several actual case examples are provided to illustrate applications.
Findings
The paper examines how taking a more open approach to problem solving in projects leads to better solutions. The proposed method and lessons from actual cases offer support to these proposals.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed models in this paper originate from the conclusions and observations drawn by the authors over many years of experience. However, they are not the product of a systematic research effort. This paper is intended to provide a new lens for project managers to view projects. It does not purport to declare findings of any research or analyze any sort of research.
Practical implications
The conceptual framework provided in this paper is a practical one derived from the practices used in leading companies. The paper provides practical guidelines to aid project managers in recognizing and managing problem‐solving patterns to create better solutions to problems.
Social implications
Modern society is plagued by the effects of ineffective problem‐solving initiatives in business, government, and not‐for‐profit organizations. Flawed proposed solutions exact a toll on organizations, their members, and the constituents they serve. This paper proposes a way of improving the quality of problem‐solving processes that may benefit a broad scale of people.
Originality/value
The concept of a problem‐solving pattern and a typology of problem‐solving patterns presented in this paper, provide project managers with a new way of conceiving of how problem solving can be used to improve project performance and adaptability.
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The paper seeks to establish a critical role for leaders in guiding projects to higher levels of effectiveness. This role centers on using the thinking capacities associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to establish a critical role for leaders in guiding projects to higher levels of effectiveness. This role centers on using the thinking capacities associated with systems thinking, knowledge processing, action learning, and pragmatism. It is also to design systems to imbue these capacities into the operation of project teams.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a case study, action‐research observations, and conceptual models. Actual case studies including a medium‐sized US manufacturer and a large shipyard.
Findings
This paper includes a section that presents research findings that suggest efforts by managers to improve profits actually reduced profit in the longer term due to erroneous learning and low‐quality knowledge.
Research limitations/implications
The research presented does not focus specifically on project teams, but rather on the interplay between project teams and the larger organizations of which they are part.
Practical implications
In certain industries, the performance track record of project teams for operating according to schedule and within budget is dismal. Such failures have been wrongly attributed to bad staffing, poor decision making, internal politics, or external forces. This paper proposes that the more common reasons for such failures are erroneous learning caused by misperceptions of dynamic feedback, low‐quality knowledge, imbalances among system elements, and failure to account for dynamics and time delays. An approach called project management system pragmatics is proposed for use by leaders as a way to improve the effectiveness of project teams.
Originality/value
This is the first approach to project management/leadership that offers practical ways for leaders to conceive of how to deal with the ambiguities posed by the dynamics of the complex systems many project teams operate within.
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The purpose of this paper is to outline the philosophy of the journal and present a summary of its content and how the various papers link to the journal's philosophy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the philosophy of the journal and present a summary of its content and how the various papers link to the journal's philosophy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a limited literature review to establish the journal's philosophy and linked description of the issue's content.
Findings
This helps readers to understand the scope scale and expectations of reviewers with respect to papers to be submitted and also helps readers understand what kind of papers to expect in this and future issues.
Originality/value
As the first issue, this editorial establishes the themes to be expected and it outlines several innovations in the journal's format.
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Derek L. Bosworth and Peter J. Dawkins
The post‐war period has been characterised by a persistent and substantial expansion in the employment of women. At the same time, women have become increasingly protected in…
Abstract
The post‐war period has been characterised by a persistent and substantial expansion in the employment of women. At the same time, women have become increasingly protected in employment by a legislative framework that includes the Equal Pay Act (1970), the Social Security and Pensions Act (1975) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975). Nevertheless, a number of vestiges of discrimination under the law still remain, such as the special treatment of women with regard to the length and timing of their paid employment. Despite the attempts to remove discrimination by legislation, there remains a considerable groundswell of opinion that there are still substantial differences in the treatment of women vis‐a‐vis men in employment. One continuing concern is the tendency of the organisation of tasks to polarise into men‐only and women‐only jobs. As a result, it has been argued that the situation approximates to a dual labour market, with women being funnelled into the secondary labour market. Complex, interacting forces are at play that make the estimation of statistical models of the existing distribution of employment by sex (from which evidence of sex discrimination might be sought) extremely difficult. A potentially more rewarding approach is to examine those jobs that employers believe to be of the men‐only or women‐only types. Questions of this type were included in a recent survey of employers across all sectors of employment in British industry. While the formulation of such questions and the interpretation of the results are associated with important problems, nevertheless, the survey provides a useful impression of the size and nature of the barriers faced by women in their search for employment opportunities and the manner in which these barriers may be broken down.
The research paper examines the commercial evolution of retail tenants within the UK factory outlet sector. The research aims to identify the key characteristics of…
Abstract
Purpose
The research paper examines the commercial evolution of retail tenants within the UK factory outlet sector. The research aims to identify the key characteristics of commercialisation and the resulting strategic positions occupied by tenants.
Design/methodology/approach
The paucity of research surrounding the research objectives necessitated exploratory research based on 32 in‐depth interviews conducted with factory outlet tenants, managers and owners.
Findings
The research presents four tenant segments used to analyse commercial evolution. Although many tenants are initially pushed into the channel to solve a physical stock problem they invariably increase their level of commercialisation as they apply the experience curve, economies of scale and opportunism. Ultimately, the key to commercialisation lies in the ability of a factory outlet tenant to make adjustments to their retail business model, through sales productivities and improved cost ratios. The single biggest adjustment lies in the potential of made for outlet merchandise which secures both product continuity and enhanced margin.
Originality/value
The research provides a conceptual framework for evaluating the relevance of current factory outlet leasing and performance management programmes. Practical application of the framework will require a correlation to be established between the stages of commercialisation and actual sales performance across a wider sample of tenants. The finding provide possible stepping stones to further research within the sector, not least the evolutionary pattern of factory outlet tenants across Europe. The findings provoke many questions related to the role of outlets within a tenant's overall multi‐channel distribution strategy. The sophistication of certain tenants' outlet business models and the high level of integration across channel of distribution suggest factory outlet centres are becoming increasingly accepted as part of mainstream growth strategies.
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The debate over ‘judicial activism’ has flourished in recent decades, but the term was in fact coined 70 years ago, by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The legal academy has…
Abstract
The debate over ‘judicial activism’ has flourished in recent decades, but the term was in fact coined 70 years ago, by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The legal academy has bemoaned the term as perpetually ill-defined, but can this be attributed to its equivocal beginnings on the pages of Fortune magazine? This chapter investigates the circumstances in which the term was produced and the early meanings given to it in scholarly work. It is argued that there was very little effort on the part of legal academics and political scientists to gather a consensus as to definition, or otherwise to treat the terminology with caution, before the term was wrested from the university cloisters and captured by the popular media in the mid-1960s.
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The case is presented by a senior marketing major (Tim), who did a business internship in the new products area of a fictitious consumer package goods firm. The case is presented…
Abstract
The case is presented by a senior marketing major (Tim), who did a business internship in the new products area of a fictitious consumer package goods firm. The case is presented as a journal Tim kept while interning. It is based on the author’s own journal, kept while working as a business professor intern in a firm similar to that in the case. Although names have been disguised, most of the activities, practices and problems described in the case are based on the author’s internship experience. Tim is simultaneously involved in two major new product projects. First is the early exploratory research done for new vegetable‐based food products. Second is a snack product which is ready to be moved from a controlled store test to test markets. Tim is also involved in other activities: a new business committee meeting, an industry forum, and a strategic plans presentation meeting. Tim works fairly closely with the new products manager, people in other areas of the firm such as marketing research and research and development, as well as with the firm’s ad agency. The case also describes informational interviews Tim conducted with various functional managers in the company involved with new products, and it gives students a feel for all of the nitty gritty implementation details involved in new product work.