Search results

This paper examines German trade and investment structures in relation to China, establishing for the 1990s: a severe trade imbalance, with stagnating German exports and sharply rising imports; it also establishes, despite occasionally substantial increases in contracted investment, a general pattern of steep decline in realized German investment. These findings contrast markedly with official surveys of German business opinions which seem to yield a very positive frame of mind by German businessmen regarding their business activity in China. Both grounds for disillusionment and success factors for foreign (German) business in China are explored, phenomena which are possibly shaping German conformance to the wider, distinct and apparently inexorable trend away from joint ventures towards wholly foreign‐owned enterprises. Regardless of such developments, Germany is a key business partner for China, not least because of its readiness to share sensitive high‐technology as, for example, in the field of environmental protection.

All member states of the European Union are facing the challenges of globalization and the pressures of meeting the convergence criteria for economic and monetary union. Germany faces an additional and unprecedented burden of integrating the former GDR politically, socially and economically. Superficially, political integration has occurred – socially and economically, little integration has been achieved. The additional strains and sacrifices are in danger of overburdening the consensus system which has represented West Germany’s distinctive strength and resilience. An apparent decline in consensus threatens above all that major post‐war innovation : the integration of German labour into a “democratised” corporatist system. The co‐operation and collaboration implicit in this system was paralleled by labour’s accommodatory practical philosophy of economic democracy. But will consensus survive? Will economic democracy wither away? Either a new politico‐industrial system is being born in Germany, or the old one will just disintegrate, with consequences extending well beyond Germany’s borders.

Organised capitalism, as a distinct mode of political economy, is generally held to be under serious threat, not least from the apparently inexorable logic and pressures of “globalisation”. The challenge represented by these forces is intensified in Germany by the constraints imposed by the requirement to fulfil those Maastricht Treaty criteria appertaining to establishing Economic and Monetary Union. However, Germany additionally faces the unprecedented task of integrating the former GDR, a regime which was both literally and metaphorically bankrupt in so many respects. So far, that integration has not succeeded, least of all industrially. The implications are manifold and complex ‐ yet what seems to be quite certain is that the combined, accumulated burden of all the relevant problems and difficulties has come to bear primarily on working people in Germany and on their representative organisations. This first paper represents an initial exploration of key parameters affecting labour, the second proposes to do so both more broadly and in greater depth.

The period from the death of Charles Stewart Parnell (1891) to the establishment of the Irish Free State (1922) was a momentous one for Ireland. There was a cultural revitalization (1891– 1916), a Rising (1916), the Anglo‐Irish War (1919–21), the Treaty (1922), and the Civil War (1922–23) before the new Irish state settled into a routine pattern. This was a period characterized by assertive nationalism, dogmatism, and intolerance that led to violence and bloodshed. The result would be an independent Ireland, but a divided Ireland with potential for explosion in the North. Still there were people who surmounted the polemic of the moment and sought rational compromise and mutual tolerance. These were individuals who sought limited practical objectives, empathized with their adversaries, demonstrated civility, and often predicted the problems of the future. These were the “apostles of peace”. Among Ireland's many notables, three of such caliber stand out — Arthur Griffith, Horace Plunkett, and Eoin MacNeill. These men were intimately associated with the affairs of their day and were recognized for their integrity and professional accomplishment. They were also associated with the major peaceful attempts to solve Ireland's problems and avoid the warfare that ensued. Griffith, the journalist, founded the early Sinn Fein and came temporarily to lead the Irish Free State. Plunkett, the Anglo‐Irish aristocrat, founded the cooperative movement. MacNeill, the civil servant and historian, was involved in starting the Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers. These were the “apostles of peace” and Ireland's subsequent trauma stemmed from their limited number. The objective of this study is to examine the careers of these three exceptional notables and ascertain if there exist some pattern. Are there generalizations that might be made about them collectively?

This paper aims to achieve four things: to build on recent discussion on the neglect of Frances Perkins’ contribution to the understandings of management and organization (MOS); to surface selected insights by Perkins to reveal her potential as an important MOS scholar and practitioner; to explain some of the reasons for the neglect of Perkins, particularly by MOS scholars; and to interrogate the role of management history in the neglect of Perkins and her management and organizational insights.

This paper adopts a feminist post-structural lens through which the authors focus on major discourses (dominant interrelated practices and ideas) that influence how people come to define themselves, others and the character of a particular phenomenon (e.g. management history). To that end, the authors have undertaken Foucauldian discourse analysis, where they examine various sources that collectively work to present a dominant idea of a given set of practices (in this case, management and organization studies and associated histories of the field). In Foucauldian terms, these interrelated practices constitute an archive that consists of various selected materials (e.g. the Roosevelt Library and the Columbia University Oral History Collection) and, in this case, works on and by Francis Perkins. Thus, the authors analyzed various materials for their discursive value (viz. the extent to which they produced and reinforced a particular notion that excluded, neglected or ignored women from any privileged role in MOS and management history).

The findings are discursive, which means that the purpose is to disrupt current knowledge of MOS and management history by revealing how its practices as a field of study serve to leave certain people (i.e. Frances Perkins), influences (i.e. the impact of the “settlement ethos” on the New Deal), and social phenomena (i.e. the New Deal) out of account.

The objective is to ask for a rethink of the field definition of MOS and management history, to include broader levels of social endeavour (e.g. labour, social welfare and politics) and a range of hitherto neglected theorists, in particular Frances Perkins. Achievements in labour, industry and management of organizations, credited to the New Deal, are overlooked in MOS and management and organizational history. As Secretary of Labour, Perkins researched, lobbied and ushered in critical New Deal measures which transformed working environments for men, women and children with social welfare and labour policies that contributed to the understanding of managing and organizing in the modern world.

THE College of Librarianship is best considered on its own terms, as an institution unique in the history and present pattern of British library education, but its significance and probable future development can best be assessed if two external factors are kept in mind.

There exists a rich sociological literature dealing with secularisation. Such nineteenth‐century sociologists as Weber and Durkheim and twentieth‐century sociologists as Greeley, Bellah, Berger and Wilson have contributed. Berger refers to secularisation as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols”, while Wilson defines it as “the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance”. These definitions represent the thrust of academic thinking about secularisation. Generally, social scientists interpret secularisation as the decline of religiosity — a movement from faith to reason. They cite numerous indicators of the change: decline in such areas as church attendance, praying, use of religious rites and rituals, recruitment to the church bureaucracy, church construction. Often they suggest a kind of inevitability relating to urbanisation and industrialisation. The focus of the process involves man becoming less concerned with the spiritual and more concerned with the mundane. Eventually, the spiritual becomes irrelevant; the Age of Enlightenment triumphs over the Age of Faith.

This paper aims to investigate the direct and combined impacts of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and conservative orientation (CO) on perceived business performance (PBP) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under strategic-hybrid orientation (SHO) theory.

The data collected from the SABI NEO international database has 90 companies in 13 medium-to-high and high-tech activity sectors. The authors used partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the research model.

Business strategies match a SHO that includes both orientations, i.e. EO and CO. Moreover, as expected, the authors found evidence that each orientation produces performance-related sign-opposite significant impacts. Finally, the hypothesis regarding the positive synergistic effect of both orientations (EO and CO) on PBP was also supported.

One stems from the study’s cross-sectional nature, requiring a longitudinal approach. Another one resides in the absence of further examinations concerning multigroup analysis. Another restraint is the limitedness of data, focused on firms with med/high-tech intensity. For last, while the use of results in the initial stages of theory development can be beneficial, it is important to note that such results cannot be simply extrapolated or generalized to other industrial sectors without careful consideration of the contextual factors at play.

This study humbly endeavours to contribute to the finality of SMEs’ more steady and prosperous existence concerning the consciousness of the need to improve labour stability and wage fairness, conditions such as requiring a continuous commitment.

In this study, the authors aimed to investigate the impact of SHO on SMEs’ PBP. To this end, the authors simultaneously used two different strategic orientations (SOs): EO, which is widely studied in the literature, and CO, which has been less researched. The authors also examined their synergistic effects on PBP. The authors’ approach is based on Venkatraman’s strategic orientation of business enterprises model and the comparative paradigm of SOs.

This work develops a longitudinal analysis of perceived environmental uncertainty applying the Rasch methodology (1960). The environmental uncertainty is defined as an individual's perceived inability to predict the environment accurately (Milliken, 1987). The study focuses on analysing the state uncertainty from the perspective of the information and under the cognitive approach to the business reality.

Rasch measurement theory (1960) is applied, specifically the differential item functioning analysis based on the responses to a survey of SMEs.

The main sources of uncertainty for all the SMEs in the sample are two sectors in their general environment: economic and political-legal ones. These segments are the only ones in the environment that generate uncertainty that in 2016 is significantly different from that in 2019, being lower in the latter year.

This is a pioneering analysis of uncertainty both for its longitudinal nature and the methodology applied.