Restructuring of Human Resource Management In The U.S.: Strategic Diversity

Change is endemic in the U. S. economy and in worker-management relations. This change can be examined from the perspective of increasing centralization in which public policy dictates that corporations and the state act in concert, to a decentralized market system in which assets are constantly being reconfigured to more productive uses. This paper looks at the evolution of industrial relations and personnel administration to human resource management within this context of continual change through centralized versus decentralized perspectives. Major shifts in HR policies in American companies are described. Within these major shifts, a wide diversity of policy options for workermanagement relations exist. A strategic-contingency model may provide a unifying framework to assist decision makers in choosing among these policy options

The FDI-political Risk Nexus: Some New Insights

Most of the existing literature in the FDI-political risk nexus has focused on the creation of economic models to assess foreign investment decisions in the presence of political risk. This is entirely legitimate and valuable as foreign investors are interested in assessing the political risk climate of their investment location. However, not much research has been done to assess how FDI could affect political risk. Globalization implies an increasing amount of cross-border investment and trade flows. For some countries, FDI is a huge component of their GDP. Since FDI is a composite bundle of capital stock, knowledge and technology (Balasubramanyam et al, 1996) and represents “International investment made with the objective of obtaining a lasting interest, by a resident entity in one economy in an enterprise resident in another economy” (OECD, 2000), we postulate that because of this stakeholder commitment, FDI could affect a country’s political risk level. The management literature has it that political risk measures the stability of individual countries based on factors grounded in government, society, security, and the economy (Bremmer, 2005). We expand on this notion to investigate whether, and if so, how FDI affects political risk? We believe that the contribution of our study is specifically in examining this reverse relationship running from FDI to political risk. In this preliminary paper we test this hypothesis for a sample of thirty countries in various stages of economic development and regime types over the 1984-2012 period. Preliminary results indicate that countries with increased FDI inflows demonstrate decreased levels of political risk. Although there are variations across countries, country groups that are considered developed and full democracies tend to exhibit the lowest levels of political risk. Our ongoing research is examining a sample of 140 countries using both time series and panel data techniques

Blockchain, Leadership And Management: Business AS Usual Or Radical Disruption?

The Internet provided the world with interconnection. However, it did not provide it with trust. Trust is lacking everywhere in our society and is the reason for the existence of powerful intermediaries aggregating power. Trust is what prevents the digital world to take over. This has consequences for organisations: they are inefficient because time, energy, money and passion are wasted on verifying everything happens as decided. Managers play the role of intermediaries in such case: they connect experts with each others and instruct them of what to do. As a result, in our expert society, people's engagement is low because no one is there to inspire and empower them. In other words, our society faces an unprecedented lack of leadership. Provided all those shortcomings, the study imagines the potential repercussions, especially in the context of management, of implementing a blockchain infrastructure in any type of organisation. Indeed, the blockchain technology seems to be able to remedy to those issues, for this distributed and immutable ledger provides security, decentralisation and transparency. In the context of a blockchain economy, the findings show that value creation will be rearranged, with experts directly collaborating with each others, and hierarchy being eliminated. This could, in turn, render managers obsolete, as a blockchain infrastructure will automate most of the tasks. As a result, only a strong, action-oriented, leadership would maintain the organisation together. This leadership-in-action would consist in igniting people to take action; coach members of the organisations so that their contribution makes sense in the greater context of life

Building social and community cohesion: the role of social enterprises in facilitating settlement experiences for immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds

Australia is a nation of immigrants. Immigration brings much needed skills and labour to Australia. It helps creating a strong economy, drives prosperity and builds Australia’s future. Diverse cultural expression enriches all Australians and makes the multicultural nation more vibrant and creative. Immigrants, including refugees, from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) are vulnerable as they often have higher unemployment rates or are at an earnings disadvantage that may lead to disaffection and community unrest in the long run. Government agencies are facing complicated issues surrounding the design and implementation of strategies that facilitate the settlement of new arrivals in Australia. This paper critically reviews the literature and argues that social enterprises and social entrepreneurship can help to facilitate life satisfaction and self-reliance for NESB immigrants in Australia. In addition, the paper provides a better understanding of what research method may best suit to examine the role of social enterprises in NESB immigrant settlement experiences and how social enterprises may help to integrate the immigrants into culturally diverse socially cohesive nation. Discussion of benefits of the proposed research method will also be provided

On the Property Rights System of the State Enterprises in China

Detailed analysis of spinal deformity is important within orthopaedic healthcare, in particular for assessment of idiopathic scoliosis. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing an image analysis method, capable of providing a full three-dimensional spine characterization. The proposed method is based on the registration of a highly detailed spine model to image data from computed tomography. The registration process provides an accurate segmentation of each individual vertebra and the ability to derive various measures describing the spinal deformity. The derived measures are estimated from landmarks attached to the spine model and transferred to the patient data according to the registration result. Evaluation of the method provides an average point-to-surface error of 0.9 mm ± 0.9 (comparing segmentations), and an average target registration error of 2.3 mm ± 1.7 (comparing landmarks). Comparing automatic and manual measurements of axial vertebral rotation provides a mean absolute difference of 2.5° ± 1.8, which is on a par with other computerized methods for assessing axial vertebral rotation. A significant advantage of our method, compared to other computerized methods for rotational measurements, is that it does not rely on vertebral symmetry for computing the rotational measures. The proposed method is fully automatic and computationally efficient, only requiring three to four minutes to process an entire image volume covering vertebrae L5 to T1. Given the use of landmarks, the method can be readily adapted to estimate other measures describing a spinal deformity by changing the set of employed landmarks. In addition, the method has the potential to be utilized for accurate segmentations of the vertebrae in routine computed tomography examinations, given the relatively low point-to-surface error

Adaptation of domestic state governance to international governance models

The purpose of the article is to provide the evolving international trends of modern management models and authorial vision of model of state governance system in Ukraine, its subsystems, in particular, the system of provision of administrative services that is appropriate for the contemporary times. Methodology. On the basis of scientific and theoretical approaches to the definitions of terms “state governance” and “public governance”, there was an explanation of considerable difference between them and, taking into consideration, the mentality of Ukrainian society and peculiar weak side in self-organization, the authors offered to form authorial model of governance on the basis of historically traditional for Ukraine model of state governance and to add some elements of management concepts that proved their significance, efficiency and priority in practice. Results. The authors emphasized the following two prevailing modern management models in the international practice: “new state management” and “good governance”. The first concept offered for consideration served as a basis for the semantic content of state activity that reflects more the state of administrative reformation. Practical meaning. A practical introduction of management to the domestic model of governance creates the range of contradictions that do not allow implementing herein concept. Pursuant to authors, the second one allows in considerable measure to reform state governance, considering historically developed peculiarities of this model. Moreover, the involvement of concept herein into introduction of informational and communicational technologies in the process of governance eliminates the necessity of power decentralization, it allows to form real net structure and, at the same, to keep vertical power structure, to involve citizens for formation and taking of management decisions, to form electronic communicational channel of feedback, to provide citizens with electronic administrative services. All indicated advantages of the concept certify about the necessity to reform state governance exactly in this field. Meaning/ Distinction. This article raises a question about the significance of formation and sequence of state policy in Ukraine aimed at creating an information-oriented society, space, as well as informational and technological infrastructure

Net structure of subject-to-subject relations in the management of the system of administrative services provision

The purpose of the work is to form the net structure of management of the system of administrative services provision on the basis of implementation of subject-to-subject interactions between state sector and civil society. Methodology. The methodology basis for the investigation is the abstract-logical analysis of theoretical and methodological backgrounds for management of relations and interactions. For the theoretical generalization and formation of net structure, there are used scientific recommendations of Ukrainian scientists regarding the necessity to implement subject-to-subject relations in the system of administrative services provision. Results. The investigations allowed confirming that the hierarchical structure of the state governance system does not give an opportunity to implement equal interaction between a subject of provision and a subject of an appeal as these relations have one – way communication and the feedback channel has a formal character. Moreover, the civil society is not considered by state sector to be a source of methods and ways to develop the system of state governance, in particular, the management system of administrative services provision. Practical meaning. The net structure of management will allow implementing the subject-subject relations in the system, under which the actions of the subject of provision – that means state sector – will be directed to the realization of rights and interests of the subjects of appeal. In their turn, apart from the performance of all legislative responsibilities that they should perform, they can carry out activities directed to the development of management activity in the system of administrative services provision and the whole system of state governance as an integral system of management. Meaning/Distinction. The provided model of the net structure will allow involving citizens in the processes of state governance and increasing the impact of the civil sector during the making of state and management decisions and, as a result, to confirm subject-to-subject positions in the relations