The Ownership School vs. the Management School of State Enterprise Reform: Evidence from China

There are two schools of thoughts on the important issue of reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We call them the ownership school and the management school. The ownership school argues that the key to the reform is to diversify SOEs' ownership, including privatization, in order to eliminate government control of SOEs. The management school emphasizes the need to improve government's management of SOEs by, for example, granting SOE employees autonomy and profit incentives. Utilizing a data set of 680 SOEs in China, covering the period of 1980 to 1994, we test the relative effectiveness of these two kinds of reform measures. This is possible due to the fact that reform measures based on each of these two schools of thoughts were practised in China. Our results yield strong support for the ownership school while leaving very mixed evidence for the management school. Moreover, we find that the impact of ownership diversification was of the same order of magnitude on the economic performance of state enterprises as that of enhancing product market competition.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39819/3/wp435.pd

Invariance of density correlations with charge density in polyelectrolyte solutions

We present a theory for the equilibrium structure of polyelectrolyte solutions. The main element is a simple, new optimization scheme that allows theories such as the random phase approximation (RPA) to handle the harsh repulsive forces present in such systems. Comparison is made with data from recent neutron scattering experiments of randomly charged, hydrophilic polymers in salt-free, semi-dilute solution at various charge densities. Models with varying degrees of realism are examined. The usual explanation of the invariance observed at high charge density has been counterion condensation. However, when polymer-polymer correlations are treated properly, we find that modeling polymer-counterion correlations at the level of Debye-Huckel theory is sufficient.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Measuring the associations between collaborative working and project performance

There is evidence that higher degrees of collaborative working can produce more successful project performance, but there is only limited research to systematically examine the specific associations between collaborative working and project performance. In particular, there is a lack of exploration of appropriate approaches to test these associations. In order to test these associations in an appropriate approach, the concepts of collaborative working and project performance in this research are transformed into a measurable form in terms of the philosophy of AHP (analytic hierarchy process). In the process of measurement design for collaborative working and project performance, a Likert Scale is adopted. After refining the final measures through unidimensionality and reliability testing, as a part of PhD study, this paper presents the results of the association exploration between collaborative working and project performance. The produced conclusion is strongly supporting that there is a strong positive linear relationship between collaborative working and project performance

Exploring the attributes of collaborative working in construction industry

Due to the increased level of uncertainty of construction market and the variety of building functions, the practitioners in construction need work together more closely, which means a higher degree of collaborative working is often necessary. There is evidence that higher degree of collaborative working can produce more successful projects, but there has been only limited research to examine the definition of collaborative working. The lack of understanding of collaborative working resulted in confusion of application of more collaborative approaches e.g. partnering or alliancing. The work presented here is part of an ongoing PhD study which aims to explore the impact of collaborative working on construction project performance. The aim of this paper is to identify a spectrum of attributes of collaborative working, which will facilitate the understanding what collaborative working is, why collaborative working is needed and how to work together. In order to identify those attributes of collaborative working, the method of ‘identification test’ will be adopted, which is based on the recent related literature