| The Effects of Ownership and Resources on Employment Externalization Among Small Enterprises in Russia |
| | Russell, Raymond | U. of California, Riverside | raymond.russell@ucr.edu | (909)-787-5843 |
| | Hanneman, Robert | U. of California, Riverside | robert.hanneman@ucr.edu | (909)-787-3638 |
| |
This paper examines the use of part-time employees and independent contractors
among the 856,774 small enterprises in Russia in the first half of 1995, sorted into 108
combinations of industry and ownership. Independent contracting is especially common in the
construction industry in Russia as in the U.S. (Davis-Blake and Uzzi, 1993), but the use of
secondary employment in Russian agriculture is unusually low. As expected, private
enterprises make significantly greater use of both part-time employees and independent
contractors than enterprises that are owned by the central government, even after differences
among ownership sectors in the size of enterprises and their distribution by industry have
been controlled. Enterprises that are owned by municipal governments make even less use of
contingent employees than enterprises owned by the central government, while enterprises
with mixed or nonprofit ownership fall between the state-owned and private sectors by these
measures. The responses of both forms of secondary employment to resources are consistent
with Pfeffer and Baron's (1988) interpretation of employment externalization, in that both
part-time employment and independent contracting are sensitive to measures of the supply and
price of labor and of the profitability of its use.
|
| | Keywords: part-time employees; independent contractors; Russian small enterprises |
| Competition as a Reform Strategy in Public Management |
| | Steane, Peter David | Macquarie U. | PETER.STEANE@MQ.EDU.AU | 61 2 9850 9136 |
| | Walker, Derek H. | Macquarie U. | WALKER@RMIT.EDU.AU | 61 3 9660 2804 |
| | Public sector regimes in Australia are reforming their operations to enhance effectiveness and efficiency. Competition and contracts are presented as mechanisms facilitating such reform in areas such as costs, productivity and quality. This paper argues that short-term contractual arrangements such as compulsory tendering do not live up to such reformist expectations. As such unresolved questions preclude any final judgment about the benefits claimed for contracts and tendering in public management. An alternative view to reform based largely upon transaction costs, lauds the importance of networks in managing interdependency between organisations (Hahn 1984:323; Fukuyama 1995; Limerick and Cunnington 1993; Nahapiet and Ghosal 1998). This goes beyond simple strategic positioning to the formation of social capital that possesses long-term benefits for organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, business practice suggests that success is linked to an ability to be flexible in environments noted for change more than constancy. However, the preference given to competitive compulsory tendering (CCT) and to competitive tendering and contracting (CTC) by state and federal governments in Australia limits the growth of networks at community levels. Public policy developments in the process of micro-economic reform as well as CCT and CTC are critically analysed in this paper in terms of their impact on the procurement process. |
| | Keywords: Public management; Competition; Australia |
| Transforming Stakeholder Value Creation: A Co-production Approach |
| | Rouse, Michael J. | De Montfort U. | mjrouse@btinternet.com | 1664 464 036 |
| | Öztel, Hülya | De Montfort U. | hocor@dmu.ac.uk | 116 250 6438 |
| | Public sector organisations are being pressured to model themselves after successful, private sector organisations in order to generate enhanced quality services that are efficient, effective and responsive. The concept of stakeholder co-production is, we argue, particularly promising for transforming value creation processes, dealing with complexity, enhancing organisational and stakeholder satisfaction and effectiveness, and for heightening innovation and organisational learning. In this paper we examine co-production as a key strategic element for public sector organisations, what co-production means in this organisational context, its relationship to value creation and stakeholder responsiveness, and the benefits public sector organisations and stakeholder groups can expect from this strategic perspective on value creation and service delivery. Based on our theoretically grounded discussion, we explore future directions for co-production and value creation in a public sector context. |
| | Keywords: Value Creation; Stakeholders; Co-production |