Business Commons^™

Further Sufficient Conditions For An Inverse Relationship Between Productivity And Employment, Kong Wing, Clement Chow, Kit Pong Wong

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

Extant empirical studies document that productivity gaine due to technological progress often lead to reductions in employment. This paper rationalizes the stated empirical finding within the context of the theory of the competitive firm under price uncertainty. We show that technological progress affects employment adversely if the firm’s coefficient of relative risk aversion is no less than unity and its production technology exhibits non-decreasing returns to scale. On the other hand, technological progress unambiguously increases output if the firm’s preference is non-increasing absolute risk aversion.

集體協議的法律效力 = The Enforceability Of Collective Agreements, Kwok Keung Chow

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

勞工處處理涉及集體談判的工潮，一般認定集體協議對簽約雙方並無法律效力。本文主要從普通法的角度，環繞英國關於集體協議的法律效力援引法庭案例進行分析，發現勞工處的取態先入為主，在相關法律觀點上的闡釋可能有誤，令筆者懷疑該處原只具有勞工行政功能的部門，卻作出否定集體協議可能具有代表會員的法律效力的解釋。

因此，文中提出以下的建議：第一，勞工處在處理相關的工潮時不宜過早否定集體協議可能具有的約束力；第二，勞資雙方在集體協議內應引入明示的摻合條款，進一步賦與集體協議合約性的效力；第三，作為界定法律效力的緩衝方法，是由官方負責對集體協約進行登記，可起到見證協約存在的作用，促成勞資雙方接受的意願。

Consumption Patterns Of Entrepreneurs In The People's Republic Of China, Kong Wing, Clement Chow, Ka Yiu, Michael Fung, Hang Yue Ngo

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978 in the People's Republic of China, entrepreneurs have emerged as a new consumer group. With rising income and high consumption power, entrepreneurs have become major consumers for expensive goods and services. However, little research has been carried out to understand their consumption decisions. In this paper, we study the consumption patterns of small business .owners, getihu, in China by using a set of large-scale, nation-wide survey data. Their consumption is postulated to be affected by (1) risk factors which include failure risk and financial (leverage) risk, (2) household variables such as the …

Organisational Learning Through International Assignment In Japanese Overseas Companies, Mei Ling, May Wong

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

Existing literature on expatriate managers tends to focus on their adjustment from the point of view of individual well-being. This paper, in pointing out that international assignments are an opportunity to internationalise the company through a learning process, has a different emphasis. Japanese companies tend to employ many Japanese expatriate managers in overseas locations. The development of cross-cultural adaptation among expatriate Japanese managers in two retail subsidiary companies in Hong Kong was studied. In both companies, the expatriates learned reactively rather than proactively, involving either zero or single-loop organisational learning ensued for the parent company. The reactive learning approach stemmed …