Linking performance-related pay to a Business School's mission and objectives

This paper first analyses the Performance Related Pay (PRP) schemes developed from 1992/3 to 2002/3 in a large Business School in England and then the School’s mission and strategic objectives in that period. The PRP schemes changed to include more specific performance indicators and these were increasingly linked to the objectives. The School’s resources allocated to PRP increased from £44,000 in 1992/93 to £355,000 in 2002/3 and from 1.08% in 1995/96 to 2.37% of the School’s income in 2002/3. As well as examining the changing strategic objectives and PRP schemes, the paper charts the development of the School’s reputation and resources and the role which staff motivation via PRP played at different stages. The paper concludes that the PRP scheme was at its most effective when it was clearly linked with the School’s strategic objectives, but that the relationship between objectives and motivation may be more complex than apparent from this study. Although the PRP scheme under consideration also applies to academic related staff, this paper concentrates on the effect on academic staff.

International business research and risky investments, an analysis of FDI in conflict zones

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of a firm's strategy to invest in a conflict location. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been done before. We examine this using a standard model of international business, overlaid with the fundamental approach to corporate social responsibility. We start with the population of multinationals who have chosen to invest in low income countries with weak institutions. We then split this sample in order to distinguish between firms that have invested in conflict regions compared to those that have not. Our analysis then proceeds to explain the decision of those firms to invest in conflict locations using a simple Probit model. We find that countries with weaker institutions and less concern about corporate social responsibility (CSR) are more likely to invest in conflict regions. Finally, firms with more concentrated ownership are more likely to invest in such locations. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.