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In this paper the extent of multi-plant operation among leading firms in twelve industries and six nations is analyzed statistically to shed light on the first three questions. The much more difficult fourth question, on the advantages of multi-plant size, can be touched upon only peripherally. It is explored thoroughly in a complementary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study emphasizes the dynamism of the enterprise approach in manufacturing geography and the elusive quality of the milieu concept. It identifies the facilitating and restraining conditioning elements of the changing milieu of a large shipbuilding firm which, form 1950 to 1964, the period analyzed, comprised a major though rapidly declining part of the export base of Northern Ireland. The paper suggests that the local region provided a relatively permissive milieu for the firm, though it offered few opportunities for diversification. Competitive difficulties that arose during the period came mainly from the changing international milieu, especially movements in the composition of world demand and the appearance of Japanese suppliers. These difficulties were suggested in part to reflect the condition of the firm's internal resources, but they were increasingly assigned to the state of its national milieu. Also outlined are some of the firm's adoptive and adaptive features and the form of its adverse impact, including through multiplier effects, on the development of the local region.

The article focuses on issues related to the analysis of corporate financial data. The paper involves an analytical explanation of the causes underlying the increase during the years 1940-1943 in the assets of 150 corporations doing business in Texas. Accounting, when related to corporations, may be thought of generally in terms of the transactions affecting corporate assets, a record of those assets, their changes, sources, and dispositions. From a simple view, the corporate balance sheet may be conceived as a statement arraying on one side the book- keeping values of corporate assets, summarized and classified around common descriptive titles. The other side of the statement arrays the bookkeeping values of the equity interests in those assets. While such equities frequently may also reflect the results of transactions which have represented asset sources, to explain all increases in liabilities as resulting in asset increases requires a lengthy and very precise statement. The accounting concepts of terms used in statements of income and statements of financial condition must be carefully differentiated.

This paper describes how the items in G. G. Stern's Organizational Climate Index were reconceptualized according to the concepts appropriate to the business organization—the instrument has been. called the Business Organization Climate Index, or BOCI. The resulting 24 scales were submitted to item analysis and tested for split-half reliability on a sample of 120 junior managers from more than 100 different companies. Factor analysis of the scales revealed two main factors. Organizational Progressiveness and formative Control. The reconceptualization is compared with Stern's conceptualization of the items. The construct validity of BOCI is tested by comparing the "Climate" in three organizations contrasted in terms of their organization structure. The conclusion presents 12 possible types of data that can be collected about persons and their environments and indicates how the BOCI and Stern's measures fit into such a scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paper "De quelques questions relatives dl'assurance des risques de guerre," by Emile Audouin. It was formerly the practice, he says, for the same policy to cover both ordinary perils of the sea and war risks, for a single premium. But gradually a change was made, until in 1900 the principal marine insurance companies operating in Europe adopted the principle of a special policy for each kind of risk. The change makes necessary an exactness in the legal definition of ordinary and war risks not required before. If the insured has to cover the two in different companies, it is important for him to see that there are no gaps to leave him without protection, as will happen if the war risk contract is held not to cover a loss, which the law governing the ordinary risk contract would not consider the result of an ordinary peril.