The entrepreneur is shorthand for uncertainty, imperfect information, and the unknown. He operates in the shadowy world of intuition, ignorance, and disequilibrium. As a functional agent, he is completely outside the scope of modern orthodox economic analysis because entrepreneurial issues are irrelevant and, more important, inadmissible, in the deterministic, tightly interlocking theoretical environment that is modern microeconomic theory (Barreto 1989, p. 137).

This paper examines whether the employment outcomes of Australian labour market programme participants vary according to whether they receive housing assistance. This issue attracted attention when a series of US studies showed that clients of welfare-to-work programmes are more likely to achieve positive employment outcomes if housing assistance is also received. This paper tracks the employment outcomes of labour market programme participants utilising six waves of data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) database. Findings from a random effects model suggest that housing assistance status has little impact (either negative or positive) on employment outcomes. Differences in the institutional arrangements governing access to housing assistance could be responsible for the absence of any effect in Australia.

This paper explores the early discussion of external economies in the work of Alfred Marshall and Arthur Pigou. Marshall emphasized external economies as a positive aspect of the market process. Pigou's interpretation of externalities has become the standard public finance argument on the existence of market failure, and provides the rationale for proposed policy solutions. An examination of the differences between the two perspectives is subsequently used as the base for a discussion of the modern analysis of research and development, and of the difficulties inherent in the standard Pigovian view. A final substantive section of the paper reconsiders the Marshallian perspective, identifying recent contributions to economic theory that have begun a return to Marshall's original interpretation. The conclusion considers the significance of this Marshallian tradition for industrial policy.

In this paper a sophisticated conception of individuality is developed that extends beyond simple heterogeneity and is consistent with the approach of institutional economics. Studies of human biological and psychological development are used to illustrate the foundations of human individuality and the impact of the social environment on individual development. The link between the social environment and ongoing agential properties is established through the role of habits, which provide some continuity to individual personalities over time and assist them in navigating the social context they inhabit. Reflexivity is established via an agency-structure framework that endows individuals a changeable self-concept and an ability to interpret their relationship to the social context. The coordination of different individuals is explained not simply through reference to institutional structure, but also through the agent-level properties of shared habits. While reducing differences between individuals to one of degrees, shared habits are shown to be particularly important in the context of agent-sensitive institutions. Finally, the potential for different institutional experiences to impact the reflexivity of individuals is explored.

Purpose This research aims to examines the impact of micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on employee engagement within the public accounting firm setting. Design/methodology/approach This research uses a quantitative approach with a survey instrument as the data collection tool. A total of 269 complete responses were collected from employees working in the public accounting firms. Micro-level CSR practices were analysed with a hierarchical component model (HCM) in partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the influence of such practices on employee engagement. A predictive performance metric was applied to assess the out-of-sample prediction. Findings This study uncovers a positive and significant relationship between micro-level CSR practices and employee engagement. Furthermore, the PLSpredict results indicate that the current model possesses high predictive power with all indicators in the PLS-SEM analysis demonstrating lower root mean squared error (RMSE) values compared to the naïve linear regression model benchmark. Research limitations/implications While the methods applied in this analysis are at the frontier of CSR research, the present study has not explored the heterogeneity amongst groups of respondents and size of accounting firms. Sampling weight adjustment for the purposes of representativeness was not used in the current research. These could be the subject of future work in this area. Practical implications These research findings shed light on the positive manifestation effect of micro-level CSR practices at firm level as well as individual level. Through micro-level CSR practices, firms can reap the benefits of enhanced employee engagement, which leads to productive workforce while also facilitating increased employees’ intrinsic job satisfaction. Social implications Micro-level CSR practices address the needs of the millennium workforce, whereby employees are no longer solely focussed on pay checks as their compensation. Employees are seeking out employers whose CSR practices appeal to their social conscience. Micro-level CSR practices meet the needs of the contemporary workforce yet enable companies to attract and retain skilled employees. Originality/value The originality of this research is attributed to the vigorous statistical analysis by the use of HCMs and PLSpredict in PLS-SEM context for the assessment of predictive performance. Also, micro-level CSR practices are conceptualised in HCM for parsimonious purpose.