Contrasting Institutional and Performance Accounts of Environmental Management Systems: Three Case Studies in the UK Water & Sewerage Industry*

abstract This paper presents results from a longitudinal, qualitative study into the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS) in three companies in the UK water & sewerage industry. Based on institutional theory and the literature on EMS, four factors related to the adoption of EMS are identified: external and internal institutional forces, environmental performance issues, and economic performance issues. While previous literature has often assumed a balance of performance and institutional factors or a preponderance of performance factors, the results of this study indicate that institutional forces are the predominant drivers. The results further indicate that environmental performance issues become less important over time, whereas institutional drivers and economic performance rationales increase in importance over time. While conforming to institutional pressures can result in improved economic performance of a company, adoption of environmental management systems mostly on the basis of institutional and economic factors has wider repercussions for the state of corporate environmental management and progress towards greater ecological sustainability of business.     

Utilizing e-business technologies in supply chains: The impact of firm characteristics and teams

This paper presents findings from an exploratory study that analyzes the drivers and outcomes of e-business technology use in the supply chain. Using a combination of case studies and survey data from a diverse sample of industries, the research examines how industry context, firm characteristics and firm-level strategic resources, such as purchasing teams, influence the exploitation of e-business technologies and the relationship between e-business technology use and firm performance. Based on a synthesis of related literatures from transaction cost economics and the relational view of the supply chain, a two-dimensional framework for e-business technology is proposed with transactional and relational dimensions. However, empirical analysis indicated that transactional technologies can be further subdivided into two factors: dyadic cooperation and price determination. Significant differences were found between the two dimensions in terms of their overall levels of adoption, with dyadic coordination being the most widely adopted. In addition, the development of strategic resources expanded, in particular internal and customer teams, the use of e-business technologies expanded. Purchasing organizational structure and firm size also were positively related to the adoption of transactional e-business technologies. Finally, of particular importance to practitioners, e-business technologies targeted at reducing dyadic coordination costs lead to improved financial performance.     

从客货运的选择分析合资铁路社会责任与企业绩效关系

在分析2009年《铁道部统计公告》中铁路客运和货运量数据的基础上,结合利益相关者理论,运用文献综述、数据研究的方法,分析合资铁路公司将经营重点放于货运的原因和合资铁路公司社会责任与社会绩效的关系,得出在一定范围内合资铁路公司履行社会责任有利于公司绩效的增长,超出这个范围则不利于公司绩效的增长;经营客运有使企业绩效更快增长的潜力的结论。最后,结合当前合资铁路的现状,提出合资铁路公司要结合自身情况,从客运和货运2个方面履行社会责任的建议。     

从客货运的选择分析合资铁路社会责任与企业绩效关系

在分析2009年《铁道部统计公告》中铁路客运和货运量数据的基础上,结合利益相关者理论,运用文献综述、数据研究的方法,分析合资铁路公司将经营重点放于货运的原因和合资铁路公司社会责任与社会绩效的关系,得出在一定范围内合资铁路公司履行社会责任有利于公司绩效的增长,超出这个范围则不利于公司绩效的增长;经营客运有使企业绩效更快增长的潜力的结论。最后,结合当前合资铁路的现状,提出合资铁路公司要结合自身情况,从客运和货运2个方面履行社会责任的建议。     

上市公司IPO业绩实证分析——基于广西上市公司的思考

我国上市公司利用证券市场进行首次公开发行股权融资（Initial public offering,以下简称IPO）已经成为一种普遍现象,但上市公司往往存在着募资效率不高、资金闲置或滥用等问题。文章以广西上市公司为样本,运用会计指标法对其IPO绩效进行实证分析;运用主成分分析法对广西上市公司的绩效进行整体检验,探讨上市公司IPO后经营业绩变化的趋势和成因,并就提高广西上市公司IPO后的经营业绩提出了相关的政策性建议。     

Institutionalizing technoscience: Post-genomic technologies and the case of systems biology

Somewhat counter-intuitively, new drug development productivity has fallen at major pharmaceutical companies during the period of swift growth in scientific know-how during the last two decades. After substantial hype, genomics has been complemented by post-genomic technologies serving as the new hope for the future in terms of producing new therapies. Such post-genomic technologies, including systems biology and other biocomputational and bioinformatics approaches, are embedded in institutional logics both drawing on shared or idiosyncratic enactments of historical conditions and expectations for the future. This paper reports on a study based on interviews with scientists at a major pharmaceutical company, three biotechnology firms, and two academic research universities, suggesting that technoscientific approaches and frameworks are embedded in rhetoric advancing institutional logics constituting the organizing principles that shape the behavior of the actors in a field. Such rhetoric consists of narratives combining accounts of practices and their merits and shortcomings, beliefs, professional ideologies, and historical accomplishments.     

工程监理公司向项目管理公司转化策略研究

总结了国内工程监理公司开展项目管理工作存在的主要问题,分析了工程监理公司开展项目管理工作具备的主要优势。并以此为依据,给工程监理公司向项目管理公司转化提出了一些可借鉴、可操作的策略和建议。     

工程监理公司向项目管理公司转化策略研究

总结了国内工程监理公司开展项目管理工作存在的主要问题，分析了工程监理公司开展项目管理工作具备的主要优势。并以此为依据，给工程监理公司向项目管理公司转化提出了一些可借鉴、可操作的策略和建议。     

Global managers: no longer men alone

The reasons companies give for choosing to include women along with their male managers, how they expect women to contribute once hired, and the levels at which women managers are invited to contribute have been changing rapidly, but subtly, over the last fifty years. Companies' expectations have varied depending on their assumptions about the value to the company of diversity, the value to the company of men's and women's unique contributions, and to belief, or lack thereof, of the possibility of positive synergies. This article explores these issues in the context of global management.     

Management turnover expectations: a variable to explain company readiness to engage in continuous management training

What makes companies give their support to Continuous Management Training (CMT) and why, on occasion, do they block its progress? If a company thinks its managers might leave in the near future, would there be reasons for it to provide continuous training of these professionals? Do companies interpret all likely resignations in the same way? We attempt to provide an answer to these questions, by analysing the behaviour of companies' vis-à-vis continuous management training in terms of their expectations of the appropriability of the benefits that stem from such training. Appropriability is in turn assessed with regard to firms' expectations that their managers will leave their organisation without it having had the chance to recover the outlay invested in training. The analysis of business behaviour also demands an understanding of how these turnover expectations are produced and, more specifically, of the variables on which turnover expectations depend or might depend. The empirical study we carried out with over 300 Spanish companies revealed that company projections for voluntary turnover of management employees are positively connected with earlier experiences of turnover, with markets prone to change, and with business risk situations, and negatively associated with developed social management networks, satisfied managers and their degree of specificity in relation to the company. Nevertheless, no significant relationship was observed between expected turnover and the intensity of continuous management training. In general, companies make their management training investment decisions independently of the overall turnover expectations they might have. Different causes might exist for this absence of a relationship, centred in particular on the need for management training and an associated sense of urgency, which takes precedence over the risk of not recovering the investment when the business decision is taken, and on the nature of the management turnover perceived by the company, which is more complex than a strictly economic one.     

The value of implementing enterprise risk management: Evidence from Taiwan’s financial industry

The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether companies in Taiwan’s financial industry benefit from enterprise risk management (ERM) adoption and how much value ERM activity creates. Our result indicates that a financial company implementing ERM benefits by adding 5.37% value compared to non-users. ERM adoption also significantly helps a company improve its revenue and cost efficiencies by 9.22% and 16.34%, respectively. Subsector analysis of the financial industry shows that banks and property/liability (P/L) insurers adopting ERM generate more benefits in cost savings and revenue efficiency.     

Enhancing corporate sustainable development: Proactive environmental strategy,stakeholder pressure and the moderating effect of firm size

The article evaluates the influence of pressure of 10 distinct types of stakeholders on the adoption of environmental strategies, with the special focus on the proactive environmental strategy (PES). The moderation effect of the company size on this relationship is investigated in depth. The existence of the relationship between stakeholder pressure and environmental strategies has been explored by numerous studies. The study adds significantly to this ongoing discussion as the moderation effect of the company size was explored scarcely so far in the literature. The results from the multinomial logistic regression models confirmed almost unanimously the effect of stakeholder pressure and the presence of the moderation. Positive, but nonlinear, direct and moderated effect of pressures of regulators, competitors, clients, NGOs, media, shareholders and employees on PES was discovered. In case of suppliers, consumers and top management, the pressure–PES relation was more complex. Also, large companies seem to be more resilient to pressures than the smaller ones when adopting PES.     

Extending Institutional Analysis through Theoretical Triangulation: Regulation and Activity-Based Costing in Portuguese Telecommunications

Abstract

This paper examines why a Portuguese telecommunications company – Marconi – adopted activity-based costing (ABC). The focus lies in new institutional sociology (NIS), particularly the institutional change model of Dillard et al. (Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 17(4), pp. 506–542, 2004), supplemented by theoretical triangulation involving economic, labour process and actor network theories to enrich observations and extend theory. Why Marconi adopted ABC lay in a complex, interrelated chain of institutions, including the parent company, management consultants, national and European Union regulators, financial markets and consumer associations during market liberalization. ABC was a means and symbol of improved competitiveness and efficiency but its diffusion and adoption also involved mimetic, coercive and normative factors. In regulated environments external legitimacy and efficiency were intertwined and demonstrating efficiency using accounting symbols is problematic. The results confirm criticisms of early NIS research for dichotomizing economic and institutional pressures, assuming private organizations are exempt from institutional pressures and neglecting internal organizational dynamics. The Dillard et al. model accommodated many features of institutionalization but needed extension to incorporate the public interest, the role of boundary spanners across social levels and how intra-organizational factors and properties of the technology derived following translation and praxis play a part.     

Capital market reactions to the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999

The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), removed most of the remaining barriers between financial companies. Stock market reactions to the passage of GLBA vary across financial sectors and company size. Specifically, we find negative returns for foreign banks, thrifts and finance companies; insignificant returns for banks; and positive returns for investment banks and insurance companies. Additionally, larger nondepository firms have higher returns. The return variation reflects resolution of uncertainty surrounding the final provisions of GLBA, competitive pressures, and expectations of future business combinations. Potential gains from business combinations may arise from economies of scope, market power, and/or from an implicit extension of government guarantees to banking affiliates.     

会计稳健性、投资效率与企业价值

以新会计准则和实施股权分置改革后的2007年—2009年沪深证券交易所上市的A股上市公司为样本,实证研究了会计稳健性对投资效率及企业价值的影响。研究结果表明,会计稳健性对投资效率的影响具有两面性,一方面会计稳健性在企业投资过度时能及时遏制企业投资规模,改善投资效率;另一方面会计稳健性会加剧企业投资不足程度,恶化投资效率。会计稳健性对投资效率的这种正反作用同样影响企业价值,检验后发现,在过度投资组,会计稳健性通过改善投资效率提高了企业价值;在投资不足组,会计稳健性通过恶化投资效率降低了企业价值。     

我国创业板上市公司成长性评价分析

科学地评价创业板上市公司的成长性是我国创业板市场健康发展的重要前提,通过理论分析构建了创业板上市公司成长性评价指标体系,并以在我国创业板上市的183家公司为样本,采用因子分析模型进行实证分析.研究结果表明:公司的风险控制能力、盈利能力、成长速度、经营效率和创新能力是创业板上市公司成长性的主要体现.     

The iron cage exposed: Institutional pressures and heterogeneity across the healthcare supply chain

The healthcare industry has been known to operate in a strong institutional environment (i.e. government regulations), and the implementation of inter-organizational systems (IOS) has followed an institutional process. Extending this perspective across different tiers in the healthcare supply chain, we investigate how organizations in different tiers in the supply chain (i.e. hospitals, distributors and manufacturers) respond to institutional pressures when implementing IOS. How institutional dynamics unfold across multiple tiers of a supply chain is an uncharted area of research, and we take the theory-building case study approach using data collected from ten organizations. Because organizations are embedded in their respective tiers, our within-tier analyses are equivalent to cross-organization analyses. In this regard, the cross-case analyses occur at two different levels: at each tier level (i.e. across multiple hospitals, multiple distributors and multiple manufacturers) and across the supply chain (i.e. across all three tiers). The study shows how different institutional pressures such as coercive, mimetic, and normative manifest across the tiers. It also demonstrates how a differential mix of endogenous and institutional pressures lead to mixed organizational responses across the tiers. The propositions developed from the study enrich institutional theory arguments within the information systems and supply chain management disciplines. They highlight how the IOS implementation dynamics within and across different tiers in a supply chain result in heterogeneous rather than isomorphic consequences, thereby exposing the “iron cage” of institutionalization.     

提升我国油田企业科技投入效率创新策略研究

追求效益是企业永恒的主题,提高科技投入效率会增加企业的生产效率和经济利益,因此,企业必须高度重视科技投入效率。分析我国油田企业科技投入效率现行状况,从科技投入效率的角度对低效率的原因以及对企业的影响进行了全面的分析。指出目前我国油田企业科技投入效率存在诸多问题,并提出发展策略旨在提高我国油田企业科技投入效率,进而提高我国油田企业经济效益。     

上市公司资本结构分析及其优化选择

本文首先分析了我国上市公司资本结构和融资行为,得出了我国上市公司资产负债率偏低,上市公司普遍存在股权融资偏好的结论,进而提出调整和优化上市公司资本结构的定量和定性方法。     

基于虚拟价值链的电子商务模式研究

电子商务模式直接、具体地体现了电子商务的本质。通过对电子商务模式的研究,我们总结出为企业创造价值是电子商务模式的根本所在,这也是其存在与发展的核心。对电子商务模式的研究有不同的侧重点,论文结合虚拟价值链理论对电子商务模式进行分类与分析探讨,并提出电子商务模式的创新及发展趋势。