Why are social network transactions important? Evidence based on the concentration of key suppliers and customers in China

Based on a new institutional economy framework, this study examines the formation and economic consequences of social networks (guanxi) from the perspective of key suppliers and customers in China. Results show that commercial activities which depend on networks are determined by the institutional environment. For example, companies that have lower accumulated social capital (less trust among people) and are subject to more government invention depend more on social network transactions than on the market. In addition, this study shows that network transactions can provide benefits to firms, especially in weak institutional environments. Networks can reduce transaction costs by reducing information asymmetry, i.e., increased network dependence is associated with lower credit costs and lower advertising and sales costs. Networks can also reduce the effect of industry shocks, especially negative shocks, by creating a bonding mechanism. This study contributes to our understanding of social networks in emerging markets by providing evidence on network transactions with key suppliers and customers and their influence on firms’ accounting behavior.     

Investors as Stewards of the Commons?

The author makes the case that business generally, not just government, should assume responsibility for social and environmental problems. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) formally recognize the role of the private sector in addressing some of the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. What started as a corporate social responsibility movement now a focuses on integrating positive social impact into the core mission of the organization. Encouragingly, studies document that improving firm performance on business‐relevant ESG issues has a positive association with future financial performance. Investors can enable better societal outcomes by exercising ‘voice’ and voting rights in corporate governance. He acknowledges that competitive businesses face a “commons” or “free‐rider” problem where a defector avoids the full cost of his actions. Overcoming this problem requires legally sanctioned collaboration between business enterprises and large institutional shareholders, particularly pension funds. He also acknowledges that the corporate level free‐rider problem has a counterpart that at the investor level. Investor engagement with companies involves resources, money and time. It is no simple matter to justify increased costs in the context of asset managers that compete on the basis of low management fees, such as index funds. Collaboration between companies can mitigate some of these free riding problems. Large institutional investors with long time horizons and significant common ownership across different companies may have the best opportunities for collaboration. But, smaller activist funds and retail investors also have an important role in pushing large institutional investors to engage. While it is unlikely that investors will be able to solve all of the pressing societal problems, progress can be made.     

基金网络能够提高投资绩效吗？

基金网络在金融市场的信息流动中发挥着重要作用。本文利用基金共同持股关系构建了一个有效的基金网络数据集,以中国资本市场股票型基金2005-2018年季度数据为研究样本,考察基金网络是否以及如何影响投资绩效。结果表明,基金在基金网络中越处于网络中心地位,基金的投资绩效越高。使用基金家族网络作为工具变量缓解内生性偏误后,基金网络仍然对投资绩效具有显著的正向影响。进一步地,本文考察了基金网络影响投资绩效的渠道,结果表明,基金网络主要通过提高基金的选股技能、资产配置技能和管理技能影响投资绩效。最后,本文考察了基金网络对基金市场份额的影响,研究发现基金网络会显著提高基金的市场份额,对基金在市场上的占有率有积极的正向影响。     

Is private social, ethical and environmental reporting mythicizing or demythologizing reality?

There is some evidence that private social, ethical and environmental reporting (SEER) between companies and their core institutional investors has started to evolve over recent years. However, there is little research exploring the private SEER process in detail. This paper seeks to address this evolving area of corporate communication using interviews. The evidence reveals a series of mutual benefits to companies and institutional investors arising from the private SEER process. Companies are gaining from SEE engagement and dialogue, as they are using the process to inform public SEE disclosure. They are using private SEE disclosure to preempt investor surprises. Institutional investors are benefiting from the supplementary SEE information gained in private communications with investee companies. They are also using information on managers’ SEE performance gained from private dialogue, as a proxy for management quality. The private SEE disclosure process appears to be nurturing mutual understanding between companies and their core institutional investors. Drawing from a pedagogic perspective, applied previously to SER and stakeholder engagement, as well as to accounting education, we show that ‘good’ private SEE disclosure should take on the characteristics of a dialogic, problem-posing, educative process. We consider four potential outcomes. Such a process may demythologize SEE issues. However, there is also the possibility that a recreated joint myth may emerge from collaborative dialogue between two such powerful groups. Other possible outcomes are that companies may capture the process in order to perpetuate their own SEE myth or that private SEE disclosure may dwindle as public SEE disclosure improves.     

Institutional investor information network,analyst forecasting and stock price crash risk

In this paper, we construct the information network of fund investors based on the theory of social relationship networks and examine its impact of fund information sharing with analysts on stock price crash risk. Our results show that private information sharing among institutional investors reduces crash risk. Further results show that fund information sharing can alleviate analyst optimism bias and improve analyst forecast accuracy, which further reduces stock price crash risk. Moreover, these identified effects are more pronounced in a bull market than a bear market. Our study contributes to the research on private information transmission in fund information networks, and provides a new perspective for recognizing the relationships among institutional investor behavior, analyst forecasting, and stock price crash risk.     

When reform comes into play: budgeting as negotiations between administrations

This article addresses not a general theory of social change but a widespread phenomenon in public administration as a field of research: the endless succession of budgetary reforms in the public sector means that institutional change is of constitutive and strategic importance. How this change takes place is examined with the aid of the metaphor of budgeting as a game. The metaphor is elaborated with a view to integrating and conceptually framing existing approaches that describe the budgeting process as a game. A typology of rules permits investigation social and institutional embeddedness of budgeting and to describe change (budgetary reform) as change in action.     

Political Connections and Allocative Distortions

Exploiting a unique institutional setting in Korea, this paper documents that politicians can increase the amount of government resources allocated through their social networks to the benefit of private firms connected to these networks. After winning the election, the new president appoints members of his networks as CEOs of state‐owned firms that act as intermediaries in allocating government contracts to private firms. In turn, these state firms allocate significantly more procurement contracts to private firms with a CEO from the same network. Contracts allocated to connected private firms are executed systematically worse and exhibit more frequent cost increases through renegotiations.     

Determinants of changes in accounting practices: Accounting and the UK Health Service

This paper uses the Social Forces Model to investigate the interplay between accounting change, institutional evolution and organizational transformations in UK healthcare delivery since 1800. At the same time, the catalytic role of individuals and events is highlighted. The reflexive organizational-accounting interactions are charted to reveal the changing nature of healthcare provision from communitarianism, through etatism to the (etatist inspired) market-based structure which, in turn, is now giving way to service provision based on local planning. By using a long time span it is possible to identify the modes of accounting which were present during the different phases of the development of healthcare. This analysis contributes to our understanding of the historical interplay of social forces by showing accounting as a technical instrument within an institutional setting, by highlighting the interactive nature of accounting and institutional change, by illuminating the role of individual action and by identifying the role of outside agencies.     

论我国政府主导型国企制度变迁深化的必然及约束

政府主导型制度变迁是国有企业制度变迁的路径依赖之一，这是由客观的社会经济条件决定的。国企制度在同一轨迹上的变迁在取得巨大收益之后已进入边际效益递减、制度容量饱和的阶段，向更高效 水平的制度演进已成为必然。然而，政府主导型制度变迁也面临着政治竞争、交易费用、政治家效用函数、效率与稳定两难选择及其他体制性问题的约束。制度的进一步创新需要政治体制的相应调整、需要坚持政府主导型变迁方式，需要其他外部力量的影响。     

Compromiso laboral del trabajo social en el sector salud

Given that social work is involved in public policy and social programs that target vulnerable, marginalized or excluded groups, it is necessary to analyze its commitment considering its relation to the management for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health sector institutions. In this regard, the objective of this study was to establish the reliability and validity of an instrument for measuring work commitment in the health sector. For this purpose, we used a nonrandom sample of 125 social work professionals with experience in implementing social programs and monitoring of institutional strategies for health promotion. Normality, reliability and validity on the scale that measured labor commitment were established. A reflective structural model was established in which commitment to the institution was positively related to work engagement. The residual and fit indices corroborated the multidimensionality hypothesis of work commitment.     

论我国政府主导型国企制度变迁深化的必然及约束

政府主导型制度变迁是国有企业制度变迁的路径依赖之一 ,这是由客观的社会经济条件决定的。国企制度在同一轨迹上的变迁在取得巨大收益之后已进入边际效益递减、制度容量饱和的阶段 ,向更高效益水平的制度演进已成必然。然而 ,政府主导型制度变迁也面临着政治竞争、交易费用、政治效用函数、效率与稳定两难选择及其他体制性问题的约束。制度的进一步创新需要政治体制的相应调整、需要坚持政府主导型变迁方式 ,需要其他外部力量的影响     

Institutional investor networks and firm innovation: Evidence from China

We examine the impact of institutional investor networks on firm innovation in China. Employing the unexpected departure of mutual fund managers and the inclusion of the Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 index as identifications, we find that institutional investor networks have a positive impact on firm innovation. Specifically, firms that are hold by well-connected institutional investors are motivated to make R&D investments and receive greater patents than their counterparts. This positive influence is more pronounced for non-SOEs and for firms located in less-developed regions, indicating that institutional investor networks act as information flow facilitator and a value certifier to encourage innovation activities.     

Youth-led social change: Topics,engagement types,organizational types,strategies, and impacts

This paper provides a framework for evaluating youth-led social change. The framework considers: seven topics (e.g., environment, human health and safety, and education); nine engagement types (e.g., volunteerism, research and innovation, and political engagement); six organizational types (e.g., advisory body, social enterprise, and individual); three strategies (socialization, influence, and power); and three scales of impacts (individual, community/inter-organizational, and national/international). Using this framework, empirical research provides evidence of how youth – defined as young people 15–24 years of age – have been agents of change in Canada over the 35 years from 1978 to 2012. A media content analysis of 264 articles, combined with frequency and chi-square tests, were completed to study the factors and the relationships among them. The results show a strong relationship between the impact and the strategy, topic, engagement type, and organizational type. The results also show a strong relationship between the strategy and the impact, engagement type and organizational type. The findings have implications for youth leaders and those who advocate for, work with, support, and educate them, and for those interested in evaluating social change efforts.     

Accounting for great expectations: Lessons from the new media surge for critical management theory

The short organizational history of Silicon Alley (1995–2001) is used to examine some key lessons on management learning and innovation in new, interactive media start-ups from a critical perspective. The macro-social context of this history is seen as shaped by the contemporary round of political and economic globalization and its consequences such as the consolidation of the Internet, the succession of software generations, the increase of economic concentration and corporate size, the uneven availability of venture and investment capital, and other changes in the organizational and legal structures of the “new economy”. It is argued that the dynamics of global–local interaction affects the relative autonomy of firms and their subunits (managed vs. self-organized project teams), sharpens the managerial contradictions between routinization/reproduction and innovation/transformation, and widens the differences between organizations and networks in facilitating learning, teaching, and innovation. The analysis emphasizes the endemic tension between institutional dominance and efforts at self-organization from below, the importance of informal, flexible, and relatively autonomous project networks for innovation and transformation as compared to the institutional power relations of older and larger firms, and the significance of networks in furthering the exploration and social construction of new cognitive and social boundaries.     

Futures of privacy protection: A framework for creating scenarios of institutional change

The future of privacy is a topical issue in the context of debates on mass surveillance and the increasing prevalence of social media sites in everyday life. Previous scenario studies on privacy have focused on macro trends and on forecasting technological developments, and claims about causal influences have remained implicit. This article presents an alternative approach for constructing scenarios of privacy protection. The article focuses on privacy protection as a social institution and builds on the theory of gradual institutional change. The article presents a scenario framework which includes three stages: (1) outlining the dynamics of privacy protection, (2) tracing historical processes and constructing a causal narrative, and (3) creating event-based scenarios. The resulting scenarios are narratives of plausible chains of events which are based on the results of the previous stages. The key difference to typical scenario approaches is the focus on specific actors and types of event sequences in privacy protection. The argument is that by lowering the level of abstraction in this way, researchers and decision-makers can gain a more profound understanding of possible future challenges in privacy protection and of key leverage points in the institutional change process.     

Analyst coverage,corporate social responsibility,and firm value: Evidence from China

This paper examines how analyst coverage affects firms' engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using data on Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2017, we find that (1) analyst coverage significantly enhances CSR engagement; (2) ownership structure, political connection, corporate governance, and media coverage moderate that association; (3) a plausible mechanism is that analyst coverage increases CSR by increasing site visits from institutional investors and improving firms' internal controls. In addition, the interaction between analyst coverage and CSR engagement has an economically sizeable incremental effect on firm value. Overall, our findings indicate that financial analysts play a critical external monitoring and informational role for organizations.     

家庭社会网络与就业质量——基于2009-2015年“全国高校毕业生就业状况调查”的分析

家庭社会网络如何从宏观机制上影响个体和社会的就业质量,在理论上缺乏细致的讨论。本文在内生贴现因子模型中引入家庭社会网络,从理论上首次探究家庭社会网络对高校毕业生就业质量的影响机制,家庭社会网络通过影响贴现因子和进入不同行业的概率分布作用于就业质量,导致热门专业需要的最优家庭社会网络积累量低于非热门专业,进而提出“家庭社会网络积累更广泛的个体会较为分散地选择专业,但会集中于高收入行业就业,导致就业质量受到影响”的假说。进一步,基于2009-2015年“全国高校毕业生就业状况调查”数据进行实证分析,证实:更广泛的家庭社会网络积累会显著提升毕业生的就业满意度,但会降低就业匹配度。总之,家庭社会网络会显著影响高校毕业生“专业分散,行业集中”就学与就业特征的形成,进而提升就业满意度,并降低就业匹配度。     

Impact of directors' networks on corporate social responsibility: A cross country study

We investigate the impact of directors' networks on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities by using an unbalanced panel data of 2023 publicly listed firms from 17 countries during 2003–2018. Drawing on network theory, stakeholder theory, and institutional theory, we find that directors' networks is positively related to their decision of CSR activities. Additionally, we find a positive relation between directors' networks and CSR during financial crises. Our results still hold after a set of sensitivity tests. The findings in our study expand the academic literature related to directors' networks and CSR activities, and assist policymakers and investors in understanding the importance of directors' networks as determining factor of CSR policies.     

社会化商务中顾客间互动对顾客品牌契合的影响

基于SOR（刺激-机体-反应）理论和感知价值理论,依据社会化商务网站的问卷调查数据,引入感知价值作为中间变量,考量社会化商务中顾客间互动对顾客品牌契合的影响。结果表明,社会化商务中顾客间互动与顾客品牌契合显著相关,功能价值、情感价值和社会价值在其中发挥中介作用,信任氛围能强化顾客间互动对顾客品牌契合的正向影响。鉴于此,社会化商务网站运营商需注重顾客间互动在品牌营销中的作用,帮助增强顾客间互动,提高顾客品牌契合。