The donor profile survey--a way to determine priorities

Community size, educational background, reading habits, church membership, civic clubs and marital status are just as much a part of why and how much a donor contributes as are his annuity or stock and bond holdings. Learning to profile donors can help set priorities.     

Will cotton make a comeback in Mali?

With the decline of cotton especially in the marginal cotton areas, farmers have been using more of the cotton‐financed inputs on the cereals. The cotton para‐statal company (CMDT) has made a virtue out of this recommending diversification for these regions. Following the world price spike in 2010, the Malian government responded with a substantial price increase for cotton in 2011 of 38% to rejuvenate the Malian sector. This article looks at the impact of this price policy in the cotton economy and the potential of new cereal technology and marketing strategy to raise incomes and facilitate the diversification. Given the importance of the marketing decision of selling later after the recovery of cereal prices from the harvest collapse, a discrete stochastic programming model was developed for three‐stage decision making. Then, the recent changes in the cotton economy and government fertilizer subsidies were analyzed along with the introduction of the new technology marketing of sorghum. Cotton and maize continue to dominate the economy but the combined sorghum technology marketing increases farmers’ incomes by 16% to 21% and eases the return to normal cotton prices, after the 2011 price spike, as well as the removal of the fertilizer subsidies.     

Government Sponsored Agencies: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics -     

Top management team compensation: the missing link between CEO pay and firm performance?

In this research we discuss the relationship between CEO and top management team (TMT) member compensation, and explore the implications of TMT pay for firm performance. Specifically, we suggest that firm performance may benefit due to agency and group behavioral issues when top management team member pay is aligned—alignment is defined as the degree to which TMT member pay reflects (1) shareholder interests and (2) key political and strategic contingencies within the firm. In support of our theorizing, we found CEO pay to be related to TMT pay; TMT compensation, in turn, predicted performance (i.e., return on assets and Tobin's q) when aligned with shareholder interests and internal contingencies. Moreover, the effect of CEO pay on future firm performance was dependent on top team pay. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information Sharing in Global Supply Chain Alliances

The post–WWII economic expansion of economies such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and more recently China and India was enabled to a significant degree by the increasingly complex, global supply chain networks of large Original Equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the United States, European Union, and Japan. By linking buyers and suppliers across countries and industries, supply chain management (SCM) practices have a large impact on the economic fortunes of companies and countries throughout the world. Nowhere has the effect of this mutual interdependence been felt more strongly than between the U.S. companies and the Asia-Pacific market. Although the benefits of SCM are well documented, some evidence suggests that the reality of SCM implementation can create additional pressures for suppliers. We identify key problem areas experienced by suppliers and their link to the type of information shared by buying firms. The problem area experienced by most suppliers relates to issues of dependence in the alliance. Mere information sharing is insufficient for a successful alliance, and more information can be associated with a number of problems. For example, lack of information sharing can be associated with a supplier's perception of the buyer expecting excessive support. However, greater information sharing can be associated with a supplier's perception of the buyer passing on an excessive burden. Sharing of financial information is perceived as intrusive and controlling. These apparent contradictions uncover the complexity of the supply chain alliance. The moderating factors appear to be open communication and joint sharing of problem solving procedures—factors identified by suppliers that define a world-class buyer.     

Proactive and politically skilled professionals: What is the relationship with affective occupational commitment?

The aim of this study is to extend research on employee affective commitment in three ways: (1) instead of organizational commitment the focus is on occupational commitment; (2) the role of proactive personality on affective occupational commitment is examined; and (3) occupational satisfaction is examined as a mediator and political skills as moderator in the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. Two connected studies, one in a hospital located in the private sector and one in a university located in the public sector, are carried out in Pakistan, drawing on a total sample of over 400 employees. The results show that proactive personality is positively related to affective occupational commitment, and that occupational satisfaction partly mediates the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. No effect is found for a moderator effect of political skills in the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. Political skills however moderate the relationship between proactive personality and affective organizational commitment.     

Dealing with globalisation: the Nordic countries and inward FDI, 1900–1939

This article examines the different ways in which the four Nordic countries chose to regulate the inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI). By studying the laws regulating foreign ownership, as well as their implementation, it becomes clear that the four countries followed a pragmatic and tolerant policy towards inward FDI, but that the resource rich countries actively tried to prevent foreign ownership of their most important natural resources. The article also shows how the countries’ stricter policy on foreign ownership in the early twentieth century was not a casualty of World War I, but more predominantly a reaction to the increasing international economic integration before the war.     

Domestic exchange rate determination in Renaissance Florence

We explore the price-setting protocol used by the money-changers guild, the Arte del Cambio, to set the exchange rate between domestic gold and silver coins in Renaissance Florence, a precursor in purpose and set-up to the contemporary system of posting interest rates. We show that the protocol is evolutionarily stable and designed to converge to the efficient price, which had important implications to the political economy of Florence and the stability of its monetary system. We also show that the predicted dynamics of convergence are consistent with surviving exchange rates from 1389 to 1432, thereby linking the empirical properties of the historical data to the institutional features of the guild that generated them.     

Interdisciplinary Research in SCM: Through the Lens of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm

To accelerate research discoveries—those required to address paramount challenges facing business today—researchers from diverse disciplines must work together. Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is a research that involves bringing together perspectives from two or more disciplines in an integrative manner to address complex and multifaceted supply chain management (SCM) problems. IDR is needed to address contemporary business challenges. We look at SCM research through the lens of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) drawing parallels in research evolution and noting similar antecedents in theoretical development. We point to the advances BTF has offered to organizational theory built on IDR and consider the possibilities for SCM. We make a case for methodological diversity in supporting this research, further paralleling lessons from BTF. Last, we describe the state of IDR in SCM today, discuss the objective of this special issue, and showcase the five contributing papers.