Ethics, alterity, and organizational justice

This paper articulates a conception of organizational justice based on the promise of a mode of organizing that does not violate the particularity of each and every other person. It argues that the decisive condition for such a form of justice resides in the realities of the cultural practices of an organization as they are apparent in the conduct of people in relation to multiple others. These are practices that can only seek justification in the primary right of each person to be regarded with absolute alterity. It also argues that a degree of violence is unavoidable within any practical ordering of justice and that any consideration of ethics and justice in organizations must account for such violence and seek to negotiate its existence on ethical terms. The organizational justice that is referred to is one sensitive to the exercise of its own power and authority in the context of its unavoidable violation of its basis in ethics. This is a justice that is ethically necessary, but is never sure of itself.     

运用全球趋势考察中国汽车产业

通过分析全球趋势与自己所在行业复杂而并不十分明显的相互作用方式，战略专家们可以挑战传统智慧．并更好地为不确定性未雨绸缪。     

Portfolio pumping: An examination of investment manager quarter-end trading and impact on performance

Utilizing a database of daily institutional fund manager trades, we examine the contribution of strategic trading at quarter-end associated with potential ‘portfolio pumping’ or ‘ramping up’ of reported stock prices around quarter-ends. We provide the first direct evidence that active fund managers tend to purchase illiquid stocks on the last day of the quarter, in stocks in which they already hold overweight portfolio positions. Consistent with the way fund managers are evaluated, we found that the poor-performing managers display greater evidence of portfolio pumping. Both increased regulatory scrutiny and improvements to market microstructure design reduce the severity of stock price changes at quarter-ends.     

Change in the size distribution of UK firms

This paper examines the extent of change and stability in the population of UK firms through time in terms of its size distribution, as defined by number of employees. It was empirically found that the distribution of employment by firm size remained surprisingly constant over the 1987–1989 period. A major implication of this finding is that in times of very high net job creation (involving high gross job creation and loss), factors are at work in the economy to keep the population distribution of firms (in terms of employment concentrations) more or less stable. It is hypothesised that a natural concentration exists for each different size band, and that as change takes place, the proportion of total employment based in the size band will tend towards this natural level.The rise in the proportion of employment in small firms, and the comparatively high job creation ability of small firms in recent times has come about in part because of negative rather than positive macro-economic influences. In recession, small firms in aggregate in spite of their individual volatility, are the most resilient. In prosperous times they do not increase their proportion of employment share, while in times of recession they do. Our results imply that large firms have a very significant, if not the most significant, bearing upon aggregate employment trends. On the other hand, small firms inherently have more potential to create jobs than large firms.The majority of public expenditure and legislative support for UK business is directed at large firms, as a result of culture and tradition. Even with the benefit of this support, large firms in recent decades have still performed badly, in job generation terms. In contrast, small firms have shown an inherent advantage in their ability to create jobs. A shift of government expenditure and legislative support from large to small firms would further enhance and realise the potential of small firms to benefit the economy and create jobs.     

Do active fund managers care about capital gains tax efficiency?

This study investigates the tax efficiency of actively managed equity funds by conducting a previously unaddressed natural experiment. Specifically, we examine whether asset sales were timed to take advantage of the introduction of a substantial discount to realized capital gains when the holding period was at least 1 year. Institutional equity fund management in Australia is principally focused on the pre-fee and pre-tax performance surveys of leading asset consultants. Given this industry setting, our study is important because tax efficiency is not accounted for directly in the reported performance numbers, and is thus opaque. We find that active fund managers overall have significantly increased the proportion of long-term capital gains realized after the change in taxation code, although there are significant variations across funds. We also find that active fund managers realize more long-term gains on both large capitalization and low volatility stocks.     

Attribution of investment performance: an analysis of Australian pooled superannuation funds*

This paper evaluates the market timing and security selection capabilities of Australian pooled superannuation funds over the eight‐year period from January 1991 to December 1998. Evaluation of both components of investment performance is surprisingly scarce in the Australian literature despite active investment managers engaging in both market timing and security selection. The paper also evaluates performance for the three largest asset classes within diversified superannuation funds and their contribution to overall portfolio return. The importance of an accurately specified market portfolio proxy in the measurement of investment performance is demonstrated. This paper employs performance benchmarks that account for the multi‐sector investment decisions of active investment managers in a manner that is consistent with their unique investment strategy. Consistent with U.S. literature, the empirical results indicate that Australian pooled superannuation funds do not exhibit significantly positive security selection or market timing skill.     

Trading behaviour and the performance of daily institutional trades

Using a unique database of daily trading activity, the present study examines the ability of active Australian equity managers to earn superior risk‐adjusted returns. We find evidence of superior trade performance, where performance is a function of stock size. Our findings indicate that active equity managers are able to successfully exploit private information more readily in stocks ranked 101–150 by market‐cap, where the degree of analyst coverage, information flows and market efficiency are lower than for large‐cap stocks. We also find evidence of manager specialization. Our evidence provides further support of the value of active investment management in Australian equities.