Odd man out: the proposal-making model

The proposal-making model is applied to the class of three-player/three-cake problems. The set of subgame perfect equilibria (SPEs) and the limit set of SPE payoffs as the risk of breakdown vanishes is characterized. The necessary and sufficient condition for uniqueness is derived. The results for the alternating offer model play an important role. The model always admits one stationary SPE and this equilibrium is related to a multilateral Nash solution. The stationary SPE is the coalition-proof SPE and the limit result differs from the result known for the model without risk of breakdown.     

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE1

Corporate social responsibility (‘CSR’) is often associated with hopes for improved corporate governance. As understood conventionally, however, CSR is conceptually incoherent, practically unworkable, and wholly unjustified. To be compatible with corporate governance, ‘CSR’ needs to be understood not as Counterproductive Stakeholder Regimentation, but as Conscientious Stakeholder Responsibility.     

Reasons for lapse: the case of face‐to‐face donors

Face‐to‐face fundraising is attracting increasingly hostile media coverage in the United Kingdom in the run up to the publication of the Charities Act in 2004. Despite the antipathy comparatively little is known about how donors view this technique and why they might elect to terminate their support having been recruited by this medium. This paper reports the results of a survey of 4,800 face‐to‐face recruits, comparing the attitudes and profiles of both active and lapsed supporters. The results suggest that donors exhibit high levels of satisfaction with the recruitment process and lapse primarily because of a change in their financial circumstances rather than feelings of having being pressurised to offer their support. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

A proposed enterprise risk management model for health organizations

Health care organizations are environments with high management complexity and subject to a constant exposure to risks. Enterprise risk management (ERM) has been studied and applied in different economic environments with the aim of improving organizational performance. However, the health sector still suffers from a lack of attention in this context, in particular with regard to the need for a high degree of financial transparency and for the establishment of process-orientated management, and this provides the motivation for the study described in this paper. An ERM model for health organizations is proposed, based on a systematic literature review and on seven case studies in Brazilian hospitals. An approach to economic risk assessment using indicators such as the cash flow at risk and the variability of costs and receipts from the proposed model is suggested. The health organizations involved in the case studies all interpret ERM as a source of information contributing to corporate governance, and the indicators listed provide constructive data for improvement-driven decision-making. Given the interest expressed by the organizations involved, further application and validation of the proposed model in subsequent studies is suggested.     

Organizational boundaries and economic performance: An empirical study of entrepreneurial computer firms

This research examines the relationship between the organizational boundaries of entrepreneurial firms and their economic performance. The theoretical basis for this work is transaction cost economics research regarding when internalizing certain activities will be preferred over contracting. To consider the conditions under which contracting is costly we compare across three functional areas and three firm strategies. The results of a longitudinal analysis of 122 entrepreneurial firms in the computer industry show that performance effects are associated with contracting activities and that product market strategies moderate the performance effects of contracting. The results are mixed in their support for the predictions of transaction cost economics.     

Beyond the Union‐Centred Approach: A Critical Evaluation of Recent Trade Union Elections in China

Many Western scholars have regarded union democracy and elections as affairs that are internal to trade unions and unconnected with outside forces. Going beyond the mainstream union‐centred approach, this study critically assesses one significant type of union election that has been emerging in China since 2010 and that has been driven by different forces from previous elections. Previous workplace union elections had been ‘top‐down’ — initiated by the party‐state or its apparatuses, or else transnational corporation‐induced — but this newer type of election has been driven by workers' strikes. This study illustrates how the dynamics among the quadripartite actors — party‐state, higher‐level trade unions, capital and labour — have shaped these strike‐driven elections. Contrary to the claim that these elections have been ‘direct’ and ‘democratic’, our case studies show that they have been indirect and quasi‐democratic in nature.     

Empirical implications of mathematical functions used to analyze market penetration of new products—Cigarettes case study

Three types of S-shaped growth curves—the logistic, the lognormal, and the Gompertz—are widespread in the literature on analysis of market penetration of new products/processes. This article discusses the mathematical properties of these function in the light of their empirical implications, such as location of the point of maximum growth rate, the symmetry/asymmetry of the growth rates around that inflection point, and the ease of estimation (linear and nonlinear regressions). The empirical economic expectations cannot specify these phenomena a priori so that a less restrictive function should be preferred. Such a function is the Gompertz function. It is, therefore, applied to the study of market penetration of filtered and menthol cigarettes and shown that the empirical verification vindicates the theoretical postulates of that function. The empirical estimates are also closer to actual estimates of growth rates of adoption.     

Income distribution and firm formation

This paper investigates equilibria associated with alternative income-distribution schemes in economies where firm formation is endogenous. The income realizable by a firm depends upon the membership of the firm. An entrepreneurial equilibrium, where agents form and/or join firms so as to maximize their individual incomes, has firm structures that maximize aggregate income but does not have good existence properties. Two alternative equilibrium concepts that have better existence properties than the entrepreneurial equilibrium but weaker optimality properties are considered. The results are applied to the debate on the optimality of average-income-per-worker maximization within a market-socialist firm.