Are better-connected CEOs more socially responsible? Evidence from the U.S. restaurant industry

Extensive research has documented how corporate social responsibility (CSR) outcomes are determined by CEOs' intrinsic characteristics, while their social network status has been under-researched. Building on impression management theory and resource-based theory, the current study analyzes the association between CSR activities and top management's position in the social hierarchy, i.e., network centrality. The heterogeneous effects across different restaurant and CSR types are examined based on stakeholder theory. Using a panel dataset of publicly traded U.S. restaurant companies and a novel dataset of CEO network centrality, we find that firms with highly connected CEOs are involved in more socially responsible activities. In addition, the marginal effect of network centrality on CSR is stronger for fast-food than for full-service restaurants and more prominent for external than internal stakeholder subcategories. The results advance the determinant analysis of CSR and provide managerial implications for CEO selection and policy suggestions on CSR promotion.     

The political and institutional determinants of fiscal adjustments and expansions: Evidence for a large set of countries

Using annual data for 60 countries over 1980–2014, we study the drivers of fiscal adjustments, expansions, and their duration. In contrast to most previous studies, the identification of these fiscal events relies on breaks in their data generating process. Our findings suggest that a few political and institutional variables play a role in determining the occurrence and the duration of fiscal adjustments and expansions. The results also highlight the importance of analyzing the likelihood of fiscal events together with their persistence. Factors that do not affect the occurrence of fiscal adjustments or expansions may influence their persistence once initiated.     

大学科技园的社会责任及使命

大学科技园依托高校科教资源服务地方经济发展,肩负社会责任和使命担当,如何更好地履职和践行使命是当前大学科技园建设和发展关注的焦点。论文结合华中师范大学科技园的有关情况,阐述了大学科技园的社会责任与使命,重点探讨了大学科技园的社会责任及使命的实现机制。     

地方政府财政治理特征研究:来自中国政府工作报告文本识别的经验证据

地方政府财政治理是国家治理的微观基础和重要组成部分,但是学界依然缺乏针对其特征的定量识别分析。本研究基于1997—2017年国务院-省-市政府工作报告文本,借助计算机文本分析技术,定量识别了中国地方政府财政治理特征及其动态趋势。研究结果显示:(1)治理目标上,地方政府强调发展目标,在公平目标上的关注有提升空间;治理方式上,地方政府强调要处理好政府与市场的关系。(2)治理方向上,“五位一体”词频的变化反映了地方政府财政治理顺应时代需求。产业结构上,第一产业仍然是关注重点,第二产业词频略有下降而第三产业词频有上升趋势。(3)市政府与国务院、省政府工作报告均有较高的文本相似度,表明地方政府积极贯彻上级政府的政策安排。这一研究对于廓清地方政府财政治理状况提供了一种全新视角,并对进一步提高地方财政治理能力具有借鉴意义。     

Mind the Gap: Is Water Disclosure a Missing Component of Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate water stewardship is conventionally internally focused, but now it is becoming a critical issue in a wider socio-political context. Drawing on the theory of self-regulation, we investigate the rationale behind, and the factors contributing to, corporate decisions to voluntarily disclose water information via the CDP. The study uses innovative proxies for corporate self-regulation, including water governance, water policy, water actions, and water performance. Our results show that these proxies are significantly related to the propensity of the companies participating in the CDP to disclose water information. Furthermore, belonging to a water-intensive industry may moderate the impact of self-regulation on water transparency. Finally, sharing water information privately with key institutional investors is a strategic tool for implementing self-regulation. The study suggests that corporate self-regulation can play a powerful role in reducing corporate water opaqueness when mandatory water legislation is absent or not yet applicable.     

农村集体资产股份合作社发展过程中政府的角色分析——基于苏州与佛山的案例比较

在快速城市化和工业化进程中,城郊农村地区的集体土地的资产价值逐步显化。为保证集体资产保值增值,这些地区建立了由政府主导的农村集体资产股份合作社。本文以苏州市高新区和佛山市南海区为例,从政府干预的角度剖析政府主导型农村集体资产股份合作社治理的现状,并分析了政府干预其治理的内在逻辑。分析发现,政府通过为集体资产股份合作社提供政策指导、项目倾斜、财政扶持、规则制定等措施逐步实现了合作社效率与公平的双赢。然而,随着政府干预强度的不断提高,政府逐渐介入合作社内部事务,合作社被纳入政府行政体系之中,既削弱了合作社经济效率也加大了政府负担。鉴于此,建议政府把握好干预的强度及边界,逐渐退出对合作社内部经营管理事务的介入,通过激发合作社内部管理层的投资积极性,在维持社会稳定的前提下提高合作社的经营效益。     

Development and validation of standard hotel corporate social responsibility (CSR) scale from the employee perspective

The prevalent trends of sustainability and responsible management have promoted corporate social responsibility (CSR) to attract considerable research and business interest. However, despite its importance, few efforts have been exerted to develop a standardized CSR scale in the hotel industry. This study aims to develop and validate a multidimensional scale of hotel CSR measurement as perceived by hotel staff who understands CSR. Results of running factor analyses generate a five-factor structure. The overall measurement model demonstrates a satisfactory level of goodness-of-fit and supports convergent validity, discriminate validity, nomological validity, and predictive validity. The legal domain received the highest mean score among the five hotel CSR domains, followed by ethical, financial/economic, environmental, and social/philanthropic domains. The value on employee attitude toward the CSR-implementing hotel, employee satisfaction with the CSR-implementing hotel, and organizational commitment toward the CSR-implementing hotel varied between front-of-house and back-of-house employees. This validated measurement scale is recommended for future studies to explore the effect of hotel CSR in various countries or regions.     

The terror of death and consumers’ sustainability attitudes

Applying Terror Management Theory, this research attempts to investigate how the terror of death perception affects consumers' sustainability attitudes under the contingent condition of religiosity. This field study was conducted in Malang, Indonesia. The findings disclose that both mortality salience and self-esteem increase materialism. Materialism is found to intensify consumers’ sustainability attitudes of green concern and consumer social responsibility (CnSR). It is also found that religiosity strengthens the effect of mortality salience on materialism and that of materialism on CnSR. Contrarily, religiosity weakens the effects of materialism on green concern. However, there is no statistical support for the moderating effect of religiosity on the linkage between self-esteem and materialism.     

State-controlled banks and income smoothing. Do politics matter?

This paper uses a new dataset to reassess the relationship between government ownership and income smoothing of commercial banks. We also evaluate how political connections affect the impact of government ownership on earnings management. We find that banks with more state-controlled shareholders located in developing countries tend to have more incentives to smooth income. The paper finds no significant difference in earnings manipulation between government-controlled and non-government banks in developed countries. Next, to investigate whether the income smoothing behavior of state-controlled banks is driven by political objectives, the paper tests whether this behavior widens during national election years; the results provide strong support for this conjecture. The magnitude of the income smoothing behavior also varies with different countries and electoral characteristics. These findings suggest that the political channel plays an important role in determining the income smoothing incentives of state-controlled banks, especially in developing countries.     

Heterogeneity in preferences for redistribution and public spending: A cross-country analysis

Political coordination and policy outcomes may be the result not only of the position of the ‘median voter’ in a political scale but also of the heterogeneity of preferences around the median. Depending on the level of government and the type of policy, such heterogeneity may lead to lower public spending and redistribution. We assess this issue empirically by analyzing the relationship between the distribution of preferences for redistribution and the amount of public expenditure at different levels of government and for several types of spending in 23 European countries. Our results suggest a negative and significant correlation between heterogeneity of preferences for redistribution and public spending that is stronger at the local level and for redistributive functions, independent of the median individual's preferences.