Consumer cooperatives as an alternative form of governance: The case of the broadband industry

With a growing number of consumer cooperatives in non-agrarian industries such as energy and broadband, there is a need to better understand their emergence as a viable form of governance. In this context, the paper uses Mikami’s (2010) model on consumer cooperatives to explain their emergence as a result of their ability to generate additional equity financing through the membership market. It focuses on the motivations of consumers to financially contribute to a cooperative by examining the risks and benefits associated with the investment. Based on a survey of 759 consumers, it links their motivations for joining a cooperative to different forms of risks and benefits associated with the investment. It shows that the risks related to cost sharing and switching costs are important determinants for consumers. Other factors that affected the likelihood of joining a cooperative were expected benefits with respect to user network externalities and infrastructure gains.     

媒体治理、政治关联与研发投资

以深圳证券交易市场2009-2013年创业板上市公司为样本，检验了媒体治理、政治关联与研发投资之间的关系。实证分析结果显示，媒体治理作用越强，公司的研发投资就越多。这表明，媒体能够有效发挥监督治理作用，促进公司创新。进一步分析显示，政治关联对媒体治理与研发投资之间的关系具有明显的反向调节作用。这意味着，政治关联抑制了媒体的治理作用。     

科技型小微企业创新生态系统网络治理研究

建立一个完整、高效的创新生态系统是破解科技型小微企业创新困境、提高创新效率，以及助力新旧动能转换的有效途径。基于生态系统理论和演化动力学模型，构建科技型小微企业创新生态系统网络框架和网络联结模式，利用竞争、互利共生和捕食关系演化模型，分析演化模型的均衡点及其稳定条件。结果发现，创新生态位重叠程度决定了竞争激烈程度，系统演化均衡条件是主体间分工程度高，且嵌入适度。最后，从价值主体和机构主体两个方面〖JP〗提出推进科技型小微企业创新生态系统不断进化的治理策略。     

区域中心城市创新生态圈要素架构、生态特征与运行机制

区域中心城市创新生态圈以生物学为隐喻，注重发挥创新主体的能动作用，能够放大区域中心城市发展优势。在回顾创新生态圈理论渊源的基础上，界定区域中心城市创新生态圈内涵，明确创新生态圈要素构成；以企业聚集发展为逻辑起点，探讨区域中心城市创新生态圈生态特征；基于生态学、创新理论等跨学科知识，构建区域中心城市创新生态圈演进模型，探究其运行机制。研究认为，区域中心城市创新生态圈具有开放式协同、动态自调节、多样性共生、自组织演化等生态特征，其运行机制由协同共生机制、风险识别与防控机制、利益分配机制和环境匹配机制共同组成。     

Corporate governance in family firms,learning and reaction to recession: Evidence from Italy

This paper focuses on the interaction between internal and external factors explaining performance of small and medium-sized family firms. We used framework foresight to suggest how learning and internal factors such as CEO’s origin, tenure and turnover, could affect the firm’s reactions to one particular external factor, economic recession. The paper draws on empirical observations of a large sample of small and medium family firms operating in Italy between 2002 and 2011 to identify the baseline future, an expected future for these firms. This analysis may be of interest to both management scholars and practitioners. We hope to contribute to the debate on how internal and external factors interact to affect firm success, measured as sales growth. The implications for the future viability of an economic system based on family businesses are straightforward, as the turbulence and instability of the economic environment has grown significantly in the last decade, especially in more developed countries. Whether the ability of a company to adapt and survive to negative shocks depends on its governance provides a rationale for exploring alternative perspectives on the competitiveness of the economic system and the ability of different owners to cope with future negative events.     

Policy and politics behind Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone Program

China launched the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Program on September 29, 2013 in a bid to reduce administrative interventions, ease restrictions on investments, further open up its financial system, and internationalize its currency to booster shipping, logistics, and commerce. This article aims to present a background of the Shanghai FTZ and some reflections on it. China’s economic reconstruction has made a major impact on its port cities. Competitions between ports are gradually evolving into competitions between supply chains, with ports no longer considered as isolated links in the transport chain but rather as integral links in the supply chain. Ports are transitioning into fourth-generation ports with the establishment of logistics and value-added activities, which are developed in conjunction with local industrial and service businesses. In this trend, China’s port cities can provide a wide range of value-added services and become centers of commodity flow, capital flow, and information flow. Specifically, the combined effects of driving the development of peripheral industries and actively coordinating the activities of relevant parties help regulate the operations of the entire supply chain to obtain potential value-added benefits. The implementation of the Shanghai FTZ will not only stimulate trade but will also bring increased shipping and finance opportunities to the city. With free trade as the new direction and focus of the country’s economic initiatives, the Shanghai FTZ will hopefully lay the groundwork for a new round of reforms and restructuring of the Chinese economy.     

Impossibilities for strategy-proof committee selection mechanisms with vetoers

When a group of voters selects a committee out of a set of candidates, it is common and often desirable to endow these voters with some veto power. I present impossibility results showing that even limited veto power makes many mechanisms of interest manipulable. This applies in particular (i) to mechanisms the range of which contains a degenerate lottery in which a committee is chosen for sure and (ii) to mechanisms that are constructed from extensive game forms with a finite number of strategies. These impossibilities hold on a large set of domains including the domain of additive preferences, and even when probabilistic mechanisms are allowed and voters can report cardinal preferences.     

From market to hierarchy: An empirical assessment of a supply chain governance typology

This study performs an empirical assessment of the highly influential supply chain governance typology put forth in Gereffi et al. (2005). In spite of the influence this Global Value Chain (or GVC) Typology has had, there have been few (if any) attempts to empirically assess its alignment with real-world supply chain structures and to establish a baseline for its predictive utility. The GVC Typology is assessed for face and nomological validity through testing of its key dimensions in relation to purchasing-logistics integration and supplier performance measures, using an information-processing theory framework. The GVC Typology appears to have considerable face validity as actual supply chain governance structures aligned well with those it proposes. It also has reasonable predictive power with regards to governance dimensions and integration, and in some connections between governance types, integration, and supplier performance. This study provides researchers with the tools to move this typology beyond the “conceptual” stage in their work, allowing for holistic and higher-level assessments of supply chain governance structures and changes. It may also help researchers and managers to consider when and to what extent purchasing-logistics integration should be fostered.     

Surplus distribution and characteristics of social enterprises: Evidence from microfinance

The issue of surplus distribution has hardly been analyzed in the context of the social economy. This paper highlights the main drivers of distribution between various stakeholders of microfinance institutions (MFIs), which are an example of social enterprises. We focus on three major variables: size, governance structure and subsidies. Our results show that the size of the institution is the main indicator of the surplus that the organization keeps as a self-financial margin. Moreover, MFIs with a cooperative ownership structure allocate a larger part of their surplus to their employees, whereas non-profit organizations and shareholder-firm MFIs do not allocate their surplus in a significantly different way among their main stakeholders. Finally, we do not find any clear-cut effect of subsidies on the surplus allocation process.     

The political economy of wine: How terroir and intra-sector dynamics affect land use in Spain

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper “Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation?”, published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of ‘good governance’ and ‘strong political will’ to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.