Caterpillar’s Interactions with Piracicaba,Brazil: A Community-based Analysis of CSR

This study examines how Caterpillar Brasil Limitada, located in the city of Piracicaba, Brazil, expanded its concept of social responsibility over a 30-year period. It first provides a contextual overview of Piracicaba within the agro-industrialized interior region of São Paulo State. It then traces the history of the firm from its initial installation in the city. While Caterpillar maintained a distant relationship with the Piracicaba community for many years, it later realized the importance of becoming involved in city development. The community-based effort led by Caterpillar to elaborate and carry out a sustainable development plan for the city is a notable example of how a firm can encourage civil participation and offer strategic planning know-how to civil-society organizations. Finally, the study analyses some of the problems Caterpillar encountered and stresses the importance of developing open democratic channels and continued civil participation in joint partnerships between business and civil society.     

景区与社区和谐发展之路探析——以湖南郴州万华岩景区为例

通过对湖南郴州万华岩景区与社区实地调查访问，以描述景区与社区现状和分析存在问题为切入点，以社会主义和谐社会构建和社会主义新农村建设为契机，在牢牢把握政策机遇的同时，从土地、理念、模式、机制、体系和文化等。个方面探究景区与社区和谐发展之路。     

旅游网络论坛的学术界定、发展现状与影响

网络论坛在中国发展迅速，逐渐成为继传统线下旅行社、线上旅行社之后，旅游中介商的第三支重要力量。在综合分析现有市场调查和研究的基础上，首先指出旅游网络论坛是虚拟消费社区的一种类型，发展出自助旅游文化，其次作为旅游电子中介商，它的目标市场是学历高和互联网使用率高的年轻人，核心产品以背包客、非标准化团队旅行、观光和特种旅游产品为主。梳理了旅游网络论坛的国内发展状况，最后论述其对于旅行社行业和目的地可能产生的重大影响。     

产权视角下城市社区居委会发展路径研究

我国城市格局逐渐由以单位为基本元素的体制向以社区为基本元素的体制变革，居委会是社区各项事务的管理与服务组织者，产权关系界定不清使居委会成为政府、民众乃至市场竞相逐利的“公共领域”，是导致社区工作效率低下的根本原因。为了明晰居委会的产权界定，实现社区资源的优化配置，市场化道路或者行政化道路应当是两条理想的改革路径。     

Groups Formation and Operations in the Web 2.0 Environment and Social Networks

The Internet and the Web are evolving to a platform for collaboration, sharing, innovation and user-created content—the so-called Web 2.0 environment. This environment includes social and business networks, and it is influencing what people do on the Web and intranets, individually and in groups. This paper describes the Web 2.0 environment, its tools, applications, characteristics. It also describes various types of online groups, especially social networks, and how they operate in the Web 2.0 environment. Of special interest is the way organization members communicate and collaborate mainly via wikis and blogs. In addition, the paper includes a proposed triad relational model (Technology–People–Community) of social/work life on the Internet. Particularly, social/work groups are becoming sustainable because of the incentives for participants to connect and network with other users. A discussion of group dynamics that is based on the human needs for trust, support, and sharing, regardless if the setting is a physical or virtual one, follows. Finally, future research directions are outlined.     

Norms and Rationality in the Evolution of Economic Systems: A View from Asian Villages

The evolution of economic systems is viewed as a process in which various informal arrangements are experimented with for improving efficiency under changed economic environments, some of which may survive and become established as new social norms. The process is illustrated by a micro case study of Philippine villages. It reveals the ability of peasants subsisting on small farms to resolve a major disequilibrium between labour's marginal productivity and the wage rate resulting from the intro duction of modern rice technology, by creating, on the basis of their traditional experience, an appropriate institution consistent with their cultural norm. Concurrently, large estate farms were seen to arrive at an inferior outcome because of their inability to utilize the peasant community's norm, thereby demonstrating the existence of multiple equilibria
JEL Classification Numbers: D23, O17, P51     

构建和谐营销新体系促进和谐社会的发展

在全国构建和谐社会的大背景下,本文认为现代企业应该树立和谐营销观念,构建和探索可持续的和谐营销体系,以促进我国和谐社会的发展。     

Keynes's Liquidity Trap in Retrospect

This brief note shows that the conventional view of the liquidity-preference schedule involving a liquidity trap is not only in discordance with Keynes's own view, but also conceptually ill-founded. I propose an alternative view, which is more in concordance with Keynes's view, and on the basis of which a liquidity-preference schedule generating a liquidity trap can be contrived.
JEL Classification Numbers: E12, E41, B22