Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

Information and Knowledge as Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes and Intentions to Buy and Recommend Fair-Trade Products

The authors propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how the availability of fair-trade information and consumer knowledge about this issue affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward fair-trade products. The model is built upon the attitude-behavior paradigm and the premises of agency theory. It is tested through structural equation modeling with a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings are that consumers do not have good knowledge about fair trade and that this is significantly determined by the lack of information about this in the market. It is also observed that consumers’ perceptions about the availability of fair-trade information have negative effects on their concern about this issue and that such information as is available is not effective in reducing consumer skepticism. The research represents an extension of previous fair-trade literature because the role of information and communication in improving consumer attitudes and buying intentions has rarely been explored in the case of ethical products.     

Magic mirror in my hand … How trade mirror statistics can help us detect illegal financial flows

Misreporting tricks of different sorts applied to the transfer of goods between different countries are typically exploited by criminals worldwide for money laundering ends. The main international anti‐money laundering organisations started paying attention to this phenomenon, dubbed “trade‐based money laundering” (TBML), a long time ago, but the failure to develop appropriate analytical tools has reportedly dogged preventive actions. Nonetheless, literature has widely advocated the possibility that the analysis of inconsistencies in mirrored bilateral trade data could provide some help. By building on previous contributions in the field, this work sets up a model factoring in the main structural determinants of discrepancies between mirrored data concerning Italy's 2010 to 2013 external trade at a highly detailed (6‐digit) level of goods classification for each partner country. Point estimates of freight costs are used to net each observation of the corresponding cif/fob discrepancy. The regression estimates are then deployed in order to compute TBML risk indicators at a country/4‐digit product level. Based on the indicators, rankings of countries and product lines can be compiled, which may be used for a risk‐driven search of potential illegal commercial transactions.     

Economic Impacts of the Possible China–US Trade War

This article uses a multi-country global general equilibrium (GE) model to numerically simulate the effects of possible China–US trade wars. We introduce an endogenous trade imbalance structure with trade cost into the model which helps to explore both tariff and non-tariff trade war effects. Our simulation results show that China will be significantly hurt by the China–US trade war, but negative impacts are affordable. The US can gain under unilateral sanction measures to China, but will lose if China takes retaliation measures. Comparing the effects under mutual trade war, China will lose more than the US. Introducing non-tariff barrier trade wars will intensify the negative effects, and comparatively negative effects to China are larger than to the US. Mexico’s involvement in trade war with the US will strengthen the negative effects and comparatively hurt the US more. Under non-cooperative and cooperative Nash bargaining equilibrium, the US can gain more than China in trade war negotiation, which means the US has stronger bargaining power than China. Additionally, trade wars between China and the US will hurt most countries and the world especially in GDP and manufacturing employment, but benefit their welfare and trade.     

新进入者如何在版权引进市场中有所作为

外版书引进在近现代中国出版史上具有非常重要的地位。我国版权贸易市场渐趋稳定的力量对比格局，给新进入者造成了不小的困惑：好版权抢不到，差版权没法要，夹缝中求生存异常艰难。新入者要改变这种困境就要精准定位，必须贴合本单位现有的资源基础，必须借助社会化分工并灵活创新。     

Effects of aid for trade on extensive and intensive margins of greenfield FDI

Using a panel dataset of 105 developing countries for the period 2003–15, this paper assesses the effects of Aid for Trade (AfT) on greenfield FDI flows to the aid‐recipient countries. Particularly, this paper classifies the total dollar value of greenfield FDI flows to each recipient country in terms of four different layers: the extensive and intensive margins of projects as well as the extensive and intensive margins of source countries. Applying the system GMM estimator, this paper finds that AfT not only increases the dollar value of FDI flows to the recipient countries but also helps diversify the greenfield projects and source countries. In addition, this paper finds that AfT has a greater effect for greenfield FDI from donor (developed) countries than from non‐donor (developing) countries. Among the three components of AfT, aid for trade‐related infrastructure and aid for trade policy regulations are found to have positive links with greenfield FDI, irrespective of source‐country groups, yet their effects are larger for developed source countries. In contrast, aid for building productive capacity hinders greenfield FDI flows from non‐donor countries, while it promotes greenfield FDI from donor countries. We offer some explanations for this finding.     

甘孜州农牧区县域发展水平综合评价与特征分析

[目的]对甘孜州各县市的发展状况进行研究探讨,为区域可持续发展策略的制定实施提供科学依据,对提升县域发展水平和发展质量具有重要意义。[方法]建立涵盖经济、社会、资源环境三大模块共计24项指标的评价体系,选取发展较快的2007—2014年为研究时段,运用极差法、改进熵值法、耦合协调度模型与GIS工具,对甘孜州各县市的发展水平进行综合评价与分析。[结果](1)全州综合发展水平指数平均值为0. 500 8,发展水平整体较低,其中康定市得分最高,石渠县最低,县市之间呈现两级分化。(2) 2007—2014年全州综合发展指数平均增幅0. 262 6,年均增速13. 77%,所有县市均处于上升过程,但县市之间增速不一,发展差距逐步扩大。(3)全州发展协调度平均值为0. 390 5,协调度较低,各县市均处于轻度失调或濒临失调水平。(4)发展水平、活力、协调度较高县市均集聚于州东部和南部,尤以东路片区最为典型。[结论]下一阶段需依据各县市实际,立足优势,制定实施合理的发展规划,缩小区域差异,提升综合发展水平。     

Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade

World trade evolves at two margins. Where a bilateral trading relationship already exists it may increase through time (intensive margin). But trade may also increase if a trading bilateral relationship is newly established between countries that have not traded with each other in the past (extensive margin). We provide an empirical dissection of post–World War II growth in manufacturing world trade along these two margins. We propose a “corner-solutions version” of the gravity model to explain movements on both margins. A Tobit estimation of this model resolves the so-called “distance puzzle”. It also finds more convincing evidence than recent literature that WTO-membership enhances trade. JEL no. F12, F15     

Resistance to Trade Liberalization in Unionized Sector

This paper studies the lobbying against trade liberalization by both a firm and a union in the same industry. We find that the relationship between their political activities depends on the effect of political activity by one on the marginal effectiveness of political activity by the other. We also show that, when they are strongly risk-averse and their political activities are strategic complements, trade liberalization is likely to be successful if business is brisk, the foreign firm's production cost is high or the number of union members is small. However, when they are not strongly risk-averse, these results hold reversely.     

Negotiation support using the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution

The Graph Model for Conflict Resolution is a flexible methodology for systematically studying strategic conflicts in the real world, and is therefore a natural tool for negotiation support. The basic definitions underlying the graph model are reviewed, and the techniques for analysis and interpretation are discussed. The modeling and analysis of a case study, an international trade negotiation concerning the export of Canadian softwood lumber to the United States, are used to demonstrate the practical application of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution as a negotiation support tool. The modeling and analysis is carried out using the GMCR software system. The ability of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution to provide insights and advice to negotiators is emphasized.