Envisioning a community‐centric approach to impact assessments in subsistence marketplaces

What does a community‐centric approach to impact assessment look like? That is the central question addressed in this article. Our community‐centric perspective provides an alternative to discipline‐centric approaches to impact assessment that emphasize specific methodological gold‐standards (e.g., randomized controlled trials [RCTs] in development economics). Disciplinary approaches to impact assessment owe their principal allegiance to the discipline's knowledge‐creation norms. Consequently, the concerns, interests, and voices of community members are not fully captured in the impact assessment process. In this article, we flip the conventional perspective to offer a community‐centric view of impact assessment that places the concerns, interests and voices of community members front and center. We present the case for why we need a community‐centric approach to impact assessment and clarify its axiological content, theoretical perspective, and methodological stance. Specifically, we advocate for a relational axiology, a system‐theoretic perspective, and a phenomenological methodology.     

“一带一路”倡议能否提升对外直接投资企业盈利能力？

基于2011-2015年A股上市公司与商务部《境外投资企业（机构）名录》数据，利用倾向得分匹配方法（PSM）和双重差分法（DID）考察“一带一路”倡议对中国对外直接投资企业盈利能力的影响及作用机制。研究发现：“一带一路”倡议显著提升了中国对沿线国家投资企业的盈利能力。机制检验表明，“一带一路”倡议能够通过推进中国与沿线国家间的经济融合和文化包容来提升对外投资企业的盈利能力，而政治互信在样本期内不显著。进一步研究发现，“一带一路”倡议对企业盈利能力的提升作用主要体现在国有企业、新兴优势产业以及投资目的为非邻近中国的“一带一路”国家上。     

刑事涉财产执行中的案外人权益救济——以案外人权益救济程序的当事人构造为视角

刑事涉财产执行程序因采取移送执行模式而被误认为不存在申请执行人，使得刑事涉财产执行程序及其衍生的案外人权益救济程序过分依赖执行法院的职权主义。在刑事附带民事诉讼裁判、追缴或责令退赔违法所得并返还被害人判项、责令被免予刑事处罚的被告人赔偿被害人损失判项的执行程序中，案外人权益救济程序原则上应以被害人为申请执行人，并参照适用民事强制执行程序中的案外人权益救济制度。其他刑事涉财产执行程序应以检察机关为申请执行人。除非出现被执行人逃避执行或者案外人对执行标的提出排除执行请求等特殊情形，作为申请执行人的检察机关通常无须现实参加执行程序。     

The process of entrepreneurial action at the base of the pyramid in developing countries: a case of vegetable farmers in Benin

The assumption that entrepreneurship is a critical factor in expanding employment, creating wealth and contributing to poverty alleviation at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in developing countries has led to the development of many initiatives to strengthen the entrepreneurial activities of poor people. Despite the fact that entrepreneurship is seen as a strategy in combatting poverty, the process that leads to entrepreneurial action in a BoP context is still unclear. In this paper, we illustrate the possibilities a multi-layered perspective offers to understand the complexity of entrepreneurship in poverty settings. Based on five focus group discussions and 36 in-depth interviews with vegetable farmers in Benin, we examined the entrepreneurship of poor people. We learned that entrepreneurial action is the nexus of individual and exogenous factors in complex relationships. Based on this, we elaborate on the characteristics of the process model of entrepreneurial action. We provide a process-based view of entrepreneurship at the BoP, suggesting a need for consistency between individual, behavioural strategies and contextual elements. We discuss the implications of our findings for BoP practice and provide a framing perspective that we hope will encourage a greater focus on the complexity of entrepreneurship phenomenon.     

Neo-colonialism and greed: Africans’ views on trophy hunting in social media

Existing studies on the trophy hunting controversy in recent years have largely represented the anti-hunting views of the Western public, while overlooking the opinions of African people. This study taps into Africans’ social media narratives to illuminate the racially, politically, and historically charged context in which trophy hunting occurs in Africa. Data were collected from the Facebook pages of three major social media players with a predominantly African followership, namely, BBC News Africa, News24.com, and NewsDay-Zimbabwe. The dominant pattern was resentment towards what was viewed as the neo-colonial character of trophy hunting, in the way it privileges Western elites in accessing Africa’s wildlife resources. However, the West’s passionate criticism of violence against animals was viewed by participants as overblown, and as evidence of their (Westerners') higher regard for animals than for African people. Interestingly, trophy hunting was not objectionable from an animal rights perspective, but as a consequence of its complex historical and postcolonial associations. In addition, criticism was directed at African politicians who were perceived as allowing wildlife exploitation to satisfy their own greed. In this instance, far from tourism being a facilitator of intercultural understanding and peace, it appears to reproduce images and wounds of a colonial past.     

Do Boards of Directors Influence Corporate Sustainable Development? An Attention‐Based Analysis

Following the attention‐based view of the firm (ABV), boards of directors’ link to corporate sustainable development (CSD) could be dependent upon certain attention structures: valuation of environmental stimuli, rules of the game and the players. Studying a sample of large Australian firms, the findings indicate that the proposed attention‐directing structures do appear to be linked to CSD in a manner consistent with the ABV. Specifically, creating awareness through scanning efforts links boards to CSD. Stakeholder debate, as a boardroom rule, is also significantly associated with CSD. Furthermore, as a so‐called ‘player’ on the board, women directors have a moderating effect on the relationships between environmental scanning, stakeholder debate and CSD. The findings are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

生态旅游视域下的岷江上游贫困山区生态安全评价

[目的]构建科学合理的评价指标体系,准确评价生态旅游影响下的区域生态安全状况,是推动少数民族山区实现旅游资源环境与区域社会、经济协同发展的前提和基础。[方法]以岷江上游贫困山区为例,应用灰色系统理论与熵值赋权法相结合,基于压力—状态—响应模型,构建生态旅游视域下的区域生态安全评估指标体系,并将评估指数与经济收入状况及贫困人口分布进行空间耦合。[结果](1)区域当前处于较安全水平,生态旅游开发适度;(2)综合评估指数与城镇居民可支配收入增长率、旅游收入对国民经济增长的贡献率呈正相关,且城镇居民在旅游开发中受益与机会较农牧民多;(3)综合评估指数与贫困人口比重呈负相关,与农牧民纯收入增长率没有必然联系。[结论]区域脱贫能够改善当地的生态安全状况,适度生态旅游开发是区域脱贫的有效手段,但应注重扶持农牧民在旅游业中的参与度,增加其旅游收益。     

From the blogosphere into the parliament: The role of digital technologies in organizing social movements

In this paper, we present a process model exploring the roles played by digital technologies (DTs) in the organization of collective action (CA) of social movements (SMs) at different points in their lifecycles. The process model, which is based on an exploratory case study of the Italian Five Star Movement, relates the environmental conditions to the working logic, structure and use of DTs at three different stages of the SMs. We explain how these choices are adopted at each stage to address internal and environmental challenges and how they create further challenges to be addressed to pass to the next stage. We further explore the dynamics between the logic of connective and collective action and reflect on the growing need for structures and control. By so doing, our work addresses the need for a better understanding of the coevolution between DTs and organizational structures and of the ways in which DTs are used to mobilize people to sustain CA along the SM lifecycle.     

我国秸秆综合利用面临形势与对策研究

[目的]为加快推动秸秆资源化利用,促进农业绿色发展。[方法]文章在系统梳理我国秸秆综合利用政策文件、相关文献的基础上,全面分析了我国农作物秸秆禁烧和综合利用的发展阶段,提出了秸秆利用面临的形势和存在的主要问题。[结果]我国秸秆综合利用从时间序列上,可以划分为起步阶段、强力推进阶段和攻坚阶段。城镇化的快速推进、农村能源结构的调整、农业供给侧结构性改革的实施、农作物季节矛盾突出等,成为秸秆综合利用面临的新形势、新挑战。当前推进秸秆综合利用存在四大方面问题:秸秆还田成本较高,区域技术规范和技术适宜性缺乏;受"成本地板"和"价格天花板"双重挤压,秸秆产业化利用发展困难;秸秆收储运成本高,技术装备水平低,用地、运输问题尚未解决,收储运体系建设不健全;关键性政策工具尚未破题,缺乏普惠性、针对性的资金扶持。[结论]针对形势与问题,提出了推进秸秆资源化利用的4条对策建议:开展县域秸秆全量化利用、分区施策确定秸秆利用方向、加强政策工具集成创设、扩大试点示范引导。     

Assessing the Reliability of Self‐reported Income Information in Informal Small Business Lending through a Bogus Pipeline Experiment

Coping with asymmetric information plays a major role in successful small business lending. Our purpose is to determine if small business applicants report their income information correctly when requesting a loan. We use a randomised controlled trial bogus pipeline experiment, established during a typical cash‐flow analysis of a bank for small businesses in the Philippines. The bogus pipeline approach is commonly applied in social science and aims to increase the rate of truth telling by informing participants that answers will be verified by a lie detector. The experimental data, which include 243 observations of credit clients that are mainly from the agricultural and food value chain, served to identify asymmetric information. Additionally, debtors’ repayment behaviour for approved loans was observed by the bank. Our results indicate that loan applicants of the treatment group report lower incomes, an effect which is most pronounced in lower income quantile. Our analyses also reveal higher loan delinquencies in the control group.