机关运行经费基金化管理的战略构想

政府机关事务的高绩效管理是维护政府高效有序运行的关键,更是实现政府职能、促进社会经济发展、维护社会稳定和提升政府公信力的重要保障。许多先发国家如美国、英国等对机关运行实行了价值化管理改革,以基金作为撬动政府机关运行资金的杠杆,达到了机关服务高效优质、规范有序、监督有效和战略明确的目标。中国机关事务运行正处于由传统的事务性实物管理向现代化的价值治理转变的关键期,借鉴英美等国的基金管理和运行经验对于中国建立机关运行普遍服务基金制度,提高政府效能,实现国家治理体系和治理能力现代化具有重要意义。     

The Neutrality Illusion: Biased Economics,Biased Training,and Biased Monetary Policy. Testing the Role of Ideology on FOMC Voting Behaviour

This research is trying to shed light on two myths that are usually widespread: the first one being the idea of the academic economist as a neutral scientist finding uncontestable consensual truths, thanks to uncontestable empirical methods, the second, the idea of the central banker as a Weberian neutral bureaucrat setting aside personal beliefs to act mechanically for the common good. Deconstructing this ‘neutrality illusion’, this work argues that economics is actually a divided and ideologically marked discipline despite its aim at natural-science-type-legitimacy. It argues in a related discussion that such ideological bias also impedes a purely neutral conduct of monetary policy, undermining the very idea of central bank independence. Linking these two arguments, it argues that graduate training in economics is the first place for the formation of biased preferences, because of the substantial ideological sorting that exists across universities. Using a unique database on FOMC members’ votes and ideology, the paper tests this idea empirically and despite unavoidable caveats, finds robust evidence of a systematic impact of the ideological features of their alma mater on FOMC members’ voting behaviour – impact that we found more important than the other traditional determinants of central bankers’ actions.     

Examining relationships among perceived benefit,tourist experience and satisfaction: the context of intelligent sharing bicycle

Intelligent sharing bicycle has been a new fashion in China and appeals to more and more tourists. To better understand the experience of tourists traveling on sharing bicycle, this study explored the influence of perceived benefit of sharing bicycle on different perceived experiences, including escape, entertainment, esthetic and educational experiences. The relationships between these experiences and perceived satisfaction were also tested. An effective questionnaire survey was conducted for 296 tourists in Chengdu, China. The results of the study show that perceived benefit significantly relates to all the four dimensions of experience. However, only entertainment and esthetic experience seem to affect tourist satisfaction in this context. The relationship among educational experience, escape experience and tourist satisfaction are insignificant. Theoretical and practical implications of the study results are discussed for further research.     

The importance of career goal in relation to academic performance: a case study of hospitality management students

ABSTRACT

Hospitality management programs have commonly offered exclusive learning opportunities to talented students in order to keep “brains” in the industry. While academic performance indices are often used to identify “brains” in the education sector, scant research has empirically examined whether “brains” are intended to stay in the industry. This study surveyed 304 hospitality management students and examined the relationships between their career-goal related factors and academic performance. Findings indicate that career goal and positive job valence toward the hospitality industry are significantly related to academic performance. The results of this study contribute to the limited literature on the relationship between career goal and academic performance.     

The persistent institutional effect of liberal colonialism: evidence from China’s financial policies

ABSTRACT

The effect of liberal colonialism on the allocation of capital persists to this day. We exploit the colonial history of China during 1896-1911 with qualitative evidence to measure liberal colonialism. We document that liberal colonialism promotes the subsequent efficiency of financial policies on the capital allocation in 2004 through the quality of economic institutions.     

Engines of Growth in China: The Limits of Informal Institutions

Abstract:

Since the 1978 reforms, China has experienced rapid economic and social development. GDP growth has been in the double digits on average yearly, creating the fastest sustained economic growth recorded by a major economy in history. Not only did this transform the economy and society at large, China reached important milestones in terms of reducing poverty and creating prosperity in a short period of time. This article uses the conceptual framework of new institutional economics to examine China’s economic growth and how growth has been achieved largely by ‘informal institutions’ that are grounded in culture, customs, and private interactions that emerge spontaneously. The trajectory by which these informal institutions left their imprint on China’s complex economic landscape and how they can constrain future economic growth are also of central importance. After examining decentralization and risk management practices, property rights, and the legal system, we emphasize the importance of creating formal institutions necessary for long-term growth, most importantly innovation. Preliminary evidence shows total factor productivity is tapering off which may reflect the constraints of China’s institutional environment. This ought to be reversed if China is to enjoy long-term sustained growth.     

From Mad to Mindful: Corporate Control Through Corporate Spirituality

Abstract:

Capitalism has always and will always depend on a compliant workforce. Maintaining the delicate balance between a worker who is just “not-unhappy” enough or desperate enough to continue working while also cutting costs to the bone presents a continuous challenge for business interests. This pursuit to squeeze more productivity out of workers while also managing worker discontent in the cheapest way possible has spawned innovations in labor management which reflect the institutional milieu of the respective time. This research focuses on those labor management techniques particular to neoliberalism and the ways in which cultural movements and trends of the neoliberal period are mined and deployed as yet another useful resource in the disciplining of workers. Corporate mindfulness is the favorite labor management technique of the neoliberal period. The formalized packaging of corporate mindfulness began in the late 1970s but was built on a long tradition of attempts to hack the minds and mindsets of workers. Corporate mindfulness reinforces neoliberalism through the corporate individual, the transformation of the self of the corporate individual, and the creation of the corporation as a community and means of social connection for the corporate individual.     

People,Actors, and the Humanizing of Institutional Theory

In much contemporary institutional scholarship, the term ‘actor’ is used as a shorthand for any entity imbued with agency. Talking about actors in institutions thus serves the necessity of allocating agency before returning to the analysis of institutional structures and processes. We find this approach to actorhood limiting, conceptually and normatively. Grounded in the perspective of pragmatist phenomenology, we assert the need for distinguishing between persons and actors, and the value of integrating the person into institutional analysis. We conceive of persons as humans with a reflective capacity and sense of self, who engage with multiple institutions through the performance of institutional roles. People may acquire actorhood by temporarily aligning their self with what is expected from a particular actor-role in an institutional order. Conversely, institutions enter people’s lifeworld as they are personified in people’s social performances. We outline this perspective and examine conceptual and normative implications that arise from the integration of human experience in institutional analysis.     

Managing Technological,Sociopolitical, and Institutional Change in the New Normal

A New Normal environment for business has emerged in the years after the 2008 financial crisis based on numerous changes in the world's economic, technological, demographic, and sociopolitical factors. This combination of changes has created a New Normal environment for firms with major implications for managers, strategists, and entrepreneurs alike. It has resulted in an environment with new challenges and opportunities that are considerably different from what firms had to contend with in the years previous. In this paper, we present the main changes that characterize the current New Normal business environment and highlight some key implications for strategy and management. Then, we present the nine articles in this special issue dealing with different dimensions of this new environment for firms. Subsequently, we outline some future research questions that could help to advance our knowledge of the New Normal environment and its implications for firms and management theories. In examining the New Normal, it is important to be reminded that the world is indeed round and even small actions on one side of the globe can have a major impact on organizations on the other side of the globe.     

Institutions and the financial development–economic growth nexus in sub-Saharan Africa

Using a sample splitting approach that does not impose an exogenous quadratic term, we examine the effect of financial development on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa by allowing the link to be mediated by the level of institutions. Our findings reveal a disproportionate growth-enhancing effect of finance, given countries’ distinct level of institutional quality. More specifically, when the International Country Risk Guide-based measure of institutions is used as the threshold variable, below the optimal level of institutional quality, financial development does not significantly promote economic growth. For countries with institutional quality above the threshold, higher finance is associated with growth. However, when institutions are measured by World Governance Indicators proxy, we find a significant effect of financial development, irrespective of whether a country is below or above the threshold. Interestingly, the growth-enhancing effect of finance is greater for low-institution countries relative to high-institution countries. Thus, through its ability to provide some crucial roles, the well-developed financial sector may also perform the function of sound institutions in influencing economic growth.