“AIDS is Not a Business”: A Study in Global Corporate Responsibility – Securing Access to Low-cost HIV Medications

At the end of the 1990s, Brazil was faced with a potentially explosive HIV/AIDS epidemic. Through an innovative and multifaceted campaign, and despite initial resistance from multinational pharmaceutical companies, the government of Brazil was able to negotiate price reductions for HIV medications and develop local production capacity, thereby averting a public health disaster. Using interview data and document analysis, the authors show that the exercise of corporate social responsibility can be viewed in practice as a dynamic negotiation and an interaction between multiple actors. Action undertaken in terms of voluntary CSR alone may be insufficient. This finding highlights the importance of a strong role for national governments and international organizations to pressure companies to perform better. William Flanagan is the Dean of Law at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. His research interests include international trade and investment, and corporate law and corporate governance. Gail Whiteman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business and Society of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.     

基于TCP/IP的嵌入式WebServer网络测控系统设计

本文研究基于TCP/IP协议栈的嵌入式系统在网络智能设备中的测控应用设计。以Rabbit2000网络微处理器和Dynam ic C软件开发环境为例,阐述构建嵌入式W ebServer的具体技术及相关的实现方案;详细介绍了实现TCP、UDP报文进行网络通信、串行口数据通信和对网络智能设备的测控技术等,并给出系统硬件原理框图和有关软件实现的程序代码及流程图。     

如何把环境问题纳入贸易体系——浅析WTO在环境规则上的改革方案

GATT/WTO成立 5 0多年来 ,一直致力于推动贸易自由化 ,以让各缔约方能从中获取贸易收益。而GATT/WTO在这方面的成绩亦有目共睹———经过多轮艰苦的谈判 ,一个开放的贸易体系逐渐形成 ,贸易保护主义亦有所收敛。但是 ,在众多问题得到解决的同时 ,GATT/WTO也不断面临新的挑战。这些新问题往往会涉及到贸易以外的领域 ,贸易与环境问题便是一个很可能会成为未来谈判重点的问题。如何使贸易与环境相互协调 ,在保护环境的同时又不对自由贸易造成太大限制 ,以达到可持续发展的目标 ,这就成为了摆在我们面前的一个重大的课题。     

基于生成矩阵的LDPC/Turbo码的构造及内外迭代译码新技术

美国相关公司在美国对中国维生素C生产企业提起“价格串通”的美国反托拉斯(反垄断)诉讼。这是中国企业第一次面临美国的反托拉斯诉讼的域外管辖。本文分析的案例报告主要涉及中国企业试图从程序方面即根据“国家强迫行为”理论来申请中止证据调查程序。本文在对该案归纳的基础上,还就本案可能涉及的其他问题,如对美国反托拉斯法的域外适用的抗辩理由;美国反托拉斯法上价格串通构成的要素进行了评析。此外,本案还提醒我国行业协会和企业在应对美国反倾销指控的同时,需防止被指控价格串通而触犯后果更为严厉的美国反托拉斯法。     

Sustainability reporting,materiality, and accountability assessment in the airport industry

Air travel is, nowadays, recognized as being one of the most popular modes of transport. Air transport is among the most significant contributors to the world gross domestic product and is accountable for a great environmental and social impact. Driven by the well‐established sustainability discourse and the vital role businesses can play in disseminating the sustainable development concept, this paper attempted to map airport industry's most material operational aspects and assess airport operators' accountability level on disclosing corporate information regarding airports' economic, environmental, and social performance. In this context, 33 reports and 903 material issues representing 193 international airports were reviewed and assessed, and a methodology for benchmarking the accountability level of best reporting airport operators was developed, showcasing materiality assessment as a useful management tool for strengthening airport operators' business strategy and enhancing their corporate performance. The paper indicated that (a) customer focus (i.e., health, safety and satisfaction), economic viability, and business continuity and preparedness are operational aspects of high materiality and (b) the disclosure level, especially concerning specific performance indicators, is still moderate. In conclusion, this study has shown that materiality assessment gains ground as a management tool among airports' management teams and the completeness of Sustainability reports is positively correlated with the “level” of adherence as described by the Global Reporting Initiative.     

Why do auditors fail? What might work? What won’t?†

Auditing failures and scandals have become commonplace. In response, reformers (including the Kingman Review in the U.K. and a recent report of the U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority) have proposed a variety of remedies, including prophylactic bans on auditors providing consulting services to their clients in the belief that this will minimize the conflicts of interest that produce auditing failures. Although useful, such reforms are already in place to a considerable degree and may have reached the point of diminishing returns. Moreover, this strategy does not address the deeper problem that clients (or their managements) may not want aggressive auditing, but rather prefer a deferential and perfunctory audit. If so, auditors will realize that they are marketing a ‘commodity’ service and cannot successfully compete based on their quality of services. Rationally, they would respond to such a market by seeking to adopt a cost-minimization strategy, competing by reducing the cost of their services and not investing in new technology or higher-priced personnel.

What could change this pattern? Gatekeepers, including auditors, serve investors, but are hired by corporate management. To induce gatekeepers to better serve investors, one needs to reduce the ‘agency costs’ surrounding this relationship by making gatekeepers more accountable to investors. This might be accomplished through litigation (as happens to some degree in the U.S.), but the U.K. and Europe have rules that discourage collective litigation. Thus, a more feasible approach would be to give investors greater ability to select and remove the auditor. This paper proposes a two part strategy to this end: (1) public ‘grading’ of the auditor by the audit regulator in an easily comparable fashion (and with a mandatory grading curve), and (2) enabling a minority of the shareholders (hypothetically, 10%) to propose a replacement auditor for a shareholder vote. It further argues that both activist shareholders and diversified shareholders might support such a strategy and undertake it under different circumstances. Absent such a focus on agency costs, however, reformers are likely only re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.     

Intraday return and volatility spillover mechanism from Chinese to Japanese stock market

We analyze the mechanism of return and volatility spillover effects from the Chinese to the Japanese stock market. We construct a stock price index comprised of those companies that have substantial operations in China. This China-related index responds to changes in the Shanghai Composite Index more strongly than does the TOPIX (the market index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange). This result suggests that China has a large impact on Japanese stocks via China-related firms in Japan. Furthermore, we find evidence that this response has become stronger as the Chinese economy has gained importance in recent years.     

Towards a taxonomy-based preferred-customer model for suppliers in air cargo express service markets

Drawing on social exchange and push–pull–mooring theories, this paper develops a taxonomy-based preferred-customer model for B2B air express markets. Our model extends the conventional bilateral customer-supplier relationship perspective of customer portfolio management to include competition effects for more comprehensive (trilateral) strategic decision making. Based on this unified framework, our a survey of 180 customers of air cargo express carriers identifies three distinctive groups of preferred customers. In addition to the effect of competitors on air express carriers’ prioritization of customers, which is further complicated by a satisfaction paradox and spurious loyalty, we further establish classification indicators for differentiating preferred from non-preferred customers. Notably, although commonly used in practice, we find sales volumes to be ineffective for that purpose.     

Optimal granularity for portfolio choice

Many optimization-based portfolio rules fail to beat the simple 1/N rule out-of-sample because of parameter uncertainty. In this paper we suggest a grouping strategy in which we first form groups of equally weighted stocks and then optimize over the resulting groups only. This strategy aims at balancing the trade-off between the benefits from optimization and the losses from estimation risk. We rely on Monte-Carlo simulations to illustrate the performance of the strategy, and we derive the optimal group size for a simplified setup. Furthermore, we show that estimation risk also has an impact via the criterion by which the assets are sorted into groups (like the expected excess returns or betas), but does not negate the grouping approach. We relate our work to linear asset pricing models, and we conduct out of sample back-tests in order to confirm the validity of our grouping strategy empirically.     

Dialectical mind can be sweet toward crisis‐associated products/brands

Consumers’ thinking style (e.g., dialectical thinking), which is fundamental to cognition, has been paid inadequate attention in the consumer literature. This research explores the impact of dialectical thinking on Chinese consumer responses toward crisis‐associated products/brands. Findings in three experimental studies indicate that, in comparison to those primed with nondialectical thinking, consumers primed with dialectical thinking report higher levels of purchase intention and trust for a crisis‐associated product/brand. This is the case not just for products with Chinese cultural background, but also for products with western cultural background. Consumers’ perceived severity of crises moderates the impact of dialectical thinking, with a stronger impact in a highly severe crisis situation than in a less severe one. A survey study indicates a similar pattern. These findings are important in suggesting ways of encouraging Chinese consumers to be insistent on quality standard in order to better protect their consumer rights, and moreover, for multinational corporations on how best to respond and formulate strategies of handling product‐harm crises in the Chinese market.