国家审计与国家监察服务腐败治理的路径探索——基于协同视角的思考

随着国家监察体制改革的全面推进，国家监督系统焕发新的生机。国家审计与国家监察作为国家监督系统的重要组成部分，理应充分发挥监督职能以保证国家可持续发展。从国家监察体制改革特点入手，基于受托经济责任观，全面分析国家审计及国家监察分别与腐败治理的相关关系，并以腐败治理为核心，从战略层面、管理层面和结果层面三个层面探求国家审计与国家监察的耦合路径，使两者通过有效耦合路径将监督协同效应发挥到极致，进而保证政府公共受托经济责任全面有效地履行。     

Institutional Economics as Theory of Policy Change: Impact of Past Policy Failures on Present Policy

Social scientists have developed several theories for understanding or evaluating policy change over time. Since all costs or benefits are not internalized owing to positive transaction costs, policymaking is always implemented under cost underestimation conditions and, therefore, is imperfect. I call this trait policy failure in this article. Furthermore, I show that a new framework combining the social costs approach and the legal/economic approach in institutional economics is suitable and can be applied to evaluating how past policy failures affect present policy, providing as an example the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.     

The role of relationship quality in raising organizational change acceptance: The case of the Greek hotel industry

This study examines whether the quality of an employee's relationships, within the context of the hotel industry, has an influence on their behavioral intention towards organizational change. The researchers suggest that the quality of relationships is an important element of an individual's social capital and can be evaluated using five key dimensions: the extent to which relationships are tangible, responsive and reliable, as well as the extent to which they offer empathy and assurance. Furthermore, this research examines whether organizational commitment and job satisfaction have an effect on the association between relationship quality and an individual's behavioral intention towards organizational change. The data collected from a sample of 100 hotel employees in Thessaloniki, Greece, show that relationship quality has a positive association with an individual's behavioral intention towards change. Additional results highlight the roles of job satisfaction and organizational commitment as mediating variables. Managerial implications relevant to the findings and pathways for further research are also discussed.     

变革中多渠道信息传递对员工绩效的影响机制

面对日趋复杂的外部环境,组织变革成为企业获得竞争力的重要方式。员工参与是组织变革成败的关键,充足的组织变革信息有利于员工积极投入变革。本文以社会信息加工理论为基础,对来自被兼并企业的36个工作团队185名员工进行研究,探索多渠道变革信息传递对员工的影响机制。基于多层次线性模型的数据分析结果表明:(1)变革情境下,组织正式渠道进行信息沟通和变革氛围包含的非正式信息,均能正向促进员工变革绩效;(2)员工所持有的积极变革期望,在多渠道信息传递和变革绩效间起到中介作用;(3)变革氛围跨层调节变革信息沟通对员工积极变革期望的正向作用,相比于低变革氛围情景,具有高变革氛围的团队,通过变革信息沟通更能显著提升员工对变革的积极期望。研究结论对企业变革实践中信息传递和沟通工作具有现实指导意义。     

Financial crises,debt overhang,and firm growth in transition economies

ABSTRACT

We examine the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European debt crisis of 2011 on the relationship between capital structure, investments, and performance for Eastern European companies. While the existing literature documents how firms’ investments are sensitive to the availability of internal funds and to debt holdings, we further investigate whether this investment sensitivity also translates in different levels of performance, and document that capital structure indeed has both a direct and an indirect effect, mediated by the capital expenditure channel. We show that firms with higher financial flexibility experience higher investments and returns on capital. Over-levered firms instead suffer from a debt overhang condition, forcing them to curb investments, and consequently experiencing lower performance. Overall, we provide evidence on the importance of capital structure and financial flexibility on investments and performance, showing the real consequences of the debt overhang condition on firm value creation. Firms should therefore aim at maintaining adequate financial flexibility in order to be able to pursue future profitable investment opportunities, and avoid the under-investment problem arising from a debt overhang situation.     

Digital Platforms and the Nature of the Firm

Abstract:

Digital platforms turn traditional approaches of the firm, which relied on the wage relation to explain the major difference between firm and market, upside down and underline the advantages of coordination through organization over coordination through market. This study aims to propose a definition of the firm able to integrate, besides the integrated firm, also hybrid forms such as networks of subcontractor/subcontracting firms as well as atypical forms such as digital platforms. By reactivating the firm-boundary problem, this article suggests putting valorization by labor at the heart of the firm’s decisions concerning integration. It suggests therefore a general definition of the firm as a techno-institutional center of capital valorization, provided that firms make profits by means of the appropriation of labor incorporated into their (productive, structural, intellectual) capital through institutional arrangements. By stressing the relation of production between the owners of the means of production and the direct producers, the approach of the firm supported here should allow to cover the different existing models of the firm, from the classical firm to hybrid models, around which the boundary debate has revolved, to digital platforms.     

From Judicial Sovereignty to Collective Democracy: The Development of J.R. Commons’ Perspective on Progressive Institutional Change

Abstract:

This article clarifies the significance of “collective democracy” in the works of John R. Commons by comparing it with “judicial sovereignty” in terms of its contribution to “progress.” We can thus answer two issues that Paul D. Bush does not clearly address: (i) what setup for policy formation contributes to progress and (ii) what is the role of economists within a collective democracy? Based on the comparison, the answer to the first question is collective democracy, and regarding the second question, the roles of economists as both economists and “institutional” economists are extrapolated.     

Policy Dimensions of Progressive Institutional Change: Lessons from China’s Construction of a Socialist Market Economy

Abstract:

Through a comprehensive review of the progressive institutional change (PIC) literature, I first discuss four possible trajectories of PIC by considering the forces of societal reaction that might frame the path, as well as the scale and scope of the changes. Thus, I pose four questions that need to be asked when related policies are formulated for PIC. To illustrate this method, I scrutinize the evidence from the construction of a socialist market economy by the Chinese government since the 1980s and argue that related policies have successfully promoted PIC from three dimensions: (1) curbing potential conflicts with power groups; (2) promoting a sense of awareness among stakeholders; and (3) minimizing disturbances to the community. Actually, the related changes demonstrate a dynamic “displacement process” for PICs. Despite the success of this sociosystem, it is found that the sustaining of PIC which requires policy factors that enhance instrumental efficiency in the Chinese context will serve as a challenge to the Chinese government ahead.     

Automation,Financialization, and Institutional Change: Challenges for Progressive Policy

Abstract:

This article argues that the issue of “technological unemployment” resulting from automation is the result of ceremonial encapsulation within the process of progressive institutional adjustment. While institutions of production have adjusted to account for new technological developments, institutions of distribution have not. As discussed here, the main cause of this lack of adjustment is a financialized economy, in which shareholder returns motivate and dominate economic decision making and activity. As a result, gains and benefits from technological advances exacerbate existing income inequality and reduces the power of labor. I discuss this issue in detail before explaining how progressive policies that divorce private wage-labor from access to the system of social provisioning may serve to smooth this process of institutional adjustment caused by the introduction of automated processes.