Religious belief and international business negotiations: Does faith influence negotiator behaviour?

Religious observance is widespread and continues to influence managerial behaviour in many parts of the world. However, its role in international business negotiations has not received much scholarly attention. This study explores some of the key ways in which religious belief shapes negotiation behaviour. Focusing specifically on the Islamic context, and drawing on interviews with 27 religiously observant Muslim managers in Malaysia, the study found that commitment to a common religion among negotiators positively influenced certain components of the negotiation process through, for example, the use of religious/emotional appeal, which emphasised their ‘spiritual camaraderie’. In some instances, however, we observed something of a paradox, whereby differing religious beliefs among negotiating counterparts were claimed to actually enhance, rather than hinder, negotiations.     

地区关系文化与企业创新

作为中国文化的重要组成部分，关系文化在制度改革进程中，促进了体制约束或资源匮乏背景下的企业创新行为。然而，浓重的地区关系文化犹如无形的制度牢笼，束缚着企业创新活动。利用中国内地120个城市工业企业数据，实证考察了地区关系文化对企业创新的影响。结果显示，地区关系文化对企业创新具有显著促进作用。随着地区关系文化的发展，企业创新活动将受到抑制，两者呈现显著倒“U”型关系。进一步研究表明，地区关系文化对企业创新的倒U型效应仅在规模较大的企业中显著；相较于国有企业，该效应在非国有企业样本中更显著；企业是否属于高技术行业则对两者关系无实质性影响。     

Culture,financial crisis and the demand for property,accident and health insurance in the OECD countries

Culture has been known to play an important role in explaining differences in consumption behaviour across countries. Yet, we know very little how it affects spending on non-life insurance products. This paper attempts to shed some light on how cultural characteristics impact the demand for property, accident and health insurance, focusing on the OECD countries in the period 2000–2017. We find, via the system generalized method of moment estimations, that cultural characteristics such as individualism, long-term orientation, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance were the drivers of the expenditure on property insurance, whereas long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and hypometropia explained accident and health insurance spending across the OECD countries. In the presence of the global financial crisis, cultural effects on property insurance spending turned out to be relatively minor, with the exception of individualism. These findings provide valuable information for non-life insurance companies, consumers and policy makers in the OECD countries.     

以“合”为贵？合作文化与企业创新

本文以2006-2015年沪深A股非金融上市公司为样本,基于上市公司网站对于企业文化的叙述和年报董事会报告两份本文,采用文本分析方法,构建两个度量企业合作文化强弱的指标,并研究企业合作文化对企业创新产出和创新效率的影响。研究发现,企业文化越强调合作,企业的创新产出越多,创新效率越高。这一结论在采用增加控制变量、利用水稻播种面积作为工具变量以及以董事长的非正常离职事件为冲击进行PSM-DID等多种方法后仍然稳健。渠道检验的结果显示,合作文化是通过提高企业内部员工的凝聚力和促进企业的“产学研”合作这两种渠道来促进企业创新。进一步的研究表明,合作文化的促进作用在竞争性行业以及地区信任程度和产业集群程度较高的地区中尤为显著。本文不仅从微观层面揭示企业文化对公司财务行为的影响机理,丰富和补充了当前方兴未艾的“文化与金融”研究,而且为国家制定建设社会主义文化强国的方针战略提供理论基础和实证支持。     

What constitutes a constitutional amendment culture?

Why are some constitutions amended frequently and others hardly at all? An obvious candidate determinant is constitutional rigidity, i.e., the size and number of procedural barriers to amendment. Given some demand for amendment, greater rigidity implies a smaller supply. However, measures of rigidity often do not correlate significantly (or even with the predicted sign) with amendment rates. Ginsburg and Melton (2015) argue that amendment culture – “shared attitudes about the desirability of amendment” – is a more important determinant of amendment rates. We study up to 128 constitutional episodes from 54 countries and estimate relationships between amendment rates and Hofstede cultural indices. Cultures that are more individualistic and less prone to uncertainty avoidance are associated with higher amendment rates. When cultural dimensions are controlled for, the lagged amendment rate (Ginsburg and Melton’s proxy for culture) is not a robust correlate.     

湖南省农业生态与农业经济耦合性测度

[目的]考察湖南省近9年来农业生态与农业经济系统耦合发展现状,探究二者发展过程中的规律,以期找出二者协调发展模式,并为湖南省农业生态环境保护、农业经济发展提供决策依据。[方法]运用耦合协调度模型,基于熵权法为各指标进行客观确定权重,结合2007~2015年湖南省农业生态与农业经济发展的相关数据,确定农业生态与农业经济的耦合匹配分析模型,采用熵值赋权法确定各项指标的权重,构建农业生态—农业经济耦合协调评价指标体系。[结果]研究结果表明,2007~2015年湖南省农业生态与农业经济的耦合协调发展基本稳定,耦合度值均在0.9以上,二者呈协调发展趋势。其中,2014年和2015年二者的耦合度较高,分别为0.975 3和0.984 3,说明湖南省在这两年的农业生态与农业经济的协调性好,农业经济与农业生态能够相互有效促进彼此的发展。同时,仍需时刻关注生态环境的承载力,降低对自然资源的无序攫取,实现经济的可持续发展。     

国家战略视角下鄂湘赣新型显示制造业协同创新研究

结合国家产业发展战略，采用复合系统协同度模型，从技术创新环境支撑能力（E）、技术创新获取能力（G）、技术创新应用能力（A）3个维度设计鄂湘赣新型显示制造业EGA协同创新能力评价指标体系。在此基础上，分别对鄂湘赣三省新型显示制造业的序参量变量有序度、省域内协同创新能力、省域间协同创新能力进行测评，并进行全面深入分析，最后提出对策建议。     

高速铁路安全文化理论体系研究

高速铁路安全文化建设是实现高速铁路系统安全的必由之路。为了进一步明确安全文化在高速铁路运营安全保障中的作用,厘清高速铁路安全文化建设的思路与途径,在深入剖析安全文化建设的必要性的基础上,研究安全文化建设的发展阶段,明确每个阶段的划分依据与特点,探讨高速铁路安全文化体系与技术体系、管理体系的关系,对高速铁路安全文化建设要点进行探究,并从高速铁路安全文化基础理论、高速铁路安全文化专业理论、高速铁路安全文化应用理论3个层面对高速铁路安全文化理论体系进行分析,为高速铁路安全文化建设和水平测度提供理论基础。     

Effects of subject pool culture and institutional environment on corruption: Experimental evidence from Albania

This research uses experimental methods to investigate whether subject pool culture and institutional environment have an effect on participants’ corrupt behavior in the laboratory. While we find that subject pool culture does not affect the overall magnitude of corruption of laboratory participants, it does affect the likelihood of corruption and its distribution. Additionally, we find that the effect on corrupt behavior differs with the framing of the experiment’s instructions. Interestingly, in the context of a weak rule of law and high levels of corruption, loaded negative instructions positively affect corrupt behavior of firms and public officials. Previous research in the context of a country exhibiting a strong rule of law and low levels of corruption finds no framing effects. We also find that increasing the probability of detection significantly reduces corruption as measured by the amount of the bribes offered/accepted and the probability of offering/accepting a bribe. Finally, we find that individual risk preferences negatively affect the level of corrupt behavior.     

湖南省研发投入的空间格局与创新协调发展对策

以湖南省14个市州为研究对象,运用首位度分析、ESDA探索性空间数据分析方法,研究湖南省各市州的研发投入(R&D经费、R&D人员投入)空间差异变化趋势和空间分异特征。结果表明:①湖南省内各市州R&D经费投入差距在逐渐缩小,但R&D人员投入差距在逐渐增大;②湖南省的R&D经费及R&D人员投入在各个市州之间存在明显的空间依赖及空间集聚现象,并在西部、南部周边市州呈现出大面积的低水平连片聚集特征;③湖南省R&D投入的空间演变特征并不显著,长株潭作为省会中心城市圈缺乏辐射带动力。研究最后提出了湖南省科技创新协同发展的对策建议。