成本上升侵蚀中国竞争优势

在上海的宜家商店，售价1．4美元的泰迪熊可能是全城最便宜的了，但它们不是产自中国，而是在印度尼西亚缝制和填充的。     

The system of Ferney: A fable

This paper is an allegorical essay which attempts to provide a critical perspective on systems analysis. It employs both the language and rationale of systems analysis within the structure of the fable. More specifically, it uses the schematic representation of The World Model (found in the Meadows, et al., The Limits to Growth) as the political and social divisions of the Ferney System. The integrating tool for technological assessment within this metaphorical system is the Delphi Method of Futures Research. Expert opinion-consensus serves as the chief mode of governance. The actual history of Ferney, within the fable, is a loop feedback process.     

SME Reporting in Australia: Where to Now for Decision‐usefulness?

This paper develops recommendations for simplified decision‐useful SME financial reporting in Australia – a country that has traditionally allowed a wide range of reporting standards to be used by these entities. Drawing on interviews and comment letters from a number of stakeholders, and data from a survey of users of financial statements of non‐publicly accountable unlisted entities, we analyse stakeholder arguments for and against SMEs providing less detailed reports, and identify the line items that might be most useful to users for decision making.     

Política de la legislación laboral en el sur de China. Las cámaras de comercio y otros organismos extranjeros ante las leyes sobre negociación colectiva

En 2010, tras la huelga en Honda, hubo protestas laborales en toda China. Los gobiernos de Shenzhen y Guangdong reaccionaron desempolvando los proyectos de Decreto sobre consulta colectiva y de Normativa sobre gestión democrática de las empresas, retirados con anterioridad. Pero tras la oposición frontal de cámaras de comercio y organismos gubernamentales extranjeros, hongkoneses y taiwaneses, volvieron a retirarse. Mediante entrevistas, los autores revelan los medios de influencia en la legislación laboral china de estos actores, cuyas actitudes dependen de la posición de las empresas representadas en las cadenas mundiales de producción y del modelo de relaciones laborales de su país o territorio de origen.     

Defining Capitalism

This article aims to incorporate the essential features of capitalism in an operational definition that identifies capitalism per se (pure laissez‐faire capitalism), and clearly excludes variations such as welfare capitalism and crony capitalism. By concisely highlighting the fundamental structures and mechanisms of capitalism, this essential definition facilitates defences of it that are more robust than those ordinarily offered. It also clarifies the relation between capitalism and phenomena with which it is frequently associated, and suggests a straightforward way of identifying and measuring the extent of capitalism in mixed economies.     

The Effectiveness of a Buzz Marketing Approach Compared to Traditional Advertising: An Exploration

Marketers are now willing to go anyplace they can find a captive audience to espouse the virtues of their products. The success of the “buzz” marketing approach is linked to the consumer being lured into doing the advertising by spreading the message to others. This study compares students’ responses to a traditional advertising and a buzz approach. Using a factor analysis to identify variables, the results show that subjects perceive a buzz approach to be more influential than a traditional advertising. However, they do not perceive a buzz approach to be authentic. This finding is consistent with practitioners’ argument that, although a buzz approach may be effective in the short-term, once consumers recognize its selling intent, the program may have a “boomerang effect.”     

Social Constructivism,Mental Models,and Problems of Obedience

There are important synergies for the next generation of ethical leaders based on the alignment of modified or adjusted mental models. This entails a synergistic application of moral imagination through collaborative input and critique, rather than “me too” obedience. In this article, we will analyze the Milgram results using frameworks relating to mental models (Werhane et al., Profitable partnerships for poverty alleviation, 2009), as well as work by Moberg on “ethics blind spots” (Organizational Studies 27(3):413–428, 2006), and by Bazerman and Chugh on “bounded awareness” (Harvard Business Review, 2006; Mind &; Society 6:1–18, 2007) Using these constructs to examine the Milgram experiment, we will argue that the ways in which the experiments are framed, the presence of an authority figure, the appeal to the authority of science, and the situation in which the naïve participant finds herself or himself, all create a bounded awareness, a narrow blind spot that encourages a climate for obedience, brackets out the opportunity to ask the moral question: “Am I hurting another fellow human being?” and may preclude the subject from utilizing moral imagination to opt out of the experiment. We will conclude that these forms of almost blind obedience to authority are correctable, but with difficulty. We will argue that linking the modification of mental models to an unbinding of awareness represents an important synergistic relationship and one that can build effectively on the lessons learned from our experience with moral imagination.     

What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality

The degree of firm-level multinationality is a key dimension that spans all theoretical frameworks, levels of empirical analysis and domains of investigation in international business research. There is, however, no agreed approach to defining or measuring firm-level multinationality. This is reflected in inconsistent approaches to sample selection and empirical testing, and it has curtailed the advancement of the discipline. We propose that instead of searching for the elusive, all-encompassing definition of an MNC, international business scholars should instead agree on a classification system for the degree of firm-level multinationality. We illustrate the advantages of this approach by constructing a simple classification system that takes into account the firm's breadth and depth of multinational engagements. We illustrate our matrix of firm multinationality by classifying a novel sample of over 1000 firms from seven countries, and we demonstrate how it can guide theory development and empirical testing. We also provide examples of potential future research directions.