Machiavellianism revisited

The field of management has had difficulty embracing the concept of Machiavellianism despite the myriad of studies produced by other fields of social science. It appears that Machiavellianism as a unitary personality construct has limited efficacy in the complex world of organizations. The authors suggest a multidimensional approach to understanding the impact of an individual's threat to organizational functioning. Viewing the construct as discontinuous with two manifestations, predatory and benign, suggestions are made as to the location within organizations where such individuals may be found. A research approach is also suggested. George Nelson, Assistant Professor of Management at Prarie View A and M University in Texas, has published articles in the Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, and Business Insights. He has presented papers at SWFAD, International Marketing and Management, and ORSA/TIMS conferences. His research interests include the interface of business and politics, female entrepreneurs, and applied organizational theory. Diana Gilbertson, Associate Professor of Management at California State University in Fresno, conducts research in nonprofit strategic management, leadership, and women in business. She has presented papers at numerous conferences and has published in the Labor Law Journal.     

Approaches to child labour in the supply chain

This paper examines the difficulties of dealing with child labour in the supply chain. It begins by identifying a number of the factors which make global supply chains so difficult to manage. It goes on to outline a framework of different approaches that can be taken to managing the supply chain with relation to child labour, moving from national and international regulation, through to the role of NGOs and the companies themselves. Focusing on an 'engagement' strategy for dealing with child labour, the paper traces a case study of Adidas-Salomon and its attempts to implement their 'standards of engagement' in this area with relation to one of their supplier factories in Vietnam. The research draws on the direct involvement of one of the authors who visited the site and was able to interview staff and observe the operation in practice. Her findings are supported by wider work on the implementation of corporate approaches to human rights at a range of companies interviewed by another of the authors. The paper aims to highlight the issues needing to be addressed for companies considering the 'involvement' approach to child labour. It also aims to develop theory on our understanding of different approaches to corporate rights.     

Overlapping Generations or Infinitely-Lived Agents: Intergenerational Altruism and the Economics of Global Warming

Do we need an overlapping generations model for the economics of global warming? To answer this question, an infinitely-lived agent (ILA) approach and an overlapping generations (OLG) model are contrasted. ILA and OLG can be viewed as polar representations of intergenerational altruism. With ILA an immortal agent acts through his investment/savings decisions as trustee on the behalf of the future generations. With OLG, agents need not behave altruistic. They simply save during working years and dissave completely during retirement. Nevertheless, ILA and OLG must not differ in their implication for greenhouse policy. Greenhouse gas abatement is a straightforward alternative to physical capital formation and, even without altruism, each age cohort has an incentive to provide current abatement in order to reduce future damages attributable to climate change. Indeed, under reasonable assumptions and parameter values, our simulations reveal such an invariance result. Provided carbon taxes are the only policy tool and tax revenues are recycled through socially mandated rules, projections of economic growth, climate change and energy consumption are only insignificantly affected by the choice of approach.     

Reserve Requirements,Liquidity Risk,and Bank Lending Behavior

Although reserve requirements (RR) have been used in emerging markets to smooth credit cycles, the transmission mechanism remains blurry. Using bank‐level data, we unveil the interaction of RR with bank lending. We identify a new channel that works through a decline in banks’ liquid assets and loan supply due to an increase in RR. “Quantitative tightening” through RR raises the short‐term funding needs of the banking system, which is met by collateralized central bank lending, thus depleting banks’ unencumbered liquid assets. Our results suggest that such a shift in bank liquidity is associated with a significant change in lending.     

Going green,going clean: Lean‐green sustainability strategy and firm growth

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of “going green” and “going clean,” limited research has focused on the impact of lean‐green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean‐green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power, and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialized economies (the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), we found that lean‐green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power, and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.     

Back to the future. Is industry 4.0 a new tecno-organizational paradigm? Implications for Latin American countries

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to establish a dialogue between the recent ‘Industry 4.0’ (I4.0) literature and evolutionary neo-Schumpeterean studies about techno-organizational paradigms. In that direction, we wonder whether I4.0 constitutes a new paradigm, as it is assumed by the first group of literature, or it represents – until the moment – an intensification of key features of the information and communication technology (ICT) paradigm, following the second group of studies. Some questions are raised about the implications of I4.0 for developing countries (DEC), afterwards. Specifically, we reflect on the possibilities of these countries to identify and take advantage of new windows of opportunity, opened by the development and diffusion of these technologies. In this regard, the review of recent Latin American experience raises strong concerns regarding I4.0 as a new source of intra- and international heterogeneity, linked to the severe difficulties these countries have in appropriating these technologies in the form of productivity gains and quasi-rents. It seems that this is partially derived from weak technological, organizational, and connectivity capabilities paths of accumulation between institutions and actors.     

Persistent mispricing in a recently opened emerging index futures market: Arbitrageurs invited

The purpose of this study is to analyze the persistent, typically negative, mispricing in the new stock index futures market in Turkey, which has amounted to 5–8%, several multiples of transaction costs. The observations suggest that it is the outcome of a combination of practical difficulties of shorting in the spot stock market, behavioral effects, and insufficient arbitrage. The magnitude of the mispricing and the absence of arbitrage make behavioral effects more visible and provide a unique opportunity to examine extant behavioral hypotheses. Results confirm effects such as disposition and/or conservatism with the mispricing negatively related to past returns, but unrelated to future returns. Finally, an orderly weakening of the negative relation to past returns and behavioral effects is observed, suggesting that such effects will diminish as the market matures. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:218–243, 2009     

Improving schedule reliability based on copulas: An application to five of the most congested US airports

This study, based Newark Liberty International, New York John F. Kennedy, New York LaGuardia, Chicago O’Hare International and San Francisco International in the US, provides a perspective on the predictability of on-time performance evaluation by applying an actuarial and financial method called copula. It is common for the percentage of on-time gate arrivals to be portrayed in daily news as an indicator of schedule reliability. However, the degree of interdependency between gate arrival delays and block delays may provide some indication of schedule reliability.