The purchasing department's leadership role in developing and maintaining a preferred customer status

Developing and maintaining a preferred customer status is one of the main objectives of organizations that want to obtain a better access to supplier's information, resources, and innovation. This paper addresses the extent and the nature of the purchasing department's leadership role in the process of developing and maintaining a preferred customer status. A qualitative exploratory approach based on eleven cases has been used in order to take into consideration the context specific to the buyer-supplier relationship in a preferred customer scenario.Our study shows that the purchasing department performs four main categories of roles: (1) identifies and selects the best supplier, (2) structures and segments the supply base, (3) builds close relationships with selected suppliers and (4) develops working relationships, using an effective communication. Each of these roles is related to three key components of the purchasing department's capabilities: boundary, relational, and coordination. These four categories of roles illustrate supply's ability to recognize and understand the specifics of the preferred customer situation. Based on our analysis, the purchasing department should be viewed as extending an organization's resource base, making the organization more competitive.Our analysis also shows that the purchasing managers' leadership is critical for the development and the coordination of activities with selected suppliers, as well as proper communication with them. Specifically, the purchasing manager's transformational leadership generates more internal user and supplier involvement through the creation and articulation of a common vision, by establishing shared goals with other organizational units, and by focusing on activities that benefit the organization; this allows to move from initiative-driven efforts to an “institutionalized preferred customer status management” in the organization.     

‘Surfing on the ironing board’ – the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German newspapers

Despite extensive attempts to enhance women's entrepreneurship in Germany, a gender gap continues to exist. This article sets out to analyse the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German media, by analysing how it is depicted in newspapers and how this changes over time. Images transported in media might regulate the nature of women's entrepreneurship, as they contain information about ‘typical’ and ‘socially desirable’ behaviour of women as well as of entrepreneurs. This article contributes to developing an understanding of the relevance of media representation of the entrepreneurship phenomenon for influencing the propensity towards entrepreneurial activity.     

国有企业在不同经济发展阶段的效率图谱研究

1978~2014年中国国内生产总值增长70.5倍,被称为“中国奇迹”。然而,有关国有企业在中国奇迹形成过程中的功能与效率仍存在很大争议。为了定量回答这一核心问题,本文构造了全新的变量指标体系,并基于国泰安数据库横跨31个省份的企业面板数据,采用WLS、分位数回归及固定效应模型等方法定量分析了国有企业在不同经济发展阶段的相对效率差异,进而模拟国有企业在不同经济发展阶段的效率图谱。效率图谱表明：虽然处于起飞阶段的地区迅速实现技术模仿工业化,国有企业具有较强的宏观效率,但国有企业在微观效率方面的短板也将随相关地区经济发展水平的提高而逐步显现。     

MEASURING THE DIVERSITY OF HOUSEHOLD SPENDING PATTERNS

Households tend to diversify their spending across a wide range of goods and services as they become more affluent. Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding the precise manner in which this spending diversification process takes place. We review what facts are known about this process and the underlying behavioural tendencies that are thought to drive it. In addition, we clarify the relationship between different approaches to measuring the level of spending diversity. A number of indices are employed, including measures based on joint probabilities, distances and the concept of entropy. Using UK household spending data, we show the extent to which these measures deliver different results and shed light on the nature of behavioural heterogeneity.     

JUSTIFICATIONS FOR REDISTRIBUTION: A CRITIQUE

It is striking that there are so many theoretical justifications of redistribution by government. Is it because each single justification is weak? I review and criticise the various arguments advanced in the literature. The main distinctions are between (a) Paretian justifications asserting that all, including the net payers, benefit from redistribution, (b) theories of justice and (c) utilitarianism. My conclusion is that redistribution ought to be based on Paretian arguments as far as possible and that helping the poor is more likely to maximise the happiness of all than is a general levelling of income differences.     

基于广义Bonferroni曲线的中国包容性增长测度及其影响因素分析

研究目标：对中国包容性增长进行科学测度,并探究影响包容性增长的因素。研究方法：使用广义Bonferroni曲线和社会包容度指数测度中国经济增长的包容度,并使用面板回归模型探究中国包容性增长的影响因素。研究发现：国家层面仅达到“基本包容”状态;农村地区经济增长缺乏包容性,城镇地区经济增长更具包容性。面板回归结果表明：人均GDP、金融深化、地方公共财政支出、产业结构、人力资本存量、劳动生产率会促进经济增长更具包容性,通货膨胀和失业率会抑制包容性增长,而FDI和投资等因素对包容性增长的影响并不显著。研究创新：将广义Bonferroni曲线和社会包容度指数用于中国包容性增长测度。研究价值：为中国包容性增长的量化测度提供新的视角,为中国经济增长包容度的提高提供政策启示。     

Do Board's Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Orientation Influence Environmental Sustainability Disclosure? UK Evidence

The environmental implications of corporate economic activities have led to growing demands for firms and their boards to adopt sustainable strategies and to disseminate more useful information about their activities and impacts on environment. This paper investigates the impact of board's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and orientation on the quantity and quality of environmental sustainability disclosure in UK listed firms. We find that effective board CSR strategy and CSR‐oriented directors have a positive and significant impact on the quality of environmental sustainability disclosure, but not on the quantity. Our findings also suggest that the existence of a CSR committee and issuance of a stand‐alone CSR report are positively and significantly related to environmental sustainability disclosure. When we distinguish between firms with high and low environmental risk, we find that the board CSR/sustainability practices that affect the quantity (quality) of environmental sustainability disclosure appear to be driven more by highly (lowly) environmentally sensitive firms. These results suggest that the board CSR/sustainability practices play an important role in ensuring a firm's legitimacy and accountability towards stakeholders. Our findings shed new light on this under‐researched area and could be of interest to companies, policy‐makers and other stakeholders. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

中国农村特色扶贫开发道路的制度分析：基于产权的视角

研究目标：借鉴马克思及西方产权理论主要思想,研究揭示中国农村特色扶贫开发道路的制度选择及经验。研究方法：基于产权理论对经济事实进行逻辑推演,并采用1978~2012年中国农村统计数据进行检验。研究发现：中国农村特色扶贫开发道路主要体现在农村资源（土地和人力）的产权制度改革上,由此形成的资源产权激励效应和正向扩散效应,正是中国农村人口发生大规模减贫的最重要原因及主要经验,并构成了中国特色社会主义制度的一部分。研究创新：本文基于产权理论的研究为减贫提供一个新的微观制度视角解释。研究价值：总结提炼中国农村特色扶贫开发道路的一般性理论经验,对今后减贫事业推进具有借鉴意义。     

Evolution of repeated prisoner's dilemma play under logit dynamics

In an evolutionary set-up, we append an ecology of iterated prisoner's dilemma (IPD) game strategies, consisting of unconditional cooperators (AllC), unconditional defectors (AllD) and reactive players (TFT) with two repeated strategies that have received less attention in the evolutionary IPD game literature: the error-proof, “generous” tit-for-tat (GTFT) which, with a certain probability, re-establishes cooperation after a (possibly by mistake) defection of the opponent and the penitent, “stimulus–response” (WSLS) strategy that resets cooperation after the opponent punished for defection. An abundance of rock–paper–scissors like patterns is discovered in the 3×3 ecologies comprising Pavlovian and “generous” players. Interestingly, the evolutionary success of Pavlov seems to depend on the absence of unconditional cooperators in the ecologies investigated.     

A PRIMER ON MATHEMATICAL MODELLING IN ECONOMICS

Abstract The Commission on Graduate Education in Economics had raised several concerns regarding the role of mathematics in graduate training in economics ( Krueger, 1991 ; Colander, 1998, 2005 ). This paper undertakes a detailed scrutiny of the notion of a utility function to motivate and describe the common patterns across mathematical concepts and results that are used by economists. In the process one arrives at a classification of mathematical terms which is used to state mathematical results in economics. The usefulness of the classification scheme is illustrated with the help of a discussion of Arrow's impossibility theorem. Common knowledge of the patterns in mathematical concepts and results could be effective in enhancing communication between students, teachers and researchers specializing in different sub‐fields of economics.     

Measuring Credit Risk of a Bank's Corporate Loan Portfolio Using Advanced Internal Ratings Base Approach

Abstract

The use of technical and advanced approaches in the measurement of credit risk of banks' portfolios has nowadays become a very hot issue. The most recent technical report issued by the Basel Committee in May 2003 has concentrated heavily on the measurement of credit risk using either foundation or advanced Internal Ratings Base (IRB) approaches. This empirical research study attempts to measure credit risk of a bank's corporate loan portfolio, including firms from 10 different Turkish sectors. The monthly observations of the total amount of corporate loans and the total amount of corporate loans at default across various sectors are downloaded from the web page of Central Bank of Turkey (CBT) in a period of 1999-2002. This period covers 47 monthly observations since CBT has captured sectoral corporate loans beginning of 1999. Therefore, the observed sectoral default rates are needed to be simulated to obtain a nicely shaped distribution. Monte Carlo simulation is applied for 1,000 times. Based on the simulated default rates, the expected sectoral default rates are computed. Next, a credit quality rating scale is fitted into sectoral default rates distributions. Finally, the sectoral weights in the whole loan portfolio are multiplied by the expected sectoral default rates matrix, considering cross-sectoral correlations to get the total amount of the bank's credit risk and capital requirement. It is assumed that sectoral monthly default rates are a good representative of the default risk of a sample bank's corporate loan portfolio since no publicly available data on any particular bank's corporate loan portfolio composition exists. Nevertheless, this research may be a good application for measuring the credit risk of banks' corporate loan portfolios using advanced IRB approach.     

中国城市土地市场存在“赢者诅咒”吗？

借鉴相关研究成果,构建一个综合性的时间窗口分析模型,利用我国境内房地产上市公司在20个城市购置的205宗土地作为样本,设置前向与后向共八个事件窗口,定量考察土地市场价格信号对股票市场的影响。实证结果表明：土地市场与股票市场是两个高度关联的市场,两个市场之间存在信号传递作用,短期内具有正向冲击效应,地价信号在土地出让后能够在短期内影响股票收益率,形成对股票价格的短期冲击效应;土地出让价格信号对股票市场的影响具有时间上的不对称性,地价信号对于股票收益率的影响主要发生在土地成交之后,股票市场对于土地竞拍以前的信息没有明显响应;土地市场所发现的价格信号是关联市场价格波动的信号源,改变竞价人的预期是市场稳定的关键。     

一种新的包含可变时间效应的内生时空权重矩阵构建方法

研究目标：引入一种基于年度全局Moran指数比的内生时空权重矩阵构建方法,并评估其合理性。研究方法：基于标准化的空间权重矩阵和以年度全局Moran指数比为基础的时间权重矩阵,经过克罗内克积组合形成内生时空权重矩阵;并以两江新区辐射带动力影响因素分解问题为例,评估了内生时空权重矩阵的引入合理性。研究发现：相对于传统的外生时空权重矩阵而言,内生时空权重矩阵能够模拟空间溢出效应在时间上的动态转移和传导效应,却不会导致模型估计结果变异性质发生明显改变。研究创新：构建了一种新的内生性的、包含可变时间效应的时空权重矩阵。研究价值：为面板数据空间计量模型建模实践构建了一种更为精准的时空权重矩阵设计方式。