Insurers Encouraged to Invest in Banks

Domestic insurance firms should speed up their strategic cooperation with local banks to help the reform of China＇s financial sector, the country＇s insurance regulator said on Dec.21.     

人民币国际化的理论分析及战略思考--基于人民币周边流通的分析

2003年人民币周边流通总量约1510亿元。人民币周边流通仅仅是货币国际化中的初级阶段；货币国际化需要严格的条件，而且必须承受放弃本国货币政策独立性的代价。应进一步创造人民币国际化的条件，有序推进人民币国际化。     

日本油料发展政策及对我国的启示

日本是油料进口大国,近年来日本采取一系列的保护政策刺激国内油料生产,一方面以国内支持方式鼓励本国农民种植大豆等油料作物,另一方面利用边境措施来保护国内油脂加工业的发展.这些政策措施大大减少了植物油的进口量,保护了日本农民利益和促进了油脂加工业的发展.目前中国也是植物油的进口大国,进口量占到总需求量的一半左右.因而,学习借鉴日本油料发展政策,对于发展我国油料产业,保证食用油脂安全有着重要的现实意义.     

Putting Responsible Finance to Work for Citi Microfinance

This paper develops an ethical framework for responsible finance and then applies it to Citigroup (Citi), a major financial actor in the microfinance sector, to see whether it meets with such obligations. The framework consists of two categories of responsibility. The first category is the special social responsibility of financial institutions; and the second is the fundamental principles of ethical behavior in financial services. From Citigroup’s microfinance model, scope of business, and multiple roles in the market, the company seems to be fulfilling its responsibility in inclusive finance. However, judged in term of the principles of integrity, objectivity, fairness, professionalism, and diligence, it falls short of its ethical responsibility. In view of this shortcoming, Citigroup should recall its obligation to avoid conflicts of interest, to provide responsible advice, to protect clients from over-indebtedness, and most importantly, to act with integrity.     

De-targeting to signal quality

It is important for firms to signal the high quality of their products to consumers in experience goods markets. Conventional wisdom suggests that a high price can be a signal of high quality. However, we argue that the role of price in signaling quality could be weakened when firms resort to the intensive use of targeting in advertising, which could attenuate the informational content of a high price. As a consequence, a high quality firm needs to distort its price more to signal its quality. However, when different levels of targeting are available, a high quality firm may find it optimal to signal its quality with a lower level of targeting.     

From conflict to crisis in collaborative NPD

While manufacturer–supplier co-development of projects can contribute shared knowledge and expertise, such commitment also presents managerial challenges, particularly where crisis threatens the entire project. This paper explores how crisis is manifested, amplified, handled, and its outcomes in two longitudinal case studies, one between a food manufacturer and its packaging supplier and another between a window manufacturer and its software supplier. The analysis, the first to focus on co-development crisis, results in a better understanding of crisis episodes and in propositions around the crisis management challenges in co-developing new product projects.     

China to Strengthen Banking Supervision

China will strengthen supervision on the banking systen,said China＇s Vice Prenier Huang Ju on January 16.     

Transferring Ownership-specific Advantages to a Joint Venture in China

In 1994, a Sino-Italian joint venture was established in Foshan (China) to manufacture and sell motorcycles. The Italian parent company perceived important ownership-specific advantages in investing directly in China. These included its state-of-the-art production process, its marketing and distribution network, and its organizational and work concept. Indeed, it was intended to virtually ‘replicate’ these features of the parent company in China. This study explores problems experienced in attempting to reproduce these features of the parent company's European operation during the start-up phase of its Chinese affiliate. One problem was that core suppliers were reluctant to relocate part of their operations to China, making it difficult for the parent company to ‘replicate’ its production process abroad. There were also major difficulties in transferring the principles of its marketing and distribution network and its organization structure and work concept to China. While it is possible that many of these preliminary problems would be overcome and the parent company would realize its vision for its Chinese affiliate over time, this case-study not only highlights the complexity of harnessing ownership-specific advantages of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, but also raises important issues about the expansion of FDI from low technology to medium technology enterprises in the circumstances prevailing in China.     

The Piecemeal Approach to Comparative Advertising

When attempting to portray the attractiveness of a brand vis-à-vis its competitors, an ad may make global claims about superiority or specific claims about one or more attributes. A special case of latter is the piecemeal ad in which the advertised brand is compared to a competitor on one attribute, a different competitor on a second attribute, another competitor on a third attribute, and so on. The present research demonstrates the effectiveness of this technique and explores the parameters of its influence. We find that piecemeal messages are persuasive because they make seemingly strong claims in a believable manner. Consumer skepticism appears to arise only when conditions for scrutiny are very favorable.     

广东应对反倾销的战略选择

为应对国际上的反倾销等贸易摩擦，广东省必须把目光投向更远的视野范围，更高的目标层次，顺应经济发展的客观规律，加大对外投资力度；将以“比较优势”和“要素禀赋”不同而形成的传统的产业间贸易模式，逐步向产业内贸易为主转移；继续扩大进口和内需，从根本上改变“以出口为导向”的单一模式；在优化有形产品进出口的同时，大力促进文化产品、教育产品、科技产品、专利产品、旅游产品、物流产品、金融产品等等无形产品的出口。     

宾馆星级饭店餐饮面临的挑战及其发展对策

伴随改革开放,宾馆“星级饭店”餐饮业面临着极其严峻的挑战,究其原因有来自社会餐饮的冲击,也有来自洋快餐的挑战,更有产权问题的阻碍。为使宾馆餐饮尽快走出困境,实现新的腾飞,必须用切实可行的对策参与竞争,恢复其应有的市场份额。     

Using Social Marketing Strategies to Reform Social Policy: A Lesson from British History

ABSTRACT

This article presents a general framework for the social marketing process. An example from British history is used to demonstrate an effective model for gaining public and government support for a social marketing initiative. The historical analysis illustrates a key issue: public interpretation of the importance of the social marketing cause is dependent upon its core values and that its values may differ from the group advocating social action. The advocacy group's effectiveness in obtaining support for its cause will hinge upon its ability to strike a resonant chord with the social values of society and its cause.     

Motivation to Manage in China: Implications for Strategic HRM

Since 1979, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has made tremendous economic progress. As a result, China and its management practices have received increasing research attention. Human resource management practices in China have been extensively explored elsewhere. Unfortunately, little research has dealt with the concept of hierarchical role motivation theory; its main construct, motivation to manage; and its potential implications for strategic human resource practices in the PRC. The study reported here is an attempt to fill this void.     

How to build a successful private equity portfolio

The route to a successful private equity portfolio is a four‐step process that requires an in‐depth understanding of private equity as an asset class as well as the skills to select promising opportunities from available offerings. The first step is to set out and define general allocation guidelines. These initial guidelines then have to be refined based on the availability of adequate investment opportunities. The third step involves selecting the most attractive funds from a pool of target funds. And lastly the portfolio must be monitored on an ongoing basis to track its overall development as well as its enduring performance. Benchmarking the overall performance of the portfolio as well as individual managers is an integral part of this. In the following sections, each individual step is discussed and explained in more detail. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

当当向C2C抛出绣球

当当网目前是全球最大的中文网上图书音像商城,B2C的经营水平已经是首屈一指。然而在业务不断扩 展的同时,也遭遇到了瓶颈。所以如何进一步满足顾客日益增长的需求,成了当当思索改革的关键。     

Atomic energy—Key to industrial progress

The International Atomic Energy Agency came into legal existence on the 29th July, 1957. It now has 101 Member States who meet annually in the General Conference. A Board of Governors consisting of 25 Member States carries out the functions of the Agency in accordance with the Statute. The IAEA is an autonomous body linked to the United Nations and a number of its Specialised Agencies by relationship agreements, but itself not a Specialised Agency. In pursuance of its first objective to promote the peaceful use of the atom for the welfare of man, the Agency is engaged in a wide spectrum of activity which could be considerably extended by the Non-proliferation Treaty. In Vienna we interviewed the Director General of the IAEA about certain aspects of the Agency’s present and future work.     

Internalisation thinking: From the multinational enterprise to the global factory

Internalisation thinking is traced from its inception by Coase through its application to multinational enterprises and to the global factory. The general principles governing the internalisation of markets are revisited and the focus on innovation, the dynamics of internalisation and its application to newer structures of firms such as the global factory are emphasised.     

Use corporate culture to trigger high performance.

The challenge is to manage the organization's culture so that you can tap the company's strengths to achieve superior performance and identify its weaknesses in time to overcome them before they cause serious damage.     

The necessity for a strategic approach to monetary policy

The Fed has a spotty track record, and its discretionary approach to conducting monetary policy will lead to the same mistakes it made in the past. I emphasize the importance of adopting a strategic framework for conducting monetary policy. The Fed has constantly changed the course of monetary policy in response to high-frequency data and other temporary factors. The Fed’s excessive monetary ease has distorted economic and financial behavior. The Fed should base its policy on longer-run objectives rather than short-run economic and financial fluctuations, and communicate these objectives to the public and to financial markets. Under the Financial Choice Act, the Fed would have to establish a strategic guideline, and explain to Congress why monetary policy may be deviating from the guideline. I respect the Fed and see the need for change to maintain its credibility. The Fed must acknowledge its shortfalls and modify its focus.     

Flying Too Close to the Sun? Hubris Among CEOs and How to Prevent it

Hubris among CEOs is generally considered to be undesirable: researchers in finance and in management have documented its unwelcome effects and the media ascribe many corporate failings to CEO hubris. However, the literature fails to provide a precise definition of CEO hubris and is mostly silent on how to prevent it. We use work on hubris in the fields of mythology, psychology, and ethics to develop a framework defining CEO hubris. Our framework describes a set of beliefs and behaviors, both psycho-pathological and unethical in nature, which characterize the problematic relationship of the hubris-infected CEO towards his or her own self, others and the world at large. We then demonstrate how the development of authentic leadership may contribute to preventing or attenuating hubris by addressing its psycho-pathological nature through the true self and meaningful relationships with others. In addition to its psycho-pathological dimension, CEO hubris also contains an ethical dimension. We therefore propose that the development of the virtue of reverence might contribute to the prevention or attenuation of CEO hubris, because reverence makes the individual aware of his or her place in the world order and membership of the community of humans.