Rupture or Continuity? Modern and Postmodern Planning in Toronto

The literature on the transition to postmodernism, postfordism and participatory planning stresses the value of the economic and planning process shifts that have occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This paper compares two periods of planning and urban development in Toronto: one running from 1959 to 1962, at the height of modernism, fordism and expert-driven planning, and the other, from 1989 to 1992, set within the postmodern, postfordist and participatory planning era. In line with expectations arising from the literature, the study reveals stark distinctions between the two periods. It documents the breaking up of the modern consensus around the progress ideology into a postmodern constellation of values. As a result, the range of issues debated on the planning scene was much broader over the second period than over the first. Overall, however, results point to a mixture of continuity and change between the two periods and thus diverge from this literature’s strong emphasis on transition. Contrary to expectations, citizen mobilization was pervasive in both periods, although there were major differences in the nature of activism and in the issues that were raised. Over the first period most activism originated from ratepayer organizations dedicated to the protection of single-family-home neighbourhoods from encroachments, whereas the second period featured, along with such associations, advocacy groups championing environmental and social causes. The two periods are also distinguished by different planning implementation capacities. Whereas in the first period, planning had the means to implement its visions, this was no longer the case in the second period. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, planning was thus incapable of aligning urban development with its environmental and social ideals, which meant that, by default, planning practice over the second period proceeded pretty much according to land-use and transportation principles evolved in the early postwar decades. In sum, distinctions between the two periods were far more evident in the discourse than in the implementation sphere. — Les recherches sur la transition vers le postmodernisme, le postfordisme et la planification participative soulignent la valeur des changements qui ont pris place à la fin des années soixante et au début des années soixante-dix. Cet article compare deux périodes de planification et de dévelopment urbain à Toronto: une qui va de 1959 à 1962, durant l’apogée du modernisme, du fordisme et de la planification contrôlée par les experts, et l’autre, de 1989 à 1992, à l’époque du postmodernisme, du postfordisme et de la planification participative. En accord avec les prévisions émanant des recherches, cette étude révèle des distinctions nettes entre les deux périodes. Elle documente le morcellement du consensus moderne autour l’idéologie du progrès et le changement en faveur d’une constellation de valeurs postmodernes. Il s’ensuit que le champ de problèmes discutés en relation avec la planification était beaucoup plus étendu durant la seconde période que durant la première. Dans l’ensemble, cependant, les résultats indiquent un mélange de continuité et de changement entre les deux périodes et divergent donc de la forte emphase sur la transition que l’on trouve dans les recherches. Contairement aux prévisions, la mobilisation des citoyens était omniprésente à Toronto pendant les deux périodes, mais il y avait des différences importantes quant à la nature de l’activisme et dans les problèmes soulevés. Durant la première période, la plus grande part de l’activisme provenait des organisations de contribuables vouées à la protection des quartiers d’habitations contre les empiètements, alors que la seconde période comprenait, en plus de ces organisations, des groupes de soutien aux causes de l’environnement et aux causes sociales. Les deux périodes sont également distinctes en termes de mise en oeuvre. Alors que dans la première période les urbanistes avaient les moyens de mettre leurs idées à exécution, ce n’était plus le cas dans la seconde. Vers la fin des années quatre-vingt et le début des années quatre-vingt-dix, la planification ne pouvait pas intégrer les développements urbains et ses idéaux sociaux et environnementaux. Par défaut, la pratique de la planification durant la seconde période a fonctionnée selon les principes d’utilisation des terrains et du transport développés dans les premières décennies de l’après-guerre. En somme, les différences entre les deux périodes sont beaucoup plus visibles au niveau du discours qu’au niveau de l’application.     

Corporate Governance and the Environment: What Type of Governance Creates Greener Companies?

We build on a stakeholder–agency theoretical perspective to explore the impact of particular corporate governance mechanisms on firm environmental performance. Our empirical evidence shows that several important corporate governance mechanisms such as the board of directors, managerial incentives, the market for corporate control, and the legal and regulatory system determine firms' environmental performance levels. These results suggest that these different governance mechanisms resolve, to some extent, the existing divergence of interests between stakeholders and managers with respect to environmental activities.     

Why do Graffiti Writers Write on Murals? The Birth,Life, and Slow Death of Freeway Murals in Los Angeles

For three decades graffiti writers have marked the Olympic Festival freeway murals painted in celebration of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (LA). These high‐profile murals, which once symbolized LA's status as the ‘Mural Capital of the World', became palimpsests on which graffiti writers painted their monikers, perhaps unwittingly contributing to their eventual destruction. Local government, muralists and residents have bemoaned the murals' slow death, though have not been able to identify or understand the motives for such vandalism, interpreting it as ‘mindless', ‘animalistic' vandalism perpetrated by ‘kids' who simply lack respect. I argue that the burial of these murals under layers of paint must be understood in the context of competing claims made to public space. Relying on rare personal interviews with the graffiti writers who participated in their destruction, I answer the question ‘Why do graffiti writers write on murals?', while situating the birth and life of the Olympic murals within a larger historical discussion about Chicano/a mural making, urbanization, freeway construction, and the growth of the graffiti subculture in the United States' paradigmatic global city.     

Environmental,Social and Governance investing: Does rating matter?

In the last decade, the demand for sustainable and social investments has improved. The mutual funds industry has responded to market needs by offering a number of investment products focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) companies. The aim of this article is to understand if an ESG score can actually be considered a valid criterion that portfolio managers could adopt, along with traditional risk–return optimisation, in selecting asset portfolios. The paper analyses the link between the performance and the ESG score of different sectoral portfolios (one for each sector of the Global Industry Classification Standard), entirely composed of ESG assets, in the search for a clear and strong positive correlation that could suggest an overall advantage to focus on an ex ante choice of assets with high ESG scores.     

The ‘Company with Committees’: Change or Continuity in Japanese Corporate Governance?

Corporate governance practices are arguably diffusing across the world. This paper examines the adoption of the committee‐based governance system (i.e. audit, nomination, and remuneration) in Japanese firms, a practice common in Anglo‐American capitalism but potentially contestable in Japan. The study finds that firms that are internationally exposed through cross listing are more likely to adopt the committee system. Moreover, more experienced and highly cross‐held firms, with larger proportions of foreign ownership, are more likely to adopt the committee system. On the other hand our study finds partial support for the hypothesis that larger proportions of bank ownership are negatively associated with the adoption of the committee system, suggesting a gradual withdrawal by banks from the traditional monitoring of firms. This paper adds to the longstanding debate on the convergence on or persistent divergence from the Anglo‐American corporate governance system. The study thus provides insights into corporate governance changes in non‐Anglo/American countries that face a struggle between global capital market forces for change and deep‐seated institutional practices of continuity.     

黎瑞刚:All in or NOT?

黎瑞刚这次的职务变动再次成为大家关注的焦点。近日,上海市人民政府发布了关于上海文化广播影视集团有限公司人事任免通知,免去黎瑞刚总裁职务,任命王建军为上海文化广播影视集团有限公司总裁。消息一出,众人哗然。黎瑞刚对此表示,他的职务调整是实至名归。黎瑞刚曾任上海文广新闻传媒集团总裁、上海第一财经传媒有限公司董事长。2002年10月,出任上海文广新闻传媒集团(SMG)总裁后,他一手主导了SMG的体制内改革,被媒体认为是体制内最像企业家的台长,在熟悉他的     

Governance infrastructure and indebtedness of African countries: Do regional blocs matter?

Motivated by the intermediating role of good institutions in enabling growth via external debt financed investment and the touted promise of regional integration for Africa's growth prospect, we use data on 37 countries, over the period 2002–2010, to explore the governance institutions—external indebtedness nexus in Africa, at the regional bloc level. We find a robust negative relation between governance institutions and external indebtedness in East & Horn of Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa; and unclear relationships in North and West Africa regions. Importantly, these baseline results are robust to the consideration of debt write-offs, natural resource rents, and endogeneity. Further, we find that geographic, economic and cultural factors of proximity, intra-regional activity, shared official language, legal origin and dominant religion, largely explain the commonality of Africa's regional blocs of countries. These and other results of the study can support potential external debt management strategy that leverages effective governance institutions and enhanced regional economic integration.     

Entrepreneurship research in China: internationalization or contextualization?

Entrepreneurship is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Given the global scope of this attention, this article compares entrepreneurship research in China with that in the USA and Europe. Based on publications in Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases over the past 10 years, we use bibliometric method to analyse entrepreneurship research in different regions. Our analysis shows that, on the one hand, entrepreneurship research in China has much in common with such research in the USA and Europe. In addition to borrowing ideas from Western researchers, Chinese entrepreneurship researchers study similar themes and use similar theoretical foundations. On the other hand, Chinese contextual environment helps preserve the uniqueness of its entrepreneurship research. Researchers deal with several context-specific topics such as guanxi, i.e. networks of interpersonal relationships, and its influence on entrepreneurship. We further discuss ways for Chinese researchers to explore the distinct context and contribute to the global literature.     

Labour standards application among Chinese and Indian firms in Ghana: typical or atypical?

Despite the current interest in the growing amount of Chinese and Indian investments in African countries, little is known on the impact of such investments on the employment conditions of African workers. This study investigates the employment practices of a Chinese-owned and an Indian-owned manufacturing company in Ghana in relation to the national labour laws and international labour standards. This article argues that given the weaknesses in the institutional and financial capabilities of the state and the resultant large scope of autonomy assumed by multinational corporations (MNCs), it is highly unlikely that MNCs will voluntarily adopt a high level of labour standards without tangible benefits to the business. This is particularly the case for smaller MNCs from emerging economies such as China and India, as they often slip through the net of international pressure groups and are most unlikely to receive pressure in their home country to observe labour standards in their overseas operations. This study has policy implications for Ghana and other less developed countries that are seeking foreign direct investment to help national development.     

Fiscal Rules and Financial Systems: Complements or Substitutes?

We study the effect of fiscal rules on a country's credit rating and their interaction with financial development. We build a rich set of panel data, which includes a novel index for the strength of fiscal rules. We find a positive and significant effect of fiscal rules on sovereign ratings. We also find that this effect is attenuated in economies with a more developed domestic financial system. Therefore, financial markets act as a substitute for fiscal rules in lowering the default risk assessed by credit rating agencies. This substitution effect between fiscal rules and financial development is mostly triggered through the monitoring and enforcement dimension of fiscal rules.     

The New Competition in Broadcasting: Trick or Treat?

The broadcasting reforms of the 1990s attempted to combine increased competition with the preservation of the public service ideal. The reforms were called into question when it became clear that the production quality was being undermined by poor information flows and excessive transaction costs. For competition in broadcasting to flourish, closer attention needs to be paid tothe institutional preconditions of effective contracting.     

Social Capital: One or Many? Definition and Measurement

Three families of social capital concepts are discussed: (fa1) trust, (fa2) ease of cooperation, and (fa3) network. In the language of game theory, social capital is the excess propensity to play cooperative solutions in prisoners' dilemma games. The three families lead to different definitions, and thus to different measurement methods. Some measures are theory-near, while others are easy-to-use proxies. It is shown that all definitions and measures are related. The 'social capital dream' is that all definitions try to catch aspects of the same phenomenon, so that all measures tap the same latent variable. It is discussed whether this dream is likely to come true.     

Populism in South America: Democratic Panacea or Pitfall?

Populism has become a buzz word in recent years, used widely by journalists, political pundits, and academics. Much of the discussion presents the global phenomenon as a recent one. However, one version or another has existed in South America for nearly a century. In this article, I put forth a political strategic definition of populism that includes an actor's political style, relationship with followers, political organization, and political history. Using this conceptualization, I score several presidential candidates’ campaign behavior during recent elections, between the years 2011 and 2015. I also consider the democratic consequences of two of the continents’ most visible and longest‐serving populists, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. I examine the change over time in both countrie's political systems regarding the respect for civil liberties and political rights, changes in citizens’ attitudes towards the democratic quality of their respective countries, and the variation in socioeconomic inequality. I conclude with an assessment of each populist's democratic consequence and discuss potential for future research.     

Comparing German and Italian Public Universities: Convergence or Divergence in the Higher Education Landscape?

In this paper, we examine and compare the efficiency of Italian and German public universities and its evolution in the period 2001–2007. This topic is particularly important because of two main reasons: (i) as the universities are funded through public money in both countries, it is necessary to assess whether it has been used efficiently; (ii) the comparison among (similar) European countries can stimulate a benchmarking exercise that can be useful for managerial and policy making purposes. The results show that German universities are more efficient than their Italian counterparts are, using data envelopment analysis. However, the latter are catching up: in the period 2001–2007, their efficiency has improved more rapidly. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethics in the Production and Dissemination of Management Research: Institutional Failure or Individual Fallibility?

Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed considerable growth in business education, increased competition among business schools, and higher expectations for faculty scholarship. Increasing competition among scholars for limited publication opportunities in top‐tier journals and the proliferation of bottom‐tier journals has given rise to a variety of systemic ethical issues and dilemmas, for scholars and their institutions. In this article, we critically examine the current state of normative publishing activities and expectations, including doctoral education, promotion and tenure processes and research expectations, editorial and peer review processes, academic freedom, acceptable breadth, depth, and accuracy or legitimacy of research designs and methodologies, academic integrity, replication, and data availability concerning the trends and implications of contemporary and future management scholarship. We also provide recommendations for additional research and discussion on these issues.