CSR and the national institutional context: The case of South Korea

The different institutional contexts in which businesses practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) lead researchers to challenge the validity of the extant standardized global approach. This study follows recent studies in employing institutional theory to explore the specific pressures and factors that lead CSR practices to differ between countries, and how they lead to those differences. The study is a detailed qualitative analysis of CSR practice in South Korea, a country with very different value and governance systems from the US and UK where contemporary CSR evolved. Contrary to simplistic expectations, Korea shows a concern for short-termism more than for sustainability; and a normative more than a strategic orientation in its CSR, where CSR lies at a crossroads between implicit and explicit CSR behavior. The practices reflect many Korean institutional factors, but not in simple and direct ways. Institutional factors interact in intricate ways to create complex and dynamic pressures for CSR practice. CSR research needs to consider these interactions and dynamic processes with care and institutional theory can help provide a sufficiently intricate research framework.     

中朝韩经贸关系纵深发展的战略进路

随着东北亚地区经济联系的日益紧密,域内国家间的相互依存度明显提高.东北亚经济合作划时代的契机是域内国家签订自由贸易协定,从而平行地促进产业分工.中朝韩三国经贸合作规模的提升和发展速度的提高,可以推动一度因日本态度消极而搁浅的中日韩自由贸易区建设,并将成为东北亚经济合作发展的催化剂.中朝经贸发展的能动力在于中国建设性的参与朝鲜的经济革新发展,而中韩经贸发展的增长点则在于加速建立自由贸易区.     

领导者能力与国有企业效率

In this paper, a conceptual model of state-owned enterprises(SOEs) is built up based on several different perspectives, such as property right approach, management approach, and leadership capability approach. Using the data of World Bank’s survey on 1500 Chinese firms from five cities in 2001, the authors conclude that differences in leadership capabilities represented by leaders’ demographic characteristics exert influences on enterprise efficiency. Specifically, the degree of such influences in the SOEs is much higher than that of in the non-state-owned enterprise(NSOE) due to reasons of property right problems and insufficient incentive mechanisms in SOEs. Furthermore, the authors argue that empowering reforms will lead to phenomenon of differentiation in SOEs, causing huge differences in enterprise performances in the long run.      

服务贸易视角下中日韩贸易竞争与互补分析

作为东亚地区经济发展的核心,中日韩三国服务贸易的发展一直备受关注。日本服务贸易的竞争力水平是中日韩三国中最强的,其次是中国,最后是韩国。中国具有竞争力的行业主要是建筑、电信、计算机和信息以及其他商业服务,韩国具有竞争力的行业主要是旅游和建筑服务,日本具有竞争力的行业主要是运输、建筑、专业权利和特许服务以及政府服务。进一步对中日韩服务贸易的影响因素进行分析发现:人均国内生产总值、外商直接投资、货物贸易出口额和服务贸易开放水平与中日韩服务贸易竞争力水平都呈显著正相关关系,其中,服务贸易开放度水平对中日韩服务贸易竞争力水平的影响最大,外商直接投资对中日韩服务贸易竞争力水平的影响最小。     

It's not what you know but who you know that's important: the influence of social networks on communities

Since its conception in 1945, the UK National Health Service (NHS) has been the focus of extensive political rhetoric regarding the involvement of patients and the public in the provision of health‐care services both locally and nationally. However, achieving substantial user involvement within local communities has proven to be a complex task. The exploratory research presented in this paper investigates the influence of social networks within local communities and its relevance for user involvement. Four main findings emerged: interviewees have strong informal social networks; there is a strong sense of generalized reciprocity; diversity is limited within the social groupings; and there exists a lack of trust in governmental institutions. With regards to health issues, there is an overriding feeling that ‘things like that should be left to the people who know’. If user involvement is to be achieved at the level envisioned by the UK government, achieving a greater relevance for users is essential.     

仲裁协议效力的扩张趋势及其实践

仲裁协议效力扩张问题,在国内外商事仲裁理论和实践中一直存在争议.随着支持、鼓励仲裁的国际趋势逐步形成和发展,立法和实践对于仲裁协议效力扩张的认可和接受,有必要探讨仲裁协议效力扩张的理论基础和归纳相应的实践做法,以期对商事仲裁协议的扩张有更加理性和客观的认识.     

Perceived hazardousness of child-care products and the effectiveness of safety information

Abstract

In the present study, the hazardousness of child-care products as perceived by parents of young children between o and 4 years of age was investigated. Some related factors, such as perceived likelihood of injury, perceived severity of injury, and familiarity with the product, were also studied. Perceived hazardousness is strongly related to the effectiveness of safety information. The results indicate that parents do not think of child-care products as hazardous, and they appear to be very familiar with most of the products investigated. Perceived hazardousness was found to be most strongly related to perceived likelihood of injury and somewhat less strongly to perceived severity of injury. No relationship was found between either perceived hazardousness and familiarity or between perceived hazardousness and objective accident frequencies. It was concluded from this study that, because the perceived hazardousness of child-care products is low, the effectiveness of safety information provided with these products will also be low. Recommendations for improving the effectiveness of safety information are provided.     

Business history,global networks and the future of mobility

Globalisation raises serious concerns about ecological sustainability and social equality. This article proposes that business historians should write a usable past that is framed by the imperative of addressing these issues. The transport and communication networks that underpin global trade and travel offer an opportunity to narrate such a past. In particular business enterprises have historically helped to shape the ways consumers think about and realise bodily movement. By contributing to a genealogy of these mobility cultures, business historians can help to uncover the mythic traces that continued to shape contemporary public and policy understandings of global mobility.     

韩企非正常撤资与韩国对华直接投资分析

韩国是重要的对华直接投资国,韩国对华直接投资经历了初步进入、快速发展、缓慢下降和大规模增长等四个阶段,主要以中、小企业独资方式投向于环渤海地区和制造业;同时,存在着本土化程度不高、投资过度集中于制造业、平均规模偏小和投资取向不合理,撤资频繁等问题.为此,文章提出了我国应采取的相应对策.     

Linking organizational culture, structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management

Practices of knowledge management are context-specific and they can influence organizational effectiveness. This study examines the possible mediating role of knowledge management in the relationship between organizational culture, structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness. A survey was conducted of 301 organizations. The results suggest that knowledge management fully mediates the impact of organizational culture on organizational effectiveness, and partially mediates the impact of organizational structure and strategy on organizational effectiveness. The findings carry theoretical implications for knowledge management literature as they extend the scope of research on knowledge management from examining a set of independent management practices to examining a system-wide mechanism that connects internal resources and competitive advantage.     

Dynamic supernetworks for the integration of social networks and supply chains with electronic commerce: modeling and analysis of buyer–seller relationships with computations

In this paper, we develop a dynamic supernetwork framework for the modeling and analysis of supply chains with electronic commerce that also includes the role that relationships play. Manufacturers are assumed to produce a homogeneous product and to sell it either through physical or electronic links to retailers and/or directly to consumers through electronic links. Retailers, in turn, can sell the product through physical links to consumers. Increasing relationship levels in our framework are assumed to reduce transaction costs as well as risk and to have some additional value for both sellers and buyers. Establishing those relationship levels incurs some costs that have to be borne by the decision-makers in the supernetwork, which is multilevel in structure and consists of the supply chain and the social network. The decision-makers, who are located at distinct tiers in the supernetwork, try to optimize their objective functions and are faced with multiple criteria including relationship-related ones and weight them according to their preferences. We establish the optimality conditions for the manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, derive the equilibrium conditions, and provide the variational inequality formulation. We then present the projected dynamical system, which describes the disequilibrium dynamics of the product transactions, relationship levels, and prices on the supernetwork, and whose set of stationary points coincides with the set of solutions of the variational inequality problem. We also illustrate the dynamic supernetwork model through several numerical examples, for which the explicit equilibrium patterns are computed.     

中韩工业制品比较优势及出口相似性分析

本文运用显性比较优势指数和产品出口相似度指数对中国与韩国工业制成品出口结构进行了实证分析。研究结果表明,中国与韩国在工业制成品上的出口相似度正在逐步提高,出口结构正逐渐趋于收敛,双方在第三方市场上的竞争逐渐加剧,中国与韩国对外贸易关系正从原来的互补关系逐渐转化为竞争关系,且竞争日渐激烈。文章对中韩两国贸易模式转变的原因进行了探讨,并提出了相应建议。     

Trade liberalization,production organization and informal sector of the developing countries

The paper provides an explanation of recent empirical evidence on fragmentation and the expansion of the informal sector in India. We argue that as the prospect of getting a better price in the international market increases, the producers in the formal sector act more like merchants and subcontract production activities to the producers in the informal sectors. Expanding production in the informal sector allows the firm to take advantage of a growing export market. Our theoretical model explains such organizational change in terms of allocation of monitoring effort between marketing and production. The existence of a low-wage informal sector facilitates division of labor and specialization in the formal segment.     

A comparative study of the application of systems thinking in achieving organizational effectiveness in Malaysian and Pakistani banks

The present work is a comparative study of the banking industry of Malaysia and Pakistan. The paper aims to measure the impact of individual systems thinking on the overall organizational effectiveness. Skilled individuals are considered as an asset of the organization especially when these individuals exhibit systems thinking capabilities that helps in achieving effectiveness. The sample consisted of 368 respondents belonging to lower and middle tier levels in the banking sector of both countries. The results indicate that Malaysian banking employees are ahead of their counterparts in Pakistan while applying systems thinking. The study is significant in enhancing the understanding of the importance of systems thinking for organizational effectiveness. The study has managerial implications for the top management of banks.     

National culture, networks and ethnic entrepreneurship: A comparison of the Indian and Chinese immigrants in the US

This paper uses a combination of national cultural frameworks and social capital theory to explain the formation and management of entrepreneurial ventures among immigrant communities. The varying rates of venture formation and performance among different ethnic groups points to the role that the different dimensions of culture play in how immigrants use their social networks to start such firms. We use the specific example of the Indian and Chinese communities in the US to demonstrate this effect and explain how businesses created by members of these communities could have potentially different ways of starting and operating that can be directly traced to the differences in cultural orientation of their owners. What emerges can be summarized as: (a) different immigrant communities have different ways of accumulating and using social capital in starting and managing their ethnic ventures; (b) these dissimilarities manifest themselves in variations in the motives for forming these ventures, human resource practices and termination rates; and (c) that these variations can partly be explained by the differences in their respective national cultures.     

Industry associations as facilitators of social capital: The establishment and early operations of the Melbourne Woolbrokers Association

Relocation of the selling of Australia's wool clip from London to cities in Australia in the late nineteenth century led to the creation of wool selling industry associations, such as the Melbourne Woolbrokers Association (MWA). Highly successful in fostering competitive collaboration that improved market efficiency, the Association rested on the social capital brought to it and further developed by the participants, individuals with extensive connections in the pastoral, banking and transport industries. The collective social capital vested in the Association enabled the earning of economic rents, firstly from the high trust created through internal cohesion reinforced by formalised sanctions, and secondly from a capacity to span ‘structural holes’ between networks outside of the Association.     

Inter-firm R&D networks in the global software industry: An overview of major trends and patterns

This paper presents an analysis of some major historical trends in inter-firm R&D partnering in the international software industry during the period 1970–1999. Our research demonstrates an overall growth pattern of newly made R&D partnerships and reveals the important role played by leading firms. We also examine the emergence of various R&D networks in the software industry, indicating the change from sparse and disconnected inter-firm R&D networks to dense and well-connected networks since the second half of the 1980s.     

Andrew Carnegie and the foundations of contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy

This paper focuses upon the relationship between the business and philanthropic endeavours of world-making entrepreneurs; asking why, how and to what ends these individuals seek to extend their reach in society beyond business. It presents an original model of entrepreneurial philanthropy which demonstrates how investment in philanthropic projects can yield positive returns in cultural, social and symbolic capital, which in turn may lead to growth in economic capital. The model is applied to interpret and make sense of the career of Andrew Carnegie, whose story, far from reducing to one of making a fortune then giving it away, is revealed as more complex and more unified. His philanthropy raised his stock within the field of power, helping convert surplus funds into social networks, high social standing and intellectual currency, enabling him to engage in world making on a grand scale.     

Apartheid and business: Competition,monopoly and the growth of the malted beer industry in South Africa

The South African brewing industry experienced enormous growth in the apartheid era, following the lifting of prohibition on the sale of ‘European liquor’ to Africans in 1961. Successive international brewers and local entrepreneurs sought to benefit from increased demand in the 1970s but were unable to withstand competition from South African Breweries (SAB), the dominant player in the industry. A decade of intense competition in the brewing industry ended with the intervention of the cabinet of the Afrikaner Nationalist government. SAB's status as ‘sole supplier to the industry’ remained virtually unchallenged until the demise of apartheid and the end of South Africa's international isolation. The end of apartheid and changes in the global brewing industry brought renewed competition to the South African beer market in the late 1990s and early 2000s.