The Changing Structure of Estate Agency

This article examines some of the causes and consequences of the recent merger boom and slump in the estate agency market. A case study of the market changes in Plymouth between 1987 and 1992 is presented and contrasted with a recent Tyneside study. It is shown that whilst the merger boom changed the structure of ownership in Plymouth it did not signijicantly affect overall mar- ket concentration as national chains concentrated their take-over strategy on local chains. However, national chains have in- creased their dominance during the recent slump as the result of the exit of many independents from the market.     

Nonprofit Agency Perspectives of Higher Education Service Learning and Volunteerism

ABSTRACT

The majority of studies in the service learning field focus on campus-based impacts of service learning and community service. In order to provide a more balanced understanding of the impacts of service learning, this study examined college student service learning and volunteer activities from the nonprofit agency perspective. Findings from this qualitative study revealed the positive and negative impacts that college student volunteers and service learners have at the agencies where they serve and on the youth they provide service for.     

股权结构、代理成本与上市企业股利政策

公司的股利政策是公司股东之间,股东与管理者之间的博弈过程。本文基于代理成本理论,通过选取2004年至2012年A股上市企业为研究样本,着重研究具备绝对控股地位的超级股东对企业股利政策的作用,同时研究排名前十的股东集中度对企业股利政策的影响。研究发现超级股东的力量越大时,股利政策越趋近负向,公司其他股东无法对超级大股东形成有效制衡。     

Beyond Competence:

This article takes the approach that client service can and should be a differentiating strategy for the service firm-particularly the professional service firm. The method suggested for accomplishing the necessary level of service is the use of an unconditional service guarantee.     

Corporate Moral Agency: Review and Implications

The debate concerning corporate moral agency is normally conducted through philosophical arguments in articles which argue from only one point of view. This paper summarises both the arguments for and against corporate moral agency and concludes from this that the arguments in favour have more weight. The paper also addresses the way in which the law in the U.K. and the U.S.A. currently views this issue and shows how it is supportive of the concept of corporate moral agency. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the debate for business ethics in general, and stakeholder theory and virtue ethics in particular.     

Market Structure,Learning and Product Innovation: Evidence for the EPROM Market

The study analyses the market for semiconductor memory chips, in particular EPROMs. Semiconductors are very interesting industry for studying empirically the dynamics of innovation. Given the short product life cycles of generations of chips, the market dynamics unfold much more rapidly than in other industries and are therefore better amenable to empirical observation. One of the aims is to shed more light on the link between learning and the dynamics of product innovation, as well as their influence on market structure. Learning with an old generation turns out to be an important determinant for product innovation. The further down the firm has moved on the learning curve, the higher its market share, and the larger becomes the probability that the firm is an early innovator. The results are consistent with the persistence of leadership hypothesis.     

Foreign ownership and bribery: Agency and institutional perspectives

In this study we examine the effectiveness of formal institutions (as the macro-level mechanism) and external auditing (as the micro-level mechanism) in controlling multinational firms’ engagement in bribery. We adopt World Bank’s data and investigate 38,673 firms in 113 countries. Our results suggest that a firm’s engagement in bribery is positively related to its foreign ownership. Furthermore, we demonstrate the substitute effects of formal institutions and external auditing in controlling this unethical activity. We argue that in a situation whereby formal institutions are weak, a firm’s internal governance mechanism plays a vital role in controlling bribery.     

Ethics and Executive Coaching: An Agency Theory Approach

In recent years executive coaching has become an important management development practice in many organizations. Executive coaching is a partnership between a management level client and a coach hired by an organization to assist the executive in becoming a more effective and successful manager. While executive coaching has become a frequent and important practice in organizations, there has been relatively little serious consideration of the complex ethical issues that arise for persons and organizations. This study proposes that executive coaching involves an agency relation with specific moral duties that go beyond the usual standards of professional ethics. Agency theory, and in particular a focused understanding of the agency relationship, can provide a needed ethical grounding and basis for moral thinking about executive coaching.     

Inside Agency: The Rise and Fall of Nortel

By employing the theoretical template provided by agency theory, this article contributes a detailed clinical analysis of a large multinational Canada-headquartered telecommunications company, Nortel. Our analysis reveals a twenty-first century norm of usual suspects: a CEO whose compensation is well above those of his peers, a dysfunctional board of directors, acts of income smoothing to preserve the confidence of volatile investors, and revelations of financial irregularities followed by a downfall. In many ways, the spectacular rise and – sudden – fall of Nortel illustrates excesses of actors within, and contradictions of the system of corporate governance implied by the agency model. Furthermore, this case illustrates limitations of the agency framework in complex situations with short-term oriented investors.     

Beyond professional ethics: Issues and agendas

Many professional bodies now include activist committees devoted to better serving the broad public interest. Some of the different ways that these groups operate are explored and analyzed. In particular, professional activist groups are divided into two general categories: those dealing mainly with standards of professional practice, and those dealing with political and social issues relevant to the larger social milieu. By participating in such groups, professionals can give the public an alternative view of their profession, and set the stage for public demand for more responsive, socially controlled, professional practices. Beth Savan teaches Environmental Studies at Innis College, University of Toronto. She has a Ph.D. in ecology from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London. Her analysis of the influence of vested interests on scientific research, Science Under Siege: The Myth of Objectivity in Scientific Research, was published by CBC Enterprises in 1988. Her other areas of research interest are environmental assessment and environmental education.     

Managerial Ownership and Agency Cost: Evidence from Bangladesh

This study examines the influence of managerial ownership on firm agency costs among listed firms in Bangladesh. This is an institutional setting that features a mixture of agency costs. This institutional setting has a concentration of ownership by managers, but the firms are not solely owned by managers. The extant literature suggests that the sacrifice of wealth by the principal and potential costs associated with monitoring the agents is known as the agency cost. This study uses three measures of agency cost: the ‘expense ratio’, the ‘Q-free cash flow interaction’, and the ‘asset utilisation ratio’. The finding of the study is that managerial ownership reduces the firm agency cost only under the ‘asset utilisation ratio’ measure of agency cost; this is robust with regard to a number of robustness tests. Furthermore, the non-linearity tests suggest that the convergence of interest is evident with very high and low levels of managerial ownership. The entrenchment effect by the owners is evident at moderate levels of managerial ownership. Although there has been great scepticism among management researchers on the validity of agency theory, overall, the findings of this study do not reject the validity of agency theory. Given that the entrenchment by managers is evident at certain levels of ownership and that the agency problem may still exist between insiders and outsiders, legislative guidelines for controlling share ownership may be required.     

Franchising in Spain: Agency and capital scarcity perspectives

Franchising is currently perhaps the most interesting formula, financially speaking, for generating self-employment, as the capital risk on the investment needed to set up a business is kept to a minimum. Since the aim of this research is to combine the agency and scarcity theories, we conducted a study throughout the total number of observations existing in Spain to determine the importance of the sector. Factors under examination included the number of distribution units that are franchised units as a proportion of the total number of units, the number of years since the firm was set up, yearly growth rate, geographical scope of operation, average start-up costs and average royalty rates.     

湖北省上市公司资本结构与代理成本实证研究

以湖北省上市公司为研究样本,运用实证分析方法,建立多元线性回归模型来验证资本结构与代理成本之间的关系,结果表明,第一大股东持股比例与代理成本存在显著负相关关系,管理层持股比例与代理成本不存在显著线性关系,负债融资对降低代理成本的作用也不显著。湖北省上市公司应通过适当增加大股东持股比例、实施股权激励以及适当的负债融资比例等途径,以降低代理成本,优化资本结构。     

Beyond EEO: Toward pluralism

A pluralistic work force improves decision making, quality of life in the workplace, and relations with stakeholders. Here are three Cs for moving toward pluralism: communicate, cultivate, and capitalize on diversity.     

第一个吃蟹:旅游公司买飞机

春秋国旅计划进军航空市场，低成本航空公司由此宣告成立，也意味着低价机票产生。此举意味着什么?     

Beyond Good and Evil: The Adiaphoric Company

In this article, six demoralising processes in the context of the company are identified. These processes promote a realm of ‘being-with’, in which outcomes of human interaction are evaluated on rational grounds, and on whether or not a particular action accorded with stipulated ethical rules. Thereby the realm of ‘being-for’, in which individuals are supported to take increased responsibility, is marginalized. The conclusion made is that not only do the demoralizing processes systematically produce moral distance between humans, which weakens individual spontaneous outbursts of sympathy to take increased moral responsibility, they also promise to release individuals from their moral ambivalence by declaring organised action morally indifferent. Organisational action is, in other words, declared as adiaphoric – beyond good and evil.     

Mythic Agency and Retail Conquest

This paper expands agency theory by identifying mythic agency as a lens through which retailers can view spectacular events during which consumers act heroically to achieve an important consumption goal. Partaking in a stressful and challenging retail experience invokes the stages of a quest, through which successful consumers emerge transformed and where they challenge, at least in part, the culturally prescribed role of bride. Retailers who create events that evoke and support consumers’ heroic actions can develop powerful, meaningful, and enduring relationships with their customers.     

Forward Integration and Innovation: Transaction Costs and Beyond

The Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory developed by Oliver Williamson has provided a deep understanding of factors behind the vertical integration decisions of firms. This paper begins with a brief case study of forward integration in the early years of select industries. The analysis suggests that other factors, such as capabilities, can complement the TCE approach. The paper shows how TCE has been combined with these other concepts and the Profiting From Innovation framework to provide a more complete analytical toolkit for evaluating forward vertical integration decisions, particularly in the context of innovation.