The curse of the superstar CEO

When struggling companies look for a new chief executive today, the one quality they prize above all others is charisma. But once they've recruited a larger-than-life leader, they often find that their troubles only get worse. Indeed, as the author's new research painfully reveals, the widespread belief in the powers of charismatic CEOs can be problematic. Why? First, Khurana says, there's no conclusive evidence that charismatic leadership affects an organization's performance. And yet--as Kodak's story over the past decade reveals--when a company is faltering, boards feel compelled to oust the incumbent chief executive and bring in a corporate savior. Second, the insistence on finding a charismatic leader, combined with the undefinable nature of charisma, results in selection processes that are overly conservative and even irrational. Boards end up considering only candidates who have already achieved the rank of CEO or president at a high-performing, high-profile company, even if they are not right for the job. Third, charismatic leaders deliberately destabilize organizations. This can result in a more vibrant company, as it did at General Electric during Jack Welch's tenure, but it can also leave a troubled legacy for the organization to overcome, as GE, Ford, and Enron have all found. Faith in a company, a product, or an idea can unleash tremendous innovation and productivity. But the extravagant hopes invested in charismatic CEOs resemble not mature faith but a belief in magic. If we are willing to reconsider our notion of leadership, this age of faith can be followed by an era of faith and reason.     

The British aluminium industry, 1945-80s: chronicles of a death foretold?

The paper aims to give an overview of the evolution of the British aluminium industry after 1945. Its objective is to analyse the national character of the sector's evolution over the post-war period. The case seems to illustrate the so-called British economic 'failure' often quoted by economic historians writing about the period (Jones, 1997). Nevertheless, geographical, financial, managerial and cultural factors are crucial to understanding Britain's inability to sustain a domestically owned aluminium industry.     

Takeover bidding with toeholds: the case of the owner's curse

This article demonstrates that a potential acquirer with a toeholdbids aggressively and possibly overpays in equilibrium. Theaggressiveness of a bidder with a toehold increases furtherif he is able to renege on his winning bid. A bidder withouta toehold, however, responds by shading his bids. The targetfirm can increase competition and the expected sale price ifit only entertains nonretractable bids. This article providestestable implications on the probability of bidder success,stock price reactions on bid revisions and on resolution ofthe contest, and expected gains to bidders and the target firm.     

经济动态环境与全球化下会计师业务的营销策略

受经济自由化、国际化及信息科技发展的影响,全球化已成为世界经济体系的主要趋势。在此形势下,会计师业务由传统遵循审计趋向多元化,会计师专业能力要求日益深化与专精,会计师事务所组织形态及营运方式受到冲击,企业国际化也趋动会计师业务由区域性进入国际性,事务所业务发展必须有正确营销观念与策略。     

The rise and fall of subsidiarity

The concept of subsidiarity is examined as a possible golden rule to be applied in restructuring the federal balance, ie the relationship between the EC, the member states and the regions. The concept of subsidiarity is used broadly to include an examination of the kind of institutional rearrangement that the EC is trying to define for itself. Four deficits (capacity, policy, implementation and democracy) of the present institutional set-up are reviewed in order to determine what kind of innovative arrangements need to be designed to enable the EC to face the challenges of the next decade. On the assumption that the process of integration has indeed become irreversible, two options in the institutional development towards political union are evaluated.     

The rise and fall of normative control

Widely-publicized breaches of professional norms among accountants in the United States have kindled their interest in the problem of norms and normative control. This article discusses the current literature on norms. It suggests that normative control, which is always problematic, is especially so when agents are subject to the control of two or more principals having divergent interests. It is argued that the agent’s compliance will tend to flow to that principal upon whom the agent is most dependent. The analysis is illustrated by the case of the rise and fall of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm.     

The rise and fall of the Big Society in the UK

This article assesses the role of the Big Society within the complex pattern of UK service provision. It is argued that the relevance of the Big Society was transient and it has had little impact on practice. Reasons for this are located within the complexity of relationships between public, private and third sectors. Such complexity is a permanent feature of contemporary service provision in which the moment of the Big Society has now passed.     

Mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility: The Indian experience

The question we raise is what to do when companies fail to keep pace with societal expectations with respect to their corporate social responsibility (CSR). The response of the Indian government was to make it mandatory for large corporations to spend funds on CSR activities. In this paper, we investigate the success of this legislation both for the companies and the intended beneficiaries. We find that the impact of the legislation has fallen short of expectations both in terms of the volume of CSR expenditure generated and the activities to which it has been directed. In particular, we find that the legislation has had a negative corporate profitability which can impact on the willingness of companies to spend in this area. We conclude that greater care must be taken when implementing mandatory CSR if it is to be effective.     

The fall of Spanish cajas: Lessons of ownership and governance for banks

Ownership, governance, and institutional diversity among banks are a subject of public and regulatory concern. This paper addresses this issue by using a case study of Spain, where the retail banking market was split evenly between shareholder and stakeholder banks before the crisis. We examine how institutional diversity mattered in the accumulation of risk in the pre-crisis years, in the severity of losses caused by the crisis, and in the resilience to recover from the losses. The method of analysis consists in linking the risk position of the banks in the pre-crisis period and the losses arising during the crisis to the decisions of banks to migrate from business models based on deposit financing to models based on market-debt financing. We find that cajas migrated to more vulnerable business models following the strategy of the shareholder banks, but the losses in the crisis were much higher in the former than in the latter. The paper interprets this result as evidence that what matters the most about the ownership of banks is their resilience in bad times.     

The rise and fall of William Bassett Chinnery

The purpose of this article is to explain how William Bassett Chinnery, who was appointed Agent for New South Wales on 1 May 1787, was enabled to embezzle more than £80,000 of Treasury funds prior to his dismissal on 17 March 1812. In this chronicle attention is concentrated on Chinnery's duties and peculation rather than his private life and his love of music which has been exposed elsewhere ( Yim, 2004 ). Attention is paid to accounting and control systems used at the British Treasury and the function and operation of the Audit Office which was established in 1785. In conclusion, it is argued that Chinnery was able to avoid detection because contemporary charge and discharge reporting, cash control and auditing were inadequate.     

经济社会中高效、和谐、平安的音符——工行江西省江铜支行企业文化建设纪实

企业文化是企业的灵魂，是企业赖以生存和发展的原动力。早在上世纪90年代中期，工行江西省江铜支行便以“团结一心的群体意识，奋勇夺魁的竞争意识，逆水行舟的搏击意识，同舟共济的风险意识，龙的传人的民族意识”的“赛龙舟精神”享誉省内外金融界，先后荣获“全国金融先进单位”、“全国模范职工之家”、“全国金融系统先进基层党组织”、江西省第五、六届文明单位等20多项省部级以上的荣誉称号。     

感悟企业文化

文化内涵博大精深，对于企业文化我同样不敢妄言，只能谈点在基层单位工作时对企业文化的点滴感悟。     

要重视企业文化在员工职业生涯规划中的作用

企业文化是凝聚人心、增强企业竞争力的无形资产和力量,是企业生存和发展的原动力。推进企业文化建设其实质也是企业对员工素质的培养和提高,因为人才是企业的核心战略资源,注重企业文化建设和人本管理是企业走向成功的一条重要途径。但遍观中国的企业无论是合资、合作企业集团还是国有企业集团,都面临着一个无法回避的挑战,那就是员工职业生涯规划的推行与企业的原有的工作文化是否相容、相融,决定着企业员工职业生涯规划管理实施的效果。企业文化要想发挥它应有的作用,必须将企业文化中的价值观（包括企业精神等）、     

构建三维文化体系打造高效企业团队——对基层银行企业文化建设的思考

企业文化是企业在长期的经营过程中形成并被企业员工普遍认同和遵从的思想观念、价值标准、思维方式和工作作风的总和,是物质文化、制度文化和精神文化的复合体。企业文化是企业生存和发展的灵魂和原动力,是企业凝聚人心、增强企业竞争力的无形资产和力量。对外,它是企业的面旗帜;对内,它是一种向心力。     

从心理学角度探析企业文化的构建

人是企业的第一要素，企业文化的重要特点是重视人的价值。坚持以人为本，推崇人性管理，达到人企合一，实现企业与员工共成长、共发展是企业人本文化的核心，也是企业文化能否实行的关键。从心理学的角度，科学运用相关理论知识来激发员工的主体意识，从根本上调动员工的积极性和创造性，将企业价值观、企业理念内化于心，并外化为价值实践，推动企业进步和发展，是本文的目的所在。     

企业文化建设：陕持与裁剪的艺术

企业文化建设,很像园丁培育苗木。苗木是在园地里生长出来的,它必须与当地水土相服,否则,园丁本事再高也是无济于事;当苗木长势良好时,园丁要做的只是顺势而为,让它自由生长;当苗木长势不正,枝叶旁逸斜飞时,园丁就得费大力气将它扶正,痛下决心剪除它的歪枝赘叶。自然界暗含天机,从事企业文化建设也是如此,应当领悟其内在规律。     

The Sustainability of Indian Fiscal Policy: A Reassessment of the Empirical Evidence

This paper reassesses the sustainability of fiscal policy in India from 1950 to 2010. Overall, the evidence broadly supports the hypothesis that the fiscal policy is "weakly" sustainable and documents a higher speed of adjustment to the intertemporal budget constraint than earlier papers do. Notwithstanding this improvement in the fiscal outlook, the author suggests that India should pursue a policy of fiscal consolidation in the years ahead, both because the ratio of public debt to the gross domestic product is still high compared to other emerging market countries and because "weak" fiscal solvency implies potential adverse consequences on the management of public debt.     

创新型企业文化的感悟

今年是工商银行企业文化推进年。怎样做好创新型企业文化的宣传和推广，用新的理念指导工商银行的企业文化建设，使我行的企业文化充满生机和活力，这是每一个企业文化工作者都应该认真思考的问题。     

用雷锋精神构建独特的企业文化——工行辽宁省抚顺分行雷锋储蓄所企业文化建设纪实

四十多年前，雷锋的一笔100元存款，把雷锋储蓄所与伟大的共产主义战士雷锋的名字联系在一起了。几十年来，尽管岁月流逝，形势变化，但雷锋储蓄所一代又一代员工，始终把雷锋精神作为企业文化建设的核心理念，充分利用他们长期以来在学习和弘扬雷锋精神过程中所积淀的雷锋文化资源，逐步形成了以学习雷锋精神，全心全意为客户服务为内涵的企业文化，我们称之为雷锋文化。正是这种独特的企业文化，创造了企业效益和社会效益的双赢，推动着雷锋储蓄所不断发展壮大。