The social mastery of technology : An agenda for research and action

This article reports on the symposium on the ‘Social Mastery of Technology’ (MASTECH) organized by the CNRS Industrial Economics Research Group and the Maison Rhône-Alpes des Sciences de l'Homme in Lyon, France, 9–12 September 1991, under the patronage of UNESCO, which was a major innovation among scientific communities in the area of human sciences.     

Shareholder protection,income inequality and social health: A proposed research agenda

This paper develops a proposed research agenda in order to highlight how corporate governance, accounting and company law are relevant to the consideration of income inequality and wider social health. To illustrate this proposed research agenda, this paper draws on corporate governance research in the law and finance tradition, as well as macro-level studies in accounting concerned with the wider corporate governance context, in order to consider the association between shareholder protection, income inequality and child mortality. Under 5 child mortality is an objective indication of a country’s ability to nurture its children. In an influential body of work, La Porta et al. (1997a, 1997b, 1998, 2008) concluded that a common law legal system which protected the interests of shareholders gave rise to better economic and social outcomes. However, drawing on corporate governance and accounting literature we contend that such a conclusion is flawed. The findings of this paper suggest that common law countries (i.e. those with the greater legal protection for investors) have worse social outcomes in terms of under-5 child mortality.     

何为赤道原则

在进行项目谈判、与外资银行合作交流过程中,经常遇到的一个问题就是项目对环境和社会影响的评估与管理.而赤道原则作为由世界主要金融机构制订的、旨在管理和发展与项目融资有关的社会和环境问题的一套自愿性原则,便被频频提及.目前赤道原则已经成为国际项目融资的一个新标准.     

Regulatory networks for accounting and auditing standards: A social network analysis of Canadian and international standard-setting

Rose and Miller [Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 173–205] note that governmentality is exercised through “centers of calculation” embedded in “networks of rule;” we focus on the “networks of rule” and use social network analysis to document the linked organizations, both domestic and international, that affect the creation of accounting and auditing standards in Canada. The network is defined as the set of regulatory bodies and other organizations that have the right to appoint (or approve the appointment of) members of another organization’s standard-setting body. The network consists of 61 organizations, sharing 131 interlocks. These organizations are clustered into four groups centered on, respectively, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Canadian Securities Administrators, International Federation of Accountants and the IOSCO/World Bank. The analysis identifies the boundaries of these clusters and the key organizations that maintain the cohesion of the network. The conclusion identifies research opportunities opened by this perspective on accounting and auditing regulation.     

Top management adoption of a locally driven performance measurement and evaluation system: A social network perspective

This paper traces the adoption process by top management of a performance evaluation system initiated by the financial controllers at the Research And Development site of a leading multinational company. The research puts forward that the success of the change efforts depends on the nature of relationships among the organizational members involved in the process. Because performance measurement and evaluation systems have notoriety for being controversial, the notion of trust, operationalized through strong ties, emerged as pivotal to reduce uncertainty during the change process and facilitate the introduction of the performance evaluation system. The research also points out that the structural position of financial controllers within organizational networks is an important aspect in the success/failure of implementing such problematic control systems. Also, the social network analysis used in this paper has proved to be a useful methodology for studying the relational patterns that occurred during the change process.     

Consumer reactions to unfamiliar technologies: mental and social formation of perceptions and attitudes toward nano and GM products

Abstract

Using focus groups, the research analyses the mental and social processes through which consumers form perceptions and opinions about unfamiliar technologies and the derived products, taking the perception of nanotechnology and nano-products, GM and GM products as example. Our findings suggest that limited understanding of the technological principles and lack of (visible) products prevent the formation of experience-based attitudes and behavioral intentions. In this context, consumers interpret and assess cognitive interventions such as product labels or product information, as well as the trustworthiness of unfamiliar information sources, based on heuristic clues, association, mutual reassurance and previous attitudes. The established determinants of technology risk perception (e.g. knowledge, social norms, perceived risks and benefits and controllability) were the subject of constant deliberation and negotiation among participants. Consequently, the perception of risk and technology communication interventions might vary greatly across different locations and segments of the public, complicating risk communication and trust-building.     

Linking international business theory to accounting history: implications of the international evolution of the state and the firm for accounting history research

Accounting is an interdisciplinary subject. We routinely draw insights and models from the base disciplines (e.g. economics, psychology etc.) as a starting point for research on accounting issues. As accounting researchers, and accounting historians in particular, explore the international dimensions of accounting it is appropriate, therefore, to look to the literature on international relations for insights. This paper provides examples of how we could use the literature on the nation-state and international enterprises to frame questions about international accounting history.     

Integrated reporting: background,measurement issues,approaches and an agenda for future research

We discuss the background to integrated reporting, a new reporting framework focused on firms’ future value creation narrative. We consider why integrated reporting is an area of interest for the accounting profession, accountants, investors, regulators and managers. We provide an overview of the integrated reporting literature, discuss measurement and research design issues to take into account when designing studies on integrated reporting and identify approaches and set an agenda for future research.     

Human Choice: the genetic code for social development

A comprehensive theory of social development is needed that treats human beings as the center of the development process and integrates all its economic, political, social, and cultural factors. Drawing a wide range of intriguing parallels with biological evolution, the authors describe the central role of organization in social development; “surplus human energy” as both condition and fuel for the process; the role of conscious individual pioneers who express subconscious social aspirations; imitation as the mechanism for social diffusion; information flows that serve as catalysts for new things to do and new ways to do old things; and laws, policies and formal systems as way-stations on the road to internalized values and informal social organizations. The primary resource and ultimate determinant of development is the individual human being's unlimited capacity for creativity and resourcefulness. Extending greater freedom of choice to its individual citizens is the central mechanism by which society can tap and release this infinite resource for the collective benefit.     

Corporate finance and governance in emerging markets: A selective review and an agenda for future research

There are important organizational and behavioral differences between firms in emerging markets and those in developed markets. We propose a top-down approach to understand how key institutional forces shape the structures and policies of firms in emerging markets. We review a selective set of prior studies as well as papers included in this Special Issue in identifying government quality, state ownership, and financial development as critical institutional forces that shape the financing and governance of firms in emerging markets. We suggest that future research should pay attention to several important but unanswered topics related to informal enforcement, government incentives, family firms, and network organizations.     

在天津建设国际金融中心,是现实,也是目标

天津于家堡金融区已全面启动并正在建设之中。中外专家关于天津建立国际金融中心的讨论引起关注和思考：金融中心建设究竟该追逐梦想,还是立足现实？     

Wealth from creativity: Insights and strategies for the future of international cultural relations

Regardless of frontier, the creative community has begun to benefit financially from the democratisation of creative production and distribution opened up via the Internet, a place where planetary plurality and diversity is implicit. Artists are major ambassadors for their cultures operating in a collaborative environment that recognises the distinctive differences between cultures without threat to indigenous expression.

The cultural ecology may have changed but the response of government has been obstructive. Until the second Iraq war cultural diplomacy seemed to have replaced gunboat diplomacy and there was a growing movement to foster cultural relations in an environment being characterised as mutual. In parallel, at national level, governments were seeking to recognise the strong economic value of the cultural industries sector in the new globalised technology. This has now all been thrown into reverse gear by the practice of public diplomacy, a policy of unreformed imperialist hubris that seeks to influence policy in other nations by using domestic producers of intellectual, scientific, creative or economic content to promote selected values and so dominate the international relations agenda.

What if one were to integrate into the activities of international cultural relations the dynamic ways of working and thinking of the creative industries? A more beneficial model emerges if creators are given centre-stage and the values of the creative community applied to the management of international cultural relations. A series of insights borne of many years work in the creative industries could lead to a new set of strategies that would call the bluff of those currently seeking to promote the advantages of liberal democracy. For these strategies demonstrably uphold the rights of individuals to creative expression and to enrich their local economies. This does require the managers of international cultural relations to live more dangerously than at present and it is to them that this paper is addressed.     

互相参股:中外资银行合作的最佳模式选择

按照合作的内容，把中外银行的合作分为7种模式：人员培训合作模式、技术合作模式、客户资源共享合作模式、管理合作模式、产品及业务合作模式、单方入股合作模式和互相参股合作模式。在这7种模式中，人员培训和技术交流等前5种合作模式是比较初级的合作方式；单方入股模式是目前较为普遍的合作方式，但存在不对等和不对称性问题由于不对等是目前外资银行单方入股中资银行存在的主要问题，所以互相参股是维护中国金融主权的必然选择之一，也是中资银行“走出去”融入国际金融主流市场的最捷径的方式之一。从而得出相互参股是平等互利共赢的最佳合作方式。另外，本文对中外资银行相互参股的可行性和必要性进行分析，并提出如果把其作为外资银行进一步进入中国市场的条件是可能的，但要想实现中外资银行互相参股，首先必须在中资银行高层达成共识，其次更需获得国家有关部门的大力支持。     

An international CAPM for partially integrated markets: Theory and empirical evidence

This article proposes a theoretical testable capital asset pricing model for partially segmented markets. We establish that if some investors do not hold all international assets because of direct and/or indirect barriers, the world market portfolio is not efficient and the traditional international CAPM must be augmented by a new factor reflecting the local risk undiversifiable internationally. We also introduce a suitable framework to test this model empirically. Using a sample of six emerging markets and three mature markets, we find that the degree of stock market integration varies through time and that most of the sample emerging markets have become more integrated in the recent years. The local risk premium for emerging markets represents the most important component of the total risk premium, but its relative importance has decreased recently. Differently, the total risk premium for developed countries is largely driven by global factors.     

Implicit attitudes toward risk: the construction and validation of the measurement method

Methods that are typically used to examine individual differences in risk attitudes (e.g. lotteries, dilemmas, questionnaires) require participants to explicitly declare their willingness to take risk. Therefore, they may be biased by the need for self-presentation or situational characteristics such as time pressure and cognitive constraints that lead to more spontaneous and automatic processing of risk-related information. The aim of this study was to construct an indirect measure of risk attitudes that is free of these methodological limitations. The method based on the Implicit Association Test shows high internal reliability and satisfactory stability over time. It correlates moderately with different explicit measures of risk attitudes that are related to sensation seeking. Finally, it is characterized by a high predictive power. Adding the implicit measure to the set of independent variables representing declarative evaluations of risk attitudes significantly improved the model predicting risky real-life behavior. We argue that the indirect assessment of risk attitudes presented in this paper may be used as an universal measure of people’s risk propensity that is free of biases related to self-presentation and situational factors.