‘Accountable creatures’: Scottish Presbyterianism,accountability and managerial capitalism

Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains a seminal text for social theory and economic and social history. Weber suggests a general relationship between religious belief and economic action. We argue that only by examining the practices of individuals and institutions can we adequately address Weber's question. Specifically, we re-examine the role of the confessional diary and Church governance practices as forms of accountability. Accountability practices were central to Scottish Presbyterian churches and made an important contribution to the development of managerial capitalism. This article is both a response to and a development of Sam McKinstry and Y.Y. Ding's micro-history of Charles Cowan and the business practices of his family's papermaking firm.     

Game‐park capitalism,globalization, and multinational companies: An overview and a research agenda

This article paints a broad‐brush picture of a modernizing and reglobalizing world, following a path that can metaphorically be described as leading from unfettered “savannah‐type capitalism” over an interwar state‐controlled “zoo mentality” to a system of managed “game‐park capitalism.” I propose an agenda for studying the effects of what is ironically both a more integrated and an increasingly multipolar world on the role, strategies, and practices of incumbent multinational companies and their challengers. International business is portrayed as a learning race where I especially direct scholarly attention to internationally active companies' abilities to handle and benefit from the periphery, understand and serve customers, manage knowledge and interfaces, tap the international factor markets, and project a contemporary image. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Moral dividends: Freemasonry and finance capitalism in early-nineteenth-century America

Abstract

Using documents from the Grand Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons of the State of Indiana (USA), I show how the material practices and symbolic orientations of finance capitalism became transposed into Freemasonry in the early-nineteenth century. I briefly discuss why this happened and point to how these developments shaped the institutional trajectory of Freemasonry. Next, I observe that the symbolic moral standing of Freemasonry became transposed onto finance capitalism as undertaken by its members and other white men like them. After a brief explanation, I outline how these developments affected the institutionalisation of finance capitalism.     

Richard J. Orsi. Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xxii + 615 pp. ISBN 0-520-20019-5, $29.95.

This richly detailed labor of love by Richard J. Orsi attempts"a new approach to an important theme in the history of theAmerican Far West: the complex impact of a large, powerful businesscorporation on the process of settlement, economic development,and environmental change in a frontier region" (p. xiii). Itpays scant attention to traditional corporate history, withits emphasis on leaders, interline relations, politics, regulation,labor, freight, and passenger matters. Orsi dispatches     

Kathleen Thelen. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xv + 333 pp. ISBN 0-521-83768-5, $75.00 (cloth); ISBN 0-521-54674-5, $29.99 (paper).

Kathleen Thelen has written an incredibly fascinating book thatshould be obligatory reading for anyone interested in the historyof skill formation or the evolution of institutions in general.For those working on the "varieties of capitalism," path-dependency,punctured equilibrium, or historical institutionalism, thistext should feature prominently in their work. Thelen’sgoal in this book is to discover why Germany, Britain, the UnitedStates, and Japan pursued different "paths" of skill formation.She traces the origin of each path     

High-Tech Corporatism: Management-Employee Relations in U.S. Electronics Firms, 1920s-1960s

In this article I examine corporative management practices inelectronics firms in Boston and in Silicon Valley from the 1920sto the 1960s. Managers in several key firms developed thesepractices in response to political and professional ideologiesand as a way to address the problems of hiring, using, and retaininga highly skilled work force. They did this independently ofthe welfare capitalism plans of corporations such as EastmanKodak and before the guru theorists and work empowerment programsof the 1960s. The corporatist methods first developed in Bostonand further refined in Silicon Valley later diffused to mostU.S. firms in the software, computer, Internet, and biotechnologyindustries.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in Transnational Spaces: Exploring Influences of Varieties of Capitalism on Expressions of Corporate Codes of Conduct in Nigeria

Drawing from the varieties of capitalism theoretical framework, the study explores the home country influences of multinational corporations (MNCs) on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices when they operate outside their national/regional institutional contexts. The study focusses on a particular CSR practice (i.e. corporate expressions of code of conducts) of seven MNCs from three varieties of capitalism – coordinated (2), mixed (2) and liberal (3) market economies – operating in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy. The study concludes that the corporate codes of conduct of these MNCs operating in Nigeria, to a large extent, reflect the characteristics of their home countries’ model of capitalism, respectively, albeit with certain degree of modifications. The home countries’ model of capitalism is also found to have implications for the degree of adaptability of these MNCs’ CSR practices to the Nigerian institutional context – with the mixed market economy model of capitalism adapting more flexibly than the liberal and coordinated market economies, respectively. The findings of this study will contribute to the emerging literature on the institutional embeddedness of CSR practices in transnational social spaces, understanding of varieties of capitalism, and CSR in developing economies.     

Douglas Cazaux Sackman. Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 401 pp. ISBN 0-520-23886-9, $45.00 (cloth).

No one familiar with California could doubt that the citrusindustry has left an indelible mark on the landscape. Streets,cities, and even an entire county are named after various citrusproducts. It is certainly no coincidence that the centerpieceof Disney’s California Adventure theme park is a rollercoaster tucked inside a giant orange peel. The last two decadeshave seen the publication of the first scholarly works thatexplore the racial, gender, and economic dimensions of the industry.     

Islam,entrepreneurship, and embeddedness

This study centers on the premise that entrepreneurship is an embedded process. Although “the entrepreneur” is inherently an “individual,” entrepreneurship can never be fully disembedded from the more general social settings within which any business venture is situated. An Islamic‐based economic discursive framework should be cognizant of the different forms of sociality, spatiality, and community as well as the various norms, codes, and symbols that define society more generally. The work of Karl Polanyi on embeddedness is engaged and juxtaposed with Islam's understanding of the ideal mode of economic discursive practices. Islamic economic models and Polanyi are both critical of the corrosive effects of unbridled capitalism and individualism that ultimately lead to reification and exploitation. The conclusion recommends more small‐N case studies by researchers and entrepreneurial educational materials that emphasize the importance of networks and local embeddedness.     

Context,market economies and MNEs: The example of financial incentivization

This is a study of the relative utilization of reward systems within and between capitalist archetypes: the study includes not only a closer focus on diversity within and between coordinated market economies, but pays specific attention to the Japanese case, and a systematic comparison of the reward practices adopted by multinational enterprises vis-à-vis their local peers. The study uses the most recent (at the time of writing) wave of the Cranet international survey of HRM. We found clear, firm-level evidence that share schemes and performance related pay exhibit significant differences both within and between varieties of capitalism, highlighting the extent to which key features of reward system continue to vary according to institutional setting, and whether an organization is multinational or not.     

U.S. CEOs of SBUs in Luxury Goods Organizations: A Mixed Methods Comparison of Ethical Decision-Making Profiles

This study involved using a mixed method research design to examine the moral philosophy difference between the ethical decision-making process of CEOs in U.S.-led and non-U.S.-led within the luxury goods industry. The study employed a MANOVA to compare the ethical profiles between the two leader types (US and non-US led) and a phenomenological qualitative process to locate themes that give indication as to the compatibility of the luxury strategy values and practices with the principles and concepts of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. As the luxury goods industry is facing the first slowdown since 2000, pressure to achieve sales targets in the U.S. to make up for losses in other markets will place these CEOs under extreme pressure from their headquarters. These leaders must possess the ethical decision-making capability to balance legal and moral dilemmas unique to multinational luxury goods organizations while delivering business results in a challenging environment. Results of the study show no evidence of difference in the ethical decision-making profiles between the two groups of leaders. The themes and emergent findings resulting from the qualitative analysis indicate a profound incompatibility between the values informing decision-makers using the luxury strategy and those employed by leaders operating within the principles and parameters of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. Recommendations for future research include replicating the study with a larger sample, within a different geographic region or comparing leaders using the luxury strategy to those using conscious capitalism.     

Ecofeminism Meets Business: A Comparison of Ecofeminist, Corporate, and Free Market Ideologies

This paper develops a psychological and ethical ecofeminist position and then compares ecofeminism to corporate and free market capitalism in terms of effects along four scales of well-being: democracy/human rights, environmental health, psychological health, and cruelty toward animals. Using aspects of symbolic interactionism and Antony Weston's self-validating reduction model, it is demonstrated that an ecofeminist belief system tends to promote moral and psychological health whereas the discussed forms of capitalistic thinking militate in the other direction. Ecofeminism is not, however, incompatible with all forms of capitalism, and toward the end of supporting this thesis the rudiments of an ecofeminist capitalism are provided, a capitalism radically divergent from traditional forms yet nevertheless respectful of certain key principles.     

Religion,humanism, marketing,and the consumption of socially responsible products,services, and ideas: Introduction to a special topic section

This introduction to the special issue provides an overview and brief summary of the eight articles that follow and take up the issue's theme. Despite the fact that religion and religious world views exert considerable influence on consumer attitudes and behavior, mainstream business journals have presented little research that explores the relationship between religion and marketing. Articles featured in this special issue examine three themes of interest: (1) the influence of strongly held religious or non-religious world views on the marketing of socially responsible behaviors; (2) how religious world views influence the conduct of marketing; and (3) what marketing scholars can learn from the marketing practices of various religious organizations. The authors extend a note of appreciation to the reviewers of the many papers submitted to the issue and to the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Business Research, Arch Woodside.     

Roger Lowenstein. Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing. New York: Penguin, 2004. ix + 270 pp. ISBN 1-59420-003-3, $24.95 (cloth); 0-14-303-467-7, $15.00 (paper).

What happened on Wall Street from 1997 to 2002 was a financialversion of the perfect storm. Almost everything that could gowrong did go wrong simultaneously. The Securities and ExchangeCommission reforms of the 1930s had closed many of the loopholesfor chicanery, but new paths to questionable practices and debasedprinciples eventually emerged. In his examination of the originsof the "dot.com bubble" and the circumstances of the balloon’sbursting, Roger Lowenstein narrates clearly     

现代信息技术环境下借贷记账法的改革

记账方法是会计理论的重要组成部分,是会计确认、计量、记录和报告的基础。现代信息技术在会计中的应用,从客观上要求对会计核算方法进行改革。本文从现代信息技术的特点出发,论述借贷记账法对会计核算的负面影响及其改革的必要性,阐述了I/O记账法的基本原理,说明了现代信息技术条件下运用I/O记账法构建的记账凭单数据库结构,提出了全面改革现代会计模式的初步设想。     

知识资本会计簿记理论选择

会计发展的历史无一不是因为不同经济时代主导生产要素的变化引起的。在知识经济催生以知识资本为主导生产要素的会计簿记理论的今天,复式簿记理论和方法面临能否反映知识资本及其带来的经济效益的挑战,运用三式簿记理论和方法来反映知识资本及其带来的经济收益是否更为恰当和科学,值得会计理论界去研究和探讨。     

Consumer Choice: A Study of Insurance Buying Intention,Attitudes and Beliefs

This article continues the theme, introduced in a previous article, of testing the validity and relevance of Fishbein's Theory of Reasoned Action to the purchase of life assurance. In this, the second stage, empirical analysis of the data is conducted and its meaning and relevance considered. Conclusions are then drawn as to the dimensions which seem to be important to the purchasing of life assurance.     

Shopping for Human Rights. An Introduction to the Special Issue

Globalization, free trade, and individualization have opened up a worldwide marketplace for trading goods. The fair trade movement and other political consumerist endeavours view consumers as important active holders of responsibility for global welfare. Civil society and governments strive to teach consumers how political consumerism can be used as a push factor to change market capitalism. The market itself can also create an interest in political consumerism and, thereby, teach consumers about the political responsibility embedded in their shopping choices. When this happens, the market works as a pull factor for securing human rights. Questions can be raised about the significance of political consumers as a way to solve complex global problems. Political consumerism may be a fair-weather option that loses its attractiveness in times of downward private and corporate economic spirals. Parts of the fair trade movement believe that there are problems with sole reliance on voluntary consumer choice and using personal money and private capital to solve human rights problems by shopping them away. The exponential growth of voluntary codes of corporate conduct and labelling schemes has also created contradictory practices, incoherence in efforts, and superficial changes or what activists call “sweatwash.” Increasingly, many actors call on international law to create new standards that apply direct human rights obligations on corporations.     

Stakeholder theory: A process-ontological perspective

Advocates of stakeholder theory have long known that grasping its key insights requires a specific worldview that is, unfortunately, still not prevalent within the community of strategic management scholars. We argue that this worldview encompasses a process ontology that is radically different from the substance-ontological outlook typical of the mainstream approaches to strategic management. The unquestioned commitment of strategic management scholarship to a substance ontology leads to the viewing of corporations as macro-entities comprising aggregations of discrete autonomous actors each relying on individual choice and instrumental rationality. In contrast, within a process-ontological worldview, corporations and their stakeholders are seen to be sustained and attenuated through social practices and relationships involving interlocking chains of coping actions taken in everyday interactions. We show that adopting a process-ontological worldview presents a much-needed step that may help strategic management scholars reach a better understanding of how stakeholder theory deals with three problems of today's capitalism, those value creation and trade, ethics of capitalism, and managerial mindsets. On this basis, we discuss how to process ontology may lead stakeholder theory to further refine its understanding of business strategy, corporate social responsibility, and the common ground between the firm and stakeholders.