A better way to manage risk

Through an innovative new policy forged with a single insurer, Honeywell is consolidating risks as diverse as fire protection and currency fluctuations--and saving a bundle.     

新型工业化选择哪条路更好--访中国人民大学商学院贸易经济系主任谷克鉴

一进入2004年,产业投资就掀起阵阵热潮。中国的产业投资究竟路在何方?外资的进入会对我们造成哪些影响?面对国外资本的进入,我们该如何进行产业结构调整,如何实现新型工业化呢?就此,我们采访了中国人民大学商学院教授、博士生导师、贸易经济系主任谷克鉴教授。谷教授现为中国国际贸易学会常务理事、中国商业经济学会常务理事、中国市场学会常务理事,曾担任中南财经大学工商管理学院院长,著有《HBS推断的验证与拓展:中国国民与外贸部门出口波动差异的实证分析》,获得了“安子介国际贸易研究奖”优秀论文一等奖;他的《制度变迁与市场国际化》获得了“安子介国际贸易研究奖”优秀著作奖和“第二届全国高校人文社会科学研究优秀成果奖”著作奖     

A simpler way to pay

There have been many changes in professional services since Egon Zehnder founded his executive search firm nearly four decades ago--not the least of which has been a shift in the way professionals pay themselves. When he started, compensation everywhere was strongly tied to seniority. Today, partners at most professional services firms are paid according to the size of their client billings and their ability to bring in new clients. But Egon Zehnder International, which now has 57 offices worldwide, has stuck with the old-fashioned way to pay. In addition to giving partners base salaries and equal shares in a percentage of the profit, the firm apportions another fraction of the profit based only on length of tenure as partner. Yet the firm attracts outstanding consultants, and its turnover rate is low. The reasons, the author says, are simple: the firm's approach to compensation forces it to hire team players--consultants who get more pleasure from the group's success than from their own advancement. And the seniority-based system requires the firm to find people who want to stay for the long haul. Call the system a relic, says Zehnder, but don't call it nonsense. It works. In this article, the author describes the extremely intensive interview process used to hire the right kind of people. By the time the interviews are over, he says, potential hires know that people in the firm's Boston office think and act the same way as people in its Brazil offices--and that they themselves must think and act that way if they are to succeed at the firm.     

A smarter way to network

The adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is true. The right social network can have a huge impact on your success. But many people have misguided ideas about what makes a network strong: They believe the key is having a large circle filled with high-powered contacts. That's not the right approach, say Cross, of UVA's McIntire School of Commerce, and Thomas, of the Accenture Institute for High Performance. The authors, who have spent years researching how organizations can capitalize on employees' social networks, have seen that the happiest, highest-performing executives have a different kind of network: select but diverse, made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from varying spheres and from up and down the corporate ladder. Effective networks typically range in size from 12 to 18 people. They help managers learn, make decisions with less bias, and grow personally. Cross and Thomas have found that they include six critical kinds of connections: people who provide information, ideas, or expertise; formally and informally powerful people, who offer mentoring and political support; people who give developmental feedback; people who lend personal support; people who increase your sense of purpose or worth; and people who promote work/life balance. Moreover, the best kind of connections are "energizers"--positive, trustworthy individuals who enjoy other people and always see opportunities, even in challenging situations. If your network doesn't look like this, you can follow a four-step process to improve it. You'll need to identify who your connections are and what they offer you, back away from redundant and energy-draining connections, fill holes in your network with the right kind of people, and work to make the most of your contacts. Do this, and in due course, you'll have a network that steers the best opportunities, ideas, and talent your way.     

农村金融体系应在反映"三农"特点上进行创新

农村融资难,一直是困扰中国农村和农业健康发展的问题。专家学者们对农村如何建立金融体系,提出了各种各样的看法和建议。但是,到底建立一个什么样的农村融资体系,是值得仔细思考和研究的课题。从目前看,基层农村有信用合作社,也有名义上的农业银行,还有农业发展银行,这几年还组建了农村合作银行,曾几何时农村还曾有过合作基金会和股金会,还有     

A smarter way to buy.

Few companies can pinpoint just how much they're spending on procurement. Here's a matrix that gives companies a systematic way to identify and organize the full costs of their relationships with their suppliers.     

A real-world way to manage real options

Each corporate growth project is an option, in the sense that managers face choices--push ahead or pull back--along the way. Yet many companies hesitate to apply options theory to initiatives such as R&D and geographic expansion, partly because these "real" options are highly complex. In this article, the authors make the case that the complexity of real options can be eased through the use of a binomial valuation model. Many of the problems with real-options analysis stem from the use of the Black-Scholes-Merton model, which isn't suited to real options. Binomial models, by contrast, are simpler mathematically, and you can tinker with a binomial model until it closely reflects the project you wish to value. Suppose your company is considering investing in a new plant. To use the binomial model, you must create an "event tree" to figure out the full range of possible values for the plant during the project's lifetime--next year, at the end of the design phase, upon completion. Then you work backward from the value at completion, factoring in the various investments, to determine the value of the project today. These calculations provide you with numbers for all the possible future values of the option at the various points where a decision needs to be made on whether to continue with the project. The authors also address another criticism of real options: that gaps often arise between theoretical and realized values of options of all types. Such gaps may be largely the result of managers exercising options at the wrong time. To improve the way it manages its real options, a company can look out for the decision trigger points that correspond to the nodes on a binomial decision tree. The trigger points should not only tell managers when they need to decide on exercise but also specify rules governing the exercise decisions.     

上篇:金融生态如何好起来

中共中央政策研究室副主任郑新立认为:发展区域性的股份制中小银行是改善金融生态的根本途径     

世界如何才能更美好

今年的奥斯卡最佳外语片奖,授予了丹麦影片《更好的世界》。印象中,这是我第一次接触丹麦电影。看之前,心里存有这样一个疑惑：在北欧那样高度成熟的社会,还能拍出什么类型的电影来呢？高福利的生活环境,会极大降低个人陷入困厄和灾难的几率,而电影离开了这些元素,又怎么展开故事呢？     

The way to economic prescribing

Cost‐consciousness has been a major objective in public management in the 1980s. Others who spend public money may have to develop a similar awareness in the 1990s. A study of general practitioners in Scotland reveals a low level of knowledge about the cost of drugs.     

积极创新加强监管力促金融业健康稳步发展

2008年以来,国际金融危机席卷全球,身处改革蓬程中的中国金融业面临着严峻的挑战.面对危机,我国银行、证券和保险等金融机构积极创新,努力克服困难,在业务流程再造、产品服务创新、防范金融风险和推动经济发展等方面取得了丰硕成果.在第十届中国金融发展论坛上,人民银行行长助理李东荣、证监会副主席到新华、保监会副主席魏迎宁等领导和专家以"新中国成立六十周年中国经济金融发展成就与展望"为主题进行了深入研讨,全面解读了我国金融业的发展历程与趋势.他们的看法与观点,值得同业参考与借鉴.     

关于衍生产品业务合规有序发展的再认识

为提高对衍生产品作用及其发展必要性的认识、推动衍生产品业务合规有序发展,文章对衍生产品的概念与功能及金融危机前后衍生产品市场发展与变化情况进行了专题研究,分析了发展衍生产品的必要性与相关现实需求,并结合工商银行衍生产品业务经营管理情况与经验,提出了对合规有序发展衍生产品业务的几点思考与相关政策性建议。     

Financing nationalised industries: A third way

Efforts to find a way of allowing nationalised industries to raise money while remaining subject to financial controls have regularly come up against ideology on the one hand and self‐interest on the other. However, it is possible to devise a method short of full‐scale privatisation that still preserves the present structure of the public enterprise sector. Though the authors were both involved in background work on the nationalised industries for the National Economic Development Officer (NEDO), the views expressed are their own and should not be attributed to the Corporation.     

The right way to be fired.

Nearly all of us will lose our jobs sometime, but is there a right way to be terminated? What differentiates fired employees who make the best of their situations from those who do not? One answer is mind-set. Many workers unconsciously hold a "tenure mind-set," believing in the promise of employment security. By contrast, other workers hold an "assignment mentality," seeing each job as one in a series of impermanent, career-building stepping-stones. Most corporate board members and CEOs have this latter mind-set and consider their executives to be filling terminal assignments; people who possess this mentality usually rebound swiftly when fired. But when employees who hold a tenure mind-set are suddenly fired or laid off, the authors say, they can fall into three common traps. Executives who have overidentified with their jobs and feel indispensable to their organizations get caught in the "lost identity" trap; they react to termination with anger and bitterness. In the "lost family" trap, employees possess tight-knit, emotional bonds with coworkers. When terminated, they feel betrayed and rejected. And finally, some introverted executives fall into the "lost ego" trap; they quietly retreat without negotiating fair termination packages and may settle for less satisfying work the next time around. To prepare for the eventuality of termination, the authors suggest that executives adopt the assignment mind-set at all times. They should keep their social networks alive, include a termination clause in employment contracts, and consider hiring an agent. If warning signs warrant, they might even volunteer to be terminated. By assuming control over the way they are fired, people can gain control over their careers.