Reviewing the Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility: New Evidence and Analysis

This study complements previous empirical research on the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) by employing hitherto unused data on corporate social performance (CSP) and proposing statistical analyses to account for bi-directional causality between social and financial performance. By allowing for differences in the importance of single components of CSP between industries, the data in this study overcome certain limitations of the databases used in earlier studies. The econometrics employed offer a rigorous way of addressing the problem of endogeneity due to simultaneous causality. Although the study’s results provide no evidence that there is a generic or universal business case for CSR, they indicate that there is a strong link between single stakeholder-related issues of CSR and financial performance. However, the analysis does not establish causality within these relationships.     

Business Ethics in Theory and Practice: Diagnostic Notes A. A Prescription for Value

A business ethics practitioner and a moral theologian discuss business ethics. Drawing from value-added accounting principles, and extending them to include the company's stake-holders, especially its employees, Welch explains their significance for the origin, formation, and direction of his company's new ethics program. Primeaux responds to Welch from a perspective rooted in the economic theory of profit maximization and its ethical implications. Among the similarities in their thinking is a serious consideration of the role of profit for business and business ethics.     

中国新城镇发展模式比较——基于产业园区新城、大学城及政府新城

我国经济发展历来是一种政治经济发展模式。由此,新城模式将可以采取一种“政府新城”的建设模式。在这种模式下,产业较为发达区域的政府机构可以集中迁移到邻近的欠发达区域,以此促进该欠发达区域的城市发展。     

深化改革与走新型工业化道路

战略性新兴产业是我国战略规划的重要内容之一.发展战略性新兴产业,有必要加深对中国特色新型工业化道路的理解与把握.中国特色新型工业化道路是创新之路,其基本特征,一是资源节约与环境友好,二是信息化与工业化融合发展,三是信息化深入融合、城镇化与农业现代化同步协调发展.为更好地实现新型工业化,必须重点解决好当前我国自主创新能力不强、资源环境难以支撑、产业结构不合理、地区行业不平衡不协调状况突出等深层次矛盾和问题,依靠创新驱动和改革开放来增强发展的动力和活力.一要提高自主创新能力;二要深入推进改革,完善宏观调控,建设开放型经济;三要推动中东西部地区协调发展;四要增强企业动力与活力.     

Value, a Way Out of Uncertainties: A Physical Model for Ethics and Freedoms

Value analysis establishes a way to practice functional analysis which enables to think all matter as sets of functions. The study of the correlations between the phases of activation of these functions leads to consider the aggregation of correlated activation functions as an attractor in a configuration space. This point of view allows figuring out general behaviors reducing the conceptual gap between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Then, based on a characterization of complex adaptive systems in terms of functional attractors, the theory links together value and physical magnitudes, like work or energy and action. The evolution of these systems is studied from the viewpoints of learning or of voluntary and involuntary interactions with others described in the ultimate way by the strategies, or operators, of which they make use. Three kinds of uncertainties are emphasized among which the uncertainty between the structure and the business outlook of a system is recreated through an analogy between physics and economics. The rationality of the complex functional systems economics is based on value and on market or environment awareness. Equilibria establish potential of agents or players whose profiles are built through the equivalence between a time-dependent payoff at equilibrium and the regular value of the corresponding attractor. The law of supply and demand is naturally founded on unbiased profiles of agents and can be a means of uncertainty reduction and of growth. Freedoms are opportunities to grow, when they result in confidence, and to bear risks in decision-making through an innovative process.     

契约理论和能力理论视角下企业内部控制新探

传统的内部控制建立在审计视角基础之上,难以适应竞争激烈的市场环境和动态变化的市场需求。现有的内部控制研究主要从契约理论角度进行,侧重于交易属性,缺乏对企业生产属性的考虑,且普遍忽略了对企业能力的分析,无法解释企业内部控制异质性等现象。本文在契约和能力视角下对企业的内部控制本质、目标、功能、方式、对象、权力配置和控制环境等进行了探讨。契约和能力视角下的企业内部控制是价值导向的,其控制方式及控制权的动态配置机制能提高组织的自适应性和学习能力,适用范围更广。本文拓展了内部控制的内涵。     

Insights into Franchising: A Review of Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives

Business format franchising has expanded rapidly, over the past 40 years as an alternative method of distribution and business development. This literature review analyses the major issues which have been the subject of in-depth research and/or significant debate. These include: the determinants of franchising in theory and practice; why franchisors normally operate both franchised and company-owned outlets, and the factors which influence the balance between them; the role and position of franchisees within the franchisor/franchisee relationship and, finally, the continuing debate surrounding the kind of regulatory framework in which it should operate. These findings are evaluated and aspects of franchising which warrant further investigation are outlined.     

Strategic and Operational Perspectives of SME Brand Management: A Typology

This paper seeks a holistic understanding of brand management in SMEs, incorporating both strategic and operational perspectives. The aim of the study is theory‐building, contributing a typology of SME brand management. The typology has two dimensions, namely a primary strategic focus (internal or external) and a brand management capability/operational capability (strong or weak). Four SME brand management types emerge: organization brand identity‐driven, operations‐driven, organization brand image‐driven, and opportunistic. The results have practical implications for SME owner–managers, who can utilize them for planning purposes, to develop the most appropriate strategic orientation and brand management processes to enhance the SME performance.     

Spirituality In (and Out) of the Classroom: A Pragmatic Approach

This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section, I discuss “what is spirituality?” and in the section that follows, I examine some of the implications of my definition to the teaching of spirituality in an undergraduate business ethics course. For the purposes of this paper, spirituality is defined as the planned experience (the inner feeling) of blending integrity and integration through 1 – acceptance (of the past), 2 – commitment (to the future), 3 – reasonable choice, 4 – mindful action, and 5 –continuous dialog (both internal and external). This definition is a work-in-progress and offered mainly as a point of departure rather than a final destination.     

Ethical Issues in Electronic Performance Monitoring: A Consideration of Deontological and Teleological Perspectives

Extensive and growing use of electronic performance monitoring in organizations has resulted in considerable debate. Advocates of electronic monitoring approach the debate in teleological terms arguing that monitoring benefits organizations, customers, and society. Its critics approach the issue in deontological terms countering that monitoring is dehumanizing, invades worker privacy, increases stress and worsens health, and decreases work-life quality. In contrast to this win-lose approach, this paper argues that an approach which emphasizes communication in the design and implementation of monitoring systems offers a win-win solution that should satisfy both deontological and teleological ethicists.     

Causes and Consequences of Abusive Supervision in Sales Management: A Tale of Two Perspectives

Abuse may characterize some most important relationships, and it is estimated that 20 million Americans face abusive work situations on a daily basis. Given this statistic, there is a clear need to investigate this topic within the marketing literature. As a result, the purpose of this study is to explore antecedents and outcomes of abusive supervision in sales management, where the performance‐driven nature of salesperson–sales manager relationships often creates a highly stressful situation. This research looks at several characteristics of sales managers from their perspectives as well as subordinates, and it considers how abuse influences professional and personal lives of both parties. Causes under investigation include leadership style, justice perceptions, negative affectivity, and experiences of abusive leadership by sales managers. Their impact is measured on salesperson and manager job satisfaction and organizational commitment. A model is used to help readers visualize the processes involved with both salespersons and sales managers, and theoretical and practical implications are provided in the close.     

Relational Perspectives of Perceived Service Quality in the Online and Offline Environments: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Today, service quality is a major driver enhancing and consolidating the relationship between consumers and their service providers. The diversity of research in this context revealed a gap between empirical results which investigated the relational consequences of service quality, and showed missing studies that allowed generalizing and specifying the perspectives of the service quality in the relational domain. So, this research suggests a Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) to validate a synthetic model integrating perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty. It is based on 43 recent academic research derived from 22 countries. The results validated the meta-analytic structural model and showed that the service environment moderates causal links between perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty.     

上市公司的公司价值与公司投资:对其关系的重新检验

传统对公司价值与公司投资关系的研究,均假设公司价值是投资的一次函数。通过建立模型,证实了公司价值是投资的三次函数。对于中国上市公司来说,当投资水平小于14.2%时,公司价值随着投资水平的增加而增加;当投资水平在14.2%～69.31%之间时,公司价值随着投资水平的增加而减少,公司投资处于过度水平;当投资水平超过69.31%时,公司价值随着投资水平的增加而增加。另外,对过度投资进行进一步实证分析,结果表明,投资资源的存在是处于过度投资区间公司的经理从事过度投资的直接原因。     

中国企业出海“航母”模式：泰中罗勇案例研究

建立海外工业园、打造企业海外经营的“航母”,正成为本土企业构筑全球价值链的新模式。区别于传统的对外直接投资模式,不确定性和非对称性异域经营环境的“航母”模式,具有节约交易成本、风险规避、快速学习、规模递增以及贸易便捷等多种优势。文章以泰中罗勇工业园为例,分析了“航母”模式的资源基础、组织网络、运行机制和能力架构,形成“航母”的实体资源能力、与众多利益相关者的协作能力以及“航母”平台与栖驻企业之间的边界决策能力。结合案例分析,提出了“航母”模式的“高集聚、本地化与合法性”三大动态构建路径与潜在风险,并提出了相应的政策建议。     

以新制度经济学范式理解消费结构演变的力作

田学斌博士的专著《家庭消费结构演变的制度分析》日前已由中国社会科学出版社出版。该书是以新制度经济学范式理解消费结构演变的颇具创新性的一部力作,是制度经济学和消费经济学学科交叉研究的一项有价值的成果。诚如何炼成教授所言,作者的工作“填补了一个空白”。通观全书,     

经济特区是中国走向海洋强国的核心地缘支撑

经济特区有没有一个科学的、适当的、能否充分反应自身发展特色的定位,决定经济特区本身发展的命运和前途。走向海洋强国必定是中国未来几十年最为重要的发展战略,而经济特区将在更大的平台上和更深入的领域配合国家的海洋强国之战略,只有这样,经济特区之特才能真正体现出来。     

Corporate Fault and Consumer Protection: A New Approach for the UK

Many of the prosecutions for consumer protection offences which take place in the UK are against corporations, in particular, limited companies. As the criminal law had originally developed with human defendants in mind, many of its concepts were inappropriate where the defendant was a corporation. Corporations have, it is sometimes said, "no soul to be damned and no body to be kicked." As a result of industrialisation and the rise of the corporation in everyday life, legal principles had to be developed to deal with this new form of legal person. It began to be recognised that as well as having the ability to own property, enter contracts and the like, corporations were also capable of committing criminal offences.The purpose of this article is to examine the ways in which a corporation can be convicted of committing consumer protection offences under UK law. This is a topic which has received considerable attention in recent years, and is one which continues to undergo change. In particular, the article will consider the implications of a number of important recent decisions on corporate liability, and will consider their implications for those concerned with the enforcement of consumer law. It will be argued that the recent case law suggests that a new approach has emerged, but that the extent and implications of this approach, although potentially highly significant, are still not entirely clear.