中国企业的生产系统与竞争能力——TCL王牌彩电的案例研究

Taking TCL’s color TV production system as an example, this paper discusses the formation process and causes of the production system of China’s manufacturing industry. The work flow and operation mode of the fast production line in TCL color TV manufacturing base (Huizhou) are studied in detail. The results show that the forming of TCL color TV production system’s competitive power within such a short time is credited to three reasons: advantage of backwardness and creative imitation, fast duplication capacity, and a marketized performance appraisal system.     

模块化组织模式的构建与运作——基于海尔"市场链"再造案例的研究

The concept of modularity can be applied not only to complex product system design, but also to business system interpretation and design. However, the amount of literature on modular organization is much less than that on product modularity. Based upon a case study on Haier’s reengineered business-process system after the “market-chain” reform, this paper examines the course of its process decomposition to form a prototype of modular organization, and further analyzes the evolution of the three key factors in the design rules, which make the independent modules interact with others to form a complex system. The study shows that a system will gain strategic flexibility when more business units in service supplying and product manufacturing are treated as modules of the firm. Meanwhile, a system will become more complex when the number and variety of modules increase, which in turn induces the evolution in the process of the modular organization’s decomposition and integration. Translated and revised from Guanli Shijie 맜理世界 (Management World), 2008, (4): 122–139     

中国制造业企业创新活动的关键影响因素研究——基于江苏省制造业企业问卷的分析

Based on empirical evidence from enterprises in Jiangsu Province, this paper studies key influencing factors of their innovation activities at the micro level. Results show that a “threshold effect” and a reversed U-shaped relationship exist between an enterprise’s size and intensity of its innovation input when factors such as brand, entrepreneur background, HR, industrial and regional differences are controlled. Agglomeration effect is found influencing an enterprise’s innovation activities negatively rather than positively. A non-linear relationship is also found between an enterprise’s innovation activities and export ratio, showing a “capture effect”. A behavior mode of the effects of these influencing factors on innovation activities of China’s manufacturing enterprises is established and implications are provided. __________ Translated and revised from Guanli shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2007, (6): 64–74     

Two Independent Value Orientations: Ideal and Counter-Ideal Leader Values and Their Impact on Followers’ Respect for and Identification with Their Leaders

Traditionally, conceptualizations of human values are based on the assumption that individuals possess a single integrated value system comprising those values that people are attracted by and strive for. Recently, however, van Quaquebeke et al. (in J Bus Ethics 93:293–305, 2010) proposed that a value system might consist of two largely independent value orientations—an orientation of ideal values and an orientation of counter-ideal values (values that individuals are repelled by), and that both orientations exhibit antithetic effects on people’s responses to the social world. Following a call for further research on this distinction, we conducted two studies to assess the independent effects of ideal and counter-ideal values in leadership settings. Study 1 (N = 131) finds both value orientations to explain unique variance in followers’ vertical respect for their leaders. Study 2 (N = 136) confirms these results and additionally shows an analogous effect for followers’ identification with their leaders. Most importantly, we find that both value orientations exhibit their effects only independently when the content of the two orientations pertain to different value types in Schwartz’s (in J Soc Issues 50:19–46, 1994) circumplex model. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

网上交易中的声誉机制:来自淘宝网的证据

Using data on prepaid cards for an online game listed on Taobao.com, this paper examines the impact of sellers’ reputation on their sales in China’s online market. It is found that sellers’ good reputation has a positive impact on their sales volume, but the marginal effect of this impact decreases severely. We also find that sellers’ affiliation with seller coalitions can increase their sales in a given period. Results show that individual and collective reputation can function well in the absence of mature law and social credit system related to online trade, and that private order can substitute public order in a market with immature laws as in China. Translated and revised from Nankai guanli pinglun 南开맜理评论 (Nankai Business Review), 2007, 10(5): 36–46     

企业组织资本、战略前瞻性与企业绩效:基于中国企业的实证研究

Organizational capital is an institutional arrangement in a firm’s production and management activities, which helps integrate all resources in the firm and affect the firm’s strategic choice and performance. This paper classifies organizational capital into three subtypes, namely power orientated capital, norm orientated capital and knowledge orientated capital. Moreover, strategic proactiveness is also brought into this influencing process. Results show that strategic proactiveness fully mediates the effect of power orientated capital on firm performance, but partially mediates that of norm orientated capital. It is also found that neither power nor norm orientated capital affects innovative performance, whereas knowledge orientated capital affects directly both financial performance and innovative performance. The significance of this research is to provide a meaningful supplement to the theory of decision-making-process for the top management team. Suggestions on how to cultivate organizational capital are provided for Chinese enterprises. __________ Translated and revised from Guanli shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2007, (5): 83–93     

Testing Gibrat’s Law for Small, Young and Innovating Firms

This article analyses whether small, young, and innovating firms have experienced a greater employment growth than other Spanish firms over the period 1990–2000. The study draws upon a sample of 1272 manufacturing firms in which only 967 of the firms survived for the entire ten year period. The analyses test Gibrat’s law, both by least squares and by utilizing the procedure proposed by Heckman in which a probit survival equation is first estimated to correct for sample selection bias. Two estimators correcting for selection bias are utilized: one that incorporates the inverse Mill’s ratio and the other that employs maximum likelihood methods. All the results reject Gibrat’s law and support the proposition that small firms have grown larger. Additionally, the results show that old firms grow less than young ones, and innovating activity – both process and product – is a strong positive factor in the firm’s survival and its employment growth.     

声誉激励还是经济激励——独立董事"跳槽"的实证研究

This paper analyzes the real motivations behind independent directors’ (IDs) job-hopping behavior based on 75 cases from 2001 to 2005. Relevant extant literature is reviewed and an analytical framework based on reputation incentive mechanism (such as company reputation, a company’s position in the hierarchy of Chinese firms’ administrative reporting relationships, and job risks) and economic incentive mechanism (including IDs’ remunerations and HR costs) have been put forward. Results show that reputation-related factors, such as a listed company’s reputation and job risks, are the main influencing factors of IDs’ job-hopping behavior. This finding indicates that sole emphasis on IDs’ remunerations may not able to motivate IDs effectively and the reputation mechanism is more effective in motivating IDs. Contributions of this paper include enrichment of the extant literature on corporate governance from a brand-new perspective and provision of empirical evidence for further improvement in the incentive mechanisms for IDs. Translated and revised from Zhongguo Kuaiji Pinglun 中国会计评论 (China Accounting Review), 2008, 6(2): 177–192     

Response modes in negotiation

Negotiators may respond to each other’s offers and demands in different ways. Whereas many negotiation experiments present participants with numerical information about offers and counteroffers (e.g., “I propose 6–8–2”; numerical response mode), real life negotiations often involve affective and evaluative statements (e.g., “I didn’t like your last offer, but I would be happy to explore alternatives”; affective response mode). The present research explores the differential consequences of responding in affective as opposed to numerical terms. Specifically, we predicted and found that affective responses increase the impact of social and contextual cues on negotiation behavior. Three studies demonstrate that the impact of other’s toughness (Experiment 1), other’s respectability (Experiment 2), and other’s appearance (Experiment 3) on a negotiator’s demands and concessions is greater when the other provides affective rather than numerical feedback.     

Andersen and the Market for Lemons in Audit Reports

Previous accounting ethics research berates auditors for ethical lapses that contribute to the failure of Andersen (e.g., Duska, R.: 2005, Journal of Business Ethics 57, 17–29; Staubus, G.: 2005, Journal of Business Ethics 57, 5–15; however, some of the blame must also fall on regulatory and professional bodies that exist to mitigate auditors’ ethical lapses. In this paper, we consider the ethical and economic context that existed and facilitated Andersen’s failure. Our analysis is grounded in Akerlof’s (1970, Quarterly Journal of Economics August, 488–500) Theory of the Market for Lemons and we characterize the market for audit reports as a market for lemons. Consistent with Akerlof’s model, we consider the appropriateness of the countervailing mechanisms that existed at the time of Andersen’s demise that appeared to have effectively failed in counteracting Andersen’s ethical shortcomings. Finally, we assess the appropriateness of the remedies proposed by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOA) to ensure that similar ethical lapses will not occur in the future. Our analysis indicates that the SOA regulatory reforms should counteract some of the necessary conditions of the Lemons Model, and thereby mitigate the likelihood of audit failures. However, we contend that the effectiveness of the SOA critically depends upon the focus and attention of the␣Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) towards assessing the ethical climates of public accounting firms. Assessments by the PCAOB of public accounting firm’s ethical climate are needed to sufficiently ensure that public accounting firms effectively promote and maintain audit quality in situations where unconscious bias or economic incentives may erode the public accounting firm’s independence.     

Social Contracting in a Pluralist Process of Moral Sense Making: A Dialogic Twist on the ISCT

This paper applies Wempe’s (2005, Business Ethics Quarterly 15(1), 113–135) boundary conditions that define the external and internal logics for contractarian business ethics theory, as a system of argumentation for evaluating current or prospective institutional arrangements for arriving at the “good life,” based on the principles and practices of social justice. It does so by showing that a more dynamic, process-oriented, and pluralist ‘dialogic twist’ to Donaldson and Dunfee’s (2003, ‘Social Contracts: sic et non’, in P. Heugens, H. van Oosterhout and J. Vromen (eds.), The Social Institutions of Capitalism: Evolution and Design of Social Contracts (Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd.) pp. 109–126; 1999, Ties that Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics (Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press); 1995, Economics and Philosophy 11(1), 85–112; 1994, Academy of Management Review 19(2), 252–284.) integrated social contracting theory (ISCT) of economic ethics will further develop this promising and influential approach to moral reasoning, ethical decision-making, and stakeholder governance. This evolutionary, interactive learning-based model of ethical norm generation via dialogic stakeholder engagement is particularly appropriate within economic communities that are experiencing value conflict and pressures for institutional change.Jerry M. Calton is Professor of Management at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. His research interests encompass multi-stakeholder learning dialogue, trust-based network governance, and the social contracting approach to ethical decision-making. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, and elsewhere.     

Gibrat’s law and persistence of growth in Greek manufacturing

This study makes use of a sample of Greek manufacturing firms during 1995–2001 in order to analyze Gibrat’s law. We find Gibrat’s law is rejected for the total sample of firms, since persistence of growth plays a key role. The classification of firms in size and age groups, however, yields more interesting results: Gibrat’s law is rejected for micro, small, and young firms, since an inverse relationship between firm growth and initial firm size is found along with a persistence of growth rates in subsequent periods. In contrast, Gibrat’s law is accepted for medium, large, and old firms, implying that the growth patterns of these categories follow a random walk and do not tend to persist in subsequent periods.     

组织内信任对任务绩效的影响效应

We studies the relationship between organizational trust and work performance through questionnaire method. By establishing six nested models and two non-nested models and comparing them with the hypotheses model, we find that an employee’s trust in his/her immediate superior, co-workers, and the top manager all exert positive influences upon his/her work performance and these influences are independent and supplementary to one another. We also discuss the complex effects of an individual’s perception of different organizational members upon their behaviors. It is found that the influence of an employee’s trust in top manager upon individuals’ job performance is partially mediated by his/her trust in immediate superiors. __________ Translated from Xinli Xuebao 心理学报 (Acta Psychological Sinica), 2006, 38(5): 770–777     

Does Gibrat’s Law Hold? Evidence from Canadian Retail and Manufacturing Firms

This paper investigates the validity of Gibrat’s Law holding for firms in manufacturing and retail trade sectors. The object is to expand our knowledge of Gibrat’s Law to include non-manufacturing firms. A unique longitudinal firm-level database, which contains information on Canadian incorporated establishments, enables the inter-industry comparison. The findings of the analysis are that Gibrat’s Law is violated in both manufacturing and retail sectors. Violations of Gibrat’s Law for both sectors include (i) growth rates that depend on firm size (ii) growth variability that depends on firm size and (iii) a negative persistence of firm growth. Finally, age effects or selection effects are not the causes of these violations.      

我国企业非市场行为影响因素的实证研究

Drawing upon the resource dependence theory, this paper examines the determinants of nonmarket behaviors in the Chinese context. Using survey data of 175 top managers in China, we test 13 firm and environment characteristics likely influencing nonmarket behaviors. Results show that a firm’s economic resources, top management orientation, and uncertainty in the nonmarket environment are significantly related to Chinese firms’ nonmarket behaviors. Translated and revised from Zhongguo gongye jingji 中国工业经济 (China Industrial Economy), 2007, (5): 104–112     

In Search of the Harried Leisure Class in Contemporary Society: Time-Use Surveys and Patterns of Leisure Time Consumption

In trying to understand the contemporary work-leisure paradoxes, we go in search for today’s harried leisure class and its equanimous counterpart. We apply the relative new method of optimal matching on the continuous time-use data of the pooled Flemish time-use survey of 1999 and 2004, in order to identify different time-use patterns based on one’s leisure time consumption. We then analyse these time-use patterns by combining a multiple classification analysis with socio-demographic measures and (leisure) time-use characteristics, which allows us to identify today’s harried leisure class on the one hand the opposite “equanimous leisure class” on the other hand. It turns out that the members of today’s harried leisure class combine a great amount of cultural and material resources with the experience of time pressure and voracious and volatile leisure time consumption, whereas the members of the equanimous leisure class mainly consume their leisure time in front of the TV. Typifying these groups based on their consumption characteristics provides useful evidence for the integration of time use in the research field of consumer policy.     

Moral Issues and Gender Differences in Ethical Judgment using Reidenbach and Robin’s (1990) Multidimensional Ethics Scale: Implications in Teaching of Business Ethics

In this study, we examined moral issues and gender differences in ethical judgment using Reidenbach and Robin’s [Journal of Business Ethics 9 (1990) 639) multidimensional ethics scale (MES). A total of 340 undergraduate students were asked to provide ethical judgment by rating three moral issues in the MES labeled: ‚sales’, ‚auto’, and ‚retail’ using three ethics theories: moral equity, relativism, and contractualism. We found that female students’ ratings of ethical judgment were consistently higher than that of male students across two out of three moral issues examined (i.e., sales and retails) and ethics theories; providing support for Eagly’s [1987, Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-role Interpretation. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, Hillsdale, NJ, England)] social role theory. After controlling for moral issues, women’s higher ratings of ethical judgment over men’s became statistically non-significant. Theoretical and practical implications based on the study’s findings are provided. Nhung T. Nguyen, assistant professor of human resource management at Towson University, received her Ph.D. in management from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2001. Her research focuses on the use of situational judgement and personality tests in personnel selection, ethics in management education, and the application of meta-analysis and structural equations modeling in organizational research. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Applied H.R.M. Research, and Journal of Applied Social Psychology among others. M. Tom Basuray, Professor of Management at Towson University, received his Ph.D. in Business Administration in 1974 from University of Oklahoma. His research interests are in areas of organizational effectiveness, leadership and development. His articles have appeared in Journal of Organizational Change Management, Education & Psychological Measurement, International Journal of Management, Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, and Journal of Experiential Learning and Simulation. He has consulted with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Public Broadcasting Corporation, and various state and municipal government agencies both in Maryland and North Dakota. William P.Smith, Associate Professor of Management in the College of Business and Economics at Towson University, received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Arizona State University in 1982. His research interests include business ethics, privacy in the workplace and the role of social activism in corporate governance. Donald Kopka, an Assistant Professor at Towson University, received his Ph.D., in International Business from George Washington University in 1995. He teaches Business Strategy, Management Principles, and Entrepreneurship and Small Business, and was Director of the Cornerstone-Professional Experience Program in the College of Business and Economics from 1999–2003. In 2004 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam where he taught entrepreneurship and business strategy, worked on curriculum development, and conducted ongoing research on supporting industries. Information on his Fulbright experience can be found at his website . His research interests include entrepreneurship, business development, and teaching pedagogy. He formerly ran a property management business, was a program manager at the U.S. Small Business Administration, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. Donald N. McCulloh, Lecturer in Management at Towson University, received his M.S. degree in Financial Management from The George Washington Unversity in 1968. He teaches Management Principles and has also taught Leadership. He served as Vice President for Administration and Finance at Towson University until his retirement in 1997, since then he has been a full-time member of the Management faculty. He has also served in the United States Air Force, and worked in several manufacturing industries and the automotive industry. He was Executive Director of a non-profit community development corporation.     

Implementing Supplier Codes of Conduct in Global Supply Chains: Process Explanations from Theoretic and Empirical Perspectives

Western buying companies impose Supplier Codes of Conduct (SCC) on their suppliers in developing countries; however, many suppliers cannot fully comply with SCC and some of them even cheat in SCC. In this research, we link contract characteristics – price pressure, production complexity, contract duration – to the likelihood of supplier’s commitment to SCC through a mediating process: how the buying companies govern their suppliers. Our structural equation model analysis shows that the hierarchy/relational norms governance is a perfect mediator of contract characteristics’ effects on the likelihood of supplier’s commitment; the market governance, an insignificant one. The managerial implications are provided for successfully implementing SCC in global supply chains.     

Managerial Ethics: An Empirical Study of Business Students in the American University of Beirut

This is a study that investigated the extent of use of the three principles of ethics – utility, morality, and justice – in managerial ethical decision making, in addition to the personal attitude towards them. It involved undergraduate and graduate business students (total N=163) from the Olayan School of Business in the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Two kinds of measurements were done: self assessment, and testing with the Saschkin’ s Managerial Value Profile (1997). It showed that morality was the overriding ethical principle used, especially in the graduate group (professionals). Business students still believed in the justice system despite the weakness of the country’s law. Utility was the least used, although males were found to be more utilitarian than females. Finally there was no relation between personal attitudes toward the three ethical principles, and the intentional behavior when faced with ethical dilemmas. The findings were discussed and recommendations were given.     

The impact of a firm’s internal control mechanisms on the choice of innovation mode

A firm’s internal control mechanisms may have a significant influence on the choice of innovation mode. Therefore, based on the research on the internal control mechanisms of companies, we developed a model to explore the relationship between a firm’s internal control mechanisms and the choice of innovation mode. Using a sample of 585 Chinese firms, this study tests the proposed model. Results show that strategic control has a positive relationship with radical innovation, but a negative relationship with incremental innovation, while financial control has a negative relationship with radical innovation, but a positive relationship with incremental innovation. Translated from Nankai Guanli Pinglun 南开맜理评论 (Nankai Business Review), 2006(2): 64–68