Innovations in Dutch shipbuilding in the first half of the twentieth century

In this article, we focus on the Dutch shipbuilding sector in the first half of the twentieth century and address the question of how its innovative capacity evolved over time. Our attention to the importance of the whole constellation of actors in Dutch shipbuilding, their interrelations, interactions, and interdependence, as well as the institutional setting for innovation processes, contributes to gaining a better understanding of innovation in this sector. The article shows that the development of public knowledge institutes and the growth of scientific interest in Dutch shipbuilding was a slow process. Moreover, the developing knowledge infrastructure in the Netherlands did not lessen the dependence on foreign knowledge. The article illustrates that the relations between actors and the importance of specific knowledge sources changed over time. It also sheds light on an often neglected aspect in system of innovation studies, the importance of individuals. This personal aspect helps explain why the importance of national contexts can differ considerably.     

Road safety perspectives among employees of a multinational corporation in urban India: local context for global injury prevention

In rapidly developing economies, like urban India, where road traffic injury rates are among the world's highest, the corporate workplace offers a non-traditional venue for road safety interventions. In partnership with a major multinational corporation (MNC) with a large Indian workforce, this study aimed to elicit local employee perspectives on road safety to inform a global corporate health platform. The safety attitudes and behaviours of 75 employees were collected through self-report survey and focus groups in the MNC offices in Bangalore and Pune. Analysis of these data uncovered incongruity between employee knowledge of safety strategies and their enacted safety behaviours and identified local preference for interventions and policy-level actions. The methods modelled by this study offer a straightforward approach for eliciting employee perspective for local road safety interventions that fit within a global strategy to improve employee health. Study findings suggest that MNCs can employ a range of strategies to improve the road traffic safety of their employees in settings like urban India including: implementing corporate traffic safety policy, making local infrastructure changes to improve road and traffic conditions, advocating for road safety with government partners and providing employees with education and access to safety equipment and safe transportation options.     

Measuring Corporate Citizenship in Two Countries: The Case of the United States and France

Based on an extensive review of the literature and field surveys, the paper proposes a conceptualization and operationalization of corporate citizenship meaningful in two countries: the United States and France. A survey of 210 American and 120 French managers provides support for the proposed definition of corporate citizenship as a construct including the four correlated factors of economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary citizenship. The managerial implications of the research and directions for future research are discussed.     

US trade wars in the twenty‐first century with emerging countries: Make America and its partners lose again

In a context of rising protectionist rhetoric, this paper looks at the potential impact of trade wars initiated by a change in US trade policies. We use a static multicountry, multisector general equilibrium model to evaluate six modalities of three potential trade wars—for a total of 18 scenarios—between the USA and China, between the USA and Mexico, and a combination of the two previous conflicts. In each case, we evaluate various forms of trade retaliation by the US partner(s): the same level of import duty as the one imposed by the USA , an import duty that minimises welfare loss, a duty that minimises terms‐of‐trade deterioration, a duty that generates the same amount of collected revenue, and finally a Nash equilibrium. We conclude that there is no scenario in which the US government augments its domestic welfare or GDP . There may be sectoral gains in value added in the USA , but they are small and to the detriment of other sectors. While losses for China are relatively small, potential losses for the Mexican economy are significant. There are also free riders of these trade wars. Finally, the way in which trade retaliations are designed matters greatly.     

The role of corporate identity management in the higher education sector: an exploratory case study

This paper examines the corporate identity concept and presents an empirical test of a corporate identity model in the context of the higher education sector. The various components of corporate identity are investigated and the results are presented in diagrammatic form in the proposed and updated corporate identity taxonomy. A qualitative exploratory approach was taken, comprising in-depth interviews with key informants involved in the implementation of corporate identity at a major UK university. The taxonomy illustrates communication, design, culture, behaviour, structure, industry and strategy as the main components of corporate identity. The study also demonstrates how and where issues of corporate identity are discussed within an organisation and how the results of these discussions are fed into management structure. As with any such exploratory case study, there are limits to the generalisability of the findings. Further research is required to ascertain whether the findings of this study also apply in other settings. The results will be helpful to communication professionals who deal with an organisation’s corporate identity, branding and communication and who aim to enhance the consistency of messages both written and visual within their organisation.     

The quality of British marketing: A comparison with US and Japanese multinationals in the UK market

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study comparing the marketing strategies and organisations of a matched sample of British companies and their US and Japanese competitors in the UK. Hypotheses about Japanese marketing are tested and provide a framework for the comparative analysis of the marketing effectiveness of the three sets of competitors. The findings highlight significant weaknesses in the marketing effort of British companies, these being exacerbated by excessive focus on short‐run financial gains. The US competitors, equally concerned with short‐term profits, were less committed to the UK market than their Japanese rivals, their market position being in danger of deteriorating further as the Japanese close the technological gap between them. The Japanese were unmistakably aggressive, single‐minded in their pursuit of market share and undeniably more market‐oriented than their US and British counterparts. This research was funded by the ESRC.     

现代商业银行公司治理下风险管理的国际比较及对中国的启示

现代西方商业银行根据不同利益主体权利和责任结构的不同主要分为两种比较典型的公司治理模式:以美、英为代表的市场主导型的模式和以德、日为代表的出资者主导型的模式。分析这两种公司治理模式下现代西方商业银行风险管理的特点,在借鉴的基础上提出了完善我国商业银行公司治理下风险管理的构想和建议。     

Proximity and Rationalisation: The Limits of a Levinasian Ethics in the Context of Corporate Governance and Regulation

In this article, I explore how the ideas of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas offer insights into a debate often held today in the field of corporate governance, concerning the relative merits of statutory and voluntary approaches to the regulation of business. The philosophical position outlined by Levinas questions whether any rule-based systematisation of ethical responsibility, either statutory or voluntary, can ever equate to a genuine responsibility for the other person. I reflect on how various authors have adapted Levinas’s philosophy to form a critique of bureaucracy and rule following in business, and the lack of ethical authenticity in corporate codes. However, this article also considers the question of whether a theoretical separation can be made between an ethical responsibility based on sensibility (as is suggested by Levinas) and a rational conceptualisation of how one is required to act. Considering the difficulty of disentangling these notions of ethics, I return to the problem of corporate governance and suggest an approach to stakeholder conflict based on mediation and dialogue, which rules out neither principles of conduct nor an openness of responsibility to the Other.     

The Study of the Relations among Ethical Considerations, Family Management and Organizational Performance in Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is increasingly becoming an issue of global concern, not least because we are more and more living in a corporate world that transcends international boundaries. The main purpose and motivation of this study is to determine how the international community should motivate businesses in fostering exemplary corporate governance, therefore eliminating obstacles to ethically exemplary behavior. The empirical approach utilized here has been applied to 161 businesses, both listed and over-the-counter (OTC) companies, with the results indicating that ethical considerations, corporate governance and organizational performance are inextricably linked and, to an extent, demonstrably proportional. This study also indicates a major finding that family management is a significant mediating variable of the ethical considerations of corporate governance and organizational performance. Finally, this study has developed an operational model of ethical considerations of corporate governance as a consultancy aid for businesses that wish to implement and/or boost their performance in respect to corporate governance.     

Corporate Argumentation for Acceptability: Reflections of Environmental Values and Stakeholder Relations in Corporate Environmental Statements

This article studies argumentation for acceptability of corporate environmental actions in corporate environmental statements, with emphasis on stakeholder relations and environmental values. Stakeholder theory is commonly taken as the basis for corporate environmental management, and rhetoric typical of the stakeholder approach dominates the field. Although environmental issues are strongly charged with values, the dominant stakeholder approach does not stress the value dimension. The data of the study consists of environmental statements by Finnish forerunning business corporations in the forefront of corporate environmental responsibility. The results of the study indicate that the statements argue for the acceptability of corporate environmental actions through three power-related rhetorical forms that are competing ways to produce acceptability in the data: dominance, subordination and equality, and joint action. Each rhetorical form describes a power-based relationship between stakeholders and the corporation and leans on a specific value type producing legitimacy for that rhetoric form.     

The impact of foreign direct investment on new firm survival in the UK: evidence for static versus dynamic industries

The paper examines the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the survival of business start-ups. FDI has potential for both negative displacement/competition effects as well as positive knowledge spillover and linkage effects on new ventures. We find a net positive effect for the whole dataset. However, a major contribution of the paper is to outline and test an argument that this effect is likely to be comprised of a net negative effect in dynamic industries (high churn: firm entry plus exit relative to the stock of firms) alongside a net positive effect in static (low churn) industries. We find evidence to support this view. The results identify new effects of globalisation on enterprise development with associated challenges for industrial policy.

The Social and Environmental Responsibilities of Multinationals: Evidence from the Brent Spar Case

This paper argues that multinational corporations face levels of environmental and social responsibility higher than their national counterparts. Drawing on the literatures of stakeholder salience, corporate reputation management, and evidence from the confrontation between Shell and Greenpeace over the Brent Spar, in 1995, two mechanisms – international reputation side effects, and foreign stakeholder salience – are identified and their contribution in creating an environment more restrictive, in terms of environmental and social responsibility, is elaborated on. The paper concludes with discussing the links of the work presented here with a number of ongoing debates within the filed of international business ethics, and the managerial implications of the two mechanisms identified.     

Loafing in the 21 century: Enhanced opportunities—and remedies—for withholding job effort in the new workplace

The electronic workplace, a greater emphasis on knowledge work and teams, and the increased relevance of managing impressions of work performance are among factors that relate to higher levels of withholding effort among problem employees in the 21^st century. This article considers these three factors in the context of dominant organizational forms—low-cost operators, global competitor corporations, and high-involvement firms—and how each can lead to lower on-the-job effort. Remedies are offered for new forms of withholding effort such as cyberloafing, as well as hiding lack of effort in virtual teams and through impression management. In addition, a different way of considering the problem of lower job effort is proposed through examination of how a work ethic and a leisure ethic can be synthesized to enhance organizational creativity, innovation, and performance.     

Collective Myopia and Defective Higher Educations Behind the Scenes of Ethically Bankrupted Economic Systems: A Reflexive Note from a Japanese University and Taking a Step Toward Transcultural Dialogues

This study focused on the indirect influences of defective higher education, especially management education, on the corruption of Japanese business communities since 1997. Most arrested or penalized Japanese executives and bureaucrats since 1997 were the alumni of prestigious Japanese universities. Their levels of academic achievements are, consequently, conceived to be the highest of Japanese standards. They were, however, found guilty. Why did these highly intelligent Japanese adults make such fatal mistakes? In this article, the author argued that the event of the continuous exposure of scandals and corruptions in Japan since 1997 was an unintended consequence of Japan's educational systems through Habermasian and Foucaultian positions.     

The new value imperative for privately held companies: The why, what, and how of value management strategy

This discussion describes the why, what, and how of managing for value in privately held companies. Public companies continue to manage for value, a trend that is now pushing its way inexorably into privately held companies. First, we discuss the dynamics that are creating a value-management imperative for these companies. Second, we provide a signaling model to assist management of privately held companies in deciding whether to emphasize (a) revenue growth, (b) the spread between return on invested capital and the weighted average cost of capital, (c) reduction in the cost of capital, or (d) some combination of these three. The key-value-driver model provides guidance in addressing questions such as: Do we have the right to grow? Should we improve profit performance before we grow? What is our performance in relation to our cost of capital? We also describe how to acquire the data necessary to use the model. Third, we present some important but under-utilized tools based upon transactions cost and strategic cost management theories to assist executives in managing for value and discuss when to apply these tools within a strategic context.     

Paradoxes and Dilemmas for Stakeholder Responsive Firms in the Extractive Sector: Lessons from the Case of Shell and the Ogoni

This paper examines some of the paradoxes and dilemmas facing firms in the extractive sector when they attempt to take on a more stakeholder-responsive orientation towards issues of environmental and social responsibility. We describe the case of Shell and the Ogoni and attempt to draw out some of the lessons of that case for more sustainable operations in the developing world. We argue that firms such as Shell, Rio Tinto and others may well exhibit increasingly stakeholder-responsive behaviours at the corporate, strategic level. However for reasons of strategy, lack of competency or institutional will this increasing level of corporate responsiveness may not be mirrored effectively in dealings between subsidiary business units and their most important direct stakeholders: for example local communities and in the developing world. We contrast the struggles of Shell to replicate its corporate stakeholder-responsiveness at the local level in Nigeria with the experiences of other firms that seem to have developed managerial capabilities at a somewhat deeper level throughout the firm with consequent benefits both for stakeholders and the business.     

A new view of shareholder voting in the nineteenth century: evidence from Brazil,England and France

Business corporations in the nineteenth century often imposed limits on the voting rights of large shareholders. Economic historians have generally interpreted these voting restrictions as a contractual mechanism designed to protect small shareholders in a legal environment that afforded insufficient investor protection. This dominant account, however, fails to explain the variation in the incidence of voting restrictions across different industries and firm ownership structures, as well as their eventual disappearance from corporate charters over time. In this Article, we advance an alternative interpretation for these early voting schemes as efforts at consumer protection employed primarily by firms that were local service monopolies and collectively owned by their principal customers, none of whom wished the firm to come under the exclusive control of their competitors or of profit-maximising investors. We explore and test this proposition by analysing data on shareholder voting rights in the nineteenth century in Brazil, England, and France.