Operationalizing peace through commerce: Toward an empirical approach

Most scholars would agree that the goal of business is to create value. Yet, can there be anything more valuable than peace? This article tackles the following research question: How can, or do, businesses advance peace? It explains why peace through commerce is a topic worthy of study and sets out an empirical approach to operationalize it. The implementation of that approach remains in the future, but in this article, I seek to examine the contours of a possible approach. The proposed study will demonstrate how some businesses have already begun to move toward advancing peace and will give direction for how businesses could follow suit in the future. With both a content analysis and a panel data analysis, there would be data to help determine an index for peace through commerce, which would contribute a great deal to the existing body of literature. The proposed study will help scholars and practitioners alike understand the relationship between business and peace better.     

The Creation of Value Through Corporate Reputation

The relationship between social and financial performance (CSP – FP) has been a main objective in the literature on business management, as it would provide an economic justification for the social investment insofar as it contributes to the creation of value. This relationship has been empirically tested by several authors though without using a theoretical model that sustains this relationship. The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical model of the process of the creation of value from the reputation generated by companies, integrating the factors that have been shown to be more relevant in this process from previous research, in such a way that hypotheses are put forward regarding the existence of this relationship and the factors that determine it. Finally, an empirical test is performed using the 100 most prestigious companies operating in Spain during 2004.     

Cross-border marketing ecosystem orchestration: A conceptualization of its determinants and boundary conditions

The authors propose that the current trends and developments in the international marketplace call for a new theoretical concept-based approach to inform and guide cross-border marketing strategy. Specifically, the authors label this approach marketing ecosystem orchestration (MEO). The marketing ecosystem is defined as connected, interdependent, and co-evolving sets of actors, activities, and institutions enabling the marketing of an offering that has value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. MEO is a new strategic approach for an internationalizing firm to achieve sustained value creation, value appropriation, and growth in a host market. Orchestration involves developing and/or coordinating the ecosystem’s interdependent – but independent actors, resources, information, processes, and services to create, co-create, and appropriate value from firms’ market-based assets. The authors theorize three components of MEO – the orchestration of supply chains and fulfillment networks, marketing communications, and transactions and payments sub-ecosystems – and develop a conceptual framework and propositions influencing the determinants of MEO adoption by the focal firm. This paper concludes with managerial implications and offers several new directions for international marketing research.     

Drivers of Durable Peace: The Role of Justice in Negotiating Civil War Termination

Attaining durable peace after a civil war has become a major challenge, as many negotiated settlements relapse into violence. How can civil war negotiations be conducted and peace agreements formulated so as to contribute to lasting, durable peace? Previous research has focused on the durability of peace agreements, measured as the absence of violence. This study develops an index to measure durable peace for a period of 8 years after the agreement had been reached, and evaluates the new measure using an existing data set. We ask whether impacts on durable peace are similar or different to those found for the durability of agreements. This question suggests a number of hypotheses that are evaluated with 16 cases of peace agreements. Stable agreements are shown to mediate the relationship between equality provisions in peace agreements and durable peace, and to also mediate the relationship between procedural justice and the reconciliation component of durable peace. Interestingly, economic stability is not a dividend of peace agreements.     

Enthusiasm Constrained? British Industrial R&D and the Transition from War to Peace, 1942–51

During the second half of World War II and in the years which immediately followed, British firms demonstrated a considerable enthusiasm for expanding their R&D activities. Severe restrictions on the availability of resources limited the extent to which this could be translated into practice, but many firms nonetheless managed to achieve rapid growth in the scale of their R&D facilities. Drawing on a range of archival sources generated by both government and industry, this article examines the nature of this enthusiasm and how it was shaped by the need to conform to controls on building, defence requirements, including the National Service ‘call up’, and the investment priorities determined in response to the export drive. These constriants not only underprinned the development of industrial R&D during the transition from war to peace, they also helped to ensure that British managers retained their belief that ever more R&D would ensure industrial success.     

Prospects for a transparency revolution in the field of business history

The last five years have seen is an increasing emphasis on research transparency in many disciplines. Unfortunately, the field of business history is being bypassed by the movement for the creation of research transparency institutions. The article begins by showing why it is important for the business history community to engage with the research transparency movement by embracing the principle of Open Data. The article then argues that Active Citation is the right variant of Open Data for the business–history community and that the widespread adoption of Active Citation in the field of business history would be promoted by the creation of a specialised repository for business–historical research data. The challenges involved in establishing such a repository are discussed. The article concludes by arguing that business historical journals and monograph publishers should not require authors to use Active Citation; rather, contributors should merely be required to state whether they have made the data underlying their article available online.     

A Model of Value Creation: Strategic View

Value creation has long been hailed as the major objective of business firms by many management researchers. Some authors state that a firm must create value for its shareholders; some insist that value must be created not just for shareholders but also for all stakeholders. However, most discussions of value creation do not address an important question: "For whom the value is created?" The purpose of this paper is to take a first step to fill this void and propose a model of value creation along three dimensions: financial, nonfinancial, and time. It is hoped that the model will contribute to a better understanding of how strategic and operational decisions of managers may create value for some stakeholders while destroying it for others.     

What are the real prospects for total EC integration?

Nothing can stop the momentum behind the movement for total European integration, or so it would seem. But what about the impact of Gemn reunijication, strong nationalistic feelings, and the socialist tradition in Europe? The authors look at what impact these might have on the move toward creation of a Single Market.     

Hybrid business models for peace and reconciliation

Despite growing interest in business for peace, there is little insight into how the organizations involved combine societal aims with economic ones in their business models. Literature has exemplified ‘hybrid organizations’ that seek to pursue both for-profit and non-profit activities and are specifically set up with this mission, usually in stable Western countries. However, already existing, traditional organizations that aim for mixed forms of economic and social value creation have been underexposed, and that applies even more for organizational forms that address peace in difficult settings. To help fill these gaps, this article sheds light on different degrees of hybridity of a range of organizations operating in a (post-)conflict region. It shows how 53 organizations in between the non-profit/for-profit extremes pursue different combinations of social and economic goals, maintain and develop relationships with stakeholders, and interact progressively with markets and institutions. We also present a hybridization continuum and classification scheme that is applicable beyond our specific context. While different degrees of hybridity in objectives, perspectives, and relationships exist, key dimensions are frequent interactions with stakeholders, awareness of development and reconciliation issues, and personal commitment. We identify hybridity aspects relevant to management and discuss implications for business scholars and practitioners.     

Book Reviews

In a world of limited resources, marketing managers tasked to deliver shareholder value face decisions about how to maximise the returns on their marketing portfolio. Risk is less often considered. In finance the picture is very different; financial portfolio management is concerned with both risk and returns. The central innovation in this paper is the application of modern portfolio theory (MPT) to the management of marketing portfolios in food retailing and in drinks manufacturing. The authors develop a model that calculates an efficient frontier of marketing portfolios that maximise overall return within certain risk constraints, first for a simple two-segment marketing world and then for a more realistic multi-segment portfolio. However, marketing portfolios differ from financial ones in the sense that the allocation of marketing spend affects the returns from the portfolio. Therefore, a second innovation, an extension of MPT to take account of marketing spend allocation decisions, has been developed. Using this model, marketers can determine the risk and the returns of marketing investments, helping them select an optimal portfolio. This would go some way to ensuring that marketing contributes to shareholder value creation, currently one of its major challenges.     

The Market for Knowledge Brokers

A widely-used policy to diminish the market failure on the market for innovations is the provision of R&D subsidies. However, the absence of competition at several stages of the procurement process could lead to inefficient use of these subsidies. To introduce more competition, a market for knowledge brokers could be created. The role of these knowledge brokers would be at four stages of the procurement process: (i) placing the call for tender; (ii) obtaining research proposals; (iii) monitoring the research efforts; and (iv) disseminating the research results. It can be expected that creation of such a market yields a better match between demand and supply on the market for R&D, yields a higher quality research product for a given price and that it increases the dissemination of research results.     

Synthesis of Complex Criteria Decision Making: A Case Towards a Consensus Agreement for a Middle East Conflict Resolution

The title of this paper reflects both the process and the outcome of the current undertaking. Frustrated with the current state of the Middle East but encouraged by earlier attempts at modeling complex problems, the authors participated in a panel discussion assembled to address the conflict and propose a possible road-map to peace. However, the participants of this project did not come to a single course of action that will result in peace in the Middle East but did reach a consensus agreement about a resolution that needs to be managed. This paper explores the process, the outcome and the factors that influence the decision as well as potential pitfalls. The Analytic Network Process (ANP), a well known multicriteria decision making approach, applied frequently in recent years to examine conflicts around the world, is used in this analysis. It provides a framework for synthesizing judgments on the diverse aspects of the problem represented in the structure of the decision. It pieces together these judgments in a holistic and logical way.     

Citizens’ Europe: Crowded out by economic focus

Over the last ten years the European unification project seemed to rely overwhelmingly on progress in economic terms. The most prominent achievements — the Single Market, the harmonisation of market regulation, the euro — were all driven by an economic rationale. However, attempts to rescue Europe from the ongoing financial crisis call for mutual support and solidarity, concepts that can hardly be derived from pure economic reasoning. This leads to an important question that has been too long neglected: what is the political and civic motivation for a united Europe? Besides a great desire to stabilise peace in Europe, the origins of the unification activities also included mutual interest in language, culture, habits and people in neighbouring countries. Has this been abandoned in favour of a purely economic vision? Or are the economic arguments merely the easiest to promote to the European population? What message does this send in times of mistrust in markets and dim economic prospects for the eurozone? Can a political, cultural and civic European spirit still be reinvigorated, and if so, how?     

Hedging under the influence of transaction costs: An empirical investigation on FTSE 100 index options

The Black–Scholes (BS; F. Black & M. Scholes, 1973) option pricing model, and modern parametric option pricing models in general, assume that a single unique price for the underlying instrument exists, and that it is the mid‐ (the average of the ask and the bid) price. In this article the authors consider the Financial Times and London Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index Options for the time period 1992–1997. They estimate the ask and bid prices for the index, and show that, when substituted for the mid‐price in the BS formula, they provide superior option price predictors, for call and put options, respectively. This result is reinforced further when they .t a non‐parametric neural network model to market prices of liquid options. The empirical .ndings in this article suggest that the ask and bid prices of the underlying asset provide a superior fit to the mid/closing price because they include market maker's, compensation for providing liquidity in the market for constituent stocks of the FTSE 100 index. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:471–494, 2007     

Social relationships and knowledge creation: the mediate of critical network position

The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of the two important components of intellectual capital, including social relationships and the critical network position in knowledge creation. Two regression models were used to test the hypotheses in a sample of 77 knowledge creation samples. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical development of a conceptual model for explaining the inter-relationships among the aspects of intellectual capital and knowledge creation performance. The empirical evidence of the Sobel test, in line with Baron and Kenny's procedure, supports the process-oriented view and indicates that the network position would mediate the effects of social relationships on knowledge creation performance.     

Leadership in the promotion of peace: Interviews with the 2015 Business for Peace honorees

Ethical leadership can lead to many positive organizational outcomes. Previous studies have shown a correlation between ethical conduct and profitability; in addition, firms that have high ethical standards have fewer legal issues. The existing ethical leadership literature assumes a stable external environment. The business and peace literature, on the other hand, assumes instability but has thus far largely ignored the role of leadership within companies as a possible driver of peacebuilding activities. The practitioner community has already begun to recognize that leaders of organizations are the key drivers of change in the peacebuilding context. The Business for Peace Foundation, the foremost organization in the practitioner community, gives its annual award to business leaders who promote peace within their organizations and communities. These Business for Peace honorees represent the ‘ethical leadership’ qualities of peace promotion, without reference to academic theories in either area. We conducted semi-structured interviews with the 2015 Business for Peace honorees and combined those with their public speeches at the Business for Peace events to examine what role these business and peace leaders saw between ethical leadership and peace promotion. Unlike the academic research that suggests only a theoretical and sometimes a direct but tangential connection to peacebuilding, the honorees highlight the direct and visible connection of ethical leadership to peace in unstable environments. We begin by describing the relevant business for peace and ethical leadership literatures. Then we highlight the significant aspects of the interviews and speeches and relate these to the prevailing theories of both business and peace and ethical leadership. Our findings suggest that ethical leadership may be an important missing link within the business and peace literature as an avenue for peace promotion, and that the leadership literature may be ignoring an important positive impact of ethical leadership.     

如何(不)对数据进行征税

当前,对数字经济课税的核心问题是,一些商业模式允许公司在没有实体存在的情形下,在特定国家进行生产,由此规避该国实施(适当)的来源地税收规则。这种价值创造与税收规则的错配可能需要调整国际税收标准。本文分析了所有主要的数字化趋势,用以确定是否、以及在何种程度上允许在上述缺乏应税联结度的情形下创造价值。虽然,现行国际税收规则仍适当地涵盖了一些数字化趋势,但其余数字化趋势允许远程访问本地数据来源和用户网络,而无需在来源地课税。对此,本文提出了一种系统的、行政上可行的方法,即以持续用户关系(SURE)为基础来分配征税权。文章设计了一个概念性框架,用以确定基于SURE的价值创造,并强调可观察到的现金流作用。最后,作者就阶段性改革提出了一些初步建议。     

Das Mindestlohngesetz — Hoffnungen und Befürchtungen

The German government plans to introduce a minimum wage from 2015. This must be understood as a response to the decline in collective bargaining coverage and the marked increase in employment in the low-wage sector. The authors discuss how many workers are affected by this new regulation and whether the minimum wage is too high in relation to the average wage of workers (Kaitz index). They assume that the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany can have a number of effects. It is not possible to forecast all the reactions and behaviour of market participants to handle higher wages and goods prices. Some authors warn that these measures are significant labour market interventions that could have adverse employment effects. They recommend allowing more exemptions from the minimum wage law than intended by the government, especially for young employees and student apprentices. Other authors hope that minimum wages would help to strengthen collective bargaining and stabilise wages. Some authors emphasise that there should be a careful evaluation of the economic effects by scientists.     

被疫情改变的经济

2020年春节,一场突如其来的新冠肺炎疫情,打破了原有的经济生态。将人员流动降到最低限度,这是防护新冠肺炎传染的最大限度保障措施。但也因此,如同电影《后天》里的冰河纪袭来,干里冰封,将经济活动、人员流动的血脉循环慢慢凝固。生产者脱离了生产资料,消费者隔离了消费市场,经济活动降到了冰点。     

Managing Customer Relations in a Modern Business Environment: Towards an Ecosystem-Based Sustainable CRM Model

The adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has witnessed tremendous growth across sectors, geographies, and management cultures in the last several decades. The perception of CRM as an IT-based tool has undergone a paradigm shift and is now treated as a strategic indulgence by modern-day businesses where IT is an indispensable enabler. CRM has garnered the interest of both academicians and practitioners over the years. In this article, the authors establish the value of sustainability in CRM and make an attempt at proposing a conceptual framework for modern businesses through its integration with various social networking sites that produces volumes of real-time data. The article also explores the importance of Customer Experience Management (CEM). The authors provide a thorough investigation of CRM models in the period of 1990 to 2016 through a survey of the literature explaining the need for managing experiences and engagement around existing CRM processes. In addition to exploring the intricate relationship between CRM and CEM, the authors also provide an interactive ecosystem-based framework for the creation of a sustainable CRM framework.