荷兰学派的技术哲学思想初探

荷兰学派是指在技术哲学领域,以特温特大学、埃因霍温理工大学、代尔夫特大学以及瓦格尼格大学哲学部为代表的荷兰学者们及其相关研究。他们掀起了国际技术哲学界的＂经验转向＂,提出了＂技术人工物双重属性＂的技术解释学论纲,具体表现在对工程哲学、技术与社会的关系、信息技术、技术文化、技术可持续性等的关注。在国际技术哲学的舞台上,荷兰已有取代美国成为研究中心的趋势。     

Remittances and the Dutch disease

Using data for El Salvador and Bayesian techniques, we develop and estimate a two-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of remittances on emerging market economies. We find that, whether altruistically motivated or otherwise, an increase in remittance flows leads to a decline in labor supply and an increase in consumption demand that is biased toward non-tradables. The higher non-tradable prices serve as incentive for an expansion of that sector, culminating in reallocation of labor away from the tradable sector — a phenomenon known as the Dutch disease. Quantitative results also indicate that remittances improve the welfare of households because they smooth income flows and increase consumption and leisure levels. A BVAR analysis provides results that are consistent with the dynamics of the model.     

Framing the Corporation: Royal Dutch/Shell and Human Rights Woes in Nigeria

Transnational corporations are often implicated in conflicts over environmental problems and human rights in developing countries. As a result they become targets of both local and transnational campaigns. Given the lack of resources and influence of local activists, campaigning groups often turn to consumer audiences abroad to pressurize a certain company or brand. That requires agenda-setting and “framing” of the issues concerned in order to gain consumers’ attention. Local activists and campaigning groups use the public sphere to call attention to allegedly dubious corporate policies and practices that lie behind the consumer goods offered for sale in the Western world. Based on an analysis of the public discourse about the operations of the oil multinational Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria in the year 1995, this paper suggests that once the corporation is framed as a moral actor, it gets difficult for the corporation to deny its responsibility for human rights—even though the actual influence of the corporation may be limited.

Business cycles and start-ups across industries: An empirical analysis of German regions

We analyze whether start-up rates in different industries systematically change with business cycle variables. Using a unique data set at the industry level, we mostly find correlations that are consistent with counter-cyclical influences of the business cycle on entries in both innovative and non-innovative industries. Entries into the large-scale industries, including the innovative part of manufacturing, are only influenced by changes in the cyclical component of unemployment, while entries into small-scale industries, like knowledge intensive services, are mostly influenced by changes in the cyclical component of GDP. Thus, our analysis suggests that favorable conditions in terms of high GDP might not be germane for start-ups. Given that both innovative and non-innovative businesses react counter-cyclically in ‘regular’ recessions, business formation may have a stabilizing effect on the economy.     

The Confines of Stakeholder Management: Evidence from the Dutch Manufacturing Sector

Stakeholder theory is a pertinent example of a framework that has been stretched over many conceptual contexts and that has been applied to a wide variety of empirical phenomena. A pressing issue involves the scope of application of stakeholder theory, however, because it is not a comprehensive ethical scheme or problem-solving algorithm. We begin our search for the boundaries of stakeholder management by identifying a presently under-acknowledged yet major underlying assumption, notably that the approach is rooted in voluntary action and association. Building on this presumption, we argue that firm – stakeholder relationships are best to be understood in contractualist terms; i.e. as voluntary arrangements between two or more parties seeking mutual benefit. This assertion subsequently allows us to identify three boundary conditions applying to stakeholder theory: (1) the parties should be sufficiently autonomous; (2) their interests need to be alignable; and (3) they should be capableof living up to their commitments. We substantiate these criteria with evidence from a collective case study of buyer – supplier relationships in the Dutch manufacturing sector, demonstrating that the stakeholder management model fails when these boundary criteria are violated.     

Comparing consumer-produced product reviews across multiple websites with sentiment classification

ABSTRACT

Online consumer reviews have been extensively studied. However, existing literature analyzing online consumer review data mostly relies on a single data source, resulting in potentially biased analytics conclusions. Many websites encourage consumers to post reviews of their purchased products, so that new consumers can evaluate these reviews for the same product across different websites to help them make purchasing decisions. Confusions often arise in this process, because there often exist substantial discrepancies in customer reviews across different retailers on the same product. Clarifying such confusions can help consumers reduce concerns to make up their mind for their purchases, therefore benefiting both consumers and retailers. Through text analytics and sentiment analysis, we comparatively examine the underlying patterns of online consumer reviews of three large retailers including Sears, Home Depot, and Best Buy for a same product. Afterward, we combine online consumer reviews from these large retailers and conduct an overall text analytics and sentiment analysis. The overall results are further compared with the results from individual retailers. The findings show that the sentiment of the online consumer reviews could vary substantially so relying on a single data source to make purchase decision is not a wise idea. Based on the results, we further devise a framework to comparatively examine and integrate multiple data sources for social media analytics of online consumer reviews. This study offers important managerial implications and identifies several new research directions for social media analytics.     

Untangling government,market, and investment failure during the Nigerian oil boom: the Cement Armada scandal 1974–1980

Abstract

The ‘Cement Armada’ was a major Nigerian government scandal which culminated in hundreds of cement-laden ships arriving en masse at Lagos, creating severe multi-year-long port congestion during the height of the 1970s oil boom. In spite of the scale of the scandal, its causes and consequences have received little attention from scholars. This article presents new research which suggests the Armada was one of several contributing factors to the extraordinary inflation in the price of construction during period. It places the scandal in the context of debates about corruption, organisational failure and a ‘resource curse’ in Nigeria.