CEO Pay,Shareholder Returns,and Accounting Profits

We assess the impact on CEO pay (including salary, cash bonus, and benefits in kind) of changes in both accounting and shareholder returns in 99 British companies in the years 1972-89. After correcting for heterogeneity biases inherent in the standard specifications of the problem, we find a strong positive relationship between CEO pay and within-company changes in shareholder returns, and no statistically significant relationship between CEO pay and within-company changes in accounting returns. Differences between firms in long-term average profitability do appear to have a substantial effect on CEO pay, while differences between firms in shareholder returns add nothing to the within-firm pay dynamics.These findings call into question the rationale for explicitly share-based incentive schemes.     

Layoffs and Their Ethical Implications under Scientific Management, Quality Management and Open-Book Management

Two major management philosophies of the 20th Century, scientific management and quality management, are often contrasted. Scientific management is seen as a system that focuses on task efficiencies whereas quality management is described as a collaborative, people-centered process approach to continuous improvement. This paper examines the ethical implications of these diverse approaches, particularly in the way information is used to decide which employees to lay off in times of economic difficulty. The paper uses case examples of quality management as teaching tools to place the conduct of managers within utilitarian, deontological and justice approaches to ethical decision making. Finally, it suggests that a third system, open-book management, may help deal with this ethical dilemma, though not without risk.     

Age Discrimination in Layoffs: Factors of Injustice

ABSTRACT. This paper considers two sets ethical obligations owed by a firm and its management to stockholders and employees with respect to layoffs. Literature and research from ethics and agency are used to frame ethical issues that pertain to age discrimination in layoffs. An actual court case provides an example for focus, analysis, and discussion. Points of discussion include management's obligations to employees and factors of injustice related to prejudice against age.     

The Perceived Fairness of Layoffs in Germany: Participation,Compensation, or Avoidance?

This study analyses to what extend and under what circumstances layoffs are accepted in Germany. Principles of distributive justice and rules of procedural justice form the theoretical framework of the analysis. Based on this, hypotheses are generated, which are tested empirically in a telephone survey conducted between East and West Germans in 2004 (n = 3036). The empirical analysis accounts for the different points of views of implicated stakeholders and impartial spectators. Key findings are: (1) The management of a company can increase the acceptance of layoffs if the employees get some participation rights. (2) For impartial spectators generous compensation for those made redundant leads to a higher degree of perceived fairness. But job alliances are not even preferred to layoffs without measures to soften the blow of job loss. (3) Implicated stakeholders accept job alliances and perceive wage cuts as more fair than layoffs. However, compensation does not have the expected impact. Christian Pfeifer is resarch assistant at the Institute of Labour Economics, Leibniz University Hannover.     

Profits and Principles: Four Perspectives

This article clarifies the relationship between profits and principles by distinguishing four alternative perspectives: the win-win perspective in which ethical behaviour generates the highest profits; a licence-to-operate perspective in which a minimum ethical performance is required to receive legitimation from the society; an acceptable profits perspective, in which an acceptable profitability is required to assure the financial continuity; and an integrated perspective. These four perspectives are illustrated by statements from Shell reports and from interviews with managers of a large European retail company.     

RMB Appreciation SlashesExporters' Profits

This year,with the increasing cost for domestic labor and raw materials,the enterprises particularly the small-andmedium-sized (SMEs) were through a much tougher time.When negotiating with their foreign counterparts,Chinese exporters have to take into account the exchange rate fluctuations in three months.As many foreign clients are reluctant to accept forward exchange rates,the business has to be conducted by current exchange rates.The domestic enterprises have no way to withstand losses incurred by fluctuations of exchange rates,which have made them begin to lose superiorities in terms of price.     

生命周期、预期利润与中小企业融资困境

本文旨在探讨我国中小企业融资困境。文章首先对现有解释中小企业融资困境的理论加以总结;其次针对已有理论的不足,本文提出以企业生命周期为框架,通过引入预期利润变量而从新的角度诠释中小企业融资困境;最后通过中美中小企业融资结构比较,进一步论证文章的基本观点。     

Luca Pacioli on Business Profits

This paper investigates whether gender affects ethically sensitive decisions of a personal or business nature. Data from 51 practicing accountants from both public accounting and private industry suggest that while differences exist between female and male accountants in responses to specific situations, overall responses are quite similar. Statistically significant differences were found for only five of the sixteen ethically sensitive situations. Further, when personal and business situations of a similar nature were paired together, two of the eight differences between personal and business responses were significantly different between females and males. Taken as a whole, the results refute the suggestion that the ethical decision making of organizations may be enhanced as more women enter the business field.     

和谐视角下的中国企业裁员问题研究

中国企业裁员问题做得不够专业,在对企业裁员管理理论研究的基础上,分析了中国企业裁员管理中存在的问题,借鉴国外经验,运用和谐视角,探讨了中国企业裁员问题的解决之道,主要是:从战略层次高度建立人才资源退出机制、分阶段落实裁员计划和用心理援助支持裁员成功.     

知识产权利润转化的意义及途径

问题：企业如何推进知识产权转化,实现无形资产增值与变现？随着知识经济的快速纵深发展,知识产权和无形资产＊的运营在企业活动中正在发挥着越来越大的作用。在美国,知识产权无形资产的投入已经超过GDP的10%,对GDP增量的贡献超过50%。标准普尔500家上市公司无形资产比例为82%,其中可口可乐为96%、微软为94%。由于实施创新型国家战略,中国政府已从舆论导向、法律环境、     

Highway Companies Deny Windfall Profits

There is no denying that the real estate industry sees huge profits, but it is hard to imag-ine that the gross profits of highway companies have reached a very high level, becoming another typical industry of huge profits.The sky-high road toll is attracting more and more public concerns about the seemingly low-profile and stable industry.     

Product Market Cooperation,Profits and Welfare in the Presence of Labor Union

It is believed that cooperation between the final goods producers hurts consumers and reduces social welfare but increases profits. We show that these results may not hold in the presence of a unionized labor market. The effects of product market cooperation on consumers, profits and social welfare may depend on the union’s disagreement utility, its bargaining power and the degree of product market cooperation.     

Moral Agency,Profits and the Firm: Economic Revisions to the Friedman Theorem

The paper reconstructs in economic terms Friedman’s theorem that the only social responsibility of firms is to increase their profits while staying within legal and ethical rules. A model of three levels of moral conduct is attributed to the firm: (1) self-interested engagement in the market process itself, which reflects according to classical and neoclassical economics an ethical ideal; (2) the obeying of the “rules of the game,” largely legal ones; and (3) the creation of ethical capital, which allows moral conduct to enter the market process beyond the rules of the game. Points (1) and (2) position the Friedman theorem in economic terms while point (3) develops an economic revision of the theorem, which was not seen by Friedman. Implications are spelled out for an instrumental stakeholder theory of the firm. Dr. Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto is researcher in business ethics at the School of Management of the University of Leicester, UK. He holds two doctorates, one in social studies from the University of Oxford, UK, and one in economic studies from the Catholic University of Eichstaett, Germany. He has widely published on green consumerism and institutional economic issues that concern organization theory and business ethics theory. His publications include the books Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour (Routledge, 1997 & 2003) and Human Nature and Organization Theory (Edward Elgar, 2003).     

Marketing Priorities and Practice Within the Accounting Profession

No abstract available for this article.     

High Surplus Means High Profits?

In recent years,China has been in the limelight worldwide due to its constant high trade surplus.Its trade surplus hit US$ 24.974 billion in August, a record high and an increase of US$ 624 million versus the previous month, according to the latest data from China Customs.     

Occupational Transitions and Corporate Responsibility in Layoffs: A European Research Project (SOCOSE)

One of the most prominent aspects of the present labour markets is an increase in occupational transitions. Employees experience insecurity to a much larger degree than ever before. Under these circumstances, the questions of blame and responsibility – for job-loss or unemployment –, so far much too readily focused on the individual, have to be re-considered. Transitions will also have to be framed by company based or labour administration interventions.This situation forms the entrance to the scientific evaluation that is central to the SOCOSE project. It aims at the formulation of an integrated European model for outplacement/replacement counselling. Thus, transparency will be added to the process of dismissal from the perspective of the individual employees, and they are assisted in re-entering the labour market at an early stage. This form of guidance will prevent long-term unemployment or might else prevent unemployment completely.The SOCOSE project started with a European comparison of existing outplacement interventions. The main focus, however, is the perspective of the individual that has been dismissed or is facing possible dismissal and his or her evaluation of this process. Crucial to this evaluation is the aspect of justice or fairness.First Results of this comparison across countries are presented, and the ongoing empirical studies are outlined on the basis of an exemplary case.