From market failure to organisational failure

In this paper, we argue that environmental economists who have dedicated their attention to problems of market and regulatory failure have been remiss in ignoring the potential for failure in the one institution that actually manages environmental resources - the business firm. Traditionally the firm has been modelled as a unitary, rational, optimising persona ficta. There is, however, abundant empirical and theoretical evidence to suggest that the business firm is an imperfect institution in that there are systematic deviations between the environmental objectives of the firm's leaders (principals) and the actions of the firm's employees (agents) which determine environmental performance. In the paper, we draw parallels between the causes of market failure and public policy tools to correct them on one hand and the causes of organisational failure and the management tools suited to their remedy on the other. Although much of the paper is concerned with the interrelationship between public policy that promotes sustainability and business policy to fashion a sustainable enterprise, our work is relevant irrespective of the reason why a firm's principal may want to improve environmental performance. No matter what the reason, the principal must concern him- or herself with operationalising objectives in management systems. It is consistent with the precautionary principle to assume that employees will do what the firm measures and rewards, not what its principal says is important. We build a verbal model, based on the language of principal-agent theory, to analyse how different management instruments might be employed to improve the firm's environmental performance. The model is one of three decision makers in a vertical hierarchy. Each of the first two has various instruments at its disposal to influence the behaviour of the agents subordinate to it. In the end, the goal is to ensure consistency between social, economic, and personal objectives. The specific management tools we analyse, with reference to the formal modelling which has appeared in the literature, include the compensation system, quantification and monitoring of non-financial objectives, internal pricing, horizontal task restructuring, centralisation vs. decentralisation of decision making, and corporate sanctions of agents for negligence. We conclude the paper by reiterating that the corporate policy statements to the effect that the firm should respect the environment are insufficient to ensure that result. In addition, firms' principals must operationalise that goal in the systems of measurement and control which govern the behaviour of those who really matter - the employees.     

城市经营中的市场失灵和政府"失灵"

城市经营是目前理论界的一个热门课题.然而,目前关于城市经营的研究探讨,主要集中在城市经营的内涵、内容、经营对象以及经营模式等方面,对于城市经营中政府和市场的关系问题则涉及较少.在明确城市经营内涵的基础上,讨论了城市经营中政府和市场所存在的缺陷,并提出了相应的改善措施.     

Bathtub-shaped failure rate functions

The failure rate function is an important quantity characterizing life phenomena. Ideally, one would expect this function to exhibit a bathtub shape. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the known distributions that exhibit this shape is provided. Over 17 such distributions are identified. This review is especially important because almost all of the commonly known distributions in statistics do not exhibit the bathtub shape. Furthermore, it could serve as an important reference and encourage developments of further distributions that exhibit a bathtub shape.     

浅析电镀故障的处理

在电镀过程中会发生多种故障,如何有效地分析和排除这些故障是电镀生产的一个重要方面。     

Gas system failure rate

Gasunie buys and sells gas. This paper is about calculating the failure rate of the gas transport system of Gasunie in the Netherlands. The pipes in the network are connected at certain stations which may operate at degraded levels due to technical problems. The transport system, modelled as an optimization problem, needs to be checked for feasibility for every configuration of the degradation levels at all stations in order to see whether the system fails or not. The discrete probability distributions of the degradation levels at every station in the network are given. The number of possible combinations of degradation levels is huge and the computations for the feasibility of the gas network are computer-intensive. This paper presents a new algorithm for approximating this rate and it is parsimonious in actually checking for feasibility.     

世界难题“败家逻辑”

富不过三代？二代？一代？财富和财富能力如何传递下去,是个世界级难题。     

细节决定成败

任何伟大的事业，都是由枯燥乏味、日复一日的工作累积而成的，任何成功的职场生涯，靠的都是时时刻刻的谨慎和毫不松懈的自我管理，细节决定成败，这句话其实就是真理     

南京河西:有“巢”难招“凤”

CBD的全称是Central Business District,即中央商务区,一般来讲,写字楼要占到该区域总建筑面积的50%,商业、餐饮业及商住建筑约占40%,其他服务设施及必要的配套设施约占10%。中国一些城市的CBD常常以开发住宅物业和商业地产来启动。但是,这是一种在政策和商     

市场失灵与企业创新

新古典理论认为市场失灵会使得资源配置的效率偏离帕累托最优状态,文章认为,市场失灵还会影响到企业的创新方向和创新数量,导致全社会该产生的创新可能创新不够,不该产生的创新却层出不穷,从而降低资源配置的长期效率,针对市场失灵的不同类型,政府只要采取不同的措施,就能够正确引导企业的创新行为。     

“洋打工皇帝”的落败

沃德与韦杰夫的“闪电陨落”,未免让人叹息。但可以肯定的是:尽管“洋高管”曾在海外有过辉煌的业绩,但如果在现任岗位上不能胜任或者满足投资者的预期,最终只能走人。在中国,一句老话忽视不得:适者生存     

谁的问题少？什么问题多？

《汽车消费报告》刊登的这份2010网民汽车使用故障调研报告显示，自主品牌汽车故障率最高，其次是欧系车，然后是韩系和美系车，日系车故障率最低。     

An analysis of management buy-out failure

Management but-outs are an important aspect of corporate restructuring. In order to understand their longer-term impact there is a need to examine their effects in recessionary conditions. In this context, the paper analyses the factors which lead to management buy-out failure using both financial and non-financial information. The evidence is consistent with the view that some mechanisms introduced to deal with agency cost problems, particularly management incentives and undertaking restructuring activity in a timely fashion are associated with a lower probability of failure. Excessive leverage and delays in restructuring are associated with a higher probability of failure.     

An analysis on dealing with audit failure

Many highly publicized accounting scandals of the recent past seriously caused enormous losses to investors, hindered the healthy development of the capital market and damaged the credibility of the accounting profession. This paper gives a trial analysis on the reasons and precautionary measures of audit failure.     

Reconstruction of previous failure times and records

For the sequences of independent identically distributed random variables with continuous distributions, we provide the optimal upper bounds for the increments of order and record statistics under condition that the values of future order statistics and records are known. The bounds are expressed in terms of quantiles and absolute moments centered about the quantiles of the parent distribution. We also describe the distributions which approach the bounds with arbitrary desired accuracy.The second author was supported by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN) under Grant 5 P03A 012 20Received November 2003     

Influence of earnings management on forecasting corporate failure

This paper studies the relationship between corporate failure forecasting and earnings management variables. Using a new threshold model approach that separates samples into different regimes according to a threshold variable, the authors examine regimes to evaluate the prediction capacities of earnings management variables. By proposing this threshold model and applying it innovatively, this research reveals boundaries within which earnings management variables can yield superior corporate failure forecasting. The inclusion of earnings management variables in corporate failure models improves failure prediction capacities for firms that manipulate substantial earnings. Furthermore, an accruals-based variable improves predictions of failed firms, but the real activities-based variable improves predictions of non-failed firms. These findings highlight the importance of indicators of the magnitude of earnings management and the tools used to improve the performance of corporate failure models. The proposed model can determine the predictive power of particular explanatory variables to forecast corporate failure.     

Bank failure,risk, and capital regulation

This paper examines the effect of capital regulation on bank risk. It is shown that an increase in the capital-to-asset ratio reduces the riskiness of a bank's equity capital. Nevertheless, the probability of bank failure increases. The reason for this result is that the probability of bank failure depends upon both the risk and return of the asset portfolio. An increase in the capital requirement results in an optimal portfolio with a risk-return combination that has a higher probability of bank failure.     

Snatching capital campaign success from jaws of failure

This article details the steps of one medical center which turned an "almost" $3.1 million capital campaign into a success. Leadership provided the steps to victory for a development director who stepped into a job with the high prospects of failure. In two years, he made his goal.