Detecting Linguistic Traces of Destructive Narcissism At-a-Distance in a CEO’s Letter to Shareholders

Destructive narcissism is recognized increasingly as a serious impairment to good corporate leadership and ethical conduct. The Chief Executive Officer’s letter to shareholders (an important formal corporate communications medium) has potential to provide linguistic traces of destructive narcissism and insight to aspects of corporate leadership and the ambient ethical culture of a company. We demonstrate this potential through selective analyses of the letters of the Chief Executive Officers of Enron, Starbucks, and General Motors.     

Relations with the People’s Republic of China

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has, from the point of view of the big powers, become an important factor in the balance of power struggle. Political as well as economic reasons seem to suggest closer relations with the People’s Republic of China.     

People＇s Olympics

It is the moment the city takes on its young and beautiful look.It is the moment the people do everything to surprise the world.It is the moment the whole country hold the breath.The 29th Olympic Games is approaching in Beijing. It will be an extraordinary Olympic Games,as the 1.3 billion people of China are all get involved in it with their passion for sports.They waited in a long line in front of the ticket polls, and stayed up in the tent for the match tickets;they happily take the bus and subway instead of the cars for the clean air;and they do volunteer jobs in uni- forms from day to night without single word of complaining...The whole nation gives her best definition to the Olympic sprit.It's people's Olympics:it's everyone's Olympics.     

Supervisor and Subordinate Guanxi: A Grounded Investigation in the People’s Republic of China

Despite the growing number of studies on the topic of guanxi in a work context, there is a paucity of research on supervisor–subordinate guanxi in the field of organisation and management. This article critically reviews the extant literature on guanxi in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to explore the perception of guanxi from both superior and subordinate perspectives in the People’s Republic of China. The study reports positive and ethical features of guanxi as well as unethical and negative practices in the Chinese workplace. On the positive side, guanxi comprises reciprocal exchange and perceived positive attributes, whereas its darker aspects include perceived unfairness and supervisor-targeted impression management. Managerial and research implications are discussed.     

Trends in road traffic crashes and associated injury and fatality in the People’s Republic of China, 1951–1999

The burden of road traffic injuries in the People’s Republic of China is increasing as evidenced by trends since 1951. Data from the National Statistical Office, Ministry of Communications and the Traffic Administration Bureau were analyzed. Absolute numbers of crashes, fatalities, and injuries, as well as fatalities per 100,000 population and motorization (number of vehicles per 1000 population) were used as indices to measure trends. Regional variations in trends and the characteristics of people injured or killed were also analyzed. Road traffic crashes increased 68- fold, from around 6000 in 1951 to 413,000 in 1999. Excessive speed was the main reported cause of the crashes. The injuries increased 56-fold – from around 5000 to 286,000 – and fatalities 97-fold – from 852 to around 84,000 – over the same period. The crash, fatality and injury rates also increased after 1985, due to increased motorization spurred by rapid economic growth. The number of four-wheel motor vehicles increased from 60,000 in 1951 to just under a million four-wheel motor vehicles in 1975 and to 10 million in 1987. The number of four-wheel motor vehicles then rose to 50 million in 1999, with an additional 30 million motorcycles. The increase in motorization and fatalities affected all the provinces. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for populations up to the age of 45 years and the leading cause of working-life years lost in China.     

South Africa：Fast Growth Lies in Efforts

Ten years ago, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, South Africa got freedom by smashing the inhuman system of apartheid after a long and arduous struggle and embarked on a new path to democracy. Ten years after the establishment of Democracy, the South African people have achieved outstanding and widely-acclaimed progress in the course of social transformation and national development. Today, the rainbow nation, led by President Mbeki, has become an important force for the African Renaissance, and plays an important role     

Perceived Legitimacy of Executives Bonuses in Time of Global Crisis: A Mapping of Portuguese People’s Views

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have an impact on people’s views: (a) the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, (b) the global economic context in which the company has performed, (c) the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and (d) the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate (30 %) or not very legitimate (25 %). People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either (a) never legitimate, or (b) legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or (c) legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed.     

GATT’s role in East-West trade

After a phase of stagnation in East-West trade lasting several years, both sides have more recently been at pains to intensify economic relations between East and West, the reasons being both economic and political. What part can the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) play in this regard?     

Marketing’s role in multi-stakeholder engagement

In 2019 the CEOs of more than 180 of the largest U.S. firms signed a statement of corporate purpose indicating that corporations are responsible for providing economic benefits to all stakeholders, not just shareholders. Although stakeholder theory states that there are several stakeholders (internal and external) whose continuing participation affects a firm’s sustainability and long-term profitability, the marketing literature has focused primarily on customer engagement. This research argues for a broadened focus by marketing scholars and introduces a stakeholder engagement framework based on a triangulation approach including a systematic review of marketing research from a stakeholder perspective, the results of a survey of 254 editorial review board members from top marketing journals, and business case examples. The framework identifies three dimensions of firms’ stakeholder engagement strategies (stakeholder recognition, support, and dialogue) linked to stakeholder responses (stakeholder contribution to the firm or retaliation) that ultimately influence firm performance (financial, reputation, and risk). Two core propositions of multi-stakeholder engagement provide a foundation for a detailed future research agenda for marketing.     

Challenging Masculinity in CSR Disclosures: Silencing of Women’s Voices in Tanzania’s Mining Industry

Guilt is a powerful emotion that is known to influence ethical decision-making. Nevertheless, the role of guilt cognitions in influencing restorative behaviour following an unethical action is not well understood. Guilt cognitions are interrelated beliefs about an individual’s role in a negative event. We experimentally investigate the joint impact of three guilt cognitions—responsibility for a decision, justification for a decision, and foreseeability of consequences—on a taxpayer’s decision to make a tax amnesty disclosure. Tax amnesties encourage delinquent taxpayers to self-correct to avoid severe penalties that would result if their tax evasion were discovered. Our findings suggest a three-way interaction effect such that taxpayers are likely to make tax amnesty disclosures when they foresee that they will be caught by the tax authority, unless they can diffuse responsibility for their evasion and justify their evasion. Implications for tax policy and tax professionals are discussed.     

Ethics in Nanotechnology: What’s Being Done? What’s Missing?

Nanotechnology shows great promise in a variety of applications with attractive economic and societal benefits. However, societal issues associated with nanotechnology are still a concern to the general public. While numerous technological advancements in nanotechnology have been achieved over the past decade, research into the broader societal issues of nanotechnology is still in its early phases. Based on the data from the Web of Science database, we applied the main path analysis, cluster analysis and text mining tools to explore the main research fronts and hierarchical structure of these societal issues. We found that the research studies fell into four categories: “General Toxicity and EHS (Environment, Health and Safety),” “Medicine and Cytotoxicity,” “Assessment and Regulation,” and “Environment and Ecotoxicity.” These research studies have disclosed much information about the potential effect of nanotechnology on public health and the environment. Relatively speaking, the studies on the assessment, regulation, preventive solutions, and environmental protection are just emerging. This finding indicates that an abundance of effort should be conducted on these emerging themes to maximize the benefits of nanotechnology while minimizing its potential harm. The implications for various parties in this domain are also presented.     

Persistent high-growth firms in China’s manufacturing

Small Business Economics - This article explores the association between persistence of high-growth and crucial dimensions of firm structure and performance (productivity, profits, investment...     

The Philosophic Thoughts in Hardy’s Poetry

This article explores the philosophic thoughts of Thomas Hardy from his poetry mainly from the three aspects: Hardy's disillusionment to God, the imminent will and the pessimism which interact with each other and contribute the main thoughts of the poet to life and fate.     

The role of a municipality’s financial health in a firm’s siting decision

When deciding where to locate a new facility, a firm needs to consider the financial health of the municipality where its activities will take place. Unless it sites its facility in a financially viable community, a firm is putting a substantial investment at risk. Despite the importance of this issue, many firms pay insufficient attention to a municipality’s financial condition. Instead, they focus on matters such as the tax rate, the quality of the school system, or the absence of regulatory constraints. All of these features are important, but unless a municipality is financially healthy, they can evaporate before a company has attained its expected return on investment. There are 5 financial statements and 10 financial ratios that can be used to create a financial health template, which can help a firm to assess a municipality’s financial strength, or its counterpart financial weakness. The template goes beyond the debt-repayment focus of credit rating agencies to matters such as financial autonomy, cash flows, and borrowing capacity. We use data from three cities—Barcelona, Dublin, and Detroit (pre- and post-bankruptcy)—to demonstrate the template’s ability to facilitate comparisons among cities that are in different countries and that use different accounting systems.     

Understanding Consumer’s Responses to Enterprise’s Ethical Behaviors: An Investigation in China

The response of consumers to a firm’s ethical behavior and the underlying factors influencing/forming each consumer’s response outcome is analyzed in this article based on information obtained through interviews. The results indicate that, in the Chinese context, the responding outcome can be boiled down to five types, namely, resistance, questioning, indifference, praise, and support. Additionally, consumers’ responses were mainly influenced by the specific consumer’s ethical consciousness, ethical cognitive effort, perception of ethical justice, motivation judgment, institutional rationality, and corporate social responsibility–corporate ability (CSR–CA) belief. Based on these results, a generalized framework of consumer’s ethical responses is developed which provides a number of insightful suggestions upon how to motivate a consumer’s support of a firm’s ethical behavior and to transfer this kind of support into truly positive purchasing behavior.     

Poor People‘s Income to Be Increased

During the period of the 11 th FiveYear Program, Chinese govern ment will be inclined to take policies to realize a balanced economic growth, equalized opportunities and social justice so as to avoid that the poor people become extremely poor and the gap between poor and wealthy become larger, according to the analysts.……     

Poor People＇s Income to Be Increased

During the period of the 11th Five-Year Program, Chinese govern ment will be inclined to take policies to realize a balanced economic growth, equalized opportunities and social justice so as to avoid that the poor people become extremely poor and the gap between poor and wealthy become larger, according to the analysts.     

CO2 emissions embodied in China’s export

ABSTRACT

The reduction of CO₂ emissions embodied in export will have an important role for China to achieve its CO₂ emissions peaking target. In this study, we use input–output analysis to examine the embodied CO₂ emissions in China’s export to its top largest trading countries from 2008 to 2015. We find that China’s exported CO₂ emissions peaked in 2008. More than 70% of embodied CO₂ emission were exported to only 20 countries, and CO₂ emissions exported to developing countries have been increasing. High-energy consumption sectors contribute to CO₂ emissions embodied in export significantly, such as Electricity, Gas and Water. We conclude that structural adjustment could be considered alongside technological improvements to curb China’s growing CO₂ emissions.