Darwinian dystopia: the shape of things to come

Acknowledging that evolution is directionless, shaped only by context and history, and that predicting the future is, therefore, a risky business, scenarios for ‘short-term’ (next few centuries) and ‘long-term’ (10s-100s of thousands of years) futures are offered. The short-term future will be determined by the appearance of transnational corporations that represent levels of social complexity above that of the nation state. Best described as laissez-faire capitalism run amok, the rise of transnationals controlled by powerful managerial elites is warranted or justified by the simultaneous emergence of neo-conservative ideologies that resemble the pernicious social Darwinism of Victorian England. The long-term future will be shaped by the failure of humans to control their fertility. In the face of cultural barriers to rational control of population growth, and as global populations exceed the carrying capacity of the planet, countless millions of ignorant, miserable humans will barely eke out an existence, surviving only long enough to reproduce more of the same. The prospects for speciation are nil, given that high global population densities will preclude reproductive isolation.     

Disasters to come

Disasters occur from the impact of a variety of natural and technological hazards. This paper explores the kind of disasters we can expect in the coming century, the challenges they present to human societies, and suggests a few future coping strategies. It argues that some future disasters will occur as a result of slow onset of hazards such as Global Warming or Ozone Layer Damage. Other disasters will happen more rapidly, emerging from such human actions as terrorism and resource wars. We can expect future disasters to be increasingly large in scale due to the complexity of human society and the ever growing size and density of urban regions and the built environment.     

20TH century future-think : The many shapes of wars to come

As I.F. Clarke noted at the start of this series, new technologies and the growth of populations were the primary factors that encouraged the first speculations about ‘the progress of society’ in the 19th century. In the 20th century an ever-growing body of trend analysts and forecasters has sought to keep pace with the accelerating speed of technological development and the consequent increasing complexity of life throughout the industrialized nations. So, I.F. Clarke will seek to show in the next two articles that war and the possibilities of warfare have been most potent factors in the growth of future-thinking ever since the end of World War I. His narrative follows the classic lines of Greek tragedy—from the hubris that grows out of the dream of power to the nemesis-to-come in anticipations of burning cities and a world inherited by the insects and bacteria.     

让每一寸空间都成为商机--全球便利ATM趋势在中国将很快上演

便利银行———金融自助服务的发展趋势从ATM这个行业来看,布放点是一个非常重要的因素,不同的布放点具有不同的产品特色,银行就根据这些产品的不同特色,为客户提供各种不同的服务和功能。因此NCR也特别把布放点作为区分不同自助服务类型的因素。我们把布放在银行以外其他方便场所的ATM,即离行式ATM称为便利ATM,包括在交通繁华地带的24小时自助银行,设在超市、机场、商场、便利店、加油站或娱乐场所等所有便利地点的ATM。根据此区分,便利银行ATM成为全球ATM市场增长的最大推动力。按照零售银行研究的数据,从1998年到2001年,世界上…     

政府和企业主导房地产模式已到尽头

城镇化给房地产发展带来很好预期 20世纪末,城镇化政策的提出解决了中国工业制成品严重过剩的经济现象.当时的有关的研究报告中说:“如果能够让两三亿人口进入城镇,每年就是8000万户,需要8000万套房子,意味着至少就是8000万套彩电、冰箱、洗衣机的刚性需求.”现在,工业制成品严重库存的时代过去了,可是另一个问题出现了,中国正面临着房地产库存急剧加大,而房地产库存和工业制成品库存又有着根本性的区别.     

中小银行如何引进战略投资者

金融监管当局对于中小银行引进境外投资者的风向,正随着我国加入WTO和国内金融改革的逐步深化而变得越来越明朗。 2002年,李若谷在“2002年世界华人论坛”上表示,央行鼓励境外投资者作为战略投资者进入中小银行。同年,人民银行监管课题报告《进一步发挥现有中     

Is China's corporate governance beginning to come of age? The case of CEO turnover

This study examines the effectiveness of China's corporate governance during the rapid transition of its economy. We find that poor performance is associated with voluntary and involuntary CEO turnover. We also find that exceptionally good performance is marginally associated with voluntary CEO turnover. For governance variables, more non-executive directors are associated with CEO turnover and CEO duality is marginally negatively related to CEO turnover. In addition, some of the governance variables are related to voluntary, but not involuntary, turnover. These results indicate that China's corporate governance is beginning to resemble the Anglo-American model as its market institutions come of age.     

小额信贷:信用卡的生存发展之本

2010年2月24日,中国人民银行副行长朱民在中科院虚拟经济与数据科学中心成果发布会上表示,全国个人通用信用评分系统的开发工作基本完成,年内有望正式上线.     

现代金融学的困惑和行为金融学的崛起

由于现代金融理论的假设过于严格,不符合投资者的实际投资行为,因而遇到了巨大的困惑和挑战。行为金融学则是在现代金融学的基础上发展起来的,更加注重投资者心理因素在投资过程中的作用,为投资提供了更加现实的指导。本文主要讲述了现代金融学发展中所到的困惑和挑战,及在此基础上行为金融学相应的发展。     

财富来自怎样的商业模式

本文是作者和女儿关于如何致富的对话,一问一答,剖析了沃尔玛和戴尔两种商业模式.作者认为:美国式商业模式的最大诀窍其实很简单,专门找人们每天要用、要吃或者要住的东西,最好是每天要换个样、每天要几件或多次的重复需要的东西,你如果生产、销售这种商品,市场潜力就大得不得了,中国有13亿人,任何每天每人要用的东西,都隐含着巨大的商机.     

Working with monsters: counting the costs of workplace psychopaths and other toxic employees

We explore the role of ‘Workplace Monsters’ in the global burden of disease, including the $US1.15 trillion annual cost of depressive and anxiety disorders. We propose the productivity drain created by these individuals is a wicked problem, integrating several disciplines to position workplace monsters as significant corporate governance issues for organisations. Our discussion covers Monster prevalence, impacts on fellow workers and estimates of the costs incurred to business. We classify Monsters as ‘appreciating liabilities’ and call for future research to develop means of accounting for their inherent organisational costs in an effort to prompt action to address their destructive impacts.     

生物医药进入“并购时间”

面临跻身七大战略新兴产业的历史性机遇,囿于高投入、高风险、高科技、开发时间长等产业特点,在蓬勃的资本市场力量的推动下,国内生物制药正在小步快跑地进入并购时间。     

银行上市，意味着新一轮的“开局”

银行上市对于我国商业银行来说虽不是一颗能医治百病、长生不老的仙丹。但至少还是一剂能够驱除顽疾。强身健体的良方。“坐而言，不如起而行”。对于中国的银行业改革。需要的不是高谈阔论的旁观者和横盾冷对的批评家。而是需要更多了解自身不足。明确发展方向。能够辫踏实地。鞠躬尽瘁、敢于负责的改革家和实践者。     

“做自己该做的事”——记中国工商银行都江堰支行贵宾理财中心现金柜员冉志翔

“我还是会回到都江堰的。”电话那端的冉志翔语气十分坚决,在那里他曾有一个幸福的家,而一场突来的地震把一切全毁了。6月6日,虽然距离汶川大地震已经过去25天的时间,距离那个让冉志翔伤心欲绝的地方也有50多公里的路程,但是从电话中依然能听出这个坚强的小伙子无尽的悲伤,时间和距离似乎都不能减轻他心中的痛——他的父亲永远地留在了都江堰。     

The five competitive forces that shape strategy

In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first article for HBR, "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy." In the years that followed, Michael Porter's explication of the five forces that determine the long-run profitability of any industry has shaped a generation of academic research and business practice. In this article, Porter undertakes a thorough reaffirmation and extension of his classic work of strategy formulation, which includes substantial new sections showing how to put the five forces analysis into practice. The five forces govern the profit structure of an industry by determining how the economic value it creates is apportioned. That value may be drained away through the rivalry among existing competitors, of course, but it can also be bargained away through the power of suppliers or the power of customers or be constrained by the threat of new entrants or the threat of substitutes. Strategy can be viewed as building defenses against the competitive forces or as finding a position in an industry where the forces are weaker. Changes in the strength of the forces signal changes in the competitive landscape critical to ongoing strategy formulation. In exploring the implications of the five forces framework, Porter explains why a fast-growing industry is not always a profitable one, how eliminating today's competitors through mergers and acquisitions can reduce an industry's profit potential, how government policies play a role by changing the relative strength of the forces, and how to use the forces to understand complements. He then shows how a company can influence the key forces in its industry to create a more favorable structure for itself or to expand the pie altogether. The five forces reveal why industry profitability is what it is. Only by understanding them can a company incorporate industry conditions into strategy.     

The TD Wheel: A heuristic to shape,support and evaluate transdisciplinary research

Transdisciplinary approaches to research are increasingly touted for the messy social and environmental problems of our time. Such problems transcend disciplinary boundaries, are intertwined with sociopolitical context, and require participation of stakeholders to generate socially acceptable outcomes. A substantial barrier to transdisciplinary (TD) research is devising and applying evaluative criteria or schemas for an approach that is recognized as necessarily tailored, flexible and evolving. This paper addresses the challenge of shaping, supporting and evaluating transdisciplinary research. Firstly, we synthesise the literature on TD research characteristics, highlighting areas of emerging consensus and some implications of these for research design, execution and quality evaluation. Secondly, we present an adaptable heuristic called the TD Wheel (TDW). The TDW is a synthesis of the disparate insights available within the current literature, and is presented as an organizing graphic for TD research. We explain how the TDW has utility at three stages of the research process: shaping (planning and proposing research); supporting (guiding research in-train); and evaluating (planning for evaluation, periodically documenting/checking progress, and reporting on outcomes). The TDW is a provocative graphic geared to help researchers visualize and discuss the elements and process of TD research.