Riding the Third Wave Implications of Biotechnology for the Canadian Seed Crop Industry

Biotechnology is causing dramatic changes in the seed industry on a national and global level. Further, the delivery of technology through seed is affecting all aspects of crop production. Coined the Third Wave of Development, it is a drive to meet specific end use traits through biotechnology. In light of this, the industry is seeing increased integration between all those involved in the chain of production. Adapting to this new environment creates significant challenges for the industry, including regulatory, international, handling, and structural.
As the Canadian seed industry changes dramatically to meet the specific needs of end users, there has been an increase in strategic alliances between both handling and seed companies to accommodate identity preserved production. There has also been an increase in mergers and acquisitions, as R&D companies attempt to marry novel trait developments with good germplasm and seed production expertise.
Yet, this is only the beginning as the integration of the seed industry with other aspects of the crop inputs sector applies even more pressure to integrate the agri-food industry right from plant breeding through to end use.     

Commonality in Codes of Ethics

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that “ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company.” Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform.     

A reply to Thomas Mulligan's “critique of Milton Friedman's essay ‘The Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Its Profits’”

Professor Thomas Mulligan undertakes to discredit Milton Friedman's thesis that The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. He attempts to do this by moving from Friedman's paradigm characterizing a socially responsible executive as willful and disloyal to a different paradigm, i.e., one emphasizing the consultative and consensus-building role of a socially responsible executive. Mulligan's critique misses the point, first, because even consensus-building executives act contrary to the will of minority shareholders, but even more importantly, because he assumes that the mandate of a shareholder majority brings legitimacy to efforts of corporate managers to utilize corporate wealth in solving social problems. It is the role of our democratic institutions to deal with national agenda issues such as inflation, unemployment, and pollution, not that of the private sector. Corporations and private individuals do have a role to play in enhancing the quality of the human environment, however, and the author suggests a coherent means of developing that role in an effort rescue corporate social responsibility from Mulligan no less than from Friedman. Bill Shaw, Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at the Jesse H. School of Administration, Rice University, is Professor of Business Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is staff editor of the American Business Law Journal and the Midwest Law Review. Among his most recent publications are The Structure of the Legal Environment (with Art Wolfe), Environmental Law: Text and Cases, The Global Environment: A Proposal to Eliminate Marine Oil Pollution (With Frank Cross and Brenda Winslett, The Natural Resources Journal), and Comparable Worth and Its Prospects (The Labor Law Journal).     

Female franchisees; a lost opportunity for franchising sector growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why female franchisees are under-represented in franchise ownership. A qualitative approach was adopted using a collective, instrumental case study of 30 female franchisees. A number of different types of influences were identified in the literature and then elucidated and assessed. It was found that push and pull factors, work–family life balance, franchising sector characteristics and external influences act as variable incentives and disincentives among female franchisees’ selection of the franchise business model with different levels of risk-taking propensity. The marketing efforts of franchises would be more effective if the way in which the identified influences that impinge on the selection of the franchise business model informed the prospecting of potential female franchisees. A further need is identified for franchises to adjust their recruitment programmes to reflect the variable effect of incentives and disincentives at different levels of capital investment. Limited research specifically examines the selection of the franchise business model by female franchisees with various levels of risk-taking propensity and identifies the nature of influences that act as incentives and/or disincentives on that selection decision.     

Book Reviews

Ross H, McLeod (ed.), Indonesia Assessment 1994: Finance as a Key Sector in Indonesia's Development, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1994, pp. 353. $25.00; S$35.00; A$30.00.

Miranda S. Goeltom, Indonesia's Financial Liberalization: An Analysis of 1981–88 Panel Data, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1995, pp. xii + 93.

Joan Hardjono and Charles Warner (eds), In Love with a Nation: Molly Bondan and Indonesia, published by Charles Warner, Picton, NSW, 1995, pp. 256. A$16.95.

ln Love with a Nation is privately published and obtainable from the following Australian suppliers: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe 2037; Nusantara Bookshop, 72 Maroondah Hwy, Croydon 3136; or from Charles Warner, PO Box 194, Picton 2571. (If ordered from Charles Warner, price including postage is AS20 within Australia; A$25 to Europe, America or Africa; A$23 to Asia, Pacific.)