Commerce with a conscience: corporate control and academic investment

Corporations have been investing in academia to an extent that could be classified as a corporate takeover of universities. Intra‐university critics see this as an ethical problem, because of the degree of business control over university policies and decisions which accompanies the funding. University critics rarely suggest that the corporate funding be given up, returned, or even limited. What they protest against is corporate control, which they see as threatening university autonomy, and as inimical to the public good. Multi‐university conferences have been held focusing on this problem, and the most serious solution proposed thus far is to construct a relevant code of ethics regulating and limiting corporate involvement, through standards and guidelines which corporations will then have to subscribe to, in order to fund universities. However, there is a conflict of interest here. Universities have a public trust and a fiduciary duty not to compromise education. This implies a covenant not to cede power to outside interests, not to use university resources, or faculty and students, as a means to an educationally irrelevant end. Universities cannot sell out. However, it seems equally dishonest not to offer their students a well‐funded first‐rate, quality education in applied fields with current skills, maximum research opportunity, and the corporate ties that would allow them to obtain jobs. We examine three cases showing errors made by universities in ceding control to corporate investment, and draw some policy conclusions.     

Financial market and housing wealth effects on consumption: a permanent income approach

The objective of this study is to examine the financial market and housing wealth effects on consumption. Housing has the dual functions as both a commodity yielding a flow of housing services and an investment asset yielding a flow of capital income. With the construction of an empirical framework based on the vector autoregression approach, the findings from this study suggest that a rise in housing price has both a positive wealth effect and a negative price effect on consumption. While the positive wealth effect is caused by an increase in capital income, the negative price effect is caused by an increase in the cost of housing services. In addition, the housing market wealth effect increases, at the expense of the price effect, with the level of housing-market leverage. These findings imply that the government policy of land supply aiming to stimulate the economy should strike a balance between the possible wealth and price effects of the housing market.     

Technology readiness and usage: a global-identity perspective

The past several decades have witnessed the rapid globalization of consumption markets and widespread diffusion of information and communication technologies. However, the use of technology by consumers is not a foregone conclusion. We investigate the role of global self-identity on the orientation toward technology readiness and usage. Relying on a social-identity model of motivation as our theoretical framework, we propose a model which incorporates global self-identity (i.e., cosmopolitanism/parochialism and global/local identification) and self-regulation (i.e., promotion and prevention focus) in predicting technology readiness and usage in a self-service technology context. The proposed model is tested in two different cultures, the U.S. and China, and is contrasted with two theoretically-competing models as well. Results provide support for the hypothesized model, and a number of limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Work and Life Integration: Organizational,Cultural, and Individual Perspectives – Edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century – Edited by Diane M. Houston

Books reviewed: Work and Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural, and Individual Perspectives edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ and London, 2005, xxviii + 570 pp., ISBN 0 8058 4616 6, $42.50, paper. Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century edited by Diane M. Houston. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2005, xv + 271 pp., ISBN 1 4039 2062 1, £50.00.     

TV Kills Social Capital?

The concept of social capital was introduced into public discussion by Robert Putnam in the mid-nineties. Since Putnam diagnosed a decline in social capital and, as a consequence thereof, a weakening of democracy and civic society in the USA, the concept gained theoretical and political meaning in German public debate as well. The major culprit contributing to the dramatic loss of social capital is said to be an old acquaintance: television. According to Putnam, about 40 percent of the decline is caused by electronic entertainment media, especially television. This article critically reflects on the theoretical foundations of Putnam’s construct of social capital. Using data from a representative survey in the German states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, we examine the relations between social capital on one hand, and television and Internet use on the other. Basically we confirm Putnam’s findings — but only to a degree not even close to the strength Putnam claims to ascertain.     

Bank-led restructuring in Poland: the conciliation process in action1

Poland's 1993 Enterprise and Bank Restructuring Programme (EBRP) tried to force state-owned commercial banks to build institutional capacity and resolve their problem loans. The outcome of its innovative bank-led workout (‘conciliation’) process, documented in this study of 62 firms, is decidedly mixed. The EBRP forced banks to confront their problems, helped them to build instituional capacity in their workout units, and furthered the difficult task of weeding out and closing clearly unviable firms. Yet it had limited power to promote needed restructuring or privatization in firms. The conciliation agreements were relatively unsophisticated and include few tangible requirements for operational or management change. The first two years of implementation saw a slowdown (over earlier years) in the rate of layoffs, a decline in average operating profitablility, and very little real privatization. The main impact of conciliation appears to have been to reduce debt service and thereby give firms ‘breathing room’.