GHG Registries: Participation and Performance Under the Canadian Voluntary Climate Challenge Program

Between 1994 and 2004, the Voluntary Challenge and Registry (VCR) played an important role in Canadian climate change policy. In this paper, we examine the decision of firms to participate in the VCR, the extent of their involvement, and then ask if greenhouse gas emissions are related to past VCR participation. As an information provision program, we find evidence that firms may participate in VCR to signal their environmental responsibility to regulators and to some extent investors, but not to consumers. We also find that past involvement in the VCR is a strong and significant determinant of current involvement in the registry. Greenhouse gas emissions reported to the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program in 2004, however, do not appear to be different between VCR reporters and non-reporters. GHG emissions are observed to be significantly lower among firms that are smaller, emit fewer toxic releases, use more renewable energy sources, are intermediate good producers, and are located in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba.     

Efficiency,equity, and environmental implications of trade liberalization: A computable general equilibrium analysis

This paper evaluates the effect of trade liberalization on global efficiency, equity, and the environment using global welfare, welfare redistribution, and carbon emission as indicators. A static, computable general equilibrium trade model with explicit representation of agricultural production and energy use is used to simulate a series of new scenarios in which 1997 baseline import tax and export subsidy trade barrier equivalents are scaled back. Findings indicate that with trade liberalization agricultural output declines, energy use increases, and carbon emissions rise. Global welfare rises revealing an overall increase in efficiency; however, gains to poorer nations come at the expense of richer nations. An increase in the use of polluting inputs such as coal in developing countries suggests poorer nations will risk environmental degradation with the lowering of trade barriers.     

Ethics and the Networked Business

Pushing through a logical continuum of closed- to open-system views of organizations necessarily changes the conceptualization of a firm from a strongly bounded entity to a configuration of networks and sub-networks, which exists and operates in a larger systemic network configuration. We unfold a classification of management processes corresponding to views of the firm along the closed/open-systems continuum. We examine ethical issues that are likely to devolve from these classes of management processes, and we suggest typical means by which managers will attempt to control their firms’ exposure to such issues. The final class of management processes examined focuses on the achievement of outcomes that are mutually satisfactory in the set of networks and sub-networks that constitute the focal firm, and that support the sustainability of the whole system. The article contributes to organizational theory, business ethics, and computer and information ethics by providing a comprehensive analysis of the impact of managerial views of the firm and of networks – virtual, social, informational – on managerial processes and on our understanding of how business ethics issues are linked to perceptions of what a firm is, does, and can do.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on the Impact of Network Ethics on Business Practices

Modern public relations practices have been dominated by appeals to impulses, desires, and images that affect publics defined predominantly in demographic terms. This paper argues that abandoning basic rhetorical assumptions about the ability of ordinary people to engage in practical reason has serious ethical implications for the marketplace as well as for society in general. The study applies recent rhetorical scholarship on issues of public discourse and rhetorical culture to public relations practices, considering how rhetoric can contribute to more effective and ethical public discourse in our dominant modes of marketplace communication.     

Exploring subcultural differences in hofstede's value survey: The case of the Chinese

Hofstede's Value Survey Module (VSM) identifies fundamental differences in the way people in various countries perceive and interpret their worlds. After adjusting value scores on the basis of demographic features of samples in the present study, values between subcultural groupings in four Chinese-populated regions (Taiwan, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Wuhan) were compared, and strong subcultural differences revealed. A methodology is proposed to facilitate VSM comparisons using limited, secondary data sources. Propositions concerning subcultural differences are suggested on the basis of the findings.     

An analysis of the impact of adopting IFRS 8 on the segment disclosures of European blue chip companies

Amidst the IASB's post-implementation review of IFRS 8, we examine how the standard's adoption changed the reporting of segments by European blue chips (i.e. companies comprising the top tier index of 14 European stock exchanges). We focus on anticipated benefits articulated in the IASB's Basis for Conclusions and concerns expressed by IFRS 8 opponents.In addition to convergence with U.S. GAAP, IFRS 8 results in the reporting of significantly more operating segments on average. However, most companies report the same number or fewer segments. Refuting claims regarding the loss of geographic data at the entity-wide level, we identify an improvement in the fineness of disclosures and a significant increase in the disclosure of geographic groupings. We do not identify an improvement in consistency of segment disclosures with other sections of the annual report, which is due to the consistency already achieved under IAS 14R.IFRS 8 results in a significant decline in the number of reportable segment information items (notably liabilities) and a significant decline in the reporting of capital expenditures at the entity-wide level. Furthermore, adoption of the standard produces a lack of comparability in segment profitability measures and extensive reporting of non-IFRS measures. However, almost all companies report a measure of segment profitability tied to a number on the consolidated income statement or reconciled to the income statement.     

Earnings and Welfare after Downsizing: Central Bank Employees in Ecuador

This article measures the earnings and welfare losses experiencedby displaced employees of the Central Bank of Ecuador. It linksthese losses to individual characteristics such as gender, education,seniority, and salary in the public sector. Data are from asurvey of displaced employees that included subjective evaluationsof well-being in addition to information on activity and earnings.The welfare losses of separated employees are not highly correlatedwith their earnings losses, partly because some of them (especiallywomen) withdrew from the labor force after separation. Earningsand welfare losses also vary depending on the nature of displacement,which was voluntary for roughly half the employees and involuntaryfor the rest. Overall, the losses were larger for employeeswith less education and more seniority, but not necessarilylarger for employees with higher salaries. However, compensationfor displacement was based on a rule of thumb that involvedonly salary and seniority and was applied across-the-board.For those employees who left voluntarily, the resulting compensationpackage was, on average, about 20 percent higher than the welfareloss. The article derives the implications of these findingsfor the design of assistance programs for displaced workersand, more specifically, for the tailoring of compensation packagesto their individual characteristics.