Have labour practices and human rights disclosures enhanced corporate accountability? The case of the GRI framework

This paper critically evaluates Transnational Corporations’ (TNCs) claimed adherence to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s ‘labour’ and ‘human rights’ reporting guidelines and examines how successful the GRI has been in enhancing comparability and transparency. We found limited evidence of TNCs discharging their accountability to their workforce and, rather, we found evidence to suggest that disclosure was motivated more by enhancing their legitimacy. TNCs failed to adhere to the guidelines, which meant that material information items were often missing, rendering comparability of information meaningless. Instead, TNCs reported large volumes of generic/anecdotal information without acknowledging the impediments they faced in practice.     

The link between attractiveness of “Extrabrand” attributes and the adoption of innovations

While innovators may rush to purchase many new products, most consumers are more conservative and do not want to buy into fads but purchase only those new products that are viable. How do the majority of consumers make judgments about whether they will adopt an innovation? This article examines the evaluative aspects of adoption as a means for better understanding consumer adoption and the market factors that may influence the success of an innovation. This research introduces a conceptual model that shows how consumers’ evaluation of product category attractiveness affects the adoption decision for really new products. These consumer evaluations are based on the attributes of the product category (“extrabrand” attributes) rather than brand attributes. Results from a test of the model indicate that consumers do use extrabrand attributes to assess the attractiveness of innovative new products.     

Investor Overreaction to Earnings Surprises and Post‐Earnings‐Announcement Reversals

Prior literature suggests that the market underreacts to the positive correlation in a typical firm's seasonal earnings changes, which leads to a post‐earnings‐announcement drift (PEAD) in prices. We examine the market reaction for a distinct set of firms whose seasonal earnings changes are uncorrelated and show that the market incorrectly assumes that the earnings changes of these firms are positively correlated. We also document that positive (negative) seasonal earnings changes in the current quarter are associated with negative (positive) abnormal returns in the next quarter. Thus, we observe a reversal of abnormal returns, consistent with a systematic overreaction to earnings, rather than the previously documented PEAD. Additional analysis indicates that financial analysts similarly overestimate the autocorrelation of these firms, although to a lesser extent. We also find that the magnitude of overestimation and the subsequent price reversal are inversely related to the richness of the information environment. Our results challenge the notion that investors recognize but consistently underestimate earnings correlation and provide a new perspective on the inability of prices to fully reflect the implications of current earnings for future earnings. That is, we show that investors predictably overestimate correlation when it is lacking, but underestimate it when it is present.     

Property rights and information flows: a simulation approach

With the growth of the information economy, the proportion of knowledge-intensive goods to total goods is constantly increasing. Lessig (The future of ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world. Vintage, New York 2001) has argued that IPRs have now become too favourable to existing producers and that their ‘winner-take-all’ characteristics are constraining the creators of tomorrow. In this paper we look at how variations in IPRs regimes might affect the creation and social cost of new knowledge in economic systems. Drawing on a conceptual framework, the Information Space or I-Space to explore how the uncontrollable diffusibility of knowledge relates to its degree of structure, we deploy an agent-based modelling approach to explore the issue of IPRs. We take the ability to control the diffusibility of knowledge as a proxy measure for an ability to establish property rights in such knowledge. Second, we take the rate of obsolescence of knowledge as a proxy measure for the degree of turbulence induced by different regimes of technical change. Then we simulate the quantity and cost to society of new knowledge under different property right regimes.

Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media

Traditionally, consumers used the Internet to simply expend content: they read it, they watched it, and they used it to buy products and services. Increasingly, however, consumers are utilizing platforms—such as content sharing sites, blogs, social networking, and wikis—to create, modify, share, and discuss Internet content. This represents the social media phenomenon, which can now significantly impact a firm's reputation, sales, and even survival. Yet, many executives eschew or ignore this form of media because they don’t understand what it is, the various forms it can take, and how to engage with it and learn. In response, we present a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. As different social media activities are defined by the extent to which they focus on some or all of these blocks, we explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage with social media. To conclude, we present a number of recommendations regarding how firms should develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to different social media activities.     

Poverty in Edwardian Britain

This article introduces a newly discovered household budget data set for 1904. We use these data to estimate urban poverty among working families in the British Isles. Applying Bowley's poverty line, we estimate that at least 23 per cent of people in urban working households and 18 per cent of working households had income insufficient to meet minimum needs. This is well above Rowntree's estimate of primary poverty for York in 1899 and high in the range that Bowley found in northern towns in 1912–13. The skill gradient of poverty is steep; for instance, among labourers' households, the poverty rates are close to 50 per cent. Measures of the depth of poverty are relatively low in the data, suggesting that most poor male-headed working households were close to meeting Bowley's new standard.     

Further participatory adaptation is required for community leaders to champion conservation agriculture in Africa

There is a recognized need for the participation of local communities in designing and implementing agricultural interventions for the sustainable intensification in smallholder systems. This study examines the perspectives of local community leaders towards the widely promoted, but not widely adopted, practice of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in African smallholder systems. Perceptions from 47 community leaders (both from traditional local authorities and farmer organizations) across six African countries are documented regarding how CA matches the wants, needs and capabilities of farmers in their communities. While community leaders generally perceived CA as potentially beneficial, they also indicated that CA is not currently perceived as feasible within their communities and hence has limited relevance. Three key themes were identified that limit both CA use and sustainable intensification more generally: [1] a perceived reluctance of farmers to engage with the community platform as part of a higher input, market-oriented production system; [2] informational constraints due to non-functional exchange mechanisms; and [3] a lack of local adaptation of CA underscored by the persistence of top-down, linear research and extension approaches. Through greater understanding of local perspectives, a clearer picture emerges of the need for greater participatory engagement and local adaptation if sustainable intensification of African smallholder agricultural systems is to be achieved.