Survival of the Most Foolish of Fools: The Limits of Evolutionary Selection Theory

The paper investigates whether evolutionary selection, in nature or the market, ensures the survival of rational agents. It argues that once rationality appears, evolutionary selection can account for its diffusion—but cannot account for its appearance in the first place. This issue differs from the investigation of whether history matters. The issue of history or path-dependency focuses on whether evolutionary selection can favor the survival of the potentially most productive apparatus (in the biological or technological sense). To show this, the paper commences with the much-neglected difference between efficiency and productivity. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Conflict resolution in Africa

In an attempt to draw lessons from African experience with conflictresolution, this paper examines three disputes: the WesternSahara conflict between Morocco and the Polisario, the thirty-yeararmed strife between North and South Sudan and the emergenceof the breakaway Somaliland following the overthrow of SiadBarre. The Western Sahara dispute, under consideration by theUnited Nations since 1965, would have long been settled hadit not been for late King Hassan's intransigence, US supportof his unjust claim to sovereignty of the former Spanish colonyand the reluctance of African leaders to incur his displeasure.The Southern Sudan was the victim of well-nigh-complete neglectunder the British colonial administration and, thanks to theprejudice and shortsightedness of Northern politicians, it hasfaired even worse after independence. Memories of past slaveryhave been rankled by present injustice and marginalisation.Moreover, any hope for reconciliation has been shattered bythe determination of the ruling Islamic fundamentalist regimeof Khartoum to transform the Sudan into an out-and-out Islamicstate. The former British protectorate of Somaliland, drivenby the irredentism then prevailing among the Somali-speakingpeople scattered in different parts of East Africa, precipitated,a week after independence, into union with the former Italian-administeredtrust territory to form the Republic of Somalia on 26 June 1965.Ten years after independence, however, Siad Barre seized powerby coup d'ét ushering two decades of misrule characterisedby a sinister mix of clanism, nepotism and an ignorant understandingof scientific socialism. Resentment which at first took theform of peaceful, political opposition in the north graduallydeveloped into a full-fledged countrywide civil war. When SiadBarre was overthrown, anarchy ensued in Mogadiscio. By contrast,the Somalilanders succeeded, through a series of traditionallystyled conferences, in resolving tribal conflicts, disbandingtribal militias and establishing a primordial but working systemof government. But the OAU, the Arab League and the rest ofthe international community rewarded them by refusing to recogniseSomaliland's claim to separate statehood.     

Does the famine experience of board chair hamper innovation?

This study examines whether and how the famine experiences of board chairs influence the innovation of their firms. Results using a sample comprising 8882 firm-year observations from Chinese firms during the period 2003 to 2017 reveal that the board chair's famine experience has a negative effect on innovation. This negative effect is strengthened by famine intensity and high uncertainty. The obtained results are robust to alternative measures, endogeneity issues, omitted variables, and sample selection bias. Additional analyses showed that the relationship between board chair's famine experience and innovation is mediated by cash holdings and R&D investment. The overall results contribute to imprinting theory by explaining that early-life famine experiences of board chairs create survival threat imprints among them, eventually affecting their later-life behaviors. The findings also provide implications by highlighting how the early-life traumatic experiences of executives adversely influence their firms outcomes.     

Factors affecting ICT adoption among rural users: A case study of ICT Center in Iran

Rural ICT centers are the initiative of the third millennium and widen the accessibility horizons of information and Communication Technology among disadvantaged groups of societies, and play a significant role in rural development processes. Adoption of new technology in rural Iran has been the main challenge and focal point of all agricultural extension activities since the modernization era of the 1950s. Consequently the rapidly growing gap between urban and rural economy has reinforced the critical role of ICT in creating an equal society. Identifying the factors which foster adoption of ICT is among the important challenges of alleviating digital divide. ICT centers attract different groups within rural communities and create a forum for unprivileged rural settlers to learn about and to use computer and internet. This paper attempts to identify the factors influencing the adoption of ICT in rural Gharn Abad's ICT center of Golestan Province. The sample included 218 individuals, who were selected by stratified random sampling method. Survey method was used, and data was analyzed by correlation as well as multiple regression techniques. Based on the results, the existence of ICT center itself, with various funding sources, reinforced the adoption regardless of the users' economic status. At the same time, the other factors such as individual, social, the households' informative & communicative, as well as the innovation related factors were found influential. This case study could be used as a sample for planning, establishing, and developing the ICT centers in the other similar situations.     

Monitoring a common agent: Implications for financial contracting

Multiple principals want to obtain income from a privately informed agent and design their contracts non-cooperatively. The degree of coordination between principals shapes the contracts and affects the amount of monitoring. Equity-like contracts and excessive monitoring emerge when principals coordinate or verify each other's monitoring efforts. When this is not possible, free riding weakens monitoring incentives, so that flat payments, debt-like contracts, and very low levels of monitoring appear. Free riding may be so strong to induce even less monitoring than if the principals cooperated with each other; that is, non-cooperative monitoring does not necessarily lead to excessive monitoring.     

Board social capital and stock price crash risk

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We show how board social capital influences stock price crash risk. Considering that directors are embedded in two kinds of social...     

The performance implications of power–trust relationship: The moderating role of commitment in the supplier–retailer relationship

The current research examines how coercive power and non-coercive power affect trust and how these relationships are affected by affective and calculative commitment. It also expands the understanding of the role of an under-researched dimension of performance, i.e., strategic performance, and studies it as a mediating variable in the relationship between trust and financial performance. The proposed model is empirically tested using Partial Least Squares (PLS) in supplier–retailer channel in Taiwan. The findings reveal that affective commitment has a positive moderating effect on the negative relationship between coercive power and trust, while calculative commitment has a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between non-coercive power and trust. The results also indicate that strategic performance partially mediates the effect of trust on financial performance. The research advances theoretical understanding on the complex power–trust relationship and provides insights into the role of commitment in both enabling and undermining channel relationships. The findings highlight the importance of building affective commitment in channel relationships and the critical role of strategic performance in the trust–financial performance relationship.     

Beyond natural selection and divine intervention: The Lamarckian implication of Adam Smith's invisible hand

Adam Smith's invisible hand metaphor (IH) is examined in light of two different accounts of the origin of traits: Charles Darwin's theory of evolutionary optimization and William Paley's theory of divine intervention. Smith's stand supersedes both accounts. For Smith, intermediating drives, such as the sexual one, neither arise accidentally and favored according to their fitness à la Darwin nor planted by the Deity à la Paley. For Smith, such drives are adopted in light of their ultimate end. Smith did not provide an account of how the drives are connected to their far-reaching, invisible beneficial ends or why do agents become dimly aware of that causality.