Institutional Ownership and Private Equity Placements: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

This paper examines the impact of institutional ownership on the performance of private equity placements (PEPs) for listed firms in China. We find that the presence of institutional investors can alleviate the information asymmetries between listed firms and the market. The market reaction to PEP announcements is significantly smaller if there is a higher portion of institutional shareholdings. Long‐term firm operational performance after PEPs is positively correlated with institutional shareholdings. Moreover, we find that the relationship between institutional shareholdings and PEP performance is mainly driven by nonlisted corporate investors and mutual funds. Finally, the relationship between PEP performance and institutional shareholdings is stronger in smaller PEP issuers.     

The Seminal Concept of Fast Expanding Markets

The circular pathway, also called the “cradle-to-cradle” model, is more than just recycling and environmental concerns. It is about a new way of thinking how we could grow without resorting to just expending resources. Its rapid expansion, as a new norm for companies, has characteristics of a Fast Expanding Market, given its exponential growth. In this article, we examine how the circular model is pushing companies and entities to come up with disruptive technology and business models that are based on longevity, renewability, reuse, repair, upgrade, refurbishment, servitization, capacity sharing and dematerialization. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Environmental Decision Making and DDT Production at Montrose Chemical Corporation of California

In this article, we examine the decisions made by corporateexecutives and government officials that led to the dischargewith minimal treatment of hundreds of metric tons of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane(DDT) waste into the Pacific Ocean over several decades. AfterWorld War II, Montrose Chemical Corporation of California'sLos Angeles plant began making the new wonder pesticide, andMontrose executives worked with local officials to develop awaste disposal system that funneled the plant's process wastesinto the county sewer system and ultimately into the ocean.Faced with increasing scientific concern about pesticides anda changed political climate in the 1960s, Montrose vigorouslydefended DDT and relied increasingly on exports to remain profitable.Years after the plant closed, a federal suit forced Montroseand related companies to pay the costs of environmental cleanup.     

Effects of Advice on Auditor Whistleblowing Propensity: Do Advice Source and Advisor Reassurance Matter?

Journal of Business Ethics - We conduct an experiment to investigate the joint effects of advisor reassurance and advice source in enhancing the impact of advice on auditors’ whistleblowing...     

Managing change in South Africa: developing people and organizations

The interaction of Western and non-Western management practices is a growing issue in transitional and emerging economies through the world, not least within the multicultural context of South Africa. This is characterized in this article as an antithesis between instrumental and humanistic views of people in organizations, which is fundamental to the way change is being managed. In order to better understand how the management of people and change may be related to this antithesis, the results of an exploratory study, involving focus-group methods with thirty managers, and of a survey of some 200 employees in participating organizations are presented. Indicative results suggest that, despite best efforts from organizations which may represent best management and development practice, issues concerning the value attached to people in these organizations are still not being properly addressed. It may be only through understanding and reconciling this antithesis that change concerning the development of people, in South Africa as well as in other emerging economies, may be successfully achieved.     

Addressing water contamination from concentrated animal feeding operations

Pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the United States is impairing water quality. CAFOs have been designated as point sources of pollutants, so under the Clean Water Act, they need a permit before they discharge pollutants into federal waters. Federal regulations known as the CAFO Rule delineate particulars about which CAFOs need permits and details about how CAFOs must minimize discharges of pollutants. The provisions of the CAFO Rule have been controversial. Revisions in 2003 and 2008 were challenged by agricultural and environmental groups for not complying with the requirements set forth by federal law. Agricultural groups feel the rule imposes too many costs and that some of the regulatory provisions are invalid because they not pursuant to any statutory authority. Environmentalists feel that the rule does not provide sufficient requirements to prevent discharges of pollutants. The analysis of five major issues illuminates the challenges faced by governments as they make efforts to limit contamination of water resources.     

The Peasants Seminar of the University of London, 1972–1989: A Memoir

This is a memoir of the Peasants seminar of the University of London, which ran between January 1972 and February 1989, and to which 208 papers were presented. The following are considered: its origins, the influences which shaped it, and its agenda; the circumstances of its launching; how it gave rise, very directly, to the Journal of Peasant Studies in 1973; its synergy with JPS, especially in the 1970s, and something of its themes, ambience and development. It is concluded that there is no better way of starting and sustaining, in its early phases, a journal than first securing a strong intellectual base, in the shape of a seminar that meets regularly and has a cohesive, but critical, intellectual community.