Initial internationalization of Chinese privately owned enterprises—the take‐off process

In the first quarter of 2010, China showed the highest quarterly growth (12%) of any country ever. Although privately owned enterprises (POEs) are an important factor behind this immense growth, knowledge about how they have become key exporters is scarce and largely overlooked, especially regarding how they started to go abroad. Two major take‐off processes from the domestic market to the foreign market are studied. The critical importance of the development of the local emerging market behind the possibilities of taking off is stressed, as well as how firms change between indirect and direct export modes. The research is based on an abductive case study research approach, where primary data is collected through interviews in the Yangtze River region. The case study involves six privately owned family firms run by strong and dominating entrepreneurs. Major empirical and theoretical conclusions, including nine propositions, summarize the article and indicate areas for further research. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Organizational design with a budget constraint

In this paper we point out that the presence of the budget constraint substantially affects the relative performance of organizational decision rules. For instance, if there are only two types of projects to decide upon, the hierarchy always performs better than the polyarchy. The same result holds for any distribution of the quality of projects. We also illustrate that optimal mechanisms for variable evaluation costs involve stopping rules which look hierarchical, but avoid costly duplication as in hierarchies or polyarchies. Received: 5 November 1995 / Accepted: 18 September 1997     

Multidimensionale Auswertungen im Controlling

Bei der Einführung neuartiger EDV-Werkzeuge für das Controlling dominieren oft technische Aspekte, obwohl die L?sung betriebswirtschaftlicher Entscheidungsprobleme Ziel der Einführung ist.     

Backdating executive stock options—An ex ante valuation

When backdating executive stock options (ESOs), the exercise price is set in favor of the recipient executive. Relative to a non-backdated benchmark, we find an (ex ante) upper bound for the cost of backdating to shrink from 10% to about 3.7%, as a consequence of the regime change represented by the Sarbanes-Oxley act (SOX).We frame the backdating behavior as a (compound) exotic option, considering both simple and extended models of the underlying ESO—in the latter case we draw on the analytical ESO models of Sircar and Xiong (2007). Post-SOX, we use a Longstaff-Schwartz inspired least squares Monte Carlo approach.     

Geometric Brownian Motion Models for Assets and Liabilities: From Pension Funding to Optimal Dividends

Abstract

In this paper asset and liability values are modeled by geometric Brownian motions. In the first part of the paper we consider a pension plan sponsor with the funding objective that the pension asset value is to be within a band that is proportional to the pension liability value. Whenever the asset value is about to fall below the lower barrier or boundary of the band, the sponsor will provide sufficient funds to prevent this from happening. If, on the other hand, the asset value is about to exceed the upper barrier of the band, the assets are reduced by the potential overflow and returned to the sponsor. This paper calculates the expected present value of the payments to be made by the sponsor as well as that of the refunds to the sponsor. In particular we are interested in situations where these two expected values are equal. In the second part of the paper the refunds at the upper barrier are interpreted as the dividends paid to the shareholders of a company according to a barrier strategy. However, if the (modified) asset value ever falls to the liability value, which is the lower barrier, “ruin” takes place, and no more dividends can be paid. We derive an explicit expression for the expected discounted dividends before ruin. From this we find an explicit expression for the proportionality constant of the upper barrier that maximizes the expected discounted dividends. If the initial asset value is the optimal upper barrier, there is a particularly simple and intriguing expression for the expected discounted dividends, which can be interpreted as the present value of a deterministic perpetuity with exponentially growing payments.     

Co-voting democracy

We outline a new voting procedure for representative democracies. This procedure should be used for important decisions only and consists of two voting rounds: a randomly-selected subset of the citizens is awarded a one-time voting right. The parliament also votes, and the two decisions are weighted according to a pre-defined key. The final decision is implemented. As this procedure gives the society—represented by the randomly-chosen subset—a better say for important decisions, the citizens might be more willing to accept the consequences of these decisions.     

《现代主义之后的艺术史》 9、艺术对抗艺术史——以大众文化为镜

二战结束后,"艺术与生活"这对著名的对质命题即刻成为决定现代主义命运的根本因素,战后现代主义调头驶向战前现代主义的反方向。战后的标语不再是以艺术的名义(也是代设计美术和建筑美学而言)掌控"生活",赋予"生活"以强烈的"风格"。在美国人视线未及的欧洲,人