Disclosures of Social Value Creation and Managing Legitimacy: A Case Study of Three Global Social Enterprises

This study seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining how and whether disclosure of social value creation becomes a part of the legitimation strategies of social enterprises. In particular, using Suchman's (1995) moral dimension of legitimacy theory, this study sets out whether and how disclosures by three global social organisations – Grameen Bank, Charity Water and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – conform to the expectations of the broader community. The study finds that there is an apparent disconnection between disclosure and action by social enterprises. With reference to a few incidents, social enterprises use disclosure as a part of their managerial efforts, rather than to create moral legitimacy. The notion of apparent disconnection between disclosure and real action by social enterprises is evident. The notion is consistent with extant disclosure literature capturing the motivations for the disclosure practices of corporations. The findings of this paper suggest that when an organisation (whether it is a corporation or a social enterprise) faces a legitimacy crisis, it appears to disclose good news rather than bad news, which calls into question organisational moral legitimacy.     

Microcredit Programme Participation and Household Food Security in Rural Bangladesh

Lack of access to credit prevents poor households in developing countries from diversifying into income‐generating activities that could safeguard them against unforeseen shocks and seasonality, leaving them susceptible to food deprivation, even when aggregate food supplies are adequate. Microcredit programmes help these households to access financial capital that could help improve their food security situation. We examine how microcredit affects different measures of food security; namely, household calorie availability, dietary diversity indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15–49 years) and children under the age of 5 years. We find that microcredit programme participation increases calorie availability both at the intensive and extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of microcredit participation on food security may be non‐linear in which participation initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it, before improving it in the longer run. Our results help to explain why existing short‐term evaluations of microcredit sometimes do not show any positive effects.     

Overconfidence Mediates How Perception of past Portfolio Returns Affects Investment Behaviors

Investors’ perception of past portfolio returns predicts their investment behavior, but does this relationship mediate by overconfidence? Taking into account different aspects of overconfidence, this paper examines whether overconfidence manifested as illusion of control, miscalibration and better-than-average mediates the association between perception of past portfolio returns and investment behavior. In a survey study with individual and institutional investors from Malaysia, the results indicate that perception of higher past portfolio returns increases investors’ trading, percentage of risky share investment and the number of financial asset holding, through the mediating channel of better-than-average effect. While individual investors are influenced by this overconfidence mechanism, institutional investors are not sensitive. This finding has theoretical implication for overconfidence model, house money effect and naïve reinforcement learning. Practically, the results imply that individual investors should be careful about underlying overconfidence biases as it can lead to inefficient decisions.     

Modelling and forecasting national introduction times for successive generations of mobile telephony

An accurate prediction of the timing of a country's introduction of a new generation of mobile telephony benefits numerous agents including suppliers of network and consumer equipment, regulators, and network planners. We consider the estimation and prediction of the time interval between the international introduction of a generation of mobile telephony and its introduction into a specific country when a decision maker judges the introduction of a newer technology a worthwhile investment. Using literature-based socio-economic and geographical variables, we examine how well variation in international introduction times of four generations of mobile telephony in 172 countries can be explained and forecast. We model and forecast introduction times at two levels of granularity: we use Cox's proportional hazards model for the introduction time; we partition countries into introduction time-based segments and model segment membership using multinomial logistic regression. Our modelling of each generation considers three subsets of explanatory variables: All variables, socio-economic Covariates only, Regional dummies only. Over successive generations, the Covariates only models reveal the changing relevance of each socio-economic covariate. Model-based forecasting of the introduction time of the next generation is performed under three hypotheses making different uses of the information available at the time the relevant generation is launched internationally. However, changing socio-economic environments coupled with changing models impair forecasting accuracy, the lower accuracy of modelled introduction times is concentrated in 20% of countries. We speculate about the nature of the unobserved factors affecting these countries' decision processes.     

构建和谐社会视角下的新疆居民收入差距探析

改革开放以来,新疆居民收入普遍大幅度增加,各个阶层群众都获得了改革开放带来的实惠。同时,收入格局也发生了深刻的变化,居民收入差距尤其是城乡之间、地区之间、行业之间的居民收入差距急剧扩大。本文对新疆居民收入差距的现状及产生的原因进行了分析,在此基础上提出了缩小地区收入差距,构建社会主义和谐新疆的对策建议。     

Leading with moral courage: The interplay of guilt and courage on perceived ethical leadership and group organizational citizenship behaviors

This study uses a moderated mediation model to investigate the role of leaders’ moral courage and guilt in promoting group‐level organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Based on the idea that leaders model ethical behavior among followers, we examine whether leaders’ display of morally laden emotions weaken follower perceptions of ethical leadership, thus disrupting the influence of moral courage on followers. Two independent studies examined the proposed model. Study 1 used an experimental design to examine leaders’ moral displays, testing the interactive effects of leader moral courage, and guilt on follower perceptions of ethical leadership. Study 2 used a multisource field study with 100 leaders and 336 subordinates to explore how a leader displays of courage and guilt influenced group‐level OCB, mediated by ethical leadership. Consistent with our theoretical model, we find an indirect positive relationship between a leader’s moral courage and group OCB. However, we also find that this effect is weakened by displays of guilt by the leader.     

Communicating sustainability through a destination’s website: a checklist to inform,motivate, and engage stakeholders

This study investigated sustainability communication through destination websites. In particular, it suggested an online sustainability communication checklist (OSC-Checklist) that informs, motivates, and engages stakeholders to contribute towards the development of environmental, sociocultural, and economic sustainability. The OSC-Checklist was applied to the official websites of the top 50 competitive destinations with the aim of evaluating the extent to which each destination communicates sustainability on its website. The results indicated that the sample destinations lack an appropriate online approach to communicate sustainability. The results also revealed that the less developed and competitive destinations scored higher in terms of communicating sustainability than other more competitive developed destinations. Theoretical and practical implications are also provided.     

Will Inequality Lead China to the Middle Income Trap？

China has departed from the East Asian development model by letting inequality rise to a high level, which is now contributing to China＇s current problems of macroeconomic imbalance, declining efficiency of capital, and rising social tensions. If inequality persists, China may get caught in the ＂inequality-trap,＂ which may then lead to the middle income trap （MIT）. Fortunately, China still has the levers to pull to reduce inequality and avoid the MIT. Measures along both the ＂wage route＂ and the ＂redistributive route＂ can be adopted for this purpose. In addition, China may pursue the ＂cooperative route＂ to more equitable distribution.