The determinants of corporate divestment in the UK

It has been widely suggested that since the early 1980s many diversified firms narrowed the scope of their activities by refocusing on their core businesses, primarily through divestment activity. This study examines the extent and determinants of divestment across a large sample of UK firms over the period 1985–1989. Divestment is analysed using both a proportions and count data (Poisson and negative binomial regressions) approach. The results confirm that corporate divestment is not merely a reflection of managerial idiosyncrasies or mean reversion behaviour in the activities undertaken, but is a purposeful response to exogenous change in a manner broadly consistent with both the agency theoretic and strategic views of the firm.     

Faith at Work Scale (FWS): Justification,Development, and Validation of a Measure of Judaeo-Christian Religion in the Workplace

Workplace spirituality research has sidestepped religion by focusing on the function of belief rather than its substance. Although establishing a unified foundation for research, the functional approach cannot shed light on issues of workplace pluralism, individual or institutional faith-work integration, or the institutional roles of religion in economic activity. To remedy this, we revisit definitions of spirituality and argue for the place of a belief-based approach to workplace religion. Additionally, we describe the construction of a 15-item measure of workplace religion informed by Judaism and Christianity – the Faith at Work Scale (FWS). A stratified random sample (n = 234) of managers and professionals assisted in refining the FWS which exhibits a single factor structure (Eigenvalue = 8.88; variance accounted for = 59.22%) that is internally consistent (Cronbach’s α = 0.77) and demonstrates convergent validity with the Faith Maturity Scale (r = 0.81, p > 0.0001). The scale shows lower skew and kurtosis with Mainline and Catholic adherents than with Mormons and Evangelicals. Validation of the scale among Jewish and diverse Christian adherants would extend research in workplace religion.     

Time-consistency in managing a commodity portfolio: A dynamic risk measure approach

We address the problem of managing a storable commodity portfolio, that includes physical assets and positions in spot and forward markets. The vast amount of capital involved in the acquisition of a power plant or storage facility implies that the financing period stretches over a period of several quarters or years. Hence, an intertemporally consistent way of optimizing the portfolio over the planning horizon is required. We demonstrate the temporal inconsistency of static risk objectives based on final wealth and advocate the validity in our setting of a new class of recursive risk measures introduced by Epstein and Zin [Epstein, G., Zin, S., 1989. Substitution, risk aversion, and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework. Econometrica, 57 (4) 937–969] and Wang [Wang, T., 2000. A class of dynamic risk measures University of British Columbia]. These risk measures provide important insights on the trade-offs between date-specific risks (i.e., losses occurring at a point in time) and time-duration risks represented by the pair (return, risk) over a planning horizon; in a number of situations, they dramatically improve the efficiency of static risk objectives, as exhibited in numerical examples.     

Impact of an audit reporting expert system on learning performance: A teaching note

Audit reporting is a complex process, requiring knowledge of various reporting issues and corresponding report formats. To address the difficulty of presenting audit reporting concepts to students, the authors constructed and used an audit reporting system, named AUDPORT, in their first-level auditing classes at two major state universities. This paper reports the use of AUDPORT as a teaching aid and its impact on students' performance.     

State intervention for food price stabilisation in Africa: Can it work?

Although its arguments may have more general applicability, this paper discusses the desirability and options for the stabilisation of staple food prices principally in Eastern and Southern Africa. It addresses three broad questions: (i) why is stabilisation of food (grain) prices desirable? (ii) what is technically feasible? and (iii) can the governance and trade issues thrown up by suggested mechanisms be solved? It considers a number of options for price stabilisation, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each and suggesting situations in which each may be appropriate.     

Entry and Exit in a Transition Economy: The Case of Poland

The purpose of this paper is to examine the industrialentry and exit in a transitioneconomy, over the interval of change from a predominatelystate-owned productivesystem. The data set employed offers a near-exhaustivecoverage of manufacturingfirms in Poland. The paper estimates entry and exit equationsacross 152 3-digitindustries, using an adaptation of an Orr–Shapiro/Khemani-typemodel to allow for thespecial circumstances of a transition economy. Theresults suggest that, despite theturbulence of the immediate post-transition period,the patterns of entry and exitbehaviour in Poland correspond closely to thoseobserved in more mature marketeconomies.     

“智慧的地球”是怎么回事？

＂智慧的地球＂并不只是围绕着一种概念,是真正一系列我们可以采取行动的技巧,能够应用在面对的所有挑战当中。