C. L. Bragg, Charles D. Ross, Gordon A. Blaker, Stephanie A. T. Jacobe, and Theodore P. Savas. Never for Want of Powder: The Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia

Never for Want of Powder is a lavishly illustrated history ofthe Confederate gunpowder factory in Augusta, Georgia that operatedbetween 1862 and 1865 and furnished the South's armies withover three million pounds of explosives. Published with supportfrom the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., of Thomson, Georgia,the book describes how Colonel George Washington Rains, an engineerand West Point graduate, built a successful munitions factoryin an agricultural region dominated by a plantation economy.     

Commonality in Codes of Ethics

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that “ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company.” Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform.     

Inbound Marketing

Literaturhinweise

Inbound Marketing Literaturhinweise zusammengestellt von Alexander Schagen, MBA     

The ‘Neighbourhood Effect’: A multidisciplinary assessment of the case for farmer co-ordination in agri-environmental programmes

In this paper we present a multi-disciplinary analysis of the potential impacts of undertaking similar environmental actions on multiple farms in a small geographic area, using organic farming as a proxy for a co-ordinated approach. Recent papers have called for more co-ordinated efforts between farmers in terms of their environmental actions, but there has been limited applied research demonstrating the environmental benefits or the economic and social implications to farmers of this approach. Comparative analysis of biodiversity, soil and water, and farm profitability were undertaken in England on 32 matched farms in areas of low and high organic farming concentration; qualitative interviews were also conducted with 48 farmers living in two of the eight areas. Findings demonstrate higher overall levels of biodiversity on organic farms (particularly in “hotspot” areas) but this was not universal across the species groups investigated. Higher water infiltration rates were found in organic grasslands, which could prove to be a useful measure to combat flooding. In terms of the technical efficiency of producing these environmental gains, conventional and organic farms in hotspot areas demonstrated equivalent efficiency from a financial perspective. Socio-cultural research identified the different amounts of trust farmers have in their neighbours, based in part on their performance as ‘good farmers’. We discuss the neighbourhood effect with a multi-disciplinary approach and conclude that encouraging local farmer co-ordination can have clear environmental benefits without high economic cost, but must be undertaken with caution - specifically regarding the trade-offs between benefits, local geophysical and social characteristics, and assumptions made about inter-farmer trust.     

别说了,把话筒交给消费者吧——成功的用户自创内容（user-generated-content）活动

大家最近有去唱过卡拉OK吗？其实从唱K中获得的欢乐与用户自创内容活动颇有相似之处。在卡拉OK娱乐场所,流行歌曲和伴奏音乐固然是至关重要的。没有它们,就没办法唱歌!     

Inflationsziel und Inflationsmessung in der Eurozone im Wandel

Wirtschaftsdienst - Viele Menschen im Euroraum haben zunehmend das Gefühl, dass der allgemeine Kaufkraftverlust des Geldes sehr viel höher ist als die offiziell gemessenen...