In search of global leaders

For all the talk about global organizations and executives, there's no definitive answer to the question of what we really mean by "global." A presence in multiple countries? Cultural adaptability? A multilingual top team? We asked four CEOs and the head of an international recruiting agency--HSBC's Stephen Green, Schering-Plough's Fred Hassan, GE's Jeffrey-lmmelt, Flextronics's Michael Marks, and Egon Zehnder's Daniel Meiland--to tell us what they think. They share some common ground. They all agree, for example, that the shift from a local to a global marketplace is irreversible and gaining momentum. "We're losing sight of the reality of globalization. But we should pay attention, because national barriers are quickly coming down", Daniel Meiland says. "If you look ahead five or ten years, the people with the top jobs in large corporations ... will be those who have lived in several cultures and who can converse in at least two languages." But the CEOs also disagree on many issues--on the importance of overseas assignments, for instance, and on the degree to which you need to adhere to local cultural norms. Some believe strongly that the global leader should, as a prerequisite to the job, live and work in other countries. As Stephen Green put it, "If you look at the executives currently running [HSBC's] largest businesses, all of them have worked in more than one, and nearly all in more than two, major country markets." Others downplay the importance of overseas assignments. "Putting people in foreign settings doesn't automatically imbue new attitudes, and it is attitudes rather than experiences that make a culture global," says Fred Hassan. The executives' essays capture views that are as diverse and multidimensional as the companies they lead.     

宗教与政治：对欧洲和美国的比较分析

通过对美国和欧洲共10个国家(英国、法国、德国、意大利、西班牙、丹麦、荷兰、奥地利、波兰)的16,000名成年人进行的跨国调查(2002及2003年),本文考察了当地的宗教信仰状况,着重于他们对神权、生命的实质及生命的开始等三方面的理解认识,并进一步研究了他们的一些宗教行为(如祈祷及参与宗教活动的频率)和对宗教领袖的信任程度。本文的重点在于分析个人宗教价值观对其就新兴生化科技所持政治态度的影响。为此收集了广泛的研究数据,考察受访者对主要生化科技,如胚胎干细胞应用、转基因食品和克隆等的观点和态度。最后,使用多元回归研究模式的结构方程模型(SEM)分别描述了人们的宗教价值观、对生命的理解、年龄、性别和教育水平等几个变量对于堕胎、胚胎干细胞应用研究和安乐死等三项公共政策争论的影响。     

Competition and market power in option demand markets

We call markets in which intermediaries sell networks of suppliers to consumers who are uncertain about their needs "option demand markets." In these markets, suppliers may grant the intermediaries discounts in order to be admitted to their networks. We derive a measure of each supplier's market power within the network; the measure is based on the additional ex ante expected utility consumers obtain from the supplier's inclusion. We empirically validate the WTP measure by considering managed care purchases of hospital services in the San Diego market. Finally, we present three applications, including an analysis of hospital mergers in San Diego.     

电子计算机在会计方面的应用(续)

六、月末结帐在采用早先的处理方法时,一个特殊的问题就是月底的余额结算。因为时间上有冲突,在本期的所有发生额尚未结清和过帐之前,下期的发生额就已经有了。鉴于这种情况,通常就采取这样的程序,那就是在所有旧帐还未结清之前,就不过新帐。这种处理程序,除了带来管理方面和文书档案方面的问题外,它还是造成平时工作量不均衡和月末工作量过分集中的一个因素。