The Role of Religiosity in Business and Consumer Ethics: A Review of the Literature

This study investigates antecedents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) subsidiaries. Using stakeholder theory and institutional theory that identify internal and external pressures for legitimacy in MNCs’ subsidiaries, we integrate international business and CSR literatures to create a model depicting CSR practices in MNCs’ subsidiaries. We propose that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be likely to adapt to local practices to legitimize themselves if they operate in host countries with different institutional environments and demanding stakeholders. We also predict that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be likely to adapt to local practices to avoid spillover effects if their parent companies suffer major legitimacy problems at home or abroad. However, we speculate that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be less likely to adapt to local practices if they are strongly annexed to their parent companies and the benefit to gain internal legitimacy outweighs external legitimacy. This article contributes to the discourse on CSR across borders by exploring the antecedents of CSR practices in MNCs’ subsidiaries at social and organizational levels, and integrating institutional and stakeholder views. We provide a number of propositions for future studies and explore implications for practitioners.     

Worktime Demands and Work-Family Interference: Does Worktime Control Buffer the Adverse Effects of High Demands?

This study examined whether worktime control buffered the impact of worktime demands on work–family interference (WFI), using data from 2,377 workers from various sectors of industry in The Netherlands. We distinguished among three types of worktime demands: time spent on work according to one’s contract (contractual hours), the number of hours spent on overtime work (overtime hours), and the number of hours spent on commuting (commuting hours). Regarding worktime control, a distinction was made between having control over days off and vacations (leave control) and having control over starting and finishing times (flextime). These three worktime demands were expected to have separate as well as joint effects on WFI, whereas worktime control should buffer these adverse effects of worktime demands on WFI. Stepwise regression analyses showed that working high numbers of contractual and overtime hours was indeed associated with high WFI. Further, worktime control indeed made a difference in terms of WFI: whereas leave control contributed directly to lower WFI, flextime buffered the adverse effects of long contractual workhours. Our results suggest that very long working days should be prevented, and that worktime control may be a powerful tool to help workers maintaining a good work–family balance.     

MODELING UNCERTAIN FORECAST ACCURACY IN SUPPLY CHAINS WITH POSTPONEMENT

We examine a situation where a manufacturer operates in a two‐mode production environment. The first mode could involve overseas vendors and manufacturing facilities. If additional units are later required, the company must use its second mode—more expensive last‐minute domestic vendors and manufacturing sites. We develop a new methodology for analyzing the impact of forecast accuracy on the decision to postpone production. We examine the interaction of forecast accuracy, shortage vs. holding costs, transportation costs and the cost of postponing production in the supply chain of a single product facing uncertain demand. Our model can be used to analyze the cost of important changes, such as increasing forecast accuracy, reducing the cost of backorders, lowering the cost of delaying production, or lowering transportation costs. Our model allows a firm to understand its overall cost structure so that it can accurately evaluate the impact of improved forecast accuracy and lowered costs in the context of postponement.     

Liquidity and hedging effectiveness under futures mispricing: International evidence

We analyze the hedging effectiveness of positions that replicate stock indexes using corresponding futures contracts through the application of a dynamic, stochastic hedging strategy proposed by Lafuente, J. A. and Novales, A. (2003). Conclusive gains do not emerge in any of the markets analyzed over the period considered, relative to the use of a constant unit hedge ratio. These findings are consistent with the trend observed in the IBEX 35 futures market study of Lafuente, J. A. and Novales, A. (2003). Our empirical evidence suggests that, contrary to what happens in less liquid markets, the discrepancy between theoretical and quoted prices in index futures contracts in fully developed markets does not represent a noise factor that can be successfully exploited for hedging. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:1050–1066, 2009     

Basic Needs,Government Debt and Economic Growth

This paper investigates the relationships between basic needs and economic growth where the interactions between output, health, nutrition and education are explicitly simultaneous. We find a unidirectional relationship that improving basic welfare contributes strongly to labour productivity change, but a clear reverse causation only from growth to nutrition. There are substantial differences in the patterns of simultaneous interactions at different income and welfare levels. There are strong self‐reinforcing effects of literacy and debt service on poverty, making it difficult for poor countries to rectify their situation. Channelling resources towards improving health, education and nutrition could bring dramatic economic returns.     

DEFINING AND OPERATIONALIZING SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS INTEGRATION

Integration has been recognized as critical to successful supply chain management. However, an extensive literature review revealed no consensus in its conceptualization. The current study attempts to address this research gap by providing a better definition and operationalization of supply chain process integration. With empirical support, it is proposed that internal and external supply chain process integration should be treated as two separate constructs, each comprised of two dimensions: connectivity and simplification.     

Mobility effects of b2c and c2c e-commerce in the Netherlands: a quantitative assessment

For more than a decade researchers have been interested in the implications of e-commerce for personal travel and freight transport. So far it is mostly the mobility effects of business-to-consumer (b2c) e-commerce that have been studied. However, consumer-to-consumer (c2c) e-commerce is becoming popular and may have important implications for mobility as well. Moreover, most studies conducted thus far have looked at the consequences of b2c e-commerce for either personal or freight travel, but not for both.This paper takes a more comprehensive approach. Using a nationwide sample of 3000 Dutch e-shoppers we calculated the potential impacts of both types of e-commerce on personal and freight travel. The results indicated that personal travel in the Netherlands has only marginally decreased as a result of e-shopping, while freight transport has slightly increased. The outcomes showed a net mobility effect, as the reduction in personal travel was not fully compensated by the increase in freight transport. However, this mobility reduction was fully attributed to b2c e-commerce, as c2c e-commerce led to an increase in both personal travel and freight transport.     

An analysis of air mass effects on rail ridership in three US cities

This paper examines whether daily weather affects ridership in urban transportation systems. When examining human–weather relationships, it is often advantageous to examine air masses, which take into account the entire parcel of air over a region. Spatial synoptic classification characterizes air masses based upon numerous meteorological variables at a given location. Thus, rather than examining temperature or precipitation individually, here we compare daily ridership to synoptic air mass classifications for three urban rail systems: Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and the Hudson–Bergen light-rail line in northern New Jersey. Air masses are found to have a significant impact on daily rail ridership, with usage typically increasing on dry, comfortable days and decreasing on moist, cool ones, particularly on weekends. Although the comfort of a particular air mass changes throughout the year, seasonality is not a significant factor with respect to the air mass–ridership relationship. The results of this study can benefit rail system managers who must predict daily ridership or in the development of cost-benefit analyses for station improvements.     

Commodity price inflation, retail pass-through and market power

When commodity prices rise, wholesalers and retailers of products derived from basic commodities respond by passing along at least a portion of the price increase to consumers. In this paper we examine whether firms respond differently to positive commodity price shocks than to negative commodity price shocks; that is, whether commodity price volatility alters market power. We exploit recent volatility in food commodity prices over the period 2007-2010 to investigate how commodity price shocks translate into market power in two different vertically-structured food product industries: potatoes and fluid milk. For potatoes, we find both wholesale and retail market power decreases (increases) during periods of rising (falling) commodity prices. Moreover, price-cost margins widen a substantially greater degree in response to negative shocks than margins narrow in response to positive shocks, indicating that commodity price volatility increases market power. For fluid milk, we find that market power likewise declines during periods of rising commodity prices; however, market power does not significantly change during periods of falling commodity prices, suggesting that commodity price volatility decreases market power.     

西南民族地区农村商品市场建设与贸易发展

西南民族地区农村商品市场运行基础薄弱、运行要素缺位、运行环境恶劣,民族贸易发展也深陷困境。建设西南民族地区农村商品市场和发展民族贸易需要走产业、市场互动的自生型发展的道路。应落实民族贸易政策,重构民族贸易体系。