The business of peace: Coca-Cola's contribution to stability,growth, and optimism

This article reviews the role of a global commercial organization, The Coca-Cola Company, in contributing to national stability in developing markets through a strategic approach to social and economic contribution. The company's initiatives complement the role of policymakers, who are primarily responsible for the safety and prosperity of citizens, often using the Golden Triangle model that aligns government, civil society, and the private sector. Examples are drawn from the empowerment of women and youth; leverage of specialist expertise in water replenishment and in distribution and logistics; the impact of global standards of compliance; and the creation of high-value jobs throughout the expansive value chain. The Coca-Cola system is global in scale but multi-local in its operations, leveraging universal human traits with high relevance in individual markets.     

Proximity analysis of inefficient practices and socio-spatial negligence: Evidence,evaluations and recommendations drawn from the construction of Chotiari reservoir in Pakistan

In this study, we have used qualitative data from land-use conflicts for a development-related infrastructure project based on the case of Chotiari reservoir in Pakistan. Our results primarily highlight the networks of stakeholders involved in making the decisions for this project and their opposition to the desires of the local population, leading to significant tensions and conflicts due to the superposition of land-use expectations in the project area. Through this research, we have identified the key groups of actors and their logics, links and behaviors in terms of multi-level governance (from community level to international level) and territorial governance, thus revealing the positions of stakeholders and their relative social power. We show how public authorities have disregarded international rules and laws in undertaking a development project, and caused great damage to local populations and environmental resources. This article aims to provide useful information and insights for recommendations to help prevent and resolve land-use conflicts, principally on the basis of an analysis of proximity relations.     

Measuring the degree of competition in Pakistan’s banking industry: an empirical analysis

Pakistan’s banking industry has gone through significant transformation from being in a heavily state regulated and controlled environment to a more liberalized market structure in recent years. This liberalization of banking industry in Pakistan has raised concerns over the dominant banks’ exercise of market power on account of increase in market concentration due to mergers and acquisitions, high profitability in banking sector and increasing interest rate spread. Present study therefore explicitly tests the market conduct of banks using quarterly panel data of 30 banks from 2004 to 2012 and employing Panzar–Rosse, Bresnahan–Lau, Hall–Roeger and Boone’s approaches to study market power. Our findings suggest that Pakistan’s banking industry is working in a competitive environment and we find little evidence for the exercise of market power by the dominant banks. Our results remain robust across all these approaches to measure market power. These findings indicate that the liberalization and deregulation of Pakistan’s banking industry has been successful in improving the competitive conditions in the market.     

A study of employee affective organizational commitment and retention in Pakistan: the roles of psychological contract breach and norms of reciprocity

Abstract

Social exchange theory and notions of reciprocity have long been assumed to explain the relationship between psychological contract breach and important employee outcomes. To date, however, there has been no explicit testing of these assumptions. This research, therefore, explores the mediating role of negative, generalized, and balanced reciprocity, in the relationships between psychological contract breach and employees’ affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions. A survey of 247 Pakistani employees of a large public university was analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques, and provided excellent support for our model. As predicted, psychological contract breach was positively related to negative reciprocity norms and negatively related to generalized and balanced reciprocity norms. Negative and generalized (but not balanced) reciprocity were negatively and positively (respectively) related to employees’ affective organizational commitment and fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and affective organizational commitment. Moreover, affective organizational commitment fully mediated the relationship between generalized and negative reciprocity and employees’ turnover intentions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Antecedents of organizational identification in multinational corporations: fostering psychological attachment to the local subsidiary and the global organization

This article reports the results of an empirical case study of the antecedents of organizational identification among local managers in a multinational corporation (MNC). Organizational identification, which refers to an individual's psychological attachment to the organization, has gained increasing attention because of its assumed link with behaviour associated with enhanced organizational performance. Yet little work has been done on what fosters organizational identification, particularly within the context of a MNC. Moreover, there is empirical evidence showing that managerial employees of MNCs draw a distinction between their local subsidiary and the global organization as manifest in separate group identifications. This suggests that there may be differential sets of antecedents of identification with the local subsidiary and with the global organization. The results of the present study indicate that there are different sets of factors that promote identification with the local and global levels of the organization. The results further show a complementarity of causal variables; identification with the local subsidiary is fostered primarily by factors which pertain to the local company context, while identification with the global organization is fostered primarily by factors which pertain to the MNC as a global entity.     

Trade liberalization and income inequality: The case for Pakistan

Trade liberalization policies have been adopted by many developing countries to increase economic growth and reduce poverty. While the positive relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth is generally well accepted, the impact of trade liberalization on poverty and income inequality is still unclear. The objective of this paper is to use real data and real trade agreements of the state of Pakistan, to examine the predictions made by trade models about the impact of trade liberalization on income inequality. To illustrate, the impacts of several alternative bilateral and regional free trade agreements are simulated on household income and income inequality in Pakistan. The results show that trade liberalization does not always lead to a decline in income inequality in the short run. Trade agreements that do improve income equality, favor agriculture and often hinge on a decline in urban and non-farm household income. In the long run, changes in income equality are more positive, suggesting that efforts might best be applied towards improving the mobility of labor and capital.     

China Ranked the 7th in Global Influence Survey

The results of the Annual Global Public Opinion Survey were released by the British Broadcasting Company （BBC） on April 2,2008,the combination of 7,457 public opinion polls in 34 countries,gave Germany and Japan the No.1 and No.2 spots,respectively, while the last four went to North Korea, Pakistan,Israel,Iran.