The role of dairy company policies in support of farm green infrastructure in the absence of government stewardship payments

Intensive dairy farming has substantial impacts on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Determining how to mitigate them while increasing production is driving the quest for sustainable milk production internationally. Green infrastructure (G.I.) provides private and public ecosystem services, including mitigation of farming environmental impacts. However, there are implementation barriers among farmers. New Zealand government supports farmer self-regulation as long as farmers meet environmental targets. Farmers are neither compensated for reducing environmental impacts, nor for setting aside G.I. in support of nature conservation. Dairy companies are under increasing pressure to ensure socially acceptable milk production practices among farmer suppliers. They may play a role in encouraging farmers to implement G.I. as a way of helping farmers meet regulatory compliance, and best farming practice. Using a content analysis of company policies, the role of dairy companies in encouraging G.I. among farmers is explored. Results indicate companies are concerned about the effects, and perception, of poor environmental farming practices on their profitability, and have developed some riparian G.I. policies, with government and farmer support. However, policies are farm-focused and are limited to one year, and thus lack the capacity to encourage G.I. in support of key ecosystem services, such as water cleansing and support for indigenous biodiversity that require landscape scaled networks and longer periods. Even at the farm scale, a majority of companies lack policies that encourage significant G.I. networks. Policies suggest companies, and by extension farmers, lack sufficient motivation to protect or restore them voluntarily. Under these conditions, significant G.I. is unlikely to develop under self-regulation, unless supplemented through motivating government stewardship payments.     

菱角壳的化学成分和药理活性研究进展

近年来对菱角壳的研究主要分为化学成分和药理活性研究两个方面,其中化学成分方面的研究可以概括为生物碱、酚酸类、萜类和甾体、多糖类、黄酮类5个方面;药理活性方面的研究可以概括为抗癌活性、抗氧化活性、降低α-葡萄糖苷酶活性、保肝护肝活性、抗菌活性5个方面。目前在化学成分方面的研究较弱,从研究结果来看,没食子酸及其衍生物是菱角壳的主要药用成分。最后就菱角壳的开发利用提出了几点建议。     

企业成长性剖析及注意事项

成长性分析是企业财务状况非常重要的一个方面,然而,目前的成长性指标却常常让企业家产生困惑,比如有的成长性指标好,有的成长性指标差,那么到底企业的成长性如何?又如代表未来潜在成长性的指标显示不好,但几年后再看企业的成长性却没有当时所显示的差,这又是什么原因导致?是企业成长性指标分析失效还是有别的原因。本文通过对成长性指标进行深度剖析,得出企业成长性指标之间的逻辑关系以及未来潜在成长性指标所隐含的假设,以解释目前分析中存在的疑惑,并依此提出进行企业成长性分析时的注意事项。     

Heterogeneous returns to chemical fertilizer at the intensive margins: Insights from Nepal

Increased fertilizer use is considered important for agricultural development in low-income countries. Promoting increased use of chemical fertilizer by lowering its price may be ineffective if demand is price inelastic. In theory, the price elasticity of demand depends on the returns to its use, but the evidence is scarce. Furthermore, while returns are often estimated for small changes in chemical fertilizer use, returns to larger changes in its use (intensive margins) are less understood. Through the inter-zonal comparisons in Nepal, we provide indicative evidence that greater returns to chemical fertilizer are associated with greater price elasticities of demand. Moreover, the evidence suggests that returns at the intensive margins, rather than returns to small changes, may largely account for inter-zonal differences in returns to chemical fertilizer within Nepal. The results suggest that better understanding the returns at the intensive margins is critical for effective agricultural inputs policies in developing countries.     

保险业新主体公司的经济绩效与组织管理及人力资本利用

近年来保险业许多成立的新主体公司,为了抢占市场份额,在所采取的各种组织措施和组织手段中,其最重要的组织管理与人力资源利用的制度却出现了矛盾和悖论,进而又出现了人力资源利用与经济绩效的悖论,并造成人力资本的原子状态,使公司成员缺乏团队精神,不能形成整体的合力,并带来公司内人际关系紧张等一系列严重问题。究其问题的核心,发现其组织管理制度和人才激励机制是对人的扭曲,把人降低为物当成了工具。这样的问题如果不能得到及早、尽快地解决,不仅会影响新主体公司的生存和发展,甚至会危及整个保险业的健康发展。     

辽宁上市公司董事会报告透明度影响因素研究

以46家辽宁上市公司为样本,对影响董事会报告透明度因素的研究发现:股权集中度、管理层持股比例、董事会规模、独立董事比例与董事会报告透明度呈正相关关系;股权制衡度,董事长与总经理是否两职合一,审计意见类型与董事会报告透明度呈负相关关系。上市公司应该通过股票期权等方式提升管理人员的持股比例,激励他们积极治理公司,提高董事会报告信息披露的透明度;上市公司第二大股东应适度提高持股比例,防止一股独大现象;同时减少董事长与总经理两职合一,也会有助于提高董事会报告的透明度。     

Debt enforcement,investment, and risk taking across countries

We argue that the prospect of an imperfect enforcement of debt contracts in default reduces shareholder–debtholder conflicts and induces leveraged firms to invest more and take on less risk as they approach financial distress. To test these predictions, we use a large panel of firms in 41 countries with heterogeneous debt enforcement characteristics. Consistent with our model, we find that the relation between debt enforcement and firms’ investment and risk depends on the firm-specific probability of default. A differences-in-differences analysis of firms’ investment and risk taking in response to bankruptcy reforms that make debt more renegotiable confirms the cross-country evidence.     

The Impact of Position Difference on Employees’ Organizational Commitment After the Merger of Life Insurance Companies

We investigate the impacts of job position and survey time period on employee’s organizational commitment of insurance company after the merger. Our results show that both job position and survey time period are significant determinants to employee’s organizational commitment. Results also show that there is no interaction effect between survey time period and job position. For each year, during the survey time period, the mean of organization commitment of agent employees is significantly higher than staff employees. The mean difference of organizational commitment between agent and staff employees shrank year by year during the survey time period.     

Optimal dividend strategies with time-inconsistent preferences

This paper studies the optimal dividend strategies of an insurance company when the manager has time-inconsistent preferences. We consider the problem for a naive manager and a sophisticated manager, and analytically derive the optimal dividend strategies when claim sizes follow an exponential distribution. Our results show that the manager with time-inconsistent preferences tends to pay out dividends earlier than her time-consistent counterpart and that the sophisticated manager is more inclined to pay out dividends than the naive manager. Furthermore, we extend these results to the case with claim sizes following a mixed exponential distribution, and provide a numerical analysis to reveal the sensitivity of the optimal dividend strategies to changes in the premium, claims and surplus volatility.     

Impact of Stressful Situations on Salespersons' Gestures

Interest: This research analyses the influence of situations on salespersons’ gestures and behaviors. This research contributes to this underresearched field by exploring the impact of stressful versus nonstressful situations on salespersons’ personal behavior.

Methods: This research is based on 1,205 gestures observed during 382 sales calls that averaged 11 minutes with 382 salespersons. Half were in stressful situations, and half were in nonstressful situations. This study focuses on pharmaceutical products (drugs) in the medical field, with 95 doctors, 6 judges, 304 average performing salespersons, 39 high performers, and 39 low performers. This study shows how salespersons’ behaviors vary depending on stressful and nonstressful situations. This research also articulates a new field of sales research that is understudied by researchers and suggests new training trends in sales management.

Objective: The objective is to answer questions such as “Does stress influence salespersons’ behavior, and what are the gestures most affected by such situations?” To examine the effects of training on gestures, an experiment with 97 salespersons was conducted during a sales training session. This experiment measured whether salespersons trained on gestures behaved differently than those who were untrained.

Results: In general, stressful or nonstressful situations caused real differences in gestural behavior. In particular, the best salespersons performed the largest number of gestures during stressful situations. For example, stressful situations increased the mechanical or emotional gestures in leg movements or the number of glances.