BOOK REVIEWS

ABSTRACT

The paper examines Africa's progress towards AACSB accreditation, especially to satisfy the 5 strategic management standards. Sadly, although there are 515 accredited business schools (as of January 2006) in 28 countries, Africa-with 54 nations-does not have a single AACSB accredited school. Many African business schools (ABSs) have the capacity to meet Standard 1 (mission statement), Standard 3 (student mission), and Standard 4 (continuous improvement objectives). But they have limited capacity to meet Standard 2 (mission appropriateness) and Standard 5 (financial strategies). Therefore, if AACSB-International wishes to truly become the accrediting agency for business schools worldwide, the agency and its members will need to play a more proactive, facilitative and enabling role in assisting business schools in Africa tackle these significant obstacles to accreditation.     

So,you want to be an entrepreneur? Lessons from the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities

Based on helping dozens of military veterans refine their ideas for starting a business, we identify and discuss a series of potential pitfalls that aspiring entrepreneurs—veterans and civilians alike—must avoid in order to be successful. Potential entrepreneurs must not confuse the pursuit of hobbies and self-employment with the act of creating a business. People who wish to build a business around public speaking or consulting need to firmly establish why customers should be willing to pay for their advice. Individuals that seek to develop a new non-profit organization must have a viable value proposition even though they are not pursing a profit motive. Overall, the entrepreneurial ventures that are most likely to succeed are those that (1) are based on a sustainable business model, (2) leverage the entrepreneur's unique experiences and attributes, and (3) are built around a process or system that enables the venture to prosper even if the entrepreneur leaves the venture.     

Business Dilemmas and Religious Belief: An Explorative Study among Dutch Executives

This paper explores the relationship between religious belief and the dilemmas Dutch executives confront in daily business practice. We find that the frequency with which dilemmas arise is directly related to various aspects of religious belief, such as the belief in a transcendental being and the intensity of religious practice. Despite this relationship, only 17% of the dilemmas examined involve a religious standard. Most dilemmas originate from a conflict between moral and practical standards. We also find that 79% of the identified dilemmas stem from a conflict between two or more internalized standards of the executive.Johan Graafland is a Professor of Economics, Business and Ethics at Tilburg University and Director of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University. He has published articles in The Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: A European Review, Philosophia Reformatica, Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Applied Economics, Economics Letters, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Empirical Economics, Journal of Policy Modelling, Public Finances/Finances Publique, Economic Modeling, Journal of Public Economics and others. His current research interests are corporate social responsibility and philosophy of economics.Muel Kaptein is a Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management at the RSM Erasmus University, where he chairs the Department of Business-Society Management. Muel is also a Director at KPMG Integrity and Investigation Services. He has published articles in a number of journals, including The Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society Review, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Review and European Management Journal. His most recent books are The Six Principles of Managing with Integrity (Spiro Press) and The Balanced Company (Oxford University Press). His research interests include the management of ethics, the measurement of ethics and the ethics of management. Muel is a Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics.Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten is a senior researcher at the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She has several years of experience as business consultant in the field of organizational change and group processes within organizations. Her research interests include leadership, religion and corporate social responsibility. She is currently working on a PhD thesis on religion and leadership.     

软件企业应收账款管理的对策

我国软件企业应收账款的现状堪忧,对企业造成了巨大负担.软件企业产生应收账款的成因包括以赊销为普遍竞争手段、内控管理不到位、会计基础工作不规范、客户需求表达不准确等.软件企业应收账款的解决有待于客户信用管理的强化、业务培训力度的增强以及应收账款管理制度和内控管理制度的建立健全.     

Consumer transactions with SMEs: implications for consumer scholars

Historically, the consumer movement has defined business as big business. This paper proposes that we shift the focus to consumer transactions with small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). After SMEs are defined, facts about the realities of SMEs are used as stepping stones to develop the idea that consumer interactions with SMEs are different than those with large firms and merit the attention of consumer scholars. Thirteen recommendations are tendered for future research including rethinking our traditional approach to consumer behaviour theory, consumer policy, and consumer movement theory.     

“营改增”对物流业的影响及对策探析

"营改增"是我国税收制度改革的一项重要举措,对物流业的长远发展有着极其重要的意义。就目前"营改增"试点城市的施行情况看,"营改增"对物流企业尚存在着税负不减反增、财务管理要求提高、操作流程需重新设计及生存压力大等问题。物流企业应积极从自身情况出发,及时申请过渡性财政扶持;调整经营结构,向供应链服务方向延伸;合理划分业务类型,降低企业纳税风险;进行税务筹划,控制企业税务成本,以减轻物流企业的税务负担,促进其更好更快发展。     

From Family Business Management to Professional Management in a Time-Honored Brand: The Case of Fu Yuan Guan

This case describes the development process of Fu Yuan Guan, a Chinese time-honored brand. Through privatization, Fu Yuan Guan survived and rapidly captured its market. However, the family business management style proved to be a bottleneck during further expansion. There is a need to recruit qualified professional managers to improve the overall management of the firm but it seems there are challenges in doing so. This case describes the daily operationalization of this family firm together with the approach of top managers, with the purpose of exhibiting how its internal management is implemented.     

The benefits and implementation of performance transparency: The why and how of letting your customers ‘see through’ your business

While some organizations swear by the benefits of transparency and are eager to learn and implement transparency practices, many managers are still reluctant or even afraid to use them. Our research reveals that only a few innovative companies have taken steps to leverage a potentially useful form of transparency: the provision of accessible and objective information to customers (e.g., sharing unbiased benchmark data, publishing unfiltered customer comments, or providing candid product reviews that may praise but also criticize the company’s products). Our study also shows that many companies remain wary and view greater calls for transparency as a challenge to be managed rather than an opportunity to be traded upon. This is partly due to limited research into the performance benefits of giving customers access to objective information, and lack of practical guidelines on how to actually implement it. This article addresses these shortcomings. First, we investigate whether performance transparency leads to customer outcomes that can be profitable for an organization and, second, we analyze the characteristics of successful transparency initiatives in a wide range of industries. Our research shows that customers exhibit more trust and are willing to pay a premium to deal with transparent businesses. Also, it uncovers seven effective strategies to leverage transparency. This article provides convincing empirical evidence for the benefits of performance transparency and the ways in which management may implement it successfully.     

Export intensity of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises: The role of trade finance availability

We examine the relationship between the role of trade finance availability and the export intensity of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs). In developing our hypotheses, we draw upon insights derived from “new” internalisation theory (international business literature) and international trade finance (international economics literature). We empirically test these hypotheses using survey data compiled from subsidiary managers in six ASEAN countries, supplemented with host-country level data. We conceptualise, empirically test, and establish that the subsidiary-level capability in combining and utilising internal and external debts is an important subsidiary-specific advantage to support export intensity. We find that subsidiaries employ intra-firm loans from MNE internal capital markets and, to some extent, bank loans from external financial institutions to boost their export intensity. Subsidiaries may have concerns about foreign exchange risks, but the use of appropriate foreign exchange risk management is positively associated with export intensity. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice.     

The Business Cycle and Profitability of Trading Strategies

Recent studies show that investor participation in the stock market rises during economic expansion and drops in economic recession. When investor participation is high, investors’ cognitive and behavioral biases are likely to have a strong influence on stock prices. We consider four trading strategies that are based on well-known market anomalies and examine their profitability under different economic conditions. For all four strategies, the portfolios that are formed in the months when the economy is expanding obtain significant profits, whereas the portfolios formed in economic recession months are not profitable. This finding is robust to different ways of classifying recession months.