Antecedents and Consequences of Eco‐Control Deployment: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing Firms

Environmental issues have become an important consideration for a growing number of organizations. Eco‐control may represent a valuable tool to help organizations address such issues. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the eco‐control practices adopted by Canadian organizations and to understand the antecedents and consequences of their adoption. More specifically, this study examines (i) the extent to which eco‐control practices are deployed within organizations, (ii) the factors and motivations that lead organizations to implement eco‐control practices, and (iii) the impact of adoption on firms’ managerial and operational environmental actions as well as on environmental and economic performance. Using survey data from a sample of 249 Canadian manufacturing firms, this article shows that environmental missions, environmental policies, environmental strategic planning, environmental budgets and environmental performance indicators are the most frequently adopted eco‐control practices among the investigated firms, while environmental incentives seem to be less frequently adopted. The results of this study also suggest that competitive and ethical motivations as well as size, environmental exposure and stakeholder pressure are all important factors in explaining eco‐control practice adoption by Canadian manufacturing firms. Moreover, the results of this study show that organizations that have undertaken more intensive managerial and operational environmental actions have also adopted more intensive eco‐control practices. Organizations adopting more intensive eco‐control practices perform better both environmentally and economically performance than firms adopting less intensive eco‐control practices.     

The role of rating agencies in the market for charitable contributions: An empirical test

Rating agencies play the role of information intermediaries in the market for donations. These watchdog organizations obtain and interpret accounting data and other information about charitable organizations and report ratings to help donors select among the many organizations soliciting contributions. In the age of the internet, information from Internal Revenue Service Form 990 returns prepared by tax-exempt organizations is more readily accessible than ever before. This study examines whether the zero- to four-star ratings provided by Charity Navigator have additional information content for donors. Charity Navigator was selected because its rating system relies almost exclusively on the 990 returns and presumably adds value by incorporating peer-group expectations for various ratios and by presenting straightforward and concise data. Using a random sample of 405 charities rated by Charity Navigator, our results suggest that rating changes do impact contributions. Positive rating changes were associated with an increase in contributions and organizations with a decline in rating were associated with decreased contributions. These effects were in addition to what would be predicted using an efficiency ratio commonly computed from Form 990 accounting data and other control variables.     

政策推动还是市场驱动?--基于文本挖掘技术的绿色金融发展指数计算及影响因素分析

本文运用文本挖掘法测算了2012~2017年全国31个省市区绿色金融发展指数水平,在此基础之上,首次较为全面地检验了政策推动、金融发展、生态环境和经济基础四大类因素对各地绿色金融发展水平的影响,并分别对2012~2014年、2015~2017年两个时间段子样本,以及东、中、西部三个区域子样本进行了进一步检验。实证结果表明:从全国来看,地方专门政策和金融发展水平是推动我国各地绿色金融发展的关键变量,但金融发展水平的影响并不稳定,且有赖于地方政策的实施;从时间上看,金融发展水平和地方政策推动分别是2015年前后我国各地绿色金融发展的主要影响因素,2015年后政策的出台进一步增强了金融发展对绿色金融的推动作用;分区域看,由金融发展水平主导的、自下而上的绿色金融创新在东部地区更为活跃,而西部地区则更有赖于地方政策主导的、自上而下的支持。     

我国出口贸易与环境污染的实证分析

我国基于劳动力、自然资源和环境标准等方面具有比较优势的出口行业,在出口贸易得到极大发展的同时,也带来了日益严重的环境污染问题。本文通过对我国主要出口工业行业污染物排放的实证分析,得出了日渐扩大的贸易活动与环境污染的加剧有密切关联的结论,并提出了相关的政策建议。     

国外绿色贸易措施动向及我国的对策研究

20年来传统的环境壁垒概念已无法概括今天带"绿化"趋向的贸易措施之种种。在世界经济、政治的角逐和对未来霸权的抗衡中,绿色贸易措施与经济民族主义的结合,将成为各国限制进口、保护本国产业,特别是可持续发展的重要手段。对此我国宏观上欠缺预测与应变,微观上有关措施显得零碎、乏力。目前需要系统建立基于严格法律和经济标准的全国性绿色措施,以彻底改造我国的国内环境。     

Healthy Profits: An Interdisciplinary Retail Framework that Increases the Sales of Healthy Foods

Disruptive layouts, smart carts, suggestive signage, GPS alerts, and touch-screen preordering all foreshadow an evolution in how healthy foods will be sold in grocery stores. Although seemingly unrelated, they will all influence sales by altering either how convenient, attractive, or normal (CAN) it is to purchase a healthy target food. A Retail Intervention Matrix shows how a retailer’s actions in these three areas can be redirected to target shoppers based on whether the shoppers are Health Vigilant, Health Predisposed, or Health Disinterested. For researchers, this review offers an organizing framework that integrates marketing, nutrition, psychology, public health, and behavioral economics to identify next generation research. For managers, this framework underscores how dozens of small, low cost, in-store changes are available to each that can surprisingly increase sales of entire categories of healthy food.     

Funding the story of hybrid ventures: Crowdfunder lending preferences and linguistic hybridity

Prosocial crowdfunding platforms are venues for individual lenders to allocate resources to ventures that specifically pursue economic and social value. In a setting where hybridity is expected, do crowdfunders respond positively to category-spanning ventures, or do they prefer to fund ventures that are more clearly situated within a single category? Drawing on theory rooted in category membership and spanning, our hypotheses test whether prosocial crowdfunding lenders will more quickly allocate resources to hybrid microenterprises that communicate their hybridity, or to those that communicate a single one of their dual aims. Our study demonstrates that even in such a setting, crowdfunders lend more quickly to microenterprises that position themselves within a single linguistic category in which the social is emphasized over the economic. This suggests that how hybrid organizations position themselves in their linguistic narratives has a significant impact on resource allocation by external prosocial audiences.     

Microfinance ecosystem: How connectors,interactors, and institutionalizers co-create value

Since the mid-1990s, the number of microfinance institutions (MFIs) has grown tremendously, with more than 10,000 worldwide varying in size and approach. Despite this growth, however, the value of MFIs has been hotly debated. Managers and founders of MFIs have also faced the challenge of balancing social and financial objectives and understanding effective ways of evaluating their organization’s effectiveness. In this article, we closely examine the operations of three distinct types of MFIs and offer a framework of how they collectively create value, with each playing a unique role in a symbiotic relationship: Namaste, an interactor; Kiva, a connector; and Accion, an institutionalizer. Interactors build relationships with clients and facilitate the flow of information to connectors and institutionalizers that disseminate this data to capital markets, build confidence, and fuel capital flow into the MF industry. Institutionalizers disseminate innovation and best practices. Thus, it is critical that each MFI recognizes its symbiotic role and evaluates itself accordingly instead of spreading itself across roles.     

广东出口贸易对环境影响的实证分析

运用EKC理论同时观察广东出口行业的污染物排放趋势(以废水、SO2为指标),整体来看,随着广东经济增长,自由贸易的进一步扩大,将不利于我省环境的改善。通过工业制成品结构的变化对环境的影响与贸易总量对环境的影响做比较,以SPSS软件进行相关性统计分析,出口商品结构的可持续性优化将有利于环境的改善,以减轻出口规模扩大对环境的负面影响。     

服务国际化的内涵及动因分析

20世纪90年代以来,全球经济竞争的焦点正从货物贸易转向服务贸易,服务业国际直接投资迅速增长,服务呈现出强劲的国际化趋势。本文分析了服务国际化的内涵和主体,重点探讨了促进服务国际化发展的外部环境因素和服务企业国际化的微观动因。