Natural resource rents and internal conflicts: Can decentralization lift the curse?

We study how natural resource rents affect the risk of internal conflict within countries and how the federal structure of countries influences this relationship. Natural resource abundance may induce excessive rent-seeking and thus increase the risk of internal conflict. Fiscal and political decentralization as an institutional arrangement for rent-sharing and political codetermination of regions within a country may limit the destructive effect of natural resource rents on internal stability. Using cross-country and panel data from more than 90 countries covering the period 1984–2004, we find evidence that natural resource rents indeed increase the risk of internal conflict, but this relationship is significantly mitigated by political decentralization.     

工作—家庭平衡的企业制度安排

工作已经通过网络渗入家庭,员工面临严重的工作—家庭冲突,影响组织绩效和生活质量。工作—家庭平衡作为企业家庭伦理理论的核心问题已成为制度设计的中心问题。对工作—家庭平衡制度安排的理论与实证研究发现,工作—家庭平衡还没有成为政府、企业和员工的共享信念,制度设计失去社会价值观基础;弹性工作制是有效的正式企业制度;家庭照顾福利是无效的正式企业制度;经理须持之以恒支持员工平衡工作—家庭需要、控制因享用工作—家庭平衡福利而带来的负面职业生涯后果。两者是有效的非正式制度安排。据此提出的政策建议是:政府要在全社会倡导、培育以工作—家庭平衡为核心的企业家庭伦理管理哲学、提供家庭照顾福利作为公共制度供给;企业进行系统的组织文化改造;员工培育照顾家庭的应得权利感。     

Do poverty and poor health and nutrition increase the risk of armed conflict onset?

We analyze the effects of improving the economic, food security and health status on the risk of armed cotntectflict onset, focusing on the factors related to the millennium development goals. We employ the discrete-time hazard model that allows us to examine the time-varying effects of socioeconomic factors controlling for the reverse effect of conflict. Our results show that income poverty and poor health and nutritional status are more significantly associated with armed conflict onset than GDP per capita, annual GDP growth, and the ratio of primary commodity exports over GDP. In particular, poor health and nutritional status seems to play a key role in inducing armed conflicts in poor countries. These results indicate that, when a majority of the poor and the malnourished resides in rural areas and depends on agriculture directly or indirectly, investments in public goods for agriculture and rural areas can be effective tools to achieve the multiple goals of reduced poverty, food security and armed conflict, including riots in early 2008 triggered by high food prices. Food policy can be an effective element of efforts to maintain stability.     

防止公职人员利益冲突的路径选择——以人性为视角

公职人员的利益冲突问题是一个新的廉政建设研究领域。国（境）内外实践证明,利益冲突是腐败发生的重要根源,是导致政府行政行为非法性、政府信任危机的必然逻辑结果,其产生根源于人性趋利的本质特性。因此,防止公职人员利益冲突,须以人性趋利的本质特性为基点,以利益阻隔为路径,以制度的针对性、操作性与实效性为目标。基于此须设立防止利益冲突三道防线：建立良好的公职人员职业保障体系,让其不想;加大利益冲突的个人成本,让其不敢;创新权力约束与监督机制,让其不易。     

工作和家庭关系研究的新思路——工作-家庭丰富研究综述

近年来对工作家庭相互之间关系的研究不仅仅关注工作家庭间的冲突,而且越来越重视工作和家庭的相互积极作用,从更加辩证的角度考察工作和家庭之间的相互作用。本文对工作家庭丰富的研究进行了回顾与总结,并对未来的研究提出建议。     

Conflict management and innovation performance: An integrated contingency perspective

In recent years, many of the basic assumptions underlying organizational conflict research have changed, drawing into question the validity of some previous research findings. Operating from the perspective that conflict is complex, multidimensional, and context specific, this research takes a fresh look at key conflict antecedents, mediators, and consequences in the context of the innovation process. The study investigates the relationships among five behavioral conflict-handling strategies, destructive and constructive conflict, and innovation performance as perceived by 290 R & D and marketing department managers. Empirical results both support and question some of the previous findings in conflict research. The results indicate that integrating, accommodating, compromising, forcing, and avoiding conflict-handling strategies can have different impacts on constructive and destructive conflict in an innovation context. Kelly Hewett (kelly_hewett@moore.sc.edu) is in the Department of Marketing at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers, as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. R. Bruce Money (moneyb@byu.edu) is the Donald Staheli Fellow and an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University. His articles have been published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. His research interests include the international aspects of national culture’s measurement and effects, business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promo-tion, services marketing, and negotiation. Subhash Sharma (sharma@moore.sc.edu) is the James F. Kane Professor of Business in the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Professor Sharma’s research interests include marketing strategy, structural equation modeling, data mining, customer relationship management, e-commerce, the marketing-operations interface, and global marketing strategies. He has published numerous articles in these areas in leading academic journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Operations Management, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andManagement Science. Professor Sharma has also authored two textbooks:Applied Multivariate Techniques (John Wiley, 1996) andScaling Procedures: Issues and Applications (with Richard G. Netemeyer and William O. Bearden, Sage, 2003). Professor Sharma was a member of the editorial boards of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of Marketing and currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Retailing.     

西方经济学经济利益和谐理论的述评及其启示

在西方经济学说史上,不同时期的经济学家,从不同角度论述了经济利益的和谐问题,论证了利益和谐的实现方式、制度基础和政府在利益和谐实现中的职能,形成了完善的经济利益和谐思想。因此,吸收西方经济学有关利益和谐及其实现机制的思想,对于我国和谐社会的构建具有重要的现实意义。     

建设和谐社会的文化与伦理思考

社会的和谐是现代化社会的基础,世界各国现代化的实践表明,唯有使文化现代化才能有整个社会的现代化。有中国特色社会主义现代化道路的实践进一步证明了文化、经济与社会发展之间有密切的联系,因为政治、法律制度的完善、经济制度的改革都会直接触及整个社会的一般文化传统和文化背景。     

基于债权治理视角的利益侵占约束博弈分析

运用代理成本理论和契约理论,阐述了控股股东与银行债权人之间利益博弈的机理。针对我国转轨经济时期特殊的经济和社会背景———独特的股权结构、过度的政府干预、较低的社会信任程度等,构建了控股股东与银行债权人之间的利益博弈模型,证明了均衡状态的存在,并通过进一步分析各参数变量的政策含义,搭建了控股股东与银行债权人之间利益博弈的理论分析框架,为研究我国上市公司的银行债权治理提供了新的分析思路。     

The straitjacket at workplace： Mobbing

Mobbing has been defined as a chronic asymmetric pattern of power relations and a consequent conflict transformed into a systematic discrimination or mistreatment at workplace which is expressed through unethical or aggressive communication （Leynman, 1996）. Mobbing occurs when an employee in the workplace is steadily subjected to aggressive behavior from more than one colleague or supervisor over a period of time, in a situation where the target finds it difficult to defend him/herself to escape this dire situation. Such a long term incivility tends to stigmatize the mobbed victim and may cause severe psychological trauma since （s）he is metaphorically in a straitjacket. In this double-bind and double-squeeze condition where （s）he can neither get out of the situation nor endure the ordeal, a positive outcome is unlikely. How do we differentiate mobbing from conflict in organizations and how are disputes converted into mobbing behavior, and if one may even do research on mobbing in a culture of＂organizational silence＂ and ＂obedience/submission＂ in a developing country will be the first theoretical research question. Whether systemic silence as a collective level phenomenon is not only an obstacle to healthy organizational communication and relationships, but also a serious barrier to development, participation and learning from malpractices is another relevant question. Most researches investigating the background of mobbing are based on either experiences of targets as victims or the critical cases including the perpetrators as mobber; Therefore, the findings are often at individual level and subjective. They are often ＂ex post facto＂ analysis of psychological dimensions （e.g., personality characteristics of mostly of mobbed victims and rarely of mobbers） or legal dimensions. There are few ＂ex ante＂ analyses of organizational culture dimensions so that preventive measures may be taken prior to any serious mobbing case is reported. This paper＇s objective is to approach mobbing as a function of group conflict and rumor that is uncontrolled for a long time. By exploring the background of mobbing in ten companies from service sector in IstanbuI-Turkey, this view is assessed. The findings confirmed that mobbing is a function of relational conflict and gossip particularly in companies with high positional power distance and highly centralized decision-making where high power imbalance between supervisors and subordinates are salient. Such organizations seem to be more conducive to concealed mobbing and survival than to development and participation of employees as ＂modus operandi＂.