Research notes and communications corporate restructuring and strategic change: The effect on diversification strategy and R & D intensity

In the 1980s a number of large corporations restructured their diversified businesses through divestitures. It is hypothesized that restructuring activity focused on firms at intermediate levels of diversification (e.g., related-linked) which have a mixture of related and unrelated business units. Results confirm this hypothesis which explains that such mixed corporate strategies create organizational and control inefficiencies in managing both related and unrelated types of business units. Restructured firms were also found to move towards two types of different internal capital markets (related and unrelated). Most restructuring firms moved toward lower levels of diversification (e.g., related-constrained), although some moved toward higher levels of diversification (e.g., unrelated business). Also, this study finds restructuring firms that changed their corporate strategy by reducing diversified scope increased their R&D intensity. Firms that restructured and increased their diversified scope decreased R&D intensity. This result suggested a partial substitution between diversification and R&D activity.     

Building strong brands in Asia: selecting the visual components of image to maximize brand strength

Asian brands have often struggled to develop quality images. The visual aspects of branding have received little attention on how they might be used to strengthen brand perceptions in Asia. Guidelines for designing visual brand stimuli are developed using evaluations of logos in China and Singapore. There is a significant relationship between design and the responses companies seek, including positive affect, perceptions of quality, recognition, consensus in meaning, and feng shui. How designs are perceived, and their effect on consumer responses, were similar between China and Singapore. Companies are encouraged to leverage design to strengthen their brands. In particular, they should select logo designs that are elaborate, natural, and harmonious as these created positive affect and quality perceptions, clear meaning, true recognition, and feng shui. Many of these relationships hold in the United Sates as well, implying that the visual aspects of brand strategies may accomplish companies' goals across international borders.     

Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives

Abstract.  It is not only the great number of papers written on environment economics that make it worth dealing with this special branch of experimental research, but the environmental problem in all its facets seems to serve as a catalyst for identifying some methodological problems of the experimental method. For this reason, we will not only try to give an overview of recent experiments in environmental economics but also add some thoughts on the methodological implications of this work. We identify three direct connecting factors for the experimental method and environmental economics. First, social dilemmas are, in many cases, at the core of environmental problems. Experiments are able to test theoretical hypotheses for individual behavior in such social dilemma situations. The second connecting factor comes from the field of applied experimental work and can be characterized as the testbedding of institutional arrangements for the solution of environmental problems. The last direct application of experimental methods to environmental economics concerns the individual evaluation of environmental resources.     

论瑞典社会民主党构建和谐社会的探索

瑞典式社会主义和谐社会经历了诞生、发展到成熟的过程。1932年秋社民党通过竞选上台执政,开始功能社会主义福利国家的尝试；1944-1975年是和谐国家建设的全面展开和建成；1982-1990年“保卫福利、重振经济”和谐政策的调整；1990-2000年建设自由与平等基础上相互关联的社会共同体；以2001年1 1月社民党第34次全国代表大会为起点,重建民主的人道的更加和谐的社会主义福利国家。     

A strategic human resource perspective of firm competitive behavior

Embedded within firms are unique stores of intangible human assets that likely influence the way firms compete. We argue that the human and social capital of a firm, particularly at the upper echelon and board of director (BOD) levels, contribute to the firm's awareness of the competitive environment and its motivation and ability to undertake numerous, complex, and forceful competitive actions. We also suggest that the firm's executive compensation systems moderate the effects of these intangible human assets on firm competitive behavior. By examining how human capital, intra-firm social capital, and executive compensation influence firm competitive behavior, we advance a strategic HRM perspective of firm competitive behavior and outline several implications for future research.     

Binary effectivity rules

A social choice rule (SCR) is a collection of social choice correspondences, one for each agenda. An effectivity rule is a collection of effectivity functions, one for each agenda. We prove that every monotonic and superadditive effectivity rule is the effectivity rule of some SCR. A SCR is binary if it is rationalized by an acyclic binary relation. The foregoing result motivates our definition of a binary effectivity rule as the effectivity rule of some binary SCR. A binary SCR is regular if it satisfies unanimity, monotonicity, and independence of infeasible alternatives. A binary effectivity rule is regular if it is the effectivity rule of some regular binary SCR. We characterize completely the family of regular binary effectivity rules. Quite surprisingly, intrinsically defined von Neumann–Morgenstern solutions play an important role in this characterization.     

公司道德与会计职业责任

道德依存的基础是人在经济活动过程中形成的经济利益关系。约束这种关系的规范依个体存在方式的不同而有不同的道德规范。一是作为独立个体人应当遵循的社会公德,二是作为某个组织成员,代表组织应遵循的道德规范。它们分别应当是家庭美德、公司道德和职业道德。目前社会主义市场经济建设中的道德建设应当重视和加强公司道德建设。会计职业道德建设的缺陷是过分强调职业道德在整个道德体系中的作用而忽视了公司道德建设。     

独立董事、战略审计与公司绩效

关于独立董事与公司绩效呈现弱相关关系的一个假说性解释是:独立董事对于作为关键绩效驱动因素的公司战略管理过程参与不足。独立董事积极参与公司战略管理的功能定位是战略监督与评价,而战略审计作为正式的战略监督与评价程序,是独立董事深入公司战略管理过程以提高其绩效贡献的有效途径。本文认为,在我国推行独立董事战略审计制度,必须解决独立董事人数与比例、审计委员会设置、独立董事来源与结构以及激励与权益保护等相关问题。     

Media attention and regulatory efficiency of corporate violations: Evidence from China

We examine the influence of media attention on the regulatory efficiency of corporate violations in a restrictive media environment. Using a hand-collected sample of corporate violations in China during 1998–2018, we find that fraudulent firms accompanied by more negative media attention are associated with a higher hazard rate of the violation being investigated and enforced. The effect is not diminished by the political connections of the fraudulent firms and is robust after controlling for potential confounding factors. Our findings suggest that by influencing regulatory efficiency, the media serve as an effective governance mechanism even in markets with strict media control.     

家族企业公司治理文化探析

家族企业已成为我国经济发展中一支不可缺少的有生力量,而公司治理文化将直接影响到家族企业的发展.文章分析了家族企业的公司治理文化的特征、根基及利弊.