Customer and Supplier Portfolios: Can Credit Risks be Managed Through Supply Chain Relationships?

While supply chain risk has been the subject of an ever‐increasing amount of research attention, the importance of credit risk has been less studied, at least by supply chain researchers. Yet, there may be risks inherent within a firm's portfolios of supply chain relationships that are manifested in the credit risk of a firm. Moreover, portfolio characteristics may serve as a signal to the external market regarding these risks. While customer and supplier portfolio characteristics may impact the firm's exposure to risks, the specific issue of how portfolio characteristics relate to credit risk has rarely been examined by supply chain scholars. This research bridges extant works in supply chain management and finance to relate supply chain characteristics to a critical reputational outcome, namely credit ratings. In this research, we utilize a sample of firms that recently underwent an initial public offering to empirically examine the theoretical predictions of Resource Dependence Theory regarding the relationships between different supply chain portfolio characteristics and credit risk.     

Addressing plastic pollution through green consumption: Predicting intentions to use menstrual cups in the Philippines

Plastic pollution is a global environmental crisis that poses a huge threat to the health of people and marine ecosystems worldwide. A significant source of plastic pollution is menstrual hygiene management, and an approach that can help address this crisis is the usage of washable and reusable menstrual cups. Using an extended theory of planned behavior model that includes self-identity and perceived quality, the study predicted intentions to use menstrual cups in the Philippines. Structural equation modeling results showed that perceived quality predicted attitudes towards menstrual cup usage. Moreover, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and self-identity predicted intentions to use menstrual cups. There were also some differences in the factors and predictors of intentions between non-users and regular users of menstrual cups. Among regular users, perceived behavioral control did not predict intentions. These findings provide empirical support for the extended model, and provides insights for governments, non-government organizations, and corporations in promoting the usage of menstrual cups to address the global plastic pollution crisis.     

Pricing,greening, and transparency decisions considering the impact of government subsidies and CSR behavior in supply chain decisions

In this paper, we analytically model different government subsidy strategies in a supply chain manufacturing and selling a green product. We model the interaction between greening degree and transparency level set by a manufacturer and its impact on not only the supply chain, but also consumers and the government. The supply chain is composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer can choose two different strategies. First, he only cares about his production profit; and second, he concerns with CSR in addition to his production profit. We develop a new transparency-based index of consumer satisfaction to model how the market reacts to manufacturer CSR decisions. The government decide three different subsidy strategies. A three-stage Stackelberg game model is developed and solved to analytically derive managerial insights. As a result, if the transparency cost coefficient is sufficiently high, the greening degree and transparency level in CSR concerns strategy are higher than when the manufacturer is not concerned with corporate social responsibility. In addition, when the transparency cost coefficient is sufficiently high, the profit of supply chain members and government are equal in both strategies. We give a real-world example of Iranian brick industry.     

On axiomatizations of the Shapley value for assignment games

We consider the problem of axiomatizing the Shapley value on the class of assignment games. It turns out that several axiomatizations of the Shapley value on the class of all TU-games do not characterize this solution on the class of assignment games. However, when considering an assignment game as a (communication) graph game where the game is simply the assignment game and the graph is a corresponding bipartite graph where buyers (sellers) are connected with sellers (buyers) only, we show that Myerson’s component efficiency and fairness axioms do characterize the Shapley value on the class of assignment games. Moreover, these two axioms have a natural interpretation for assignment games. Component efficiency yields submarket efficiency stating that the sum of the payoffs of all players in a submarket equals the worth of that submarket, where a submarket is a set of buyers and sellers such that all buyers in this set have zero valuation for the goods offered by the sellers outside the set, and all buyers outside the set have zero valuations for the goods offered by sellers inside the set. Fairness of the graph game solution boils down to valuation fairness stating that only changing the valuation of one particular buyer for the good offered by a particular seller changes the payoffs of this buyer and seller by the same amount.     

Structuration theory in accounting research: Applications and applicability

Ever since Giddens’ structuration theory (ST) was introduced into the accounting literature some 25 years ago, it has strengthened its position as one of the major schools of thought used to explore accounting as organizational, social and political phenomena. The purpose of this study is to review how ST has been applied, and can be applied, in this sizeable literature. Overall, the review of some 65 published papers, suggests that not only has ST contributed to challenge the assumptions of ‘inherent and functional’ features of accounting systems per se characterizing mainstream research, but also to develop other alternative theoretical perspectives. However, our review also suggests several limitations. These include that the accounting community has not really worked as a collective to develop a structurationist understanding of accounting practices, and that most researchers remain largely uncritical to ST as a theory. We also find that accounting scholars have not yet developed a mutual understanding of how to interpret ST (i.e. there are conceptual unclarities and even inconsistencies), or how to apply ST methodologically in empirical research. Based on these limitations, and the identification of a number of ‘black spots’ in the literature, we suggest several directions for future scholarly effort.     

A game theoretic approach to optimize multi-stakeholder utilities for land acquisition negotiations with informality

To combat the critical stresses of rising urbanization, the government acquires land from private owners using the power of eminent domain. This land assembly causes negative externalities such as increasing social tension and injustice that may impose a long-term threat to stability and sustainable development. Therefore, there is a need to make the land acquisition process more transparent and just. Considering the unique Indian context where informality has a strong presence, we propose an approach based on game theory that models the bargain through a three-stage Nash equilibrium game. Four agents – the government, the private developer, the landowner, and the free rider – are considered. We provide conditional solutions for the generalizable Case and proceed to model different stakeholder behavior patterns through two utility functional forms – linear and exponential. In the linear case, we find that the free rider obtains half of the revenue of the project, whereas the landowner gains between one-fourth and one-half of the revenue. Thus, we highlight the undeniably crucial role free riders play in land acquisition negotiations. However, closed form solutions cannot be obtained for the exponential form, due to which we use simulations to demonstrate a solution procedure. We conclude by stating that the proposed model can be useful in formulating future land policies in a sustainable and inclusive manner, with optimal utility derivations for all concerned stakeholders. Our model can also be extended to other spatial contexts where informality features heavily in the land market, especially in the Global South.     

为何言路难开?领导拒谏构念维度与形成机理探究

员工谏言不仅具有建设性,而且具有挑战性和结果的不确定性,使得领导者可能纳谏也可能拒谏。然而,现有研究主要关注员工谏言与领导纳谏,却忽略了领导拒谏。本研究在回顾员工谏言及相关研究的基础上发现,领导者会对员工谏言进行建设性评估和威胁性评估,具有建设性和防御性两种行为目的。基于此,首先,从领导者的双元行为目的出发探讨了领导拒谏的概念与维度,依据发展视角、人际视角和防御视角将领导拒谏划分为:指导员工驱动的拒谏、维持关系驱动的拒谏、保证权威驱动的拒谏。其次,分析了领导拒谏的形成机理,从谏言内容、谏言员工和谏言行为三方面考察领导者对员工谏言的认知评估过程,详细讨论了组织距离如何通过领导注意间接影响领导拒谏,并探讨了权力距离在领导注意与领导拒谏之间所具有的调节作用。本研究有助于推动领导拒谏的理论构建,拓展认知评估理论的应用,而且能为组织管理实践给予一定的参考与借鉴。     

The British Airways Heritage Collection: an ethnographic ‘history’

This article develops an ethnographic account of the development and history of the British Airways Heritage Centre (BAHC). Responding to several observations throughout the literature, we report on our experiences of engagement with British Airways’ archives over a 25-year period. In doing so our focus is on the much-neglected history of archives as powerful influences on how corporate histories are written. The ethnographic account is rooted in ANTi-History, an approach to historiography, that focuses on the production of history as knowledge of the past by following a number of human (e.g. archive volunteers) and non-human (e.g. airline artefacts) actors to reassemble the elements that constitute an archive at a point in time. To that end, we trace the inter-relationships between histories of British Airways and the development of the BAHC. We conclude that a focus on the various human and non-human relationships that constitute an archive can help the researcher to identify the hidden influences on the production of history that can otherwise serve to enrol him or her.     

基于关联理论解读有意沉默

为了研究有意沉默在会话中的语用意义,以英汉会话语段中的有意沉默为研究对象,依据Sperber和Wilson的关联理论,从有意沉默的信息意图和交际意图,以及有意沉默的关联性与语境效果两点入手对有意沉默进行认知语用分析.对有意沉默进行认知语用解读和分析的目的在于帮助我们进一步理解有意沉默,并在以后的会话中能更好地领会并运用有意沉默,使交际能够顺利进行.     

地方政府政策变迁对跨国公司企业社会责任的影响

笔者运用合作博弈的谈判模型研究地方政府政策对跨国公司企业社会责任合约的影响。模型推导出在宽松、适度、严格三种政策下,地方政府收益最大时对跨国公司社会责任履行合约的取值要求,研究认为政策的选择取决于地方政府谈判成本大小和声誉损失系数以及跨国公司在当地的社会责任履行成本系数,并就三种政策下跨国公司企业社会责任的影响因素进行分析。