企业管理中非正式制度的有效利用

企业规章制度多少并不能表示企业管理水平的高低。规章制度的有效发挥才能使企业具有良好的发展前景。制度是否有效不仅仅在于正式制度本身是否规范、合理,而且在制度的制定和执行过程中,非正式制度的作用同样不可忽视。     

History of Thought as Ceremonial Genealogy: The Neglected Influence of Herbert Spencer on Thorstein Veblen

Large corporations are invariably structured as formal institutions, and this formality is reflected in organizational charts. These charts depict a multilevel managerial hierarchy of authority within the organization typified, in the simplest case, by a pyramid. Many economic and business researchers attribute formality to a desire for greater efficiency, although I do not take this position in the present paper. Instead, I agree with researchers who connect formality with organizational legitimacy. I further argue that personal interests are at work in bigness and formalization. Top managers are motivated by desire for power and prestige. Formality furthers these objectives by rigidly fixing relations and ranks within the organization. Widespread belief in efficiency and legitimacy converge with personal motives to encourage and entrench formality. Corporate size and structure are seen as having deleterious effects on employees and society at large. But they also have some negative impacts on those at the top.     

激励过程中的正式契约与关系契约:一个综述

本文研究解决激励问题的两种契约方法。正式契约基于多任务委托代理模型,探讨如何解决代理人重视考核绩效与委托人关注产出价值之间的矛盾,而关系契约基于重复博弈模型,探讨客观测度与主观判断以及短期收益与长期收益之间的矛盾。正式契约与关系契约的结合可以降低代理人所面对的激励扭曲,能够控制委托人违背承诺的诱因。在解决激励问题中应对正式契约和关系契约的合理运用进行综合权衡。     

Dumping and Injury Margins in Markets with Horizontal as well as Vertical Product Differentiation

This paper examines the GATT/WTO rules for anti-dumping measures in a duopoly model with both horizontal and vertical product differentiation. The GATT/WTO rules allow for anti-dumping measures if domestic producers, exposed to price discrimination, also demonstrate injury where price-undercutting is an important indicator of the latter. The paper shows that the procedure for calculating injury is flawed due to negligence of quality differences in the calculation of the margin of price-undercutting. This gives countries with high-quality producers an option to practice protectionism. This asymmetry between countries in ability to implement anti-dumping measures predominantly favors the developed countries which are specialized in producing high-quality products. The paper suggests an overall critical look at the lenient rules for implementing anti-dumping measures—especially the rules for injury determination—in order to restrict the use of such measures to a minimum and to move the world economy closer to free trade.     

湘北地区农户民间借贷的调查与分析

不同经济发展水平地区农户民间借贷的特征不同，文章在对湖南省华容县和安乡县的农户进行抽样调查的基础上，分析了湘北传统农区农户民间借贷的现状与特征，并提出相应的对策建议。     

Information, Informal Finance, and SME Financing

Informal finance exists extensively and has been playing an important role in small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing in developing economies. This paper tries to rationalize the extensiveness of informal finance. SME financing suffers more serious information asymmetry to the extent that most SMEs are more opaque and can only provide less collateral. Informal lenders have an advantage over formal financial institutions in collecting “soft information” about SME borrowers. This paper establishes a model including formal and informal lenders and high- and low-risk borrowers with or without sufficient collateral and shows that the credit market in which informal finance is eliminated will allocate funds in some inefficient way, and the efficiency of allocating credit funds can be improved once informal finance is allowed to coexist with formal finance. Translated from Economic Research Journal, 2005, 7 (in Chinese)     

对资本弱化税制演变的思考

跨国公司资本弱化要服从于其全球战略安排;普遍存在于内资企业的资本弱化现象由来已久,影响深远,尤其值得关注.对我国资本弱化税制建设来说,仅仅从避税的角度来考虑是不够的,还应通过完善资本弱化税制,调整企业资本结构,降低资产负债水平,降低财务风险和破产风险,建立企业信用和社会信用体系.     

汉英语义差异的比较

英语和汉语这两种语言的社会群体在各自漫长的历史进程中,由于风俗习惯、社会历史文化背景、宗教信仰和地理环境等方面因素的影响,形成了自己的民族特点、民族色彩.这些特点和色彩反映了人们的生产斗争经验以及对生活与自然的认识,凝聚了本民族人们的智慧,也反映出各自国俗语义的差异.了解中外文化和俗语的差异,将对学生学习好外语有着积极的促进作用.     

How does perceived formality shape unheard challenging voices?

Abstract

It has been argued that upward challenge is important because it allows employees to have a say in organisational decision-making. Yet upward challenge may go unheard in organisations. Formal voice mechanisms are largely considered to be advantageous for encouraging employees to share their views and concerns. However, recent papers calling into question the distinction between formal and informal voice have prompted investigation into the value of formal voice mechanisms in encouraging upward challenge. This qualitative study attempted to understand in what ways formal voice mechanisms had the potential to create unheard voices by first establishing a working definition of formal voice mechanisms. Using a sample of 19 UK police officers, participants used a card sort to categorise formal and informal voice mechanisms. They subsequently identified, through semi-structured interviews, that formal voice mechanisms could be considered risky for upward challenge. The findings can be used by scholars and practitioners as a framework to identify where challenging voices may be going unheard.     

The Relationship between Mutual TSI and Interfirm Contracts: The Moderating Effect of Strong Ties

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study examines the influence that tie strength has on contractual relationships between exchange parties with specific investments and also explores the role of network intensity in contractual relationships between buyers and suppliers. We hypothesize that the relationship between transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and contracts is moderated by network intensity.

Methodology: An empirical test is carried out by analyzing buyer–supplier relationships of manufacturing companies. The construct measures were based on those obtained from prior research, and the reliability and validity were established using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The overall measurement model was then assessed with structural equation modeling using AMOS.

Findings: We focus primarily on contract variables as a governance mechanism that can be affected by the strength of ties among firms and the results of our empirical study indicate that supplier TSIs improve the use of informal contracts while the use of formal contracts undermines the effect on supplier TSIs. In addition, we found that firms with weak ties with their partners in the network are more likely to use both formal and informal contracts than those with strong ties.

Contribution: Our study has several contributions. First, our research improves the understanding of the relationship between TSIs and the choice of contracts as a governance mechanism, especially for mutual TSIs. Second, our research improves our understanding of the network strength in the context of business-to-business relationships extending the understanding of the relationship intensity among firms in a network. Third, we focused on the effects of network intensity on contractual relationships.