试论我国中小企业社会责任承担中的政府责任

由于多方面的原因,目前我国中小企业承担社会责任的现状还不尽人意。因此,政府应切实履行职能,转变经济增长方式,树立正确的政绩观;健全相关法律法规;不断增强服务意识,打造服务型政府,努力为企业履行社会责任解除后顾之忧;完善竞争激励机制,加强监督和管理,加强教育培训;加强对企业社会责任的宣传,建立与完善信息披露制度,保证企业社会责任报告的真实性。     

Efficiency characteristics of a market for state contingent claims

This paper concludes that a market for state-contingent claims (UK horserace betting) displays evidence of pervasive but heterogeneous forms of inefficiency, in significant contrast to earlier investigations. Using hitherto unavailable data, comparison of notional returns implicit in parallel sets of bookmaker and parimutuel odds identifies inefficiency in terms of zones of distinct but contrasting forms of cross-;market returns differential. The inefficiency is rationalized in terms of both buyer and supplier behaviour; its durability is explained in terms of limited arbitrage opportunities.     

Uncertainty and Growth of the Firm

Using data from a survey of 1,097 small and medium-sized non-listed Dutch firms we investigate the relation between growth of the firm and uncertainty. We focus on the impact of sales uncertainty on various types of investment. We find that sales uncertainty, measured by the conditional variance, has a mixed impact on various investment decisions. We include an analysis of the relevance of financial structure and firm size on the growth-uncertainty relation.     

“You Can't Make a Good Wine without a Few Beers”: Gatekeepers and knowledge flow in industrial districts

Knowledge sharing sometimes plays a key role in the performance of clustered organizations, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, SMEs also face significant knowledge-related disadvantages due to their lack of absorptive capacity and functional expertise. This study investigates the influence of technical specialists on knowledge flow in a wine cluster in Australia. The main contribution of this paper is a finding that the technical specialist's gatekeeping role both links clustered SMEs to the global wine “systemworld” by transferring knowledge of technical developments and innovation, and simultaneously develops and refines regional winemaking styles by sharing locally specific, experientially derived knowledge. Technical specialists drew on bridging and bonding social capital to identify and retrieve specialist knowledge, and were capable of assimilating complex technical knowledge into the cluster. These findings are particularly significant because recipients were typically small and micro-firms, which are frequently located outside cluster knowledge-network.     

Power and Size of Firms as Reflected in Cleaning Subcontractors’ Practices of Social Responsibility

Recent discussions in the area of corporate social responsibility suggest that organizational size has complex meanings and thus requires more scholarly attention. This article explores organizational size in the context of relative power in inter-organizational networks. To shed light on the ways relative power interacts with size we studied social responsibility practices among cleaning subcontractors in three firms of different sizes. Our focus on the network differentiates these firms on the basis of their size and sector. Semi-structured interviews were used to trace cleaning subcontractors’ CSR-related practices. We analyzed subjective reports and discursive practices involved in subcontractors’ self-presentations. While the economic and philanthropic dimensions of social responsibility were presented by the cleaning subcontractors as independent of network constraints, the findings show that the legal and ethical dimensions were subject to large client–firm pressures. What we learn from our data is that the four dimensions of Carroll’s model, the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic, should all develop from and be evaluated against a fifth root dimension of inter-personal commitment.     

Why Do Large Firms' Prices Anticipate Earnings Earlier than Small Firms' Prices?*

This paper presents evidence that the positive association between firm size and price leads of earnings is not solely a function of private search incentives for firm‐specific information. Specifically, we find that small‐firm prices also lag large‐firm prices with respect to industry‐wide information. Our empirical analysis extends Collins, Kothari, and Rayburn 1987 and Freeman 1987, who document that security‐price leads of earnings are positively associated with market capitalization. In particular, we examine the association between firm size and the timing of security returns for two components of annual earnings changes: the average change for a firm's industry and the firm's idiosyncratic change. We find that large firms' prices have a longer lead than small firms' prices with respect to both components. Large firms' early lead on industry‐wide earnings suggests that returns of large firms predict returns of same‐industry small firms. To test this implication, we construct a portfolio of long (short) positions in small firms when the prior month's returns of large firms in their industry are above (below) average for large firms in other industries. This zero investment portfolio earns 4.5 percent over 12 months.     

Does Size Matter? Evaluating Corporate Environmental Disclosure in the Australian Mining and Metal Industry: A Combined Approach of Quantity and Quality Measurement

There are an increasing number of companies in the mining and metals sector disclosing environmental sustainability information in their annual reports, sustainability reports and corporate internet web pages. However, there is ongoing debate about the relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure. That is, does an increase in number equate to an increase in quality? This study investigates the relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure reports. Using content analysis, we examine the environmental disclosure of 55 Australian mining and metal companies which are listed among the Australian Securities Exchange's (ASX) Top 100 mining and metal sector companies. We find that the size of firms influences both the quantity and the quality of corporate environmental disclosure. That is, we find that market capitalization is positively and significantly correlated to the quantity (number of words) and the quality of disclosure. We also confirm that there is a very highly significant, positive correlation between quantity (number of words) and quality of environmental disclosure. In order to investigate any differences between the top performing group and the bottom performing group in terms of environmental disclosure quality, further analysis also confirms that there is a positive relationship between the quantity and the quality of environmental disclosure. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

RISK, SEASONALITY AND THE ASYMMETRIC BEHAVIOUR OF STOCK RETURNS

For some time there has been a puzzle surrounding the seasonal behaviour of stock returns. This paper demonstrates that there is an asymmetric relationship between systematic risk and return across the different months of the year for both large and small firms. In the case of both large and small firms systematic risk appears to be priced in only two months of the year, January and April. During the other months no persistent relationship between systematic risk and return appears to exist. The paper also shows that when systematic risk is priced, the size of the systematic risk premium is higher for large firms than for small firms and varies significantly across the months of the year.