Dependent on one but vulnerable to another: opportunism threats and control solutions for customization providers

While economic theory suggests that identifying alternate customers is costlier than identifying alternate specialized employees for customization providers, substantial field research evidence indicates the opposite, where providers are reportedly more dependent on employees than customers. We inquire into this contrasting picture between theory and practice through an in‐depth case study that suggests that what begins as customer dependence transforms into vulnerability to employees. While perceived vulnerability to customers is efficiently removed through ex ante controls, the physical asset specificity in each customer order generates task uncertainty, specialization and teamwork, which become the new sources of opportunism threat for the customization providers. Compounded layers of ex ante and ex post controls with frequent iterations suggest a need for continuous management (as against removal) of vulnerability to employees.     

Viewpoint: Determining famine: Multi-dimensional analysis for the twenty-first century

Famine was, until recently, largely a matter of historical or theoretical interest, but the “four famines” threat of 2017 demonstrated that Somalia in 2011 was not an aberration or outlier: famine is a contemporary reality and threat. Current methods of famine analysis however tend to emphasize the severity of current-status indicators as the sole dimension of analysis. This article argues that a more multi-dimensional view is required for a full understanding of famine, including not only severity but also the magnitude of the crisis, the temporal dimension or duration, and the spatial dimension or geographic specificity of the crisis. The article draws on recent experience of famine analysis in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen to demonstrate the way in which our current analytical perspective misses critical dimensions of famine, and the consequences of this for analysis, prevention, and response. A more multi-dimensional perspective sheds new light on famine dynamics, but also highlights the importance of causal analysis in addition to classification or determination.     

产品市场竞争力对资本结构影响的传导路径分析——引入中介变量:资产专用性

以信息产业2003—2012年A股上市公司的数据为基础,研究企业产品市场竞争力对资本结构的影响,并检验资产专用性在产品市场竞争力与资本结构之间的中介作用。结果表明,产品市场竞争力与资产负债率显著负相关;资产专用性在产品市场竞争力与资本结构之间起到了部分中介作用。     

资本的专用性、专有性特征与公司治理机制

本文通过引入资本的专用性、专有性这两个概念,探讨了不同类型资本在参与公司组织租金分配过程中谈判力和掌握公司控制权上的差异。从实现公司利益及各类资本权益最大化的观点出发,主张公司治理机制运行的重要目标是保护专用性资本不受专有性资本的过度剥削,以保持公司的稳定发展和市场核心竞争优势。同时,本文把公司治理结构分为四种不同类型,认为在不同类型的公司治理结构中应对不同类型资本的权益予以重点保护。     

The effect of individual uncertainty on the specificity of human capital: empirical evidence from career developments in professional soccer

This study looks at careers in professional soccer to investigate the determinants of human capital (HC) specificity. Inspired by labour market research, we formulate three hypotheses on how uncertainty about the usefulness of individuals’ (more productive) specific skills affects their investment in (more flexible) general skills. The empirical analysis is based on unique panel data on school grades, soccer evaluations, and sociodemographic characteristics of 90 elite players from the youth academy of a German Bundesliga club. We find that senior and long-serving players, who are comparably certain that their (soccer) specific capital will be sufficient to pursue a lucrative professional career, invest less in general HC at school. Expected soccer performance, in contrast, has a counterintuitive positive effect. Our results expand knowledge on the factors influencing HC specificity from the macro to the subject level and highlight practical implications for institutions that train gifted individuals.     

Why firms adopt empowerment practices and how such practices affect firm performance? A transaction cost-exchange perspective

Complementing the current management literature's focus on the value-creation side of empowerment practices, this paper offers a transaction cost-exchange perspective to explain why firms adopt empowerment practices and how such practices affect firm performance. Specifically, we theorize how performance ambiguity and human asset specificity, two major characteristics of employee-employer exchange, shape firms' decisions to adopt empowerment practices, both independently and interactively. Our model also develops a contingency perspective of how empowerment practices affect firm performance by delineating the moderating role of empowerment practices in the relationship between employee-employer exchange characteristics and firm performance.     

金融租赁合同的特殊性问题研究

金融租赁交易是我国改革开放以来，在经济活动中出现的新的交易形式，具有融资和融物的双重功能。金融租赁具有交易形式是三方交易、买卖合同为第三人创设权利、交易合同是非继续性契约和合同的租期比较长等特殊性。总结我国的金融租赁交易实践，合同法将金融租赁合同作为一个列名的分则合同进行了规定。金融租赁合同是融资立法中的重要内容，是金融租赁区别与传统租赁的重要方面。     

Not all gamblers are created equal: gambling preferences depend on individual personality traits

Previous studies have presented evidence revealing that the dispositional personalities of consumers, or the traits associated with their gambling behaviors and risk preferences, differ across various gambling types. Those studies leave open the question of whether and how personality differences affect domain-specific gambling preferences. Using latent class analysis (LCA), we explored the latent classes of risk preference for different gambling types and the effects of personality traits on these classes. A total of 732 Macau residents completed a questionnaire assessing 13 gambling types and personality traits. Preferences for gambling shown by the participants varied between three latent classes of games: chance gambling, entertainment gambling, and technical gambling. Moreover, not all personality traits consistently predicted preferences for these gambling classes. For instance, aggression-hostility positively predicted a general preference for both chance gambling and technical gambling, but impulsive sensation-seeking positively predicted only a preference for chance gambling. However, neuroticism-anxiety traits showed no such predictive effect for any of the three gambling classes. This study suggests that personality patterns emerge for overall and specific gambling types and underscores the value of LCA to help resolve the longstanding debate over whether gambling is domain specific.     

交易费用、资产专用性与纵向一体化间关系的实证研究

利用2006—2009年我国沪深两市上市公司的数据,并对交易费用进行细分,实证分析了不同的交易费用、资产专用性对纵向一体化的影响。结果表明:企业的纵向一体化行为具有显著的行业差异;管理性交易费用、资本市场交易费用和商品市场交易费用是显著影响企业纵向一体化行为的重要因素;资产专用性与纵向一体化水平之间存在显著的正相关关系。     

人民币汇率不构成出口补贴

美国对人民币汇率的指控,近期集中于人民币汇率构成对中国出口商和出口产品的补贴。根据世界贸易组织的相关规定和案例,判断人民币汇率是否构成出口补贴主要来自三个要素:财政资助、利益和专向性。首先,由于不存在提供补贴的主体,也没有出现政府资金向私人的流动以及政府未提供世界贸易组织所禁止的服务,因此人民币汇率不符合财政资助的要求;其次,由于全球各地人民币汇率基本一致,难以另行确定"自由市场"的人民币汇率,因此不能强行将人民币汇率认定为"被授予的一项利益";最后,由于所有企业使用相同的汇率,并且单纯以增加出口为由不足以充分证明人民币汇率与出口实绩相连,因此不符合专向性的要求。所以,人民币汇率不构成出口补贴。