The role of social proximity in professional CEO appointments: Evidence from caste/religion‐based hiring of CEOs in India

Research Summary: The role of homophily in CEO appointments at the largest corporations is an important subject in corporate governance. This subject is particularly important in a country like India where a multitude of religions, castes, and communities form its social fabric. We test for the role of homophily in professional CEO appointments in India by empirically examining the preference for same caste/religion CEOs by the largest firms. Using a unique dataset, assembled by detailed identification of castes/religions from family names and counterfactuals obtained through the Coarsened Exact Matching technique, we find that caste/religion plays a crucial role in CEO selection as a source of information (positive discrimination). The evidence is not consistent with its use to pursue taste‐based preferences (negative discrimination). Managerial Summary: We test for the role of homophily in the appointments of CEOs in India by empirically examining the preference for same caste/religion CEOs by the largest firms. We find that caste/religion plays an important role in CEO selection, i.e., as a form of information or “positive discrimination.” The evidence is not consistent with its use to pursue taste‐based preferences or “negative discrimination.”     

平遥古城旅游企业竞合关系研究

平遥古城是世界文化遗产旅游地,旅游企业的个体经营行为和彼此之间的竞争合作关系都会对古城旅游发展和遗产保护带来重要的影响。通过抽样问卷调查和数据处理,从古城内旅游企业竞争对手、竞争关系及竞争方式等方面分析了旅游企业的竞争状况;从旅游企业的合作特点和方式等方面分析了企业间的合作关系,认为平遥古城的旅游企业的竞合关系特点已具备了产业集群的特征,通过企业间合作性竞争,世界文化遗产的“公地悲剧”可以避免。     

Religion and identity in India’s heritage tourism

The growing worth of heritage in the renegotiation and dissemination of identities has intensified conflicts over whose voice dominates heritage tourism representations. Therefore, this study compares the way India’s heritage is represented by the Indian government, by the domestic tourism trade media and by the popular tourism media. The findings reveal that India is consistently represented as an ethnically diverse nation in which Hinduism preceded and prevailed over all other ethnicities/religions; a portrayal that consolidates the state’s secular nationalist narrative. Furthermore, the trade and popular media emphasize nostalgic experiences of a sanitized colonial history while the government emphasizes accounts of resistance against colonial powers and of suffering due to Muslim atrocities.     

中西方宗教价值观比较

本文通过对中西宗教价值观的终极价值取向、人性价值取向、伦理价值取向及其作用进行了分析和比较。     

Building God's City: The Political Economy of Prayer Camps in Nigeria

The proliferation of religious spaces is a relatively recent development in Nigeria. Nowadays there are more than a hundred religious camps belonging to different religious groups in the country. The most popular of these camps, the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is located 42 kilometres outside of Lagos and measures several thousand acres. Although initially not designed as such, developments in and around Lagos have compelled the managers of the Redemption Camp to present it as an urban alternative to the city of Lagos, which is generally deemed chaotic. The prestige of this camp and its activities have led to expansive urban development that involves the creation of numerous residential estates stretching from Lagos to beyond the Redemption Camp. Based on a recent ethnographic study of the Redemption Camp, this article argues that the process of urban expansion in and around Lagos is propelled by an aggressive form of religious revival that transcends the borders between economics, spirituality and territorial conquest. This article thus illustrates how church‐driven, religio‐urban developments follow a different logic of city making than often presumed by theorists of African cities, who generally neglect the religious forces that inform urban transformations in Africa.     

Building,Marketing and Living in an Islamic Gated Community: Novel Configurations of Class and Religion in Istanbul

This article analyses the development and marketing of Islamic gated communities in Basaksehir, Istanbul. It demonstrates how a blueprint of public–private urban development was appropriated by middle‐class Islamists. The gated communities in Basaksehir—which, at the outset, were not explicitly religious—gradually became attractive to religious actors searching for enclosed urban enclaves where Islamic communities would be protected against perceived moral‐urban threats. While urban‐religious enclaves appear to bear similarities to pre‐modern Ottoman Islamic urban enclaves, the rise of contemporary Islamic gated communities should be understood in light of the recent coming to power of the Islamist Turkish government. In cooperation with this government, housing development agencies approached Islamic investors to find capital for their public–private housing projects. One of the results of this form of urban development is that, contrary to pre‐modern Ottoman Islamic urban enclaves, the Islamic gated communities are homogenous in terms of economic class, catering specifically to the Islamic middle classes. Moreover, people who invest in Basaksehir desire an urban‐religious lifestyle that differs from the ‘traditional' religious lifestyle experienced in ‘traditional' Islamic neighbourhoods. The specific urban‐religious configuration generates a new type of Islam that better fits middle‐class values and a middle‐class lifestyle.     

Entrepreneurial Religion in the Age of Neoliberal Urbanism

The introduction to this symposium on entrepreneurial religion and neoliberal urbanism discusses leading scholarly approaches to religion and urban theory, arguing that, despite their merits, these approaches are in need of refinement. Theories on religion and urban theory too often describe religion as a reactionary phenomenon. Religious movements and spaces are generally defined as pockets of resistance and shelter against retreating or failing states under neoliberal restructuring programmes in the shadow of consumption dreams. Although religious actors and ideologies unquestionably form part of urban groups that are denied access to public and private means to wealth and security, the contributors to this symposium argue that within a global, comparative perspective, the entwinement of religion, state and market reveal more complicated configurations. Through a comparison of Islamic gated communities in Istanbul, Pentecostal prayer camps in Lagos and Pentecostal grassroots movements in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this symposium demonstrates that urban religion should also be regarded as a constitutive force of contemporary capitalism and should therefore be placed at the heart of the neoliberal construction of urban space instead of at its margins.     

浅析E．弗洛姆人道主义宗教思想

E．弗洛姆是现代西方著名的人道主义伦理学家，他通过综合马克思的宏观社会理论和弗洛伊德的微观心理分析理论而建立的人道主义伦理学体系在西方伦理学发展史上具有独特的理论贡献。在其伦理学体系中，宗教思想是其中重要的内容。弗洛姆从人的精神需要的角度探讨了宗教的根源和定义，划分了宗教的两种类型，揭露了现代社会宗教异化对人造成的危害，并积极探索建立人道主义宗教的具体对策。他的思想既有独特的理论和现实意义，同时也有明显的局限性。