The Curious Case of Corporate Tax Avoidance: Is it Socially Irresponsible?

In contrast to many aspects of the social responsibility of business, CSR scholarship has been largely silent on the issue of the payment of corporate tax. This is curious because such tax payments are often considered a fundamental and easily measured example of a company’s citizenship behavior. However, because the payment of corporate tax can often be legally avoided, this activity represents a boundary condition for CSR. If the law and CSR suggest that a company should pay its fair share of tax, yet many successful companies actively avoid this social obligation, should they be considered socially irresponsible. This paper explores the issue of tax avoidance and the implications it has for any credible definition and measure of CSR. It also highlights an aspect of corporate practice that is deliberately hidden from public view.     

The role of economies of scale in justifying free trade: the Canada-USA Free Trade Agreement and Europe 1992 compared

In what way will the benefits of free trade emerge? This analysis looks at the role of economies of scale in justifying free trade. It takes the 1989 Canada-USA Free Trade Agreement and the European 1992 programmes as two recent examples of analyses in which economy of scale arguments were central to the economic evaluation of welfare gains. The official assessments of both policy moves are scrutinized and compared. It is suggested that the advantages of economies of scale are exaggerated in each account. The policy implications of the critique are drawn out for the case of both internal and external economies of scale. The argument is that a move away from traditional mass production process technologies and business strategies is underway, which requires a radically different approach to trade and scale issues.     

Computer-aided content analysis: What do 240 advertising slogans have in common?

This paper uses the technique of computer-aided text analysis to evaluate the meanings of 240 advertising slogans. Content analysis performed by a computer is more reliable and less tedious than that performed by human coders. We analyze the content of the slogans and assume this reflects what the advertiser thinks that he or she said. One large group of equivocal slogans and four other more distinct groups are found.     

The decision processes of innovative communicators and other adopters

Based on the nature of their involvement with the target product category three market segments of consumers of fashion innovations are identified. It is hypothesised that each segment of consumers should use a different decision process when adopting an innovation. The major findings of this study are that the more innovative consumers used a less extensive pattern of decision making activity than consumers who were either less involved with the product category or were concerned about how the purchase would effect their perceived social status. These findings suggest that involvement with the category is different to involvement in the decision making process, and that the latter is somewhat contingent on situational factors.Thanks are expressed to John Rossiter, Judy Zaichkowsky, and the editor and reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft.     

Time,trading and algorithms in financial sector security

This article examines the financial security issues raised by the rapid development of high-frequency trading (HFT). HFT involves automated algorithmic trading of financial instruments where the objective is to reduce the time scale between the initiation and execution of trades to microseconds (or even nanoseconds) so as to reap competitive advantage. After outlining the contours of a HFT world, the presentation goes on to discuss some of its important consequences and implications. Several matters are discussed in this context: market manipulation, hacking, index construction and violence. Of particular significance for the notion of financial security is the issue of time as embodied in algorithmic trading. In turn this raises concerns over the regulation and management of this new field of financial innovation and trading activity.     

An Investigation into the Formal Institutional Constraints that Restrict Entrepreneurship and SME Growth in Russia

The impact of institutions on the ease of doing business in transition economies has attracted considerable interest in recent years. The literature suggests that institutional quality is crucial in determining levels of entrepreneurship and SME development in such countries. Our research explores the perceptions of Russian SME owners regarding the quality of the institutional environment that they face making use of semi-structured interviews for data gathering purposes. We identify the political, economic and regulatory barriers that restrict entrepreneurship and SME growth in contemporary Russia, together with entrepreneurs’ views as to what reforms are needed for greater business growth in future.     

Inflation accounting in a theory of calculation

How should we conceptualize the issue of inflation accounting? This is the problem raised and discussed in this paper. It represents a case study of the recent U.K. inflation accounting debate, but tries to set this within the context of how financial calculation more generally is organised and its social determinants. Two particularly distinctive features of the analysis are the ways in which this debate is related to the idea of financial calculation as “sign”, and the non-reduction of the “interests” located in the debate to expressions of some pre-given social position. Finally the wider implications of this non-orthodox approach are assessed.     

Causality in economics: Rhetorical ethic or positivist empiric?

This paper explores the concept of ‘causality’ in the social and behavioural sciences, particularly as deployed in economics and econometrics (or statistical testing in general). Causality is closely associated with empirical testing of theories and hypotheses in an empiricist manner. In this way it is fundamentally connected to our notions of scientific endeavour. But causality is also a rhetorical category in these areas, as well as in everyday debate about social and economic matters. The question raised is ‘Why has causality come to occupy such a central place in our intellectual culture? What are the conditions of existence of a “causal culture” in both the domain of scientific endeavour and popular disputation?’ The argument is that there are a wide range of conditions that support this ‘causal culture’ not least of which is an ethical imperative associated with a felt need to attribute blame for mishaps, accidents, conditions of life, and so on. Thus an ethic of morality is strongly involved. The rhetorical operation of causality is linked to this ethic and, in addition, to a range of other non-ethical conditions for the ‘causality culture’ within economics and related disciplines.