Reference points for measuring social performance: Case study of a social business venture

We present a longitudinal qualitative case study to elaborate on how a social venture forms reference points for social performance. Although organizations increasingly use various social performance targets to direct their operations, the scholarly knowledge on social performance reference points remains limited. We make use of the prior accounting literature and draw on the idea of compromising accounts to discuss how provisional and performative metrics can have a significant role in how organizations develop new ways to evaluate their social performance. Given that the social performance reference point criteria are ambiguous and the corresponding referents malleable, performative accounts are helpful as they can intervene in the organizational life by making particular things visible, providing space for interpretations, and facilitating discussion, thus creating temporary settlements and enabling opportunities for productive compromises between different organizational groups and evaluative principles. The recursive feedback loops between reference point referents, criteria and accounting artefacts help the organization to make sense of its own social performance and interpret the associated performance feedback, and thereby provide ground for organizational decisions on further action. Moreover, we discuss how imperfect accounts can be useful for social businesses in their pursuit of developing their activities and achieving social impact.     

When age does not harm innovative behavior and perceptions of competence: Testing interdepartmental collaboration as a social buffer

Can older managers overcome stereotypes relating age to low competence? We integrate the literature on age and cognitive ability with research on innovation to explore whether—and if so, when—employees' age harms performance and promotability appraisals made by their supervisors. Multisource, time‐lag data from 305 project managers indicate that the negative stereotypes can be explained through decreased innovative behavior. However, older employees are not always seen as poorer performers with less potential to be promoted due to their reduced innovative behavior. Rather, interdepartmental collaboration moderates these effects. Specifically, older employees with low interdepartmental collaboration are less innovative and receive worse performance and promotability appraisals than younger employees, but the “age handicap” vanishes when older employees collaborate with members of other departments. Organizations should foster formal or informal collaboration among units to prevent negative consequences of an aging workforce.     

The importance of consumer multihoming (joint purchases) for market performance: Mergers and entry in media markets

Consumer “multihoming” (watching two TV channels, or buying two news magazines) has surprisingly important effects on market equilibrium and performance in (two‐sided) media markets. We show this by introducing consumer multihoming and advertising finance into the classic circle model of product differentiation. When consumers multihome (attend more than one platform), media platforms can charge only incremental value prices to advertisers. Entry or merger leaves consumer prices unchanged under consumer multihoming, but leaves advertiser prices unchanged under single‐homing: Multihoming flips the side of the market on which platforms compete. In contrast to standard circle results, equilibrium product variety can be insufficient under multihoming.     

农机社会化服务采纳、禀赋差异与农村经济相对贫困缓解

进入以缓解相对贫困为重点的后扶贫时代，农村经济相对贫困问题仍不容忽视。农机社会化服务作为小农户与现代农业有机衔接的桥梁，对于推进乡村振兴战略和脱贫攻坚有序衔接具有重要作用。文章讨论的核心议题是农机社会化服务采纳如何缓解农村经济相对贫困，并尝试建立了“农机社会化服务采纳——禀赋差异缩小——农村经济相对贫困缓解”的理论分析框架。为此，文章首先对农机社会化服务采纳影响农村经济相对贫困的作用机制进行了理论分析，然后利用2750份河南省农户问卷调查数据，运用Logit模型，实证检验农机社会化服务采纳对农村经济相对贫困的影响，并通过替代核心自变量和变更样本的方法进行稳健性检验，运用PSM模型和IVProbit模型以及ERM模型进行内生性讨论，最后通过中介效应模型对其作用机制进行验证。结果表明，农机社会化服务采纳对农村经济相对贫困具有显著负向影响，缓解了农村经济相对贫困。考虑内生性后，结论仍具有稳健性。进一步的机制验证发现，农机社会化服务采纳通过缩小劳动力禀赋差异和技术禀赋差异，缓解农村经济相对贫困，劳动力禀赋差异缩小和技术禀赋差异缩小的中介效应占比分别为21.22%和7.36%。可见，应将完善农机社会化服务供需体系纳入农户相对贫困治理机制考虑范畴，引导农户从传统家庭化生产转向现代社会化生产，扩大农机社会化服务采纳范围；同时完善就业服务等相关配套体系以吸纳释放的弱劳动力，促进农户收入增长，缓解农村经济相对贫困。     

关于企业成本管理的探讨

成本管理是预算管理和绩效管理的前提,企业需要正确地将成本进行分类、计量和归集。恰当的成本管理制度可以帮助企业提升运营效率和业务绩效,同时企业的流程改善、突破和优化与成本管理密不可分。另外,管理者需要令客户对产品和服务满意,并且有效控制各项成本。企业成本管理不是单纯地降低成本,而是通过利用成本分析工具,有效地管理和规划资源,进而提高总体运营效率,保证企业总体绩效的持续改善。论文通过成本计算制度的制定方法和业务流程改善分析技术两方面对成本管控进行探讨。     

企业应收账款管理研究

我国经济已由高速增长阶段转向高质量发展阶段,“提升治理能力,实现高质量发展”是我国面对新变化、新趋势再一次作出的明确路径选择。如何加强应收账款的管理,已经成为现代企业管理中不容回避的问题。论文通过对LD公司应收账款管理的研究,提出改进方案和实施保障措施,有助于解决LD公司应收账款管理的实际问题,顺应企业高质量发展需求,提高应收账款管理能力,推动企业朝着更高质量、更可持续的方向发展。     

Unfolding the impact of leadership and management on sustainability performance: Green and lean practices and guanxi as the dual mediators

This study aims to empirically evaluate the predictors that influence sustainability performance among manufacturing firms. Leadership and management, green and lean practices, and guanxi were examined to determine whether these predictors are directly and/or indirectly affecting sustainability performance; 160 valid responses were collected and partial-least-squares-structural-equation-modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that leadership and management positively influenced green and lean practices and green and lean practices positively influenced sustainability performance. Leadership and management also positively influenced guanxi. Interestingly, leadership and management and guanxi do not exert a significant direct influence on sustainability performance. The findings contributed to the development of the resource-based-view theory further by empirically exploring the significance of leadership and management coupled with green and lean practices as competencies and capability to drive sustainability performance. The testing of the dual mediators' effects further added value to this study.     

Large scale infrastructure investment and economic performance – a case study of Oresund

We analyse the effect of a large scale infrastructure investment, namely the construction of the Oresund bridge, on the local and supra-regional economy. We employ the synthetic control method to construct counterfactual regions that mimic the trajectory of Malmo and Southern Sweden without treatment. Our results point to a positive effect. However, placebo tests in space and time only reveal statistical significance at a larger regional level. The results suggest that spillover effects are eminent.     

Industry 4.0 technologies in the manufacturing sector: Are we sure they are all relevant for environmental performance?

This research contributes to the debate about the relevance of Industry 4.0 technologies in improving environmental performance in the manufacturing industry. We employed a qualitative–quantitative approach in which 19 Italian operations managers were interviewed and 260 managers responded to an online questionnaire. The effects of various technologies were ranked using ordinal regression. Comments and suggestions gave context to the quantitative results. Sensors, radio-frequency identification, artificial intelligence and analytics were found to be most relevant in improving environmental performance, whereas simulation software contributed moderately. Additive manufacturing, cobots, robots, automated mobile robots and automated guided vehicles had a negative effect, augmented reality had no effect and other technologies indirectly affected environmental performance. We also found a lack of knowledge and application as well as scepticism about technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Finally, there was concern about the disposal of electrical and electronic waste produced by these technologies.