the impact of fair trade certification for coffee farmers in peru smallholder farmers producing for fair trade market outlets are usually considered to benefit from better prices and stable market outlets however many empirical studies verifying this impact suffer from strong selection bias this study uses a balanced sample of fair trade farmers and likewise nonfair trade producers of organic and conventional coffee from peru to compare the net effects on production income and expenditures wealth and investments and attitudes and perceptions after careful matching we find only modest direct income and production effects but significant changes in organization input use wealth and assets and risk attitudes moreover important differences between farmers with early and more recent ft affiliation are registered

corporate philanthropic disaster response and ownership type evidence from chinese firms response to the sichuan earthquake this article examines whether the charitable giving amount and likelihood of firm response to catastrophic events relate to firms ownership type using a unique dataset of listed firms in china where state ownership is still prevalent based on the data of chinese firms response to the 2008 sichuan earthquake we find that the extent of corporate contributions for state owned firms following this disaster is less than that for private firms state owned firms are also less likely to respond in this disaster compared to private firms the results also reveal that firm size profitability geography cash resource available and leverage affect firms philanthropic disaster response behavior in china

social influence and mne strategic response to political risk a global network approach abstract according to the conventional view of mne host country relations mnes faced with political risk condition their strategic responses on each party s relative power positions or bargaining influence drawing insight from network theory institutional theory and international relations research i argue that firm sensitivity to political risk is contingent upon a complementary concept social influence social influence arises through the mutual embeddedness of mne and host government in a complex global network of nations to test my hypotheses i construct a global network of trade relations that i combine with a unique transaction level dataset from the global petroleum industry my results demonstrate that social influence as modeled by home host structural equivalence moderates the effects of political risk further my findings provide support for a conceptual and empirical distinction between social influence and the traditional bargaining influence examined in the literature

organizational membership and environmental ethics a comparison of managers in state owned firms collectives private firms and joint ventures in china abstract this study empirically examines the relationship between organizational type and the environmental ethical orientation of managers in the people s republic of china prc on three dimensions stewardship and long and short term utilitarianism it was found that chinese managers uniformly self report strong ethical commitments to environmental protection in addition organizational type was found to be a significant predictor for the different ethical dimensions overall managers in state owned firms uniformly reported the strongest values managers in private firms on the other hand self reported lower values and appeared relatively more skeptical of emergent utilitarian arguments that economic performance and environmental performance are compatible in the short term

the dark side of board political capital enabling blockholder rent appropriation resource dependence theorists argue that boards of directors with political capital can benefit focal firms by reducing uncertainty and providing preferential resources here we develop theory reg

residual state ownership policy stability and financial performance following strategic decisions by privatizing telecoms we question previous research assuming that privatizing firm performance generally benefits from decreasing state ownership and the passage of time both of which purportedly align principal agent incentives promoting organizational decision making that increases shareholder value when state ownership shifts from majority and controlling to minority and non controlling the performance impact may be positive in the short run particularly where there is instability in the local investment policy environment consistent with this proposition we develop and test hypotheses derived from a minority and non controlling or residual state ownership framework grounded in credible privatization and institutional theory we propose that 1 residual state ownership positively affects shareholder returns after strategic decisions by privatizing firms because it signals state support for managerial initiatives 2 the passage of time since initial privatization negatively affects shareholder returns after strategic decisions by privatizing firms because initial undertakings in support of the privatizing firm are reversed and 3 home country investment policy stability moderates these two effects greater stability obviates the need for residual state ownership and slows policy reversals over time we find empirical support for our residual state ownership framework in event study analyses of cumulative abnormal returns cars associated with 196 major investments announced from 1986 to 2001 by 15 privatizing telecoms from around the world cars are positive at 5 25 state ownership levels but turn negative at higher state ownership levels cars turn sharply negative within 1 2 years from initial privatization dates increasing policy stability diminishes positive ownership and negative time effects on cars results confirm the potential supporting role that residual state ownership can play in enhancing strategic decision making and financial performance by privatizing firms particularly where there is instability in the home country investment policy environment

state ownership and transparency in foreign direct investment we contribute to ib literature on state owned multinationals by examining an understudied element of mne strategy transparency drawing insight from accounting finance and political science we develop theory and hypotheses regarding ownership effects on fdi disclosure we argue that transparency of outward fdi depends on both state ownership and home and host country institutions we also posit that host governments harness their soes to exploit information disclosed by foreign mnes discouraging inward fdi transparency we test our hypotheses using a unique transaction level database from the global petroleum industry analyzing a sample of 965 investment disclosures across 81 developing and developed countries we find state ownership reduces mne transparency soes are less sensitive to host country political risk than private firms soes from better governed countries are more transparent and regardless of ownership foreign mnes are more opaque when investing in the presence of a host country soe

globalisation and unequalisation what can be learned from value chain analysis although many have gained from the process of globalisation there remains a stubbornly large number of people living in absolute poverty and a rise in inequality within and between countries the issue is thus not whether to participate in the global economy but how to do so in a manner which provides for sustainable and equitable income growth this study shows how value chain analysis can be used to chart the growing disjuncture between global economic activity and global income distribution and to provide causal explanations for this outcome in so doing value chain analysis provides valuable insights into policy formulation and implementation

political risk and foreign exchange rates an efficient market approach this paper examines the reaction of the foreign exchange market to the announcement of changes in the business environment of a country our results suggest that sampled political risk news conveys important information about a country s investment climate and causes its currency s exchange rate to vary it appears however that the reaction of the foreign exchange market is more dramatic for unfavorable events than for favorable events the evidence presented is also consistent with the hypothesis that the foreign exchange market is efficient in interpreting the type of event considered in this study

consumer support for corporate social responsibility csr the role of religion and values ethical behavior among businesses has gained significant prominence in recent years survey evidence shows that asian consumers demand for greater social responsibility among businesses thus a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to such a demand is useful this study examines the influence of religiosity and values on corporate social responsibility csr support among consumers in hong kong and singapore primary data collected among consumers in these cities point to a significant direct relationship between religiosity and csr support in hong kong this attitude is due both to altruistic as well as for egotistical or face saving reasons in singapore this is mainly due to the latter the results imply that different motivations should guide csr strategies in these two cities

organizational leadership ethics and the challenges of marketing fair and ethical trade this article critically evaluates current developments in marketing fair trade labelled products and no sweat manufactured goods and argues that both the fair trade and ethical trade movements increasingly rely on strategies for bottom up change converting consumers one cup at a time this individualistic approach which we call shopping for a better world must we argue be augmented by more collectivist approaches to affect transformative change specifically we look at the concept of mission driven organizations pursuing leadership roles in developing affinity relationships to promote fair and ethical trade and developing ethical spaces increasingly a range of organizations are restructuring their operations so that their mission is reflected in ethical practices throughout their operations including product sourcing and product sales first ethical purchasing policies operated by non profits and public agencies represent markets through which fair ethical products reach end consumers the efforts discussed to create ethical spaces through direct democracy and electoral mandate build on a broad based affinity with the principles of fair and ethical trade second we explore the potential for mission driven non profit organizations such as zoos and aquaria for merging their mission of conservation education with their marketing activities through the operation of their shops and cafes interesting initiatives to link the conservation message to food choices is being undertaken by a number of zoos and aquaria while there is scope for increased linkages in the giftware sold in their shops

stock market s reaction to disclosure of environmental violations evidence from china the stock market s reaction to information disclosure of environmental violation events eves is investigated multi dimensionally for chinese listed companies including variables such as pollution types information disclosure sources information disclosure levels modernization levels of the region where the company locates ultimate ownership of the company and ownership held by the largest shareholder using the method of event study daily abnormal return ar and accumulative abnormal return car are calculated under different event window for examining the extent to which the stock market responds to the eves furthermore statistical significance of the difference in stock market reaction is compared between event firms with different characteristics the relationship between car and its impact factors is examined by multivariate analysis the findings reveal that the average reduction in market value is estimated to be much lower than the estimated changes in market value for similar events in other countries demonstrating that the negative environmental events of chinese listed companies currently have weak impact on the stock market

corporate social responsibility ownership structure and political interference evidence from china prior research suggests that ownership structure is associated to corporate social responsibility csr in developed countries this article examines whether and how ownership structure affects csr in emerging markets using chinese firms social responsibility ranking our empirical evidences show that for non state owned firms corporate ownership dispersion is positively associated to csr however for state owned firms whose controlling shareholder is the state this relation is reversed we attribute the reversed relationship to political interferences and further test this hypothesis by demonstrating that regional economic development is negatively related to csr for state owned firms due to decreased political interference in more developed areas this study is the first to directly examine the relationship between the dispersion of corporate ownership and csr in emerging markets and our results depict that it is important to consider ownership type in assessing csr in emerging market where state ownership is still prevalent such as china the results also reveal that firm size profitability employee power leverage and growth opportunity affect csr in china

speculation in international crises report from the gulf recent years have seen recurring international financial crises as well as a tremendous rise in trading and speculation how are the two related are speculators and trading responsible for market volatility this paper presents a study of the gulf crisis of 1990 1991 examining the behavior of the international oil market during a period of unprecedented volatility the analysis suggests that a combination of political events and market fundamentals rather than trading was behind this volatility

political risk in emerging and developed markets using analyst estimates of political risk we show that political risk represents a more important determinant of stock returns in emerging than developed markets average returns in emerging markets experiencing decreased political risk exceed those of emerging markets experiencing increased political risk by approximately 11 per quarter in contrast the difference is only 2 5 per quarter for developed markets further the difference between the impact of political risk in emerging and developed markets is statistically significant we also document a global convergence in political risk over the last 10 years political risk has decreased in emerging markets and increased in developed markets if this trend continues the differential impact of political risk in emerging vs developed markets may narrow

the latte revolution regulation markets and consumption in the global coffee chain abstract coffee is a truly global commodity and a major foreign exchange earner in many developing countries the global coffee chain has changed dramatically as a result of deregulation new consumption patterns and evolving corporate strategies from a balanced contest between producing and consuming countries within the politics of international coffee agreements power relations shifted to the advantage of transnational corporations a relatively stable institutional environment where proportions of generated income were fairly distributed between producing and consuming countries turned into one that is more informal unstable and unequal through the lenses of global commodity chain analysis this paper examines how these transformations affect developing countries and what policy instruments are available to address the emerging imbalances

factors that drive chinese listed companies in voluntary disclosure of environmental information based on the institutional theory this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure eid 1 whether or not to disclose and 2 the level of disclosure the relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in china some interesting findings appear we find that firms that are state owned those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries those having more industrial peers engaged in eid and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information when it comes to the content of eid variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of eid this study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and eid development

fair trade organic coffee rural livelihoods and the agrarian question southern mexican coffee families in transition summary we use a random sample of coffee producing households in southern mexico to compare opportunities associated with government subsidies and migration to the role of fair trade organic coffee in household livelihoods although land and labor returns among fair trade organic coffee growers are higher than for conventional growers differences in yields are more important than price premiums moreover investment in education and labor opportunities outside coffee dominate those in fair trade organic coffee the results highlight the value of an integrated approach to the agrarian question that improves productivity and prices and supports other pathways for improving incomes

when one size does not fit all a problem of fit rather than failure for voluntary management standards voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms related capabilities these standards however have largely failed to improve such performance as intended over emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms existing capabilities external pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them this can lead to problems of fit between institutional requirements and a firm s existing capabilities we describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure we suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success we contribute to theory by describing the role of firms internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self regulation generally

institutions sans frontieres international agreements and foreign investment we examine whether the presence of international investment agreements iias negotiated among countries for foreign investor protection lowers political risk faced by multinational enterprises mnes drawing on research from international business political science and international law we argue that iias increase expected future cash flows and hence the value of foreign assets by limiting the ability of host governments to make discriminatory policy changes however the need for iia protection and the ability to benefit from it varies with firm characteristics using detailed transaction level data for sale of petroleum assets in 45 countries we find that mnes pay significantly higher amounts for those protected by iias than similar but unprotected assets an effect moderated by the firm s reserve size and state ownership

empirical models of political risks in u s oil production operations in venezuela in 9 of the years between 1961 and 1978 venezuelan regimes took actions adverse to the profitability of u s oil companies local production operations in this study 2 time series discriminant models were developed for classifying each of the 18 years according to the occurrence of such action in the first model adverse government action was found more likely to occur following years of economic decline and periods when u s companies earned high profits from petroleum investments in venezuela in the second model government action tended to occur after periods of relative deprivation experienced by venezuelans to illustrate the use of discriminant models in forecasting political risks hypothetical scenarios were formulated from which projections were made through 1985 of the likelihood of government action against those u s oil companies operations remaining since the nationalization of petroleum

business ethics and finance in greater china synthesis and future directions in sustainability csr and fraud following the financial crisis and recent recession the center of gravity of global economic growth and competitiveness is shifting toward emerging economies as a leading and increasingly influential emerging economy china is currently attracting the attention of academics practitioners and policy makers there has been an increase in research interest in and publications on issues relating to china within high quality international academic journals we therefore organized a special issue conference in conjunction with the journal of business ethics jbe in lhasa tibet on may 19 20 2014 on business ethics in greater china past present and future the papers for the special issue focused on the intersection of ethics and finance and fit within one of the three themes environment and sustainability corporate social responsibility and fraud within these themes issues of intellectual capital protection gender equality political connections regional development investor protection corporate stewardship trust and corruption and corporate transparency each play a significant role in this paper we survey these studies and the related literature to provide a comprehensive coverage of business ethics and finance issues that affect china

the impact of political risk on the volatility of stock returns the case of canada this paper examines the impact of political risk in canada on the volatility of stock returns our results suggest that political news associated with the possible separation of quebec from canada plays an important role in the volatility of stock returns however our evidence indicates that investors do not require a risk premium supporting the idea that political risk is diversifiable we also show that stock return volatility varies with the degree of a firm s exposure to political risk namely the structure of assets and the extent of foreign involvement which indicates that firms most exposed to political risk bear the burden of diversification

political connections and industrial pollution evidence based on state ownership and environmental levies in china we investigate how state involvement in the ownership of non listed entrepreneurial firms affects pollution fees levied by national and provincial governments in china environmental levies while the national government sets minimum environmental standards provincial governments can enact requirements that exceed these minimums and they are largely responsible for enforcing even the national standards so environmental levies can measure concessions that provinces make to encourage development and employment furthermore state ownership is a good proxy for a firm s political connections which can influence the relationship between the firm and the environmental authorities we find that firms with state ownership pay lower environmental levies which indicates that concessions are made for political or economic purposes however these concessions are conditional on the level of development of the province offering them with better developed provinces providing fewer concessions

do lenders value corporate social responsibility evidence from china drawing on risk mitigation theory this article examines whether the improvement of firms social performance reduces debt financing costs cdfs in china the world s largest emerging market employing both the ordinary least square ols and the two stage instrumental variable regression methods we find that improved corporate social responsibility csr reduces the cdf when firms csr investment is lower than an optimal level however this relationship is reversed after the csr investment exceeds the optimal level firms with extremely low or extremely high csr are subject to a higher cdf the results also suggest that the optimal csr level for small firms is higher than that for large firms this study is the first to document a u shaped relationship between csr and cdf and also the first to investigate this relationship within an emerging market context

impacts of corporate code of conduct on labor standards a case study of reebok s athletic footwear supplier factory in china this study examines the social impacts of labor related corporate social responsibility csr policies or corporate codes of conduct on upholding labor standards through a case study of csr discourses and codes implementation of reebok a leading branded company enjoying a high profiled image for its human rights achievement in a large taiwanese invested athletic footwear factory located in south china i find although implementation of reebok labor related codes has resulted in a race to ethical and legal minimum labor standards when notoriously inhumane and seriously illegal labor rights abuses were curbed chinese workers were forced to work harder and faster but earned less payment and the employee elected trade union installed through codes implementation operated more like a company union rather than an autonomous workers organization representing worker interests in order to explain the paradoxical effects of reebok labor related codes on labor standards i argue the result is determined by both structural forces and agency related factors embedded in industrial national and local contexts to put it shortly i find the effectiveness of reebok labor related codes is constrained not only by unsolved tension between reebok s impetus for profit maximization and commitment to workers human rights but also by hard nosed competition realities at marketplace and chinese government s insufficient protection of labor rights despite drawing merely from a single case study these findings illuminate key determinants inhibiting the effectiveness of labor related csr policies or codes in upholding labor standards and hence two possible way outs of the deadlock 1 sharing cost for improving labor standards among key players in global supply chain and 2 combining regulatory power of voluntary codes and compulsory state legislations

regulatory sanctions on independent directors and their consequences to the director labor market evidence from china we investigate the regulatory sanctions imposed on independent directors for their firms financial frauds in china these regulatory sanctions are prima facie evidence of significant lapses in business ethics during the period 2003 2010 302 person time independent directors were penalized by the regulator the china securities regulatory commission the csrc and the two stock exchanges we find that the independent directors with accounting experiences are more likely to be penalized by the csrc though they do not suffer more severe penalties than do the other sanctioned independent directors we also find that independent directors suffer less severe penalties than do the insider directors these results are consistent with the hypothesis that the sanctions on independent directors are tied to their assumed ethical and legal responsibilities following a regulatory sanction penalized independent directors experience a significant decline in the number of other board seats held however they can gain board seats in better quality firms we find that interlocked firms that share penalized independent directors with the fraud firm do not suffer from a valuation decline overall our results suggest that regulatory sanctions have not triggered further sanctions on the penalized directors in the labor market but they have instead created a disincentive for these directors to serve on the company boards of high risk firms

governance and trade in fresh vegetables the impact of uk supermarkets on the african horticulture industry production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub saharan africa over the last decade this trade brings producers and exporters based in africa together with importers and retailers in europe large retailers in europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from africa the requirements they specify for cost quality delivery product variety innovation food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out the control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by uk supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types and for the long term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied kenya and zimbabwe

globalization and the environment determinants of firm self regulation in china critics assert that globalization is detrimental to the environment because it encourages location of polluting industries in countries with low environmental regulations we suggest that globalization might also have positive environmental effects because global ties increase self regulation pressures on firms in low regulation countries using survey data from firms in china we find that multinational ownership multinational customers and exports to developed countries increase self regulation of environmental performance

the effect of asset and ownership structure on political risk some evidence from mitterrand s election in france abstract previous research suggests that political risk varies considerably from firm to firm yet few empirical tests of the cross sectional variation in political risk exist french assets were massively revalued the day after mitterrand was elected in 1981 providing a unique opportunity to test for the effect of firm specific factors on political risk although foreign ownership tends to increase political risk other factors can reduce it a simple model of political behavior is presented in which politicians value among other things economic growth a foreign firm with significant future growth options is likely to experience less political risk than other foreign firms and under certain circumstances less risk than even other domestic firms tests of these hypotheses are conducted using data from the french and u s capital markets the results are generally consistent with the hypotheses

unraveling the notion of fair carbon key challenges for standards development standards organizations and ngos have begun to refer to fair carbon projects and fairly traded carbon credits fairness is a fuzzy notion subject to multiple and competing interpretations this paper draws on a framing used by standards organizations which encompasses issues of access and benefits to critically examine challenges and opportunities for achieving desired fair outcomes as discussed in the literature arising knowledge gaps are presented as a research agenda that explores what fair carbon means to multiple stakeholders illuminates governance processes through which fairness is being standardized and examines its implications within certified carbon projects

government intervention in the venezuelan petroleum industry an empirical investigation of political risk two important aspects of political risk analysis that have not received much attention in the literature are a the reasons why multinational firms experience different types of intervention and b the timing of intervention in order to address these issues this research develops a conceptual model of political risk based on the premise that host government intervention is related to specific objectives of the government vis a vis multinational firms information reflecting the attainment of objectives motivates the government to intervene in a given manner the application of this model to the case of the venezuelan petroleum industry from years 1947 to 1976 provides some support for this model and gives insight into the timing of specific types of intervention

from voluntarism to regulation a study on ownership economic performance and corporate environmental information disclosure in china this article examines whether economic performance could affect eid and how the relationship is determined by the form of ownership from voluntarism to regulation under the current chinese context in this study our empirical results show that the relationship between firms performance and eid is complex and the interactive impact of ownership and economic performance on eid significantly varies from voluntary disclosure to mandatory disclosure this study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the motivations in corporate eid the performance impression theory can be used to explain the disclosure behaviors during the period of voluntary disclosure while the pressure legitimacy theory can be used during the period of mandatory disclosure the finding suggests that when evaluating corporate eid associated with economic performance in emerging economies such as china it needs to be cautious as which tends to vary with the form of ownership and whether there is any mandatory regulation in place

contesting legitimacy of voluntary sustainability certification schemes valuation languages and power asymmetries in the roundtable on sustainable palm oil in colombia voluntary certification schemes aimed at assuring producer compliance with a set of sustainability criteria have emerged as market based instruments mbis of sustainability governance however the impacts they tackle can be part of a complex arena of socio environmental conflict where values and powers of business and local actors compete legitimacy of these schemes not only results from compliance by business actors but also depends on acceptance by local actors affected by or resisting the industries that these mechanisms aim to govern this paper explores the influence of different local actors values and powers on legitimacy granting or contestation by local actors during national processes of sustainability criteria development we analyse the case of the roundtable on sustainable palm oil rspo in colombia using an approach that combines concepts of ecological economics and political ecology with the legitimacy literature based on critical sociology in colombia the palm oil industry led the initiative to implement certification under national interpretation of rspo principles and criteria however the national interpretation process revealed power asymmetries among stakeholders and clashes between their different values this resulted in strong contestation of rspo legitimacy by local actors who resist expansion of oil palm cultivation

the globalization of product markets and immiserizing growth lessons from the south african furniture industry the central issue addressed in this paper is whether some developing countries will find it difficult to compete effectively in global product markets and will therefore be locked into processes of immiserizing growth it focuses on the role of south african producers in the global furniture value chain analyzing the factors affecting firm upgrading particularly the role of global buyers the paper observes a global industry characterized by increased competition and falling unit prices with local firms dependent on a falling exchange rate it concludes with implications for policy and future research including generalizing the findings to other sectors and countries

addressing the global sustainability challenge the potential and pitfalls of private governance from the perspective of human capabilities contemporary global politics is characterized by an increasing trend toward experimental forms of governance with an emphasis on private governance a plurality of private standards codes of conduct and quality assurance schemes currently developed particularly though not exclusively by tncs replace traditional intergovernmental regimes in addressing profound global environmental and socio economic challenges ranging from forest deforestation fisheries depletion climate change to labor and human rights concerns while this trend has produced a heated debate in science and politics surprisingly little attention has been paid on the effects of private governance on questions of distribution and justice this is highly problematic at the beginning of the twenty first century global inequalities are greater than ever before while rapid economic social political and environmental changes threaten to further derail sustainable development and humanitarian objectives if private governance creates or intensifies some of the pressing global inequalities e g food security and alleviates others e g environmental degradation from a business ethics perspective we need to know which aspects need to be strengthened and where appropriate interventions are necessary and desirable this paper proposes a framework to examine and classify the distributive outcomes of private governance institutions through the lenses of one particular approach to distributive justice the capability approach empirically it focuses on agrifood one area where the controversy regarding the distributive concerns of private governance are particularly pronounced

corporate social responsibility and crony capitalism in taiwan corporate social responsibility csr has become increasingly popular in advanced economies in the west in contrast csr awareness in asia is rather low both on the corporate and state level however recent events have shown that the csr is receiving more attention by corporations in asia recent development in csr in taiwan is one example of such a trend a 2005 survey on the 700 publicly listed companies in taiwan on csr has highlighted the current csr situation concurrently the numbers of corporate scandals and corruption have dramatically increased over the past 6 years corporate csr activities co existing with pervasive corporate scandals create a phenomenon of contradictions this article aims to report via the survey findings the current development of business ethics in corporate taiwan and to interpret the findings in context of taiwan s business ethos especially its confucian familism and crony capitalism

player and referee roles held jointly the effect of state ownership on china s regulatory enforcement against fraud this article examines the impact of the prevailing state ownership in the chinese stock market on corporate governance and the financial regulatory system respectively as the internal and external monitoring mechanisms to deter corporate fraud and protect investors in line with the literature that state ownership exaggerates the agency problem we find that the retained state ownership in privatised firms increases the incidence of regulatory enforcements against fraud for the state owned enterprises soes however larger state ownership is associated with a lower incidence of enforcement actions this is attributed to the mutual political affiliation of the fraudulent soes and the regulatory commission a new regulation solutions for listed firm checks promulgated in march 2001 has mitigated this effect by empowering the regulatory commission to increase the severity of regulatory conditions our evidence confirms the improvement in the regulatory environment and investor protection in the chinese stock market brought about by the regulatory reform and development

the institutional environment for infrastructure investment the empirical evidence that links political institutions to economic outcomes has grown dramatically in recent years however virtually all of this analysis is undertaken using data from the past three decades this paper extends this empirical framework by performing a two century long historical analysis of the determinants of infrastructure investment in a panel of over 100 countries the results demonstrate that political environments that limit the feasibility of policy change are an important determinant of investment in infrastructure copyright 2002 oxford university press

u s oil and natural gas reserve prices 1982 2003 abstract a time series is estimated of in ground prices of u s oil and natural gas reserve prices for the period 1982 2003 using market transaction data reserves sold are considered as proved errors in this respect may affect estimates in either direction the data are also used to examine the impact of reserve status production rate and well head prices on reserve prices both oil and gas current values rose after 2000 in real terms the reserve value of oil rose sharply in 2003 but stayed below the 1985 peak that of gas remained below the mid 1980s oil reserve values hold for the worldwide industry gas values only for north america

political risk and dividend policy evidence from international political crises we examine the impact of political risk on firms payout policy using a large international sample across 35 countries over the period from 1990 to 2008 we find that global political crises raise the market perceived uncertainty and cost of external financing using crisis events as a proxy for political risk we document that past dividend payers are more likely to terminate dividends and that non payers are less likely to initiate dividends during periods of high political risk these findings suggest a precautionary incentive of managers in response to political shocks further analysis shows that the effect of political risk on payout policy is stronger for multinational corporations but can be attenuated by country specific institutional settings such as more stable political systems and stronger investor legal protection

resource nationalism meets the market political risk and the value of petroleum reserves this paper investigates the effect of resource nationalism on the value of petroleum crude oil and natural gas reserves we develop a framework for treating resource nationalism as political risk and utilize data on reserve transactions from john s herold and political risk ratings from international country risk guide and institutional investor for the period 2000 2006 controlling for other factors that affect reserve value we demonstrate the value destruction of political risk and estimate the political risk discount for 37 countries the paper contributes to both the international business literature and practitioner approaches to political risk analysis in demonstrating use of publicly available market data from real asset transactions to measure the cost of political risk we also show that the discount depends on market conditions the higher expected future petroleum prices are the larger is the discount at any level of political risk this insight adds a new dimension to analysis of political risk which is typically measured and examined without regard to market conditions

how do mncs vote in developing country elections research on multinational corporations mncs and host government political risk in developing countries has largely ignored local electoral politics economic policies and the mnc investment ince

mapping research topics and theories in private regulation for sustainability in global value chains the globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited as an alternative private regulation developed and administered by companies industry associations and nongovernmental organizations has emerged to safeguard economic environmental and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain the academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade but currently few major reviews of the research have been undertaken this paper examines peer reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to december 2011 our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature we conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation in a global value chain context is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world s economy we also conclude that agriculture forestry and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors in contrast other sectors such as the information communication and technology with their complex global value chains and often problematic environmental and social conditions are understudied

in the market but not of it fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification as market based social change summary this paper discusses two well known market based social change initiatives fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification which harness market forces to pursue social and environmental objectives a serious challenge for both is to operate in the conventional market without undermining their original objectives a global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social cultural and organizational factors shaping the initiatives governance structures both initiatives are seen to move along opposite organizational trajectories but face similar pressures from conventional market logics practices and dominant actors a preliminary framework is proposed for comparative assessment focusing on distribution of benefits how conventional market institutions may be questioned and how internal governance manages diverse stakeholder interests and influence

the effectiveness of public enforcement evidence from the resolution of tunneling in china this paper examines the effectiveness of public enforcement by studying the effects of regulatory intervention to curb tunneling through intercorporate loans in china specifically we explore whether public enforcement efforts in 2006 blacklisting and sanctions resulted in less tunneling and ultimately in increased performance for tunneling firms we show that tunneling is among the dominant factors increasing the likelihood of becoming blacklisted we also find that firms tunneling mechanisms decreased significantly after the regulatory shock and that their performance increased significantly compared to non tunneling firms after the regulatory shock finally we find a positive market reaction to the public announcement of tunneling both for firms that have been blacklisted and other tunneling firms that are not blacklisted collectively these results suggest that public enforcement in the presence of a credible threat succeeds in deterring the effect on tunneling behavior in china

mutual fund activism and market regulation during the pre ifrs period the case of earnings informativeness in china from an ethical perspective this paper investigates the emerging effect of mutual fund involvement on the agency problem between majority and minority shareholders during the pre ifrs period in china indicated by earnings informativeness from an ethical perspective we find that the presence of mutual fund hampers earnings informativeness implying that mutual funds in general at their early stage in china are not yet capable of serving as an effective monitor this finding is in sharp contrast to the role of institutional investors in mature markets as documented in the literature however mutual funds affiliated with banks have been found to be effective to improve earnings informativeness of chinese listed companies and the impact is more pronounced among those affiliated with joint equity banks compared to their counterparts affiliated with state owned banks

a test of the hotelling valuation principle time series tests of the hotelling r percent rule for natural resource prices have not been strongly supportive but the tests and the data are subject to serious difficulties we propose here an alternative testing strategy based on another but less widely known implication of the hotelling model we test this implication which we call the hotelling valuation principle by regressing the market values of the reserves of a sample of u s domestic oiland gas producing companies on their estimated hotelling values we find that the estimated hotelling values account for a significant portion of the observed variations in market values and that the hotelling measures are better indicators of the market values of petroleum properties than two widely cited publicly available alternative appraisals

why doesn t capital flow from rich to poor countries an empirical investigation we examine the empirical role of difierent explanations for the lack of ows of capital from rich to poor countries the lucas paradox the theoretical explanations include difierences in fundamentals across countries and capital market imperfections we show that during 1970i2000 low institutional quality is the leading explanation for example improving peru s institutional quality to australia s level implies a quadrupling of foreign investment recent studies emphasize the role of institutions for achieving higher levels of income but remain silent on the speciflc mechanisms our results indicate that foreign investment might be a channel through which institutions afiect long run development

how does environmental corporate social responsibility matter in a dysfunctional institutional environment evidence from china drawing on institutional and signaling theories this study examines how environmental corporate social responsibility ecsr affects firm performance in a dysfunctional institutional environment we extend the ecsr literature by suggesting that ecsr indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating effects of business and political legitimacy based on a dataset of 238 firms in china we find that ecsr affects business and political legitimacy followed by firm performance moreover legal incompleteness weakens and legal inefficiency strengthens the effects of ecsr on business and political legitimacy

how international oil and gas companies respond to local content policies in petroleum producing developing countries a narrative enquiry this paper uses narrative analysis to critically examine the business practices used by five international oil and gas companies iocs chevron exxonmobil shell bp and total to respond to local content policies in petroleum producing developing countries nigeria angola venezuela kazakhstan brazil indonesia yemen and indonesia during the period 2000 2012 the business practices include the formulation of local content strategies that are implemented through programmes and initiatives aimed at developing and using host country suppliers and workforce such practices and the narratives used to communicate them implicitly reflect the context in which the effectiveness of local content policies on economic development can be assessed by comparing and contrasting the narratives across the five iocs in relation to the wider literature four emergent narrative strategies justifying the business practices of iocs are identified and discussed they include 1 direct engagement to renegotiate local content requirements with governments 2 legal compliance framework 3 the business case for local content strategies and 4 corporate social responsibility csr initiatives the conclusion considers the policy implications of these findings for local content development in petroleum producing developing countries

financial and political risks in us direct foreign investment this paper examines the risk of us direct foreign investments over the period 1982 98 in 59 host countries the first part of the analysis builds an empirical model to explain the time series and cross country patterns of return on capital the estimation then uses the return on assets roa as a measure of the return on capital and investigates its determinants there are four main findings first the roa in a majority of countries does not simply track the worldwide roa second some cross country differences are explained by financial risks third unexplained country risk is qualitatively and quantitatively related to unobserved political risk fourth unexplained country risk is also compensated with a higher roa enhancing its credibility as a measure of political risk the unexplained country risk is thus used to calculate a new index of political risk ratings for 56 host countries that may be useful to managers investors policymakers and academics