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Full-Text Articles in Business

Motives Of Corporate Political Donations: Industry Regulation, Subjective Judgement And The Origins Of Pragmatic And Ideological Corporations, Nicholas M. Harrigan Dec 2017

Motives Of Corporate Political Donations: Industry Regulation, Subjective Judgement And The Origins Of Pragmatic And Ideological Corporations, Nicholas M. Harrigan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What motivates corporate political action? Are corporations motivated by their own narrow economic self-interest; are they committed to pursuing larger class interests; or are corporations instruments for status groups to pursue their own agendas? Sociologists have been divided over this question for much of the last century. This paper introduces a novel case - that of Australia - and an extensive dataset of over 1,500 corporations and 7,500 directors. The paper attempts to understand the motives of corporate political action by examining patterns of corporate political donations. Using statistical modelling, supported by qualitative evidence, the paper argues that, in the …


Beyond Personal Control: When And How Executives' Beliefs In Negotiable Fate Foster Entrepreneurial Orientation And Firm Performance, Evelyn W. M. Au, Xin Qin, Zhi-Xue Zhang Nov 2017

Beyond Personal Control: When And How Executives' Beliefs In Negotiable Fate Foster Entrepreneurial Orientation And Firm Performance, Evelyn W. M. Au, Xin Qin, Zhi-Xue Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Negotiable fate, the belief that fate imposes boundaries within which personal actions can shape outcomes, is rooted in Chinese collective wisdom. This belief is hypothesized to prompt executives to use of available resources to create opportunities by directing their attention to controllable aspects of unpredictable environments. Thus, executives' endorsement of negotiable fate beliefs is expected not only to enhance firm-level entrepreneurial orientation, but also to positively predict firm innovation and financial performance. We further expect these mediation effects to be stronger under dynamic environments. Studies of top executives in China support the theorized moderated-mediation model. By providing evidence for its …


The Search For Meaning Amid Tasks Galore And Race To Be First, David Chan Nov 2017

The Search For Meaning Amid Tasks Galore And Race To Be First, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For most, life is a busy pursuit.But it is good every now and then to take the time to reflect on why you dowhat you do.


Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson Jul 2017

Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since the 1990s, agricultural cooperatives—particularly what China calls Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives—have experienced rapid expansion in China. After more than two decades of growth and policy support, what is the overall performance of the ever-increasing numbers of these cooperatives? We visited 50 cooperatives across the country, most of which had officially been lauded as successful, to make a first-hand evaluation of their overall status and performance. We argue that, judging by either international or Chinese standards, the vast majority of these agricultural cooperatives are not authentic and fail to deliver expected benefits to smallholders. We categorize them into five types: genuine …


Preparing For Socio-Technical Transitions: Opportunities And Challenges For Policy Design, Sreeja Nair, Araz Taeihagh Jun 2017

Preparing For Socio-Technical Transitions: Opportunities And Challenges For Policy Design, Sreeja Nair, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Effective policy mixes are expected to accommodate uncertainties in the future policy context by being flexible and adapt over time in expectation of a range of anticipated and unanticipated conditions. In response to shifts in the future policy context, while policy changes can manifest as increments to status quo over time, policymakers may also need to face the possibility of making major policy shifts to enable the transition into more appropriate policy regimes. In the context of socio-technical transitions, the switch to new policy alternatives can be facilitated by incorporating new policy actions into the suite of current policy strategies …


Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang Jan 2017

Betting On The Big: State-Brokered Land Transfers, Large-Scale Agricultural Producers, And Rural Policy Implementation, Weigang Gong, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

As rural governments have become hollowed out and detached from rural society, can they still effectively implement policies that lack popular support? This article examines a county in Hunan Province, where local governments had strong incentives to implement a national policy of increasing double cropping in rice farming. Small farmers rejected double cropping as unprofitable. Local governments’ limited capacity prevented them from either reshaping small farmers’ economic calculus or coercing compliance. They strategically selected a policy tool acceptable to most small farmers (paid land transfers) and gave new private large-scale producers incentives to double crop by providing subsidies and access …


Practical Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, And Social Intelligence, Filip Lievens, David Chan Jan 2017

Practical Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, And Social Intelligence, Filip Lievens, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Over the years, practical intelligence, social intelligence, and especially emotional intelligence have received substantial attention in both the academic and practitioner literatures. However, at the same time, these individual dierence “constructs” have also fueled controversies and criticisms, including their applications to employee selection. It is without doubt that their definition, dimensionality, and operationalization (measurement) have been much more questioned as compared to the more traditional or established constructs (i.e., cognitive ability, personality) in this section of the Handbook.