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Articles 1 - 30 of 32
Full-Text Articles in Business
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives, Chayanov develops the theories of differential optima and vertical integration, which stress the vulnerability of peasant farming in capitalist markets, and argues that cooperatives can support smallholders only if they operate as ‘a cooperative movement’, are buttressed by a strong ‘cooperative culture’, and achieve ‘vertical integration’. Based on extensive fieldwork in China, we identify six major obstacles that explain the failure of most cooperatives. Chayanov’s arguments caution us to not only the vital importance of cooperatives to the resilience of peasant farming, but also the apparently insurmountable obstacles that cooperatives face in market economies.
Property In Whose Name? Intrahousehold Bargaining Over Homeownership In China, Jia Yu, Cheng Cheng
Property In Whose Name? Intrahousehold Bargaining Over Homeownership In China, Jia Yu, Cheng Cheng
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Previous research typically examined homeownership inequality across individuals or households, overlooking the intrahousehold allocation of homeownership. Using couple-level data of the 2016 China Family Panel Studies, our study addresses the gap by examining the bargaining over homeownership between husbands and wives in China. Descriptive results reveal a large gender gap in homeownership: only about one-quarter of couples listed the wife as an owner on the Housing Ownership Certificate, whereas about 92% listed the husband. The gender gap in ownership, however, has narrowed among couples married after 2000. Multivariate analyses show that economic autonomy, relative resources, housing purchase conditions, and modernization …
Nonprofits As Socially Responsible Actors: Neoliberalism, Institutional Structures, And Empowerment In The United Nations Global Compact, Alwyn Lim
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations have become prominent participants in a global organizational responsibility movement. This trend of nonprofit responsibility is puzzling because nonprofits are presumably already dedicated to the pursuit of collective well-being objectives. This article examines the nonprofit responsibility movement from a cultural perspective, whereby broader cultural changes at the level of international organizations have constructed nonprofit entities as empowered and socially responsible actors. Using the case of the United Nations Global Compact, a global framework for corporate social responsibility, the author shows how (1) the construction of cultural meanings of autonomy and decentralization in the neoliberal context, (2) …
The Resilience Of Diversified Clusters: Reconfiguring Commodity Networks In Rural China During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Resilience Of Diversified Clusters: Reconfiguring Commodity Networks In Rural China During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
We conceptualize typical rural communities in China as diversified economic clusters. In normal times, economic actors in these communities rarely cooperate with each other, but are integrated into separate commodity chains. These “diversified clusters”, however, show resilience and flexibility when an external shock—the COVID-19 pandemic—disrupts the spatial connections throughout the existing commodity chains. In this study, we use primary field data collected from one typical rural community in Northern China to show how economic diversity, aided by social networks and space-shrinking technologies, allowed for the vertical commodity chains to be reconfigured temporarily into localized horizontal commodity networks to cope with …
What Drives Companies To Do Good? A “Universal” Ordering Of Corporate Social Responsibility Motivation, Alwyn Lim, Shawn Pope
What Drives Companies To Do Good? A “Universal” Ordering Of Corporate Social Responsibility Motivation, Alwyn Lim, Shawn Pope
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The classic question of why companies do corporate social responsibility (CSR) is central to much theoretical, regression-based, and experimental research. Guiding research into this question is a tripartite schema of normative, instrumental, and political CSR motivations that has become increasingly established in the CSR literature. This paper challenges the schema’s status as a typology of equally plausible alternatives through an integration and analysis of a worldwide literature of 120 existing academic surveys on CSR motivation. Rather, the paper reformulates the schema into a surveyed ordering of CSR motivations that might be called “universal” in having remarkable stability across time periods, …
Why Companies Practice Corporate Social Responsibility, Shawn Pope, Alwyn Lim
Why Companies Practice Corporate Social Responsibility, Shawn Pope, Alwyn Lim
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The article discussed why companies practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their meta-analysis of 200 surveys over 20 years found that CSR is often embraced as a “halo” strategy.
Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson
Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper offers a “more-than-representational” understanding of how heritage value is reproduced by cottage food businesses in Singapore. It advances the notion of haptic heritage to highlight the importance of touch and feel in inculcating food with a sense of heritage value. Haptic heritage is reproduced through the physical handling of ingredients in ways that contribute to more “authentic” products. However, it also foregrounds food production processes that are more tactile, time-consuming and thus unscalable than their automated counterparts. Accordingly, the reproduction of haptic heritage is becoming increasingly unviable in Singapore’s competitive economic landscape. These ideas are explored through a …
Place-Making/Management: The Policy And Practice Of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe
Place-Making/Management: The Policy And Practice Of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Singapore has won numerous accolades and garnered global attention for its physical infrastructure and iconic architecture. Despite these achievements, its government has recognized that certain parts of the city still lack a certain human vitality and buzz. Additionally, like other post-industrial cities, the production of a positive urban experience has been identified as that critical competitive advantage that would differentiate Singapore from other cities. Consequently, the Singapore government adopted a strategy called ‘place management’ in 2008 to inject ‘heart and soul’ into the city, and deliver a liveable, globally competitive and amenity-rich urban environment for its increasingly educated and upper …
Making Ethnic Tourism Good For The Poor, Jean Junying Lor, Shelly Kwa, John A. Donaldson
Making Ethnic Tourism Good For The Poor, Jean Junying Lor, Shelly Kwa, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How can ethnic tourism alleviate rural poverty? Due to the difficulty of simultaneously expanding tourism while promoting pro-poor tourism, most villages traverse one of two developmental pathways: 1) ensuring an inclusive structure before expanding, or 2) expanding before building an inclusive structure. This study compares four comparable cases in Southwestern China to understand the politics behind the decision to choose different pathways, and the impact each pathways has on local residents. While the first pathway requires a careful balance to maintain a pro-poor structure as tourism volume expands, the second pathway presents apparently insurmountable barriers to poverty reduction due to …
Build Your Own Nest: Singapore's First Study On Matched Savings Schemes For Lower Income, Older Women, David Chan, Benedict S. K. Koh
Build Your Own Nest: Singapore's First Study On Matched Savings Schemes For Lower Income, Older Women, David Chan, Benedict S. K. Koh
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Matched Savings Scheme is a research study, commissioned by the International Longevity Centre – Singapore (ILC – Singapore) of the Tsao Foundation and funded by the Tote Board, found that a monthly matched savings scheme is effective in sustaining the retirement savings behaviour among a group of 377 elderly women from low-income households over the study period of 18 months. The research, conducted by principal investigator psychology professor David Chan and co-investigator finance professor Benedict Koh, used an experimental design and longitudinal tracking to examine the effects that different factors of a matched savings scheme have on the participants’ decision …
Motives Of Corporate Political Donations: Industry Regulation, Subjective Judgement And The Origins Of Pragmatic And Ideological Corporations, Nicholas M. Harrigan
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 …
Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
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 …
Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu
Providing Rural Public Services Through Land Commodification: Policy Innovations And Rural-Urban Integration In Chengdu, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianling Wu
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Zhang and Wu offer a detailed account of the innovative local policies in Chengdu, China, where a national land-use policy that has created widespread problems in other trial areas has been turned into a positive, transformative force in rural reconstruction. There are three key innovations in this so-called ‘Chengdu model’: First, leveraging on the most important resource in rural area, land, and through the commodification of land development rights, creating a financial source that can fund rural public services provision; second, transforming traditional rural residential patterns and concentrating the rural population in newly built residential communities; and, finally, using both …
How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson
How Agribusiness Can Win In Partnership With Small Farms, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Can large-scale agribusiness reduce costs and obtain less-expensive food while also reducing poverty and inequality by engaging small-scale farmers? Many conclude that such an attractive outcome is unimaginable, but innovative pilot projects hold promise that such a reality is within reach and replicable.
Understanding The Failure Of China’S Specialized Cooperatives In China, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Understanding The Failure Of China’S Specialized Cooperatives In China, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
At first blush, contemporary China seems ripe for the rapid development of agricultural cooperatives. After all, cooperatives have not only enjoyed a long history in China, but the country’s recent experience with agricultural communes should make it more amenable to the reestablishment of joint production and spontaneous bottom-up cooperation. Agricultural cooperatives in China date to the 1930s, as Rural Reconstruction Movement advocates promoted cooperatives as a “third road” between capitalism and socialism. Although Mao’s regime disbanded most bottom-up cooperatives, rural cooperatives began to reemerge in rural China by the end of the 20th century, particularly after 1998, when farmer cooperatives …
On The Social And Political Effects Of Opening In Rural China, Housi Cheng, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
On The Social And Political Effects Of Opening In Rural China, Housi Cheng, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What are the economic, social and political effects when previously isolated villages are opened to the outside world? Scholars from different traditions expect different sorts of positive or negative affects to occur. Rural China presents an ideal environment to study this question empirically. Villages within rural China are in the process of being opened to the outside world in different forms, such as through being connected by road, the investment of agribusiness, or urbanization. Moreover this opening is being driven and shaped by different actors, including local residents, government and businesses. The different ways and actors that this opening occurs …
State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang
State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
A government's political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government's policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government's evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures.
Rural China In Transition: Changes And Transformations In China’S Agriculture And Rural Sector, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Rural China In Transition: Changes And Transformations In China’S Agriculture And Rural Sector, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Agribusiness companies operating in China are transacting in various forms with small agricultural producers, and in doing so, transforming the household-based agriculture in rural China. We argue that the presence of these distinct forms and the diverging relations between agribusiness and producers show the central importance of China’s collective land rights. China’s unique system of land rights – featuring collective ownership but individualized usage rights – has acted as a powerful force in shaping interactions between agribusiness and direct producers. It provides farmers a source of economic income as well as political bargaining power – albeit to various degrees – …
The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan
The Transformation Of Urban Vegetable Retail In China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets, And Informal Markets In Shanghai, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The state-monopolised system of vegetable retail in socialist urban China has transformed into a market-based system run by profit-driven actors. Publicly owned wet markets not only declined in number after the state relegated its construction to market forces, but were also thoroughly privatised, becoming venues of capital accumulation for the market operators now controlling these properties. Self-employed migrant families replaced salaried state employees in the labour force. Governments’ increased control over urban public space reduced the room for informal markets, exacerbating the scarcity of vegetable retail space. Fragmentation in the production and wholesale systems restricted modern supermarkets’ ability to establish …
International Conventions And The Failure Of A Transnational Approach To Controlling Asian Crime Business, Mark Findlay, Nafis Hanif
International Conventions And The Failure Of A Transnational Approach To Controlling Asian Crime Business, Mark Findlay, Nafis Hanif
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The paper argues that without a realistic understanding of criminal enterprise located against the commercial forces shaping contemporary Asian market contexts, then domestic, bi-lateral, regional and international control initiatives are not only likely to fail in their regulatory objectives, but the premises on which they are constructed may heighten the market conditions for crime business profitability.The international convention-based approach to regulating transnational and organized crime is the framework from which a critique of non-market centred law enforcement control concentrations is developed. This critique reveals the transposition of flawed normative control considerations from domestic to supra-national control contexts, and shows how …
Differential Impact Of Directors’ Social And Financial Capital On Corporate Interlock Formation, Nicholas Harrigan, Matthew Bond
Differential Impact Of Directors’ Social And Financial Capital On Corporate Interlock Formation, Nicholas Harrigan, Matthew Bond
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Exponential random graph models (ERGMs) are increasingly applied to observed network data and are central to understanding social structure and network processes. The chapters in this edited volume provide a self-contained, exhaustive account of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of ERGMs, including models for univariate, multivariate, bipartite, longitudinal and social-influence type ERGMs. Each method is applied in individual case studies illustrating how social science theories may be examined empirically using ERGMs. The authors supply the reader with sufficient detail to specify ERGMs, fit them to data with any of the available software packages and interpret the results.
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The increased role for agribusiness and larger scale production in China’s agricultural system is limited by China’s severe lack of arable land. The Household Responsibility System provides farmers a measure of power, hampering agribusiness from acquiring land needed for expansion. Some Chinese companies have sought cheaper and often more accessible land in nearby regions, including Southeast Asia. While such investments have the potential to deliver benefits, including increased productivity, structural constraints such as weak land ownership and environmental laws, highly unequal distribution of land and underdevelopment of peasant organizations prevent many poorer farmers from benefiting from these investments.
From Peasants To Farmers: Peasant Differentiation, Labor Regimes, And Land-Rights Institutions In China's Agrarian Transition, Q. Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
From Peasants To Farmers: Peasant Differentiation, Labor Regimes, And Land-Rights Institutions In China's Agrarian Transition, Q. Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights institution in shaping these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: (1) Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate …
The Beginning Of The End? Agricultural Modernization And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
The Beginning Of The End? Agricultural Modernization And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
Beware Of Radical Change: China’S Agrarian Revolution, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Beware Of Radical Change: China’S Agrarian Revolution, John A. Donaldson, Forrest Q. Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.
On Changes In Rural China: The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
On Changes In Rural China: The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
For decades, Mr. Hong and his family have toiled the ground of Dounan Village, an area of Yunnan Province that became well-known throughout China for the quality of its fresh vegetables. While Hong and his neighbors have, since the early 1980s, concentrated on the small plot of land that the state allocated to them, in recent years, Dounan village has begun producing vegetables in large enough scale to market to distant, wealthy coastal areas, bringing new-found prosperity to the area. After gaining experience producing vegetables both on the plot that the government allocated to his family, and on his neighbors’ …
A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch
A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article examines the close relationship between the Australian and New Zealand business communities to ask whether the relationship is best characterized as simply a bi-lateral trading relationship, or whether there is evidence of the formation of a transnational business community. This article also seeks to explore the nature of Australia—New Zealand integration, and specifically the degree to which the relationship is interdependent or asymmetrical. Data are drawn from quantitative sources — including a dataset developed from the IBISWorld's Largest 2000 Enterprises in Australia and New Zealand, Who's Who in Australia, and Who's Who in Business in Australia — and …
Sustaining The Household In A Globalizing World: The Gendered Dynamics Of Business Travel In Singapore Households, Shirlena Huang, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Paulin Tay Straughan
Sustaining The Household In A Globalizing World: The Gendered Dynamics Of Business Travel In Singapore Households, Shirlena Huang, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Paulin Tay Straughan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article draws upon a large-scale survey as well as focus group discussions to examine how Singapore households grapple with the demands of participating in globalized work. It highlights the household as a site of analysis, where individuals engage with contemporary trends of globalisation in their daily lives. Specifically, this article examines the case of Singapore households where one or both spouses engage in business travel. The study (a) emphasises the need to focus on processes that bring about shorter-term transnational variations to a household's daily geographies and how household members negotiate these disruptions; and (b) demonstrates that the transnationalizing …
The Effects Of Intercorporate Networks On Corporate Social And Political Behaviour, Matthew Bond, Siana Glouharova, Nicholas Harrigan
The Effects Of Intercorporate Networks On Corporate Social And Political Behaviour, Matthew Bond, Siana Glouharova, Nicholas Harrigan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Large economic corporations play a central role in the economies of modern societies. Much of what we consume is produced and marketed by corporations, and many of us are employed by them. Our economic fates appear to be inextricably linked to their actions. Not for the first time, however, corporations are facing pressures to expand the scope of their concerns even further. Two cases neatly illustrate the nature of these pressures. First, movements promoting corporate social responsibility exert pressures on corporations to take account of the negative and positive consequences of their actions to third parties; they are requesting that …