Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index: A Global Benchmark for Corporate Sustainability

Increasingly investors are diversifying their portfolios by investing in companies committed to the concept of corporate sustainability. Investors are attracted to this new investment style because it promises to create long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from ongoing economic, environmental and social developments. It focuses on future challenges and is capable of capturing qualitative non-financial information for criteria such as quality of management, corporate governance structures, reputational risks, human capital management, stakeholder relations, corporate social responsibility.Here we present the framework used by the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index (DJSGI) for identifying and ranking companies according to their corporate sustainability performance. In a yearly review the 10% leading sustainability companies in each of the 64 industry groups are selected for inclusion in the DJSGI. Throughout the year the companies are continuously monitored and, if necessary, downrated or excluded from the Index. A variety of sources is used for the assessment and for cross-checking of information, including company questionnaires, company documents, publicly available information, stakeholder relations, media screening and company interviews. The selection process is externally verified and the methodology is reviewed yearly to capture the increasing knowledge and standardisation of sustainability issues and to align it with ongoing initiatives such as the Global Reporting Initiative.     

The Ecological Footprint: A Metric for Corporate Sustainability

From a business perspective, one of the emerging debates is how can businesses contribute to the objectives of sustainable development. This article presents the ecological footprint accounting tool and demonstrates its usefulness in measuring and monitoring corporate sustainability. The application of the ecological footprint is based on a case study of the city of Liverpool whilst its usefulness to businesses is demonstrated with data available in the environmental reports of various companies. For companies, the ecological footprint is able to take a given environmental impact and through its methodology convert this impact into a land measurement (hectares). Once all environmental impacts are considered and measured, the ecological footprint becomes the total area of land required to support a company in terms of the resources they consume and the waste that they produce. An ecological footprint analysis can highlight how near or far a company is from being sustainable and identify those aspects that have the greatest ecological effect. The usefulness of the ecological footprint is the use of a land measurement that enables it to be readily and easily understood by all that have a vested interested in a company's environmental performance. The metaphorical resonance of the ecological footprint is seen as one of a number of powerful attributes.     

Managing Imbalanced Supply Chain Relationships for Sustainability: A Power Perspective

This study adopts a power perspective to investigate sustainable supply chain relationships and specifically uses resource‐dependence theory (RDT) to critically analyze buyer–supplier–supplier relationships. Empirical evidence is provided, extending the RDT model in this context. The concept of power relationships is explored through a qualitative study of a multinational company and agricultural growers in the UK food industry that work together to implement sustainable practices. We look at multiple triadic relationships involving a large buyer and its small suppliers to investigate how relative power affects the implementation of sustainable supply‐management practices. The study highlights that power as dependence is relevant to understanding compliance in sustainable supply chains and to identifying appropriate relationship‐management strategies to build more sustainable supply chains. We show the influences of power on how players manage their relationships and how it affects organizational responses to the implementation of sustainability initiatives. Power notably influences the sharing of sustainability‐related risks and value between supply chain partners. From a managerial perspective, the study contributes to developing a better understanding of how power can become an effective way to achieve sustainability goals. This article offers insights into the way in which a large organization works with small and medium size enterprises to implement sustainable practices and shows how power management—that is, the way in which power is used—can support or hinder effective cooperation around sustainability in the supply chain.     

A Model for Implementing a Sustainability Strategy through HRM Practices

There is a rapidly growing interest in the topic of sustainability as it relates to long‐term business performance that optimizes the “triple bottom line”: economic, environmental, and social outcomes. This article articulates a multilevel conceptual model for executing a business strategy for sustainability primarily through the design and implementation of human resource management practices. The model builds on open systems theory, the resource based view of the firm, and the concept of line of sight to identify certain key organizational capabilities, group competencies, and individual abilities and other characteristics that combine to drive organizational performance when pursuing a sustainability strategy. The article concludes with a discussion of implications of the model for theory, research, and practice.     

Managing Capital Market Reactions to Corporate Social Resposibility

Although overlooked to some degree by non-marketing disciplines, the discipline of marketing has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge on business strategy over the last two decades. This paper evaluates these contributions, examines how they complement dominant non-marketing theories of business strategy, and shows how marketing offers a generalized theory of competition that integrates the concepts of both marketing and non-marketing theories of business strategy.     

A Mental Model Proposed to Address Sustainability and Terrorism Issues

I have assembled traditional ways to think about human needs and power along with empirical data to support a mental model of human values. The hierarchy of needs from the world of psychology and the hierarchy of power from the world of diplomacy provide a structure for the model. The empirical data collected from several nations over the last three decades support the structure. Furthermore, an examination of specific trends in this data for specific values indicates that it is not impossible to achieve a sustainable world driven by sustainable values. A world that will be defined by its successful movement toward the "triple bottom line," a term articulated by John Elkington, is a world in which economic prosperity, environmental protection, and social equity are aligned. To say that the model allows one to address terrorism is based on the assumption that the lack of social equity or the perception of that lack determines the likelihood of terrorism.     

A Comprehensive Model for Managing Credit Risk on Home Mortgage Portfolios*

Managing credit risk in financial institutions requires the ability to forecast aggregate losses on existing loans, predict the length of time that loans will be on the books before prepayment or default, analyze the expected performance of particular segments in the existing portfolio, and project payment patterns of new loans. Described in this paper are tools created for these functions in a large California financial institution. A forecasting model with Markovian structure and nonstationary transition probabilities is used to model the life of a mortgage. Logistic and regression models are used to estimate severity of losses. These models are integrated into a system that allows analysts and managers to depict the expected performance of individual loans and portfolio segments under different economic scenarios. With this information, analysts and managers can establish appropriate loss reserves, suggest pricing differentials to compensate for risk, and make strategic lending decisions.     

Managing Corporate Knowledge Experiences with SODA and V·I·S·A

It is often said that success in today's competitive environment depends on the acquisition and application of sound, relevant knowledge. This paper introduces two management science approaches that have been used for the effective management of knowledge, towards the development of strategy, planning and decision making, in a wide range of organizational settings. Both approaches make use of computer technology to provide a flexible and interactive environment incorporating a visual representation of the problem. The paper briefly describes each approach, together with a case study illustrating its use in practice. A number of common themes relevant to the management of knowledge are identified and discussed. The themes highlight the benefits which arise through the use of computer technology alongside a number of issues relevant to the management of the group process.     

A Contingent Claims Model of Corporate Pension Obligations*

This study develops a contingent claims model for valuing the implicit market value of the pension claim associated with defined benefit pension plans. In this model, the firm issues pension, debt, and equity claims. These claims have joint access to two underlying portfolios: corporate and pension. The changes in the market values of these two portfolios are assumed to follow a joint lognormal diffusion process. By imposing terminal boundary conditions implied by Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) rules and the pension insurance provisions of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on the partial differential equation, a solution for the pension value is obtained. This quasi-market measure of the value of the pension claim may be represented by a portfolio consisting of four components: (1) a risk-free discount bond with face value equal to promised pension benefits; (2) a short put on pension assets with exercise price equal to pension benefits; (3) a long call on 30 percent of corporate assets with exercise price equal to the face value of secured corporate debt; and (4) a short call on 30 percent of corporate assets with a stochastic exercise price which depends on the terminal value of the pension fund. A numerical example using 1992 and 1993 financial statement data from six major U.S. corporations is provided. This example illustrates the usefulness of the model's prediction and the potential effect of theoretical pension values on corporate debt-equity ratios.     

Corporate Management,Industry Competition and the Sustainability of Firm Abnormal Profitability

This paper models the sustainability of firmabnormal profitability and uses theeffectiveness of corporate managementcapabilities as a test to examine its impact onthe sustainability of firm abnormalprofitability. The role of industry competitionas a moderator between the effectiveness ofcorporate management capabilities and thesustainability of firm abnormal profitabilityis also examined. Consistent with theresource-based view of the firm, we found thatthe effectiveness of corporate managementcapabilities positively influence thesustainability of firm abnormal profitability.This implies that corporate managementcapabilities are important contributors to theentire bundle of firm-specific resources andcapabilities which enable some firms togenerate competitive advantages that aresustainable. The effectiveness of corporatemanagement capabilities has a larger influenceon the sustainability of firm abnormalprofitability for firms in lowly competitive ormonopolistic industries than firms in highlycompetitive industries. The findings supportthe notion that not only do firm capabilitiesyield sustainable competitive advantages andabnormal profitability, but also industrycompetition reinforces the impact of firmcapabilities in yielding sustainable abnormalprofitability.     

公司经营困境风险的动态评价模型研究

以医药制造业上市公司为例,在一个特定的行业背景下,采用非配对取样方式,应用Log istic离散时间风险模型,对公司经营困境风险进行了动态评价。结果显示,股票的S igm a系数值、股权集中度、公司规模及资产负债率与经营困境风险显著相关。评价中发现,为了达到一个较好且合适的分类识别正确率,决策者必须在型Ⅰ类错误成本与型Ⅱ类错误成本之间进行权衡。此外,在行业内选取了经营困境公司与经营健康公司作为2个对照组,发现2组公司的经营困境风险动态演化过程存在明显差异,这种可视化演示方法对经营困境发生的危险时段有预测作用。     

基于可持续理论的能源资源价值分析模型

能源可持续发展是人类可持续发展的重要内容,而可持续的能源资源价值评价是实现能源可持续发展的一个根本途径.本文在最优增长模型的基础上,通过加入资源和环境约束,建立了一个用于评价可持续能源资源价值的跨期动态模型.本文还着重分析了市场的不完备性、环境的外部性以及政府政策失灵对可持续能源资源价值各构成部分的影响及在现实中的表现,并就中国目前的实际情况提出了相应的政策建议.     

A Linear Model for Managing the Risk of Antimicrobial Resistance Originating in Food Animals

A linear population risk model used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) estimates the risk of human cases of campylobacteriosis caused by fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter. Among the cases of campylobacteriosis attributed to domestically produced chicken, the fluoroquinolone resistance is assumed to result from the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry in the United States. Properties of the linear population risk model are contrasted with those of a farm-to-fork model commonly used for microbial risk assessments. The utility of the linear population model for the purpose for which it was used by CVM is discussed.     

Breaking the Ties That Bind: From Corporate Sustainability to Socially Sustainable Systems

Although the recent push toward sustainability is certainly generally a positive development in business and society, we can see many problems in the execution of the theory of sustainability. Where the triple bottom line calls on companies to weigh effects on stakeholders and the environment alongside profit, in practice in many cases, sustainability has been perverted to represent sustainable profits. In these cases, environmental impact and effects on people are only important insofar as they positively contribute to a firm‘s future profits. It is not only practitioners who have often espoused this misappropriated view of sustainability but also academics have lent credibility to this view. In this work, we start by criticizing the often espoused current view of sustainability and remind academics of their responsibility to adapt a more critical view of this narrow focus. We provide examples that show how the current system of capitalism has resulted in outcomes for people and the environment that are patently unacceptable. Reasons are given as to why there is much hesitation to change the status quo. We then call on academics to reexamine what the role of businesses should be within society, what obligations business and corporations should have in society, and how we can encourage meaningful change that results in a better world for future generations.     

通过战略合作管理企业信息技术咨询—企业信息系统外包及其ASP模式分析

本文在综述企业信息系统外包发展的基础上,初步探讨了企业如何建立和管理企业与"承包商"之间的战略联盟问题;最后论述了目前流行的电子商务环境下的外包形式-应用服务提供商ASP的相关问题及其在中国的应用实践.     

An Empirical Model for Managing Quality in the Electronics Industry

Much of the empirical research in the past two decades has suggested that quality management (QM) is context dependent. This research develops an empirical QM model in a technology‐based sector—electronics manufacturing. Based on quantitative and qualitative investigations of 225 electronics firms in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of China, a path analytic model is developed. The empirical model shows that a typical quality management system (QMS) in the electronics industry is composed of four major modules, namely leadership, cultural elements, operational support systems, and process management. These modules create a series of chain effects on organizational performance, rather than acting as parallel elements with an equal impact. By quantifying their effects on organizational performance and comparing the model to others in the literature, we identify those QM constructs that are context dependent. In electronics manufacturing, process management and customer focus are more important than other elements (e.g., cultural factors) for garnering business results. This study contributes to contingency theory and research by identifying the key constructs and their relationships in a competitive, volatile, and technology‐based industry with complex supply networks.     

公司企业家精神培育的系统理论假设模型及验证

企业家精神是企业永续发展的不竭动力。是21世纪推动一个国家经济发展最主要的动力之一。本文从微观角度出发,研究公司如何采取有效的措施促进公司企业家精神的培育,进而提高公司的经营业绩。笔者在国内外相关领域研究成果的基础上,提出了影响公司企业家精神培育的系统理论假设模型,并通过实证研究验证了假设模型。     

机构投资者参与公司治理决策的模型分析

在对相关文献回顾的基础上,构建数学模型研究了机构投资者参与治理决策的影响因素.最后,结合我国机构投资者参与影响上市公司治理的实践,探讨了模型的应用价值,提出了相应的政策建议.