Are Nuclear-Weapon States not Parties to the Non-proliferation Treaty Ready to Renounce to the Possession of Nuclear Weapons?

The situation of nuclear-weapon states not parties to the NPT is different from the situation of the nuclear-weapon states parties to that treaty. This last group of countries has signed and ratified a treaty that encourage them to begin negotiations in good faith for the discussion of concrete measures that lead them to nuclear disarmament, while the first group of states have made no commitment to do that. In other words, nuclear-weapon states not parties to the NPT have made no commitment to nuclear disarmament and are not obliged to report anything related to the possession of nuclear weapons to the any specific body or organ or to the international community. Taking into account the position of nuclear-weapon states parties to the NPT regarding the possession of nuclear weapons, there is no possibility to convince nuclear-weapon states not parties to this treaty to renounce to the possession of this type of weapons under the present circumstances.     

“Where to” micromultinationals? A tribute to Professor Pavlos Dimitratos

This reflection serves as a tribute to Professor Pavlos Dimitratos by providing a state-of-the-art understanding of micromultinationals (mMNEs), an important term initially coined by Pavlos and his colleagues (2003) in their European Management Journal article “Micromultinationals: New Types of Firms for the Global Competitive Landscape” to capture the rising phenomenon of international small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with advanced modes of entry. Whilst underexplored, such firms have critical research, managerial, and policymaking implications for their increasing population and significant value-added activities in home and host economies relative to exporting firms. Based on a short analysis of existing mMNE studies, we appeal for more scholarly attention to their evolution, behavioural characteristics, and consequences, particularly in the area of SME internationalisation. We suggest several promising future directions to investigate this intriguing type of entrepreneurial firms and, using a Scottish context, show how they are appealing to policymakers.     

Does insider shareholding matter to corporate payout reactions to tax reforms?

Theory indicates that since Germany’s 2001 Tax Reform Act non-qualified shareholders have strongly preferred share repurchases over dividends, even though qualified or corporate shareholders are typically expected to be indifferent between the two. By contrast, prior to the reform most shareholders preferred dividends. As payout policies may be driven by taxes but also by factors arising from asymmetric information of agents and principals, this raises the question whether payout decisions are driven by ownership structure, i.e., members of the management board or other influential shareholders such as blockholders. Kaserer et al. (Z Betriebswirtschaft 82, 2012) investigate the impact of insider shareholding on payout policy. Their study sheds light on the mechanisms behind corporate payout policies and provides important new insights into the influence that insiders’ actions have on payout policies. The authors leave issues like the impact of voting power and of dominant shareholder groups more or less untreated, hence preparing the floor for a whole series of interesting future empirical studies.     

Conceptualizing leadership with respect to its historical–contextual antecedents to power

An attempt is made here to build on the ideas and arguments presented in a recent Leadership Quarterly journal article written by Hunt and Dodge [Leadership Q. Yearly Overview Leadership 11 (2000) 435]. In their article, these authors argue that contemporary leadership researchers tend to neglect the historical–contextual antecedents of the field and as a result are developing many theories that reflect little more than a form of “academic amnesia” and “leadership déjà vu”. The importance of Hunt and Dodge's argument is reinforced through the use here of a form of deconstruction to reveal a lacuna in the leadership literature—the insufficient coverage of power, particularly at what is termed a deep structure level. With the current context of organizational change in mind, this lacuna is shown to have problematic consequences for leadership theory in general. More specifically, the increasing use of dispersed leadership strategies is shown to be particularly problematic. The article proposes a new conceptual framework that begins to address these problems and in so doing provides ideas and challenges for future research in the field.     

What do you have to do to become a medical director?

Medical management is a large and growing profession. The need for physicians in management roles grows unabated in hospitals, managed care organizations, group practices, and myriad other environments. But entry is not merely a matter of wishful thinking. Painstakingly assembled credentials and skills are the order of the day. The advice in this column is distilled from Medical Directors: What, Why, How, a new College monograph.     

Copy to China模式探微

摘随着互联网行业的发展,一种新的模式Copy to China渐渐进入我们的视野,为了对这种模式进行分析,本文以C2C模式的发展现状为切入点,通过对其产生根源和发展现状进行一些分析性思考,对这种模式的发展和完善提出了一些建设性建议。     

From Bureaucracy to Debureaucratization?

More than previous mild recessions, the current global crisis calls into question the merits of a model that held sway for almost three decades. Celebrated in the nineties in a “National Bestseller”, which even President Clinton considered to be a “blueprint” “for all officials to read”, the book—Reinventing Government—preached the reform of government in private sector ways. In stark contrast to Bureaucracy, which they considered “Bankrupt”. Authors Osborne and Gaebler (1993) promoted Debureaucratization, which they summed up as decentralization, deregulation, downsizing and outsourcing. It is time to revisit the assumptions of the Osborne-Gaebler model that has demonstrably failed. More than the model, however, the ways of its promotion in the market of ideas invites a word of caution. It prompted simplistic distortions, which typically followed from superficial analyses of Weber’s seminal opus (Timsit 2008:864–875). This paper reconsiders these two contrasting models, though not in “black” and “white”. Rather, the two are explored in dialectical terms, as outcomes of shifting ideologies, often taken to extremes.     

Does HRD have a moral duty to respond to matters of social injustice?

The purpose of this article is to question whether or not social injustice should matter to human resource development (HRD). The goal is to invoke a sense of moral agency and responsiveness within the HRD community for having more candid and open conversations about social injustice and the lived experiences of marginalized individuals. In this article, a social justice paradigm will be suggested as a dedicated platform for studying social justice as a necessary outcome of social injustice. Organizational social justice will be introduced as a progressive workplace norm that envisions an equal balance of social justice outcomes for all members in organizations and places of work.     

Returns to Tenure or Seniority?

This study documents two empirical facts using matched employer–employee data for Denmark and Portugal. First, workers who are hired last, are the first to leave the firm. Second, workers' wages rise with seniority, where seniority is defined as a worker's tenure relative to the tenure of his colleagues. Controlling for tenure, the probability of a worker leaving the firm decreases with seniority. The increase in expected seniority with tenure explains a large part of the negative duration dependence of the separation hazard. Conditional on ten years of tenure, the wage differential between the 10th and the 90th percentiles of the seniority distribution is 1.1–1.4 percentage points in Denmark and 2.3–3.4 in Portugal.     

不定式to的词性和语义

英语动词不定式前的这个to并非只是个“只有语法意义而无词汇意义的不变词”,在同一语境中,同一个动词的不定式的带to与不带to的形式不同,的确给所在的句子带来了语义上的差别。     

Integration of IPA and QFD to assess the service quality and to identify after sales service strategies to improve customer satisfaction – a case study

Customer satisfaction is considered very essential nowadays as it shows how firms are dedicated to afford quality products or services to their customers. Retaining the existing customer and acquiring the new customers are the basic objectives of any organisation and after sales service (ASS) has acquired a strategic role as a mean to achieve customer satisfaction. Importance–performance analysis (IPA) and quality function deployment (QFD) are the powerful tools successfully applied in many fields. However, studies on application of these tools in investigating the ASS quality and customer satisfaction seems to be scarce. This article investigates linking of IPA, which is a simple and effective customer satisfaction tool and QFD in the improvement of ASS attributes in an effort to determine the appropriate ASS strategic action plans to be adopted with the objective of enhancing customer satisfaction. In this study, a customer-driven model is proposed to examine the importance of the various ASS attributes and the performance of the organisation via questionnaire survey, and through the IP analysis, the areas to be focused are identified to help the decision makers in devising suitable policies, to improve the ASS performance. This is achieved through the employment of QFD that will help decision makers in the strategic planning to attain better customer satisfaction. A case study is carried out to exhibit the effectiveness of the developed model in a firm involved in manufacturing the home appliances.     

From solidarity to division: An analysis of Lech Wałęsa's transition to constituted leadership

This essay analyzes the capacity and constraints of authority in the contexts of constituted vs. non-constituted leadership. Using the experience of Lech Wa??sa's transition from the leader of the Solidarity social movement to the president of Poland as a case study, this article evaluates the portability of leadership skills and informal authority to the changing operational context of constituted leadership. It argues that the constraints of formal authority are significantly higher than those imposed on non-constituted leaders. As a result, while constituted leaders may have greater resources available to broadcast power, the allocation of these resources entails higher expectation for their custodians. This analysis concludes that a successful transition from non-constituted to constituted leadership is possible only when the leader manages to build new bases of informal authority. Wa??sa failed to expand his informal authority and was unsuccessful at transferring his leadership skills to the presidency.     

Off to Plan or Out to Lunch? Relationships between Design Characteristics and Outcomes of Strategy Workshops

Strategy workshops, also known as away days, strategy retreats and strategic ‘off‐sites’, have become widespread in organizations. However, there is a shortage of theory and evidence concerning the outcomes of these events and the factors that contribute to their effectiveness. Adopting a design science approach, in this paper we propose and test a multidimensional model that differentiates the effects of strategy workshops in terms of organizational, interpersonal and cognitive outcomes. Analysing survey data on over 650 workshops, we demonstrate that varying combinations of four basic design characteristics – clarity of goals and purpose, routinization, stakeholder involvement and cognitive effort – predict differentially these three distinct types of outcomes. Calling into question conventional wisdom on the design of workshops, we discuss the implications of our findings for integrating further the strategy process, strategy‐as‐practice and strategic cognition literatures, to enrich understanding of the factors that shape the nature and influence of contemporary strategic planning activities more generally.     

The Social Policy Response to COVID-19 – The Failure to Help Vulnerable Children and Elderly People

Public Organization Review - Norway’s handling of COVID-19 has been seen as a success. Vulnerable groups among young and elderly people, have however, not been part of this success. Their...     

Natural Capitalism: Path to Sustainability?

In this article, the Lovins’² explain what is meant by Natural Capitalism, four principles that enable business to behave responsibly towards both nature and people while increasing profits, inspiring their workforce and gaining competitive advantage. It combines radically increased resource productivity; closed-loop, zero-waste, nontoxic production; a business model that rewards both; and reinvestment in natural capital. The article describes how, even today, when nature and people are typically valued at zero, protecting and restoring nature, culture and community can be far more profitable than liquidating them.