Learning from the Piper Alpha Accident: A Postmortem Analysis of Technical and Organizational Factors

The accident that occurred on board the offshore platform Piper Alpha in July 1988 killed 167 people and cost billions of dollars in property damage. It was caused by a massive fire, which was not the result of an unpredictable "act of God" but of an accumulation of errors and questionable decisions. Most of them were rooted in the organization, its structure, procedures, and culture. This paper analyzes the accident scenario using the risk analysis framework, determines which human decision and actions influenced the occurrence of the basic events, and then identifies the organizational roots of these decisions and actions. These organizational factors are generalizable to other industries and engineering systems. They include flaws in the design guidelines and design practices (e.g., tight physical couplings or insufficient redundancies), misguided priorities in the management of the tradeoff between productivity and safety, mistakes in the management of the personnel on board, and errors of judgment in the process by which financial pressures are applied on the production sector (i.e., the oil companies' definition of profit centers) resulting in deficiencies in inspection and maintenance operations. This analytical approach allows identification of risk management measures that go beyond the purely technical (e.g., add redundancies to a safety system) and also include improvements of management practices.     

竞争和风险规避对双渠道供应链决策的影响

针对具有风险规避特征的制造商和零售商组成的双渠道供应链,分析非竞争环境下双渠道供应链中产品在不同渠道的最优定价;研究存在替代产品竞争的市场环境下,原双渠道供应链中风险规避型参与者的定价决策以及替代产品决策者的最优定价;探讨双渠道中参与者的风险规避度对其定价决策的影响,分析表明随着参与者风险规避度的增大,供应链中各渠道的最优定价都减小,制造商和零售商的期望收益也随之减小;借助数值分析,研究竞争对风险规避型参与者决策的影响,并对模型中各关键参数进行敏感度分析。研究结果表明,一定程度的市场竞争会减弱参与者风险规避特征对其决策产生的影响,提高参与者的定价,增加参与者的收益。在参数的敏感度分析中,用来反映替代产品对双渠道上产品影响的交叉敏感度的增大会提高双渠道上产品的定价,也增加风险规避型参与者的收益。     

企业的国际化感知风险对国际化绩效影响研究

以中国国际化企业为研究对象,探讨中国国际化企业的国际化感知风险对企业国际化绩效的影响。从国际化感知风险概念出发,通过引入企业资源能力(调节变量)和国际化市场进入模式(中介变量),剖析国际化感知风险对国际化绩效的影响,并在此基础上构建国际化感知风险与国际化绩效关系整合研究框架。通过对463家中国国际化企业的数据研究发现,国际化感知风险与国际化绩效之间存在显著负相关关系;国际化感知风险不仅直接作用于国际化绩效,而且还经由企业的市场进入模式间接作用于国际化绩效,即市场进入模式的中介作用显著;国际化感知风险对国际化绩效的作用受国际化经验的调节,国际化感知风险对国际化绩效的回归系数是国际化经验的二次函数。     

基因技术的社会风险

基因技术给人类的生存与发展提供了许多希望。但是,基因技术对人类健康和生态环境具有潜在危害,对社会稳定和社会安全产生威胁,对人类价值观产生冲击,从而在社会各个层面产生意想不到的后果。因此,探讨基因技术将给人类带来的社会风险,提前采取预防措施,做到“未雨绸缪,防患于未然”,有助于促进基因技术的良性发展。     

高度现代性条件下知识缺失与风险叠加

知识缺失有制度化的因素,但是也有规律性的特征.在人类知识高速增长的同时,我们还严重缺乏知识.知识的缺失导致行动无据,过度防御行为使得本原风险出现叠加效应.知识史上知识饱和与知识缺失相伴而生,一方面我们拥有不断增长的社会知识,这些知识在提高人类战胜各类灾害减少风险和获取较高安全保障水平的同时也增强了我们制造风险的能力;另一方面我们应对突发性社会风险的知识又严重短缺,知识缺失使我们更加脆弱和易损,从而使我们的社会进入风险时代.     

时间知觉的脑机制研究

当前时间知觉的脑机制的研究结果出现了定位论和非定位论的研究趋向。支持定位论的证据主要集中在小脑高级功能区运动计时特异化作用及基底神经节分泌的多巴胺对时间知觉的作用;支持非定位论的证据主要集中在脑损伤、脑成像研究中关于多个脑区整合作用机制以及多种神经递质在计时中的作用。上述两种趋向是基于时距长短不同所致,比如对秒以下计时加工的部位在小脑高级功能区,而加工1秒及以上的时距则涉及多个脑区及神经递质的整合作用。时间知觉之脑机制研究正方兴未艾。     

建设新农村应切实解决"三个公共"问题——以云南省保山市为例

建设社会主义新农村是我国现代化进程中长期而又艰巨复杂的任务.从云南省保山市农业、农村工作实际来看,农村公共设施薄弱、农村公共事业滞后、农村公共服务缺失等"三个公共"问题困扰着新农村建设.构建农村公共服务新体系的主要措施包括加快建立统筹城乡发展的新机制;加快建设农村公共基础设施的步伐;加快构建农村服务新体系;加快发展农村教育和劳动力转移培训;加快推进农村综合改革和健全村民自治;加快建立农村公共服务多主体供给体系.为此,在宏观决策层面应采取相应的措施.     

Pricing and momentum of syndicated credit in Europe

We investigate the determinants of syndicated loan prices for European borrowers, spanning the entire period of credit expansion and crisis. We construct a large data base consisting of 2102 rated syndicated loan deals from 1990 to 2008 in twenty three countries and ten economic sectors. We investigate the effects on the spread paid over the risk free rate of three major groups of factors: loan characteristics, borrower characteristics and characteristics of country of the borrower, using both qualitative and quantitative variables in a hedonic regression. The results show that all three groups are significant joint determinants of prices of syndicated credit. Our results confirm the existing literature but also provide for first time results stemming form the risk characteristics of the borrower and the country of the borrower. It is shown that distance-to-default as well as aggregate risk associated with country of the borrower are of great concern to the lenders and hence significantly affect the pricing of syndicated loans. Furthermore, we report that financial institutions and public utilities are able to negotiate for cheaper loans, but this result is reversed when financing is for acquisition purposes. Overall, risk, liquidity, solvency and sustainable performance by both the borrower and its domicile country are key determinants of syndicated loan prices.     

Beyond a Simple Case of Black and White: Searching for the White Male Effect in the African-American Community

Prior research focusing on risk perceptions has led to the observation that well‐educated and politically conservative white males tend to systematically perceive lower levels of risk from a wide range of hazards when compared to other members of society (e.g., white women, nonwhite women and men). While this “white male effect (WME)” is quite striking given that many policymakers fall into this group, a byproduct of this finding is that it deflects attention from the heterogeneity, in terms of people's concerns about risks, that exists in African‐American and other minority communities. The research reported here set out to explore this heterogeneity by asking a simple question: Can a phenomenon similar to the WME be found in the African‐American community? It can, and its implications for research and practice in risk management are discussed.     

上市公司信用风险度量模型的实证比较研究

本文首次运用Merton模型和Leland-Toft模型对我国上市公司的信用风险进行了比较实证研究。研究结果表明,Merton模型对上市公司信用风险的预期违约率的计算明显太低。但是,违约距离的计算在一定程度上可以反映出不同公司信用风险存在的差异。而使用Leland-Toft模型计算信用风险的预期违约率较Merton模型有更高的敏感性、有效性。依据大公国际资信评级体系评级的结果,将A股50指数上市公司的信用评级等级,对比Leland-Toft模型计算的预期违约率,不同等级的上市公司,其预期违约率有明显的不同,说明其模型的预测是有效的。并且,也反映出近期预期违约率低而远期则较高的规律性。但是,计算的预期违约率还是偏低,说明Leland-Toft模型在用于目前的上市公司信用风险分析时,尚需调整有关的参数。