The impact of online media on stakeholder engagement and the governance of corporations

Online tools such as social media provide new opportunities for citizens and stakeholder groups to be informed, identify common interests, express and share opinions and demands, organize, and coordinate interventions. Therefore, the Internet could be expected to increase stakeholder engagement in corporate affairs and facilitate good governance. In order to provide an overview of current findings on the impact of online media on governance and stakeholder engagement, we conduct a systematic literature review. Our analysis reveals five topical categories of inquiry. We analyze studies from the field of business participation and find a strong bias towards consumer engagement and marketing issues. Only few studies are found to critically explore the effect of online media on power and value distribution between corporations and stakeholders. We then turn to the more established field of political and civic participation in order to further analyze antecedents, forms, and outcomes of online engagement in civic affairs, and derive a framework for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interventionism as Practice: On ‘Ordinary Transgressions’ and their Routinization

In this article, the aim is to bridge the gap in the international relations (IR) literature on contemporary interventionism between a strand of research mainly focusing on the concepts of intervention, sovereignty and their meanings, and a strand more interested in the particular practices bound up with the phenomenon described as ‘intervention'. This is done by exploring how the literature on the so-called ‘practice-turn' might allow light to be shed on both dimensions. Such an approach might prove fruitful provided attention is paid both to the material and discursive practices of interventionism; both to the transgressive practices constitutive of interventionism and their routinization. Finally, this piece also introduces each of this special section's contributions by showing how they illustrate and expand on the different problématiques here outlined.     

Sentencing private benefits in takeover contest

We present a model of profit diversion into a takeover environment. The model incorporates a legal environment characterized by a probability of being convicted, a monetary sanction (ex-ante protection) and the costs of administrating the takeover (ex-post protection). We show that the extraction of private benefits is reduced by the existence of such a legal environment, which is consistent with a number of empirical studies. It also predicts that legal environment can conduct the bidder to acquire more than 50% of the share due to the impact of the final holding of the bidder on the fine. The paper contributes to the current debate on regulation of white-collar crime. It highlights the trade-off between the ex-post profit diversion and minority protection, and the ex-ante probability of efficient takeovers. But, considering simultaneously two tools of protection, the ex-ante and the ex-post ones, which do not have the same impact, we derive some guidelines in order to analyze the current trend of the US and the EU laws.     

Reduction of postmortem angiography-induced tissue edema by using polyethylene glycol as a contrast agent dissolver

Postmortem investigation is increasingly supported by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging, in which postmortem minimal invasive angiography has become important. The newly introduced approach using an aqueous contrast agent solution provided excellent vessel visualization but was suspected to possibly cause tissue edema artifacts in histological investigations. The aim of this study was to investigate on a porcine heart model whether it is possible to influence the contrast agent distribution within the soft tissue by changing its viscosity by dissolving the contrast agent in polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a matrix medium. High-resolution CT scans after injection showed that viscosities above c. 15 mPa s (65% PEG) prevented a contrast agent distribution within the capillary bed of the left ventricular myocardium. Thereby, the precondition of edema artifacts could be reduced. Its minimal invasive application on human corpses needs to be further adapted as the flow resistance is expected to differ between different tissues.     

Virtopsy hemorrhage of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle by blunt force to the neck in postmortem multislice computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging

In forensic autopsies, one of the most important and common signs of violence to the neck is hemorrhages of the soft tissues. The Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bern evaluates the usefulness of postmortem multislice computed tomography (MSCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of forensic cases prior to autopsy. The aim of this study was to prove the sensitivity of postmortem MSCT and MRI in the detection of hemorrhages of the neck muscles. A full body scan prior to and a detailed scan of the explanted larynx after autopsy were performed. MSCT detected multiple fractures of the larynx. Detailed MRI was able to demonstrate the hemorrhage of the left posterior cricoarytenoid muscle. The minor hemorrhage of the right posterior cricoarytenoid muscle could not be detected with certainty. Although more experience is required, we conclude that combined MRI and MSCT examination is a useful tool for documentation and examination of neck muscle hemorrhages in forensic cases.     

Negotiated Third Party Access—An Industrial Organisation Perspective

In the course of the liberalization of European energy markets, the German government opted—diverging from all other European countries—for Negotiated Third-Party Access. In this article we analyze if, theoretically, this institutional regime can be superior to regulation. We review empirically whether certain aspects of the actual implementation, in particular publication of the network access charges for each network supplier, facilitated or inhibited competition. In the first place we reconsider previous research, showing that NTPA can—under certain conditions—be economically effective. Our empirical analysis shows that the duty of publishing access charges supported market transparency and imposed a regulatory threat, particularly to suppliers with significantly above-average charges. On the other hand observable price adjustments over time serve as an indicator of tacit collusion. Although the expensive suppliers cut their prices, the cheaper ones raised theirs.We thank Maik Heinemann, Joachim Wagner and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and the Lower Saxonian Ministry of Science and Culture for financial support.JEL Classification: D42, L43, L94