The perspective of “justice” of international law in the global context

After the Cold War and the quick development of globalization, non-state acts by international organizations, transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), etc., are becoming more active. Global issues with regard to, inter alia, environment, human rights, terrorism are constantly emerging, which bring great challenge to the Westphalia System that is based on state sovereignty and centered on the national state. At the same time, the values, which include “individualism” and “global justice,” are constantly casting impact on international legal system. Doubtlessly, in the current context of international relations, “justice among states” is still the reasonable positioning of the value of modern international law. However, making “individualism” and “global justice” compatible and modifying “justice among states” is an inevitable trend. At the same time, the rule brought about by the modification on the value of justice must be handled properly.     

A place in the Sun? IRENA’s position in the global energy governance landscape

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), created in 2009, is the only intergovernmental organization dedicated to renewable energy. Drawing on several new datasets, this article explores IRENA in the context of three other major international energy organizations: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Through this analysis, several empirical approaches to comparing international energy organizations are tried out. Direct comparison between IRENA other international energy organizations is found to be problematic as each organization is different and comparisons inevitably encounter apples and oranges type issues. The study finds that IRENA’s niche in international renewable energy governance is not yet fully carved out, but that the organization’s mandate and institutional structure, as well as recent international developments, indicate that it may grow rapidly in importance.     

Does context matter in academic entrepreneurship? The role of barriers and drivers in the regional and national context

With pressure on universities to better contribute to society, academic entrepreneurship is an increasingly recognised source of new knowledge and technologies as well as being a driver of the movement to a knowledge society. However, whilst growing, the level of academic entrepreneurship in Europe is still relatively low. Two reasons that are factors influencing this are inhibitors (barriers) and facilitators (drivers), however the understanding of how their interplay influences academic entrepreneurship, particularly across different context is lacking. For this reason, this study focussed on two environmental settings, European regions and countries, seeking to understand if it is the hurdle (barrier) or (and/or) tail-wind (drivers) that most impacts academic entrepreneurship and how does the regional or national context influence this. An online survey was translated into 22 languages and undertaken in 33 countries in Europe and the European Economic Area. From the original data set, 12 countries in four European regions provided a sample of 2925 responses, with a second step to focus on four ‘lead’ countries within those regions. The results show that there is a significant difference in the university-business cooperation barriers and drivers that effect academic entrepreneurship in the European regions. Furthermore, different barriers and drivers were found to significantly affect the four lead countries with barriers and drivers being able to provide a good explanation of the extent of academic entrepreneurship in the UK and Germany, and a limited explanation of entrepreneurial activity by Spanish and Polish academics. Overall the article contributes to the literature of resource-based theory and also the understanding of factors influencing European academic entrepreneurship.     

Integrating the desire–for–control and rational choice in a corporate crime context

The “rational choice” framework, with its focus on risks and rewards, is often used to explain corporate criminality. In this paper, we build on this framework by integrating the notion of “desire‐for‐control.” Although common to many psychologists, the desire‐for‐control, or the general wish to be in control over everyday life events, has not been examined for its relevance in understanding criminal activity generally, or within corporate offending in particular. After demonstrating the importance of desire‐for‐control in the corporate context, we use data from a sample of managers and MBA students to examine the extent to which desire‐for‐control relates to rational‐choice considerations and corporate criminal decision‐making. Results suggest that desire‐for‐control (1) influences the interpretation of rational‐choice considerations and (2) is positively related to corporate criminality even after controlling for a number of important situational‐ and individual‐level factors. Implications for future theoretical and empirical research are addressed.     

The European Union in global environmental governance: Leadership in the making?

For well over a decade, the European Union (EU) has proclaimed its leadership role in global environmental governance (GEG). In this article, we examine both the nature of its leadership and the underlying conditions for ‘actorness’ upon which leadership must depend. The EU’s record in the global conferences as well as its influence on the reform of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are also investigated. We argue that the EU has frequently sought to shape international environmental negotiations and promote sustainable development as an organising principle of global governance. Despite its inadequate status at the UN and internal problems, it has had a significant effect on the global agenda. However, due to persistent diplomatic opposition from other coalitions, its real, directly visible influence has been more modest. For genuine directional leadership, which goes beyond the defence of self-interest, the Union will have to make internal policy coherence a greater priority. Moreover, apart from relying solely on its weighty presence in the international system or its potential capabilities, the EU needs to achieve a high level of credibility in order to enhance its powers of persuasion.

A Neoconservative Consensus in Russia?

This article analyzes the ideational consensus that has taken shape in contemporary Russian politics, including its key components, and factors both of stability and of potential erosion. Noting the extraordinary durability of this consensus, which is supported by factors including the duration of the regime itself, its support among elites and the bureaucracy, effective mobilizational propaganda and conservative orientations among the middle classes and dominant public opinion, the author draws attention to several factors – as yet less evident – that may in the future change the situation. Among these are the volatility of public opinion, potential intra-elite dynamics, and the internal contradictions of the neo-conservative idea itself.     

Demographic socialization and reproductive behavior in a transitional context: a macro–micro perspective

This paper analyzes the impact of individuals’ socialization in a given demographic context on their later reproductive behavior in 19th century Geneva. To assess this socialization effect on the fertility of first generation immigrants, I combine family reconstitution data with Coale’s aggregate indexes of marital fertility. I then run two-level Poisson regression models predicting age-specific fertility rates as a function of individual characteristics at the lower level and as a function of province-level fertility at the higher level. The results show a strong socialization effect among couples who were already married when arriving in Geneva, whereas among immigrants who arrived as singles and who got married in Geneva the impact of demographic socialization turns out much weaker.     

On the transmission mechanisms in the finance–growth nexus in Southern African countries: Does institution matter?

Economic Change and Restructuring - Studies have continued to emerge on the transmission channels through which finance influences growth. It has been argued that more finance without efficient...     

Did Roman Treatment of Freedwomen Influence Rabbinic Halakhah on the Status of Female Converts in Marriage?

Rabbinic legal texts often pair converts with freed slaves. This association has been explained by the notion that, like converts, freed slaves joined Judaism upon manumission; therefore, freed men and women were legally viewed like converts. I suggest an inverse and more complex dynamic, through which Roman laws and concepts regarding freed persons influenced particular elements of rabbinic halakhah concerning converts, especially female converts. Since Roman freedwomen were new citizens with certain marital limitations, which have been attributed to lacking pedigree and an assumed sexual history (during servitude), their legal status offered a useful prism for considering female converts, who also had matrimonial restrictions and were without lineage. Moreover, given that a freedwoman’s prior enslavement had implications for her sexual background, female converts were viewed through that same lens. So, even though female converts may have come from non-Jewish families that considered their daughters’ virginity an important asset, the rabbinic legal linkage of freed slaves and converts affected several halakhot concerning female converts and their status in marriage, irrespective of their actual sexual history. Yet certain non-legal rabbinic teachings distinguish between these two female cohorts, resembling the differentiation between freedwomen and freeborn females that characterized the Roman world.     

State power and diffusion processes in the ratification of global environmental treaties, 1981–2008

There have been many explanations for why countries ratify global environmental treaties. They range from neorealist theory, to hegemony theory, world society theory, and network embeddedness theory. Drawing on hegemonic transition theory, this paper provides evidence that prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, strong and weak countries ratified a treaty if the USA or the USSR ratified the treaty first. After the fall of the Soviet Union, countries’ proximity to world society institutions increased the likelihood of ratifying a treaty, and only weaker countries emulated the ratifications of the USA and Russia. However, weaker countries also emulated economic, religious, and language peers, diplomatic ties, and neighbors as well. In contrast, more powerful countries ratified treaties more independently. We studied the ratifications of eight universal environmental treaties by 166 countries between 1981 and 2008 and showed that as the geopolitical context changed, the diffusion process changed. The paper argues that the hegemonic transition which took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s was an enabling event that helped to explain the new roles that major powers assumed in the 1990s and 2000s and opened the door to the ascendency of global institutions and broader participation in the environmental regime.     

How reliable is cloudsourcing? A review of articles in the technical media 2005–11

A review of articles in the technical media between 2005 and 3Q 2011 disclosed reports on 49 outages involving 20 cloudsourcing providers. Several of these were major events. Many caused difficulties for user-organisations’ staff. Some caused lengthy suspension of services by user-organisations to their customers. A number of them involved irretrievable loss of data. Many user-organisations have failed to risk-assess their use of cloudsourcing, and are exposing their businesses to unmanaged risks.     

The antecedents and innovation outcomes of firms’ absorptive capacity in global buyer–supplier relationships

This article seeks to address two fundamental questions: (1) Does social capital (SC) embedded in global buyer–supplier (GBS) relationships enhance local firms’ potential absorptive capacity (PAC) and realized absorptive capacity (RAC)? And (2) What are the effects of local firms’ PAC and RAC on their innovation outcomes? Based on survey data collected from 297 Chinese firms engaged in GBS cooperation in China’s Yangtze River Delta region, we test our research hypotheses with the structural equation modelling approach. The empirical findings indicate that both structural and relational SC are important antecedents of PAC and RAC in global buyer–supplier relationships. More specifically, RAC not only improves local suppliers’ new product performance, but also fully mediates the relationship between PAC and new product performance. Our results have two major implications for practicing managers. First, local suppliers in emerging economies need to pay more attention to SC embedded in GBS relationships for it is an important means for them to overcome resource constraints and therefore to improve their new product performance. Second, it is important for managers in local firms to continuously improve their PAC to better assess and assimilate external knowledge, and extend their RAC to upgrade their interpretation and comprehension of commercialization possibilities, which allows for generating synergy of knowledge recombination with existing core competencies.     

A good thing in a small package?

Writing a ‘book’ review of a publication that ismerely 28 pages in length and is secured by a couple of staplesis not something that one is asked to do every day. In fact,it is not something that this reviewer ever really envisageddoing at all: critical pieces of this size tend to arrive withan expectation of being given marks out of 100 and having theirspelling/punctuation/content corrected rather than of being     

Investment sensitivity to interest rates in an uncertain context: is a positive relationship possible?

This paper shows a non-linear relationship between investment and interest rates under uncertainty. Since the interest rate’s variance is positively related to the investment’s value (through the discount factor) and, generally, is also positively related to the interest rate’s level, then, at the same time, a negative (classical) and a positive (through the interest rate’s variance) relationship links interest rates to investment. Hence, an ultimate and even positive relationship between investment and interest rates’ (expected) level may occur. A specific model is proposed and the conditions upon which the positive effect occurs are derived. Some estimates are also proposed.

Grace,gold, or glory? Exploring incentives for invention disclosure in the university context

What motivates university scientists to identify practical applications for their research results and consider having them patent-protected? A wealth of research points towards a complex blend of factors, including organizational antecedents, social norms and personal-level expectations. Few studies, however, have attempted to investigate the effect of concrete incentives from the perspective of individual scientists’ decision-making. In this paper, we operationalize the propensity to patent and commercialize research results as the intention to submit an invention disclosure filing. We use scenario-based conjoint analysis to capture university scientists’ preference structures for different incentive policies. Results indicate that direct and indirect financial incentives are dominant drivers. In addition, a grace period that would allow for patenting and publishing in parallel and the inclusion of patents in academic performance assessments are worth considering, whereas the specific setup of the technology transfer organization and public recognition of achievements in form of an award appear to have limited effect. However, preferences for incentives and hence their effectiveness vary significantly across academic disciplines and ranks as well as with scientists’ working experience, patenting experience and research orientation. On this basis, we can derive more qualified recommendations for incentive system design.