Business Development Capabilities in Information Technology SMEs in a Regional Economy: An Exploratory Study

“Business development” is a corporate entrepreneurial capability (or competence) that has emerged in the Information Technology industry to support that industry’s practice of co-creation of value with customers and complementors. As a set of practices that link the firm’s value creating processes with its external environment, business development capabilities are a key factor in the success of IT SMEs. This article examines business development functions and business developer attributes in SMEs in the Information Technology Industry in Eastern Canada. The principal business development functions are finding profitable opportunities in business networks, developing and maintaining partnerships, providing support for new product development, and recognizing and responding to customer needs. The regional market and export markets require different business development capabilities.     

商业信托委托人的法律地位

商业信托与普通信托有重要区别,委托人的地位与角色大相径庭。中国《信托法》借鉴日本法模式,赋予信托委托人诸多权利,可称为委托人法定权利模式。委托人的此种法律地位,虽适合于普通信托,但不符商业信托的功能及需求。原因之一在于对商业信托的特殊情形考虑不周,误植入仅适合于普通信托之规则。委托人法定权利模式之弊端,无法以增设委托人义务等方案予以补救,较为彻底的解决之道应为:委托人不对商业信托及其受益人享有权利。     

Singapore's Personal Data Protection legislation: Business perspectives

As global digitalisation of information and interconnecting technologies along with new marketing practices and business processes vastly increase the opportunities for data collection, storage, usage and delivery, there is a corresponding increase in consumer expectations of data privacy. These expectations must be met if business organisations are to promote consumer trust and confidence and maintain their overall competitiveness in a global market. It goes without saying that information is the most valuable business asset and “privacy is good business and information can be the basis of bigger business”. The need to protect data privacy has long been recognised and implemented by major trading nations. Surprisingly, Singapore as a financial centre and nation aspiring to be a trusted data hosting hub has been slow in enacting specific data protection laws. The first piece of legislation that has emerged is a light-touch baseline framework applicable to all organisations except the public sector. This article considers the new legislation from the business perspective and the implications for private sector business organisations facing the challenges of compliance.     

论商业信托法律主体地位的确定

商业信托是商事信托的一种具体形式,商业信托具有偿性、组织性及财产独立性等法律特征。赋予商业信托法律主体地位实际上是国家立法政策及价值选择问题,在理论上不存在障碍。美国的成文法商业信托取得完全的法律主体地位是一个长期的历史选择。随着商业信托在中国越来越多地被应用,应当逐步规定商业信托的法律主体地位,这有助于解决商业信托领域中存在的信托财产所有权、受托人有限责任、商业信托正确设立等方面存在的一些理论与实践问题。     

信托制度异化论——对我国现行信托产品法律结构之评判

《中华人民共和国信托法》突破了我国原先“一物一权”的成文法系传统,导入了“名义所有权”与“实际所有权”分离的所有权“二元制结构”。面对这种全新的法律结构,实务界往往将信托当作新的融资工具进行利用。事实上,我国目前的信托产品并不具备信托所应具备的法律特征,而立法界与理论界对此又缺少相应的回应,信托产品离真正的信托制度渐行渐远。为此,通过对信托法律关系和法律特征的梳理,剖析并解释现行主要信托产品存在的结构性问题,以期纠正现有对信托“实用主义”功能下的错误认识,还原信托的本来面貌。     

Repartnering and the Management of Risk

Social theorists working with concept of ‘risk society’have addressed the issue of family change, suggesting that processesof individualization mean that family relationships have become‘elective’, which has in turn raised questions aboutthe nature of trust and commitment in intimate relationships.The position of those who are repartnering is particularly sensitivein these respects. Their awareness of risks may render themmore likely to make only contingent commitments, or may makethem more anxious to achieve a relationship founded on trustand commitment. We draw on in-depth interviews with a representativesample of people in England who have repartnered from a varietyof types of intimate relationship into different statuses inorder to explore the management of perceived risks. We findthat for most respondents repartnering is a process involvingdifferent kinds of relationships, although living-apart-togetheris understood as something rather different. There is littlesupport for the risk society thesis in respect of intimate relationshipsin respect of rejection of commitment and absence of trust.Rather, changes in relationship status often seem to be partof the process of building trust and of achieving the goal ofa rather traditional relationship. This poses challenges forpolicymakers as they seek to regulate different statuses indifferent ways.     

The Attorney–Client Relationship in Capital Cases and Its Impact on Juror Receptivity to Mitigation Evidence

The United States Supreme Court has placed a great deal of trust in the ability and willingness of capital jurors to consider mitigation evidence during sentencing deliberations as a constitutional aspect of capital sentencing. This paper examines the jurors’ perception of the affective warmth and friendliness shared by attorney and client, and the degree to which the defense attorney appears to regard the defendant as a close working member of the defense team. Using data obtained from interviews with 725 jurors in capital trials, regression analysis revealed that respondents were more receptive to mitigation evidence when they viewed the relationship between the attorney and client as warm and friendly, but less receptive when they reported the attorney–client as having a close working relationship. Analysis of interaction terms revealed that the negative effects of the close working relationship can be suppressed by modeling a warm affective attorney–client relationship.     

诉讼时效在保障工商业文明社会信用体系中的核心价值--诉讼时效基本理论的反思与我国诉讼时效立法的重新选择(二)

农耕文明的自然经济和熟人社会特点决定了农耕文明社会成员之间信用的不发达,信任得以天然维系,无需诉讼时效制度对信用加以保护,诉讼时效即无从产生.而工商业文明的商品经济和陌生人社会,则是产生大量信用,社会成员信息不畅.为了保障任何第三人不至于因债权人突然行使产生于年代久远而处于休眠状态的权利而受损,有必要设置诉讼时效制度切断久远的债权债务关系影响到对当事人财产信用的评价,维护债权信用体系.诉讼时效通过其独有的弱化甚至消灭权利的功能维持了整个社会的债权信用,尽可能保障一般社会的交易安全.这即是诉讼时效的制度基础之所在.     

Legal ethnography: Exploring the gendered nature of legal method

Beginning with the idea of law as discourse, this essay examines the ways in which legal method is gendered. Texts, such as affidavits and court forms, and local ‘mundane’ practices are part of the production and affirmation of the law as a producer of truth. A possible methodology for exploring legal method, ‘legal ethnography,’ is introduced as a means by which wemight explicate how legal method works to support and reify legal discourse, in the process silencing the voices of women. The essay also explores how legal method comes to be accepted as a ‘tool of the trade’ by lawyers, who then use it to translate the primary narrative of the client into a cause of action that is comprehensible to lawyers, judges, and other actors in the legal system. Finally, the limitations of the proposed methodology are considered.     

The search for the Russian Mafia

After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, newspapers, films, academic researchers and intelligence agencies warned against a new phenomenon in organized crime: the “Russian mafiya.” In fact, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western European countries have noted an increase in the number of criminals from Central and Eastern Europe. In the mid-1990s, the Dutch judicial authorities made the issue a priority and established a special team to investigate crime with links to Eastern Europe. From 1999 to 2005, the KT NON crime team published several studies and reports on serious crime of this nature. In this paper, the authors, who were assigned to the KT NON crime team, discuss the findings of the two most recent publications on the “causes, nature, scale and threat of Central and Eastern European crime” and “mobile banditry,” respectively. They come to the conclusion that among other forms of crime, the phenomenon of mobile banditry seems to be the most serious manifestation of crime from post-communist countries. The Russian mafia was not found.

Legitimate rackets: Tax evasion,tax avoidance,and the boundaries of legality

Corporate crime is not the only means by which business can escape legal control. Law and legal definitions can also be used and manipulated to legally avoid both control and penalties or stigma associated with outright crime. This articl analyses such ‘legitimate rackets’ via a study of tax avoidance practices among business and ‘high net worth’ individuals. It describes some of the techniques employed, analyses the difference between tax evasion (an offence) and tax avoidance, explores the ‘grey area’ at the boundaries, and draws out the implications for theory and policy.     

Fit and proper

The current trend of regulation in international financial mattersof service providers and trustees is an inevitable consequenceof trustees of international trusts being remote from the settlorand the beneficiaries. The ‘fit and proper’ persons'requirement for international trust companies, and others, properlyaddresses the need for international investors’ assetsto be in the hands of those properly experienced and qualified.The success depends upon how this ‘fit and proper’criteria is defined and monitored by the regulator in each jurisdiction. In most international jurisdictions,     

信托基金模式在生态园行政管理中的引入——美国旧金山普雷西迪奥信托基金模式及启迪

目前,中国的生态园治理模式采用单一的行政管理模式,由于环境保护让位于经济利益、问责制度不完善等问题,我国生态园管理效果一直不明显。借鉴国外成熟经验—美国运营良好的旧金山普雷西迪奥公园的信托基金管理模式,该模式是兼具公法行政力和私法经营权的混合管理模式,能够调动市场配置资源的作用,有效配置资源的同时也满足公共需求,在经济利益与社会公共利益之间寻求到平衡,解决行政管理僵化,成本高昂的问题,可资借鉴。     

Overcoming barriers to technology transfer between small business assistance agencies and their clients: Third world style

This paper presents the results of an empirical examination of the methods small business assistance agencies in the Dominican Republic use to overcome technology transfer barriers. The availability and the methods agencies use to access the world's business knowledge are examined, as well as how the agencies disseminate the information to clients. The discussion identifies barriers that inhibit the flow of client information between (1) the knowledge pool and the agencies and (2) the agencies and the client. The strategies that agencies use to overcome barriers are characterized as push or pull, and informal or formal. Pull strategies begin with marketplace need and work toward the technology to solve the problem. Push strategies begin with specific business information and work toward its acceptance and use in the marketplace by clients. Personal interviews were conducted in Spanish with heads of the 13 assistance agencies in the country. Survey participants were asked about the processes, procedures, and techniques they used to gain and transfer business skills. The study identifies specific activities in which the agencies engage in order to effectively overcome barriers to the transfer of business knowledge.     

Building Trust: Social Capital, Distributive Justice, and Loyalty to the Firm

Trust is essential to successful business relations, particularly to the efficient operation of law firms. Trust fosters productive working relationships, favorable reputations, and a lucrative clientele. This paper contributes to research on law firm development through a consideration of social dynamics within law firms beyond traditional emphases on trading relationships and community solidarity. We introduce a social capital perspective on the evolution of trust and its consequences for commitment to the law firm. We argue that trust, specifically in the form of perceived distributive justice, is created and nurtured through social integration among law firm members. Yet, for women, who continue to be denied full access to these social networks and professional rewards, trust is undermined. Exclusion and emerging distrust prompt women to contemplate leaving their respective firms. This paper examines the bases of differential levels of trust and their impact on lawyers'intentions to leave practice.     

Anticorruption agencies: expressive,constructivist and strategic uses

This article explores the reasons for the introduction of anticorruption agencies of a specific type in Eastern Europe. It is argued that one of the important functions of these agencies—which are stronger on information gathering, coordination and strategy rather than on investigation of concrete cases—is to give to the government some leverage over the anticorruption discourse. Presenting the anticorruption commissions and agencies as (discourse-controlling) instruments gives an answer to the troubling question why governing parties are at all interested in the introduction of such bodies. Apart from instrumentalization in political discourse, anticorruption bodies in Eastern Europe have had other effects as well. As shown in the Baltic case, institutional engineering provides for a brief window of opportunity during which political forces committed to integrity could gain the upper hand. The problem in Eastern Europe, however, is not the lack of such windows of opportunities—it is more the lack of really committed political forces capable of continuous and consistent anticorruption effort.     

The Physician-Patient Relationship and a National Health Information Network

The growing use of interoperable electronic health records is likely to have significant effects on the physician-patient relationship. This relationship involves two-way trust: of the physician in patients, and of the patients in their providers. Interoperable records opens up this relationship to further view, with consequences that may both enhance and undermine trust. On the one hand, physicians may learn (from additional records) that information from their patients is — or is not — to be trusted. On the other hand, patients may learn from the increased oversight made possible by electronic records that their trust in their physicians is — or is not — warranted. Release of information through new methods of surveillance may also undermine patient trust. The article concludes that because trust is fragile, attention to transparency and confidentiality in the use of interoperable electronic records is essential.     

Trust in the world of cybercrime

For cybercriminals, the anonymity of the Internet offers not only opportunities but also challenges. Where one does not truly know whom one is doing business with, it makes it difficult to assess trustworthiness or to retaliate should dealings go sour and agreements need to be enforced. This creates a large deficit of trust, beyond even that common among conventional criminals, and makes cybercriminal transactions very unstable. As a result, it might be expected that cybercriminals would often act alone. But, in reality, cybercriminals collaborate quite widely. This is the puzzle that this article addresses. In order to overcome the major challenges of online anonymity, and to capitalise on its benefits, cybercriminals have developed a range of mechanisms that buttress trust. These include mechanisms relating to (1) establishing cybercriminal identities; (2) assessing cybercriminal attributes; and (3) extra-legal governance.     

The Implied Duty of Mutual Trust and Confidence: An Emerging Overarching Principle?

There is an argument in academic circles that the implied dutyof mutual trust and confidence will evolve to form an all-embracingsuper-principle under which each of the more ‘traditional’implied duties will rest, including the employer’s impliedduty to exercise reasonable care for the welfare and well beingof the employee. The theme of this article is that, on balance,there is no evidence for the emergence of the implied duty ofmutual trust and confidence as a super-principle. If anything,the recent trends in the case law emphasise the distinctivenessof the employer’s duties to exercise reasonable care andtrust and confidence. The article’s aim was to demonstratethat both duties are separate, free-standing duties, sittingon an equal plane in terms of importance. To rationalise one,or all of the implied duties (i.e. the duty to exercise reasonablecare and/or all of the other ‘traditional duties’),as one of the means by which the super-principle of trust andconfidence is, or may be expressed, is to a large extent, aspirational.     

The Relational Principle of Trust and Confidence

This article seeks to explain why, in terms of Iain Macneil'srelational theory of contract, the implied mutual duty of trustand confidence can be described as a quintessentially relationalnorm. The role played by the duty in the development of a relationalapproach to variation of the employment contract is examined.The potential for the trust duty to become a relational principleinforming the content of the employment contract is explored.The impact of litigation based on the trust duty in creatinga relational approach to employees’ contractual remediesat common law, which have traditionally been dominated by thenotice rule, is assessed. Finally, the potential for there todevelop a relational principle of trust and confidence capableof, to some extent, unifying the contractual, statutory andtortious elements of the law of the employment relationshipis examined.