Determining the effects of government's perceived ecological roles on Chinese consumers' proenvironmental attitude,and green consumerism: The moderating effect of greenwashing perceptions

While the normative ecological roles of a government's effect on consumers' proecological attitude and green consumerism have received less attention, greenwashing interaction effect remains unexplored. Building on the two normative theories – stakeholder theory and social contract theory, the study tests a theoretical model integrating mediating and moderating relationships using survey data from 202 consumers across China. Results show a government's normative ecological roles positively and significantly on consumers' proenvironmental attitudes and green consumerism. It also confirms the mediating roles of the proenvironment between the ecological roles of a government and green consumerism. Further, tests of greenwashing moderation effect generated mixed outcomes. Insignificant greenwashing interaction effect between proenvironment and green consumerism, but, it proved significant interaction between ecological roles of a government and green behavior. The study proposes research avenues on how researchers can step up the theme and policy implications to practitioners.     

FIZZ, FROTH, FLAT: The Challenge of Converting China's SOEs into Shareholding Corporations

China's attempts to convert its state firms into shareholding corporations have failed to alter SOE management behavior. This article examines this failure by looking at the flotation of Tsingtao Brewery shares in Hong Kong. The article argues that for reforms to be meaningful, changes need to be made to economic, political and legal institutions by which SOEs operate. These changes, such as allowing SOE directors managerial autonomy and clarifying areas of the Company Law, create incentives for managers to run their firms as business entities responsive to market forces and responsible to their investors.     

Imperfect rent dissipation with unionized labor

Traditional rent-seeking theory focused only on socially wasteful expenditures by firms competing for restrictive regulations. More recently, rent-defending expenditures by consumers have also been taken into account. This paper extends the analysis by adding rent-sharing expenditures by organized labor. The paper merges the Tullock lottery model and the monopoly union model and considers both a costless and a costly wage bargaining mechanism. The participation of consumers and workers in the distributional contest is shown to reduce, rather than increase, the social cost of restrictive regulations. The participation of consumers and workers also raises the probability of deregulation.     

Corporate dividend policy,minority shareholders right and equity value of firm: Evidence from Singapore

The purpose of the paper is to find out empirically whether an ideal business environment coupled with adequate legal protection provides an enabling mechanism for the minority shareholders to extract dividend from the firms and, as a consequence, whether the equity value of the firms gets impacted by dividend policy. The study (a) employs Tobit model on a sample of FTSE ST companies of Singapore to show the relation between dividend and minority shareholders base and, then (b) sought to explore the relation between equity value and dividend policy in the backdrop of strong legal protection for minority shareholders through OLS and 2 SLS regression models. The study empirically demonstrates a positive relation between the dividend payout and minority shareholders base indicating that, in a civil law origin country with strong corporate governance code ensuring investors protection and property right, the minority shareholders can extract dividend from the firms that, in turn, has a favourable impact on equity valuation. Consistent with the “outcome” and “catering model,” the findings of the study indicate that the overall business environment and legal protection enable minority shareholders to assert their cash flow rights with positive valuation implication. The paper objectively reveals how superior business environment, good governance and property right impact inter‐play between dividend payout, minority shareholders base and valuation of a civil law country.     

Judicious Incentives: International Public Policy Responses to the Globalization of Environmental Management

Public policymakers and regulators worldwide are grappling with the desire to improve environmental quality through appropriate regulation of business, while also streamlining government. Concurrently, environmentally conscience consumers are calling for improved environmental performance by industry. As a result of these pressures, regulators and lawmakers worldwide are attempting to craft effective policies that create adequate incentives for environmental protection on the part of firms, in the face of decreasing budgets and an increased demand for the use of market‐based incentives. To aid decision makers as they struggle with these concerns, this study provides a detailed case examination of the dilemmas and responses of national‐level regulators as they try to develop appropriate responses to the rise of international and “voluntary” management regimes. To accomplish these goals, this article compares the public policy responses of governments around the world to one such voluntary international environmental regime: ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is a form of industry self‐regulation in response to market forces calling for harmonization in environmental management and as a result of consumer and trade‐partner demands. This study examines the relationships between regulators and the regulated in order to understand if ISO 14001 certified firms are receiving regulatory relief or other forms of public policy/regulatory benefits as a result of their certification. It will also examine the impact that government incentives (or their absence) are having on the certification decisions of firms around the world. This information helps us to begin to understand how the trends toward smaller government and voluntary environmental regimes are affecting one another.     

The long‐term development of organised business and its implications for corporatism: A cross‐national comparison of membership,activities and governing capacities of business interest associations, 1980–2003

Internationalisation of markets and the demise of Keynesianism have made business more independent of associational action. Membership density and ‘corporatist’ involvement in wage bargaining and public policy have declined only modestly, while the capacity to govern members has dwindled significantly. This development is driven by the way in which large firms and the state relate to business associations. Large firms still have a vital interest not only in associational action, but also in integrating their smaller counterparts. Stated‐based support for multi‐employer bargaining, as established in most countries, buttresses business associations. By equipping the associations with an encompassing grip on the labour market, this support prompts governments to involve them in public policy. Since encompassing labour market regulation enables the associations to impose negative externalities on unaffiliated businesses, it provides them with a strong selective incentive for membership. The significant decline of the associations' governing capacity emanates from pressures of their large members to reduce costs of association. The implications of this development for interest intermediation are twofold. Given the strong decay of union power, the resilience of corporatism strongly hinges on the continued strength of organised business and on its state‐sponsored engagement in bargaining. At the same time, leeway for compromising has been restrained by the significant decline in the governing capacity of organised business. This decline echoes an ever‐growing predominance of large firms in business associations, while economic internationalisation exacerbates interest conflicts between larger and smaller firms. To the extent that this configuration of interest and power weakens the ability of business associations to integrate the mass of small firms, it develops into the new Achilles heel of corporatism.     

‘Lending by numbers’: credit scoring and the constitution of risk within American consumer credit

Abstract

This paper examines how statistical credit-scoring technologies, sanctioned by the state in the interests of promoting equality, became applied by lenders to the problem of controlling levels of default within American consumer credit. However, these technologies, constituting consumers as ‘risks’, are themselves seen to be problematic, subject to their own conceived sets of methodological, procedural and temporal risks. Nevertheless, as this article will show, such technologies have increasingly been applied to other areas of consumer lending, thus interpreting a wider array of operational contingencies in terms of risk. Finally, it is argued that, since the 1980s, the constitution of credit consumers as risks has been deployed to new ends through technologies of ‘profit scoring’ and new practices of ‘risk pricing’.     

Restraining auto imports: Does anyone win?

The conventional wisdom suggests that import restraints help the protected domestic industry at the expense of consumers. In the longer term, however, trade restraint may encourage foreign firms to adopt new and more threatening business strategies, such as upgrading the quality of their products or moving plants to the United States. If these long-term dynamic effects of restraint are considered, trade restraints may prove harmful to the domestic industry as well as consumers.     

‘Democratic Socialism’ and the Concept of (Post)Capitalism

This article explores the ‘democratic socialism’ being proposed by new left movements on either side of the Atlantic, and evaluates its claim to be a form of anti- or postcapitalism. It argues that in the democratic socialist worldview, the line between capitalism and socialism rests on the balance of power between workers and capitalists in the economic sphere. While traditional social democracy seeks to redistribute wealth but leaves relations between workers and capitalists within firms untouched, democratic socialism seeks to abolish private property in the economic sphere. Production is controlled democratically by the workers themselves, in league with a workers’ state. The article critically appraises the claim that such a scenario constitutes a form of postcapitalism. Drawing on the work of critical Marxists such as Moishe Postone, it argues that capitalism is not primarily defined by private property relations in the economic sphere, but rather the peculiar social form of capitalist labour. Unlike in pre-capitalist societies, for labour in capitalism to secure a continued basis on which to reproduce the means of subsistence, it must be socially validated as ‘value-producing’. The criteria for value validation is not set in the workplace, or within a single nation state, but rather on the world market. The article concludes that, for all its merits, the democratisation of workplaces does not overcome the need for this social validation, but rather constitutes an alternative form of managing the process of production in this context. As such, democratic socialism, like social democracy, remains susceptible to the same imperatives and crises as other forms of capitalist production, and so cannot be said to constitute a form of ‘postcapitalism’.     

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the New Regime

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the national regulator in the new competition regime. It acts as the public guardian against anti-competitive or unfair business activities. The ACCC's task is to promote competition where it is limited; to preserve competition where it is effective; and to safeguard the position of consumers in their dealings with business. Its efforts are directed primarily at fostering business compliance with the national competition and consumer law, the Trade Practices Act 1974. The commission tries to persuade, coax or cajole businesses into pursuing their interests within the legally defined boundaries of fair competition. Where that proves insufficient, the commission becomes the enforcer. The ACCC can coerce businesses — through court orders and penalties — into rectifying their behaviour where they operate outside the boundaries of the law. It also has the capacity to hold businesses publicly accountable for the prices they set. Underlying these ACCC functions is an ulterior objective: to enhance the material welfare of Australians by promoting, wherever practical, a more competitive and efficient economy.     

What Future for the Ombudsman?

The ombudsman institution, in both the public and private sectors, is increasingly identified with the ethos of consumerism and the protection of consumer rights. The current trend is exemplified and reinforced by the EU ADR Directive and by the government response to a recent inquiry into complaints conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee. This article argues that the dominant consumerist ethos diminishes the ability of the ombudsman institution to fulfil its potential. If the ombudsman institution, in particular as manifest in the office of the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, is to serve the public interest, it must instead promote human rights principles and constitutional morality, adopt a process that is marked by public reasoning and participation and seek by a whole‐system approach to realise a vision that is integrated and truly democratic.     

Bad History

If history is a sort of radar for the ship of state, then the machine has broken down, just at the point where Gordon Brown, trained as a historian, takes over control. Caught up in the best-seller business, popularised on TV, it has come to reflect metropolitan commercial drives, the obsessions of The Hitler Channel or the 'publish or be damned' ethos of the Research Assessment Exercise. Fashionable discourses about identity and postmodern consumerism, and the palsied traditions of Fogeydomboth remote from the basic business of getting, spending and governing-may offer a niche-marketing future, but are more likely to speed the vessel towards the rocks.     

Deregulation and Participation: An International Survey of Participation in Electricity Regulation

Amidst the wave of privatization and "deregulation" across the globe, a new set of regulatory structures is being created. The fact that deregulation actually involves "re-regulation" has been acknowledged in the recent literature, but the tension between regulation and public participation has been understudied in these new structures. While some private markets need effective regulation to reduce transactions costs and ensure stable market rules, consumers need regulation that is responsive to, and protective of, their interests. Consumer participation, therefore, is an important component of effective regulation. Effective regulation must also consider collective national or public interests, including the well-being of corporations. Therefore, regulatory agencies need to be both independent from, and responsive to corporate, consumer, and public interests. This article will briefly examine the tension among the competing goals of regulatory independence and responsiveness, and then conduct a broad survey of the status quo of public participation in national regulatory structures for electricity in the Americas. Our case studies demonstrate a wide variety of institutional mechanisms for participation, yet we find that no existing system seems to embrace direct participation by a wide set of consumers. The problems are even more acute in developing countries. We conclude by looking at recent experiments and proposals to improve the levels of participation in regulatory decision making.     

Lobbying by Law Firms: A Study of Lobbying by National Law Firms in Canberra1

This article examines the way in which national law firms lobby the federal government from their Canberra offices. It is based on extensive interviews with lobbyists from those law firms, other commercial lobbyists in Canberra and legal professional bodies. The article begins by establishing the unique nature of law firm lobbying. In particular, it looks at the technical skills law firm lobbyists possess, their access to specialist legal knowledge and their preference for administrative, over political, lobbying. The development of law firm lobbying is then discussed. This centres around changes to the legal profession, federal business laws and federal government decision-making. The article concludes by suggesting that law firm lobbying both reflects and stimulates changes in government decision-making and will grow in importance as the legal profession in Canberra grows.     

Interorganizational Challenges in the Design and Management of Business Incubators

Business incubators are intended to enhance the growth of new firms by minimizing business failures. The environment for incubators improved as governmental policies shifted their emphasis toward small business generation. However, not enough is understood about how, why, and under what circumstances new firms succeed within the sheltered environment of incubators. This article uses an interorganizational framework to evaluate some preliminary studies of incubator performance and effectiveness.     

Who Wants to Globalize? Consumer Tastes and Labor Markets in a Theory of Trade Policy Beliefs

Although the allure of consumption is the engine of globalization, political economists have tended to ignore varying consumer tastes as a potential source of beliefs about trade policy. This article develops a theory of trade policy preferences that adds the notion of varying consumer tastes to the standard labor-market application of the Heckscher-Ohlin trade model. The theory, which can explain trade preferences both across individuals and countries, is supported by an empirical analysis of survey data from 41 nations. Heavy consumers of exportables are found to be more protectionist than heavy consumers of imports and import-competing goods. Moreover, citizens in countries with expensive tradable goods see trade liberalization as a remedy to the rents they pay for protectionism. Other findings also support the more conventional labor-market side of the Heckscher-Ohlin model.     

The dark side of price cap regulation: a laboratory experiment

In a nutshell, price cap regulation is meant to establish a quid pro quo: regulators are obliged by law to intervene only at rare, previously defined points in time, and only by imposing an upper bound on prices; firms are meant to justify regulatory restraint by adopting socially beneficial innovations. In the policy debate, a potential downside of the arrangement has featured less prominently: the economic environment is unlikely to be stable while the cap is in place. If regulators take this into account, they have to decide under uncertainty and also anticipate how regulated firms will react. In a lab experiment, we manipulate the degree of regulatory uncertainty. We compare a baseline when regulators have the same information as firms about demand with treatments wherein they receive only a noisy signal and another when they know only the distribution from which demand realizations are taken. In the face of uncertainty, regulators impose overly generous price caps, which firms exploit. In the experiment, the social damage is severe, and does not disappear with experience.     

Investigating the influence of social costs and benefits of environmental policies through social capital theory

The level of effectiveness of an environmental policy depends to a significant degree on the level of acceptance and cooperation of citizens. The relevant literature indicates that social capital may significantly influence environmentally responsible behaviour connected with the implementation of an environmental policy. In this context, the present article aims to further explore this field by introducing the issue of non-economic social costs and benefits imposed from environmental policies. In particular, it is supported, both theoretically and empirically, that social costs and benefits may influence the decision of individuals to cooperate and comply with an environmental policy and thus may be a significant indicator for environmental behaviour. Furthermore, these social costs and benefits may differ among individuals and are influenced by social capital elements. Consequently, through the article the need of exploring social capital prior to environmental policy implementation is underlined along with the need of creating social capital assessment techniques.     

The five capabilities of socially responsible companies

This paper develops and tests a model that integrates processes of public affairs management with stakeholder engagement and dialogue, business ethics and social reporting to explain social responsibility capabilities in organisations. The model, called Corporate Social Responsibility Management Capacity, describes social responsiveness as arising from a firm's social responsibility orientation and its public relations orientation. The paper shows how the model can be used by managers to measure, manage and improve their company's ability to be socially responsible. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications