Bridge or buffer: two ideas of effective corporate governance and public engagement

This study identifies organizational factors that influence corporatate governance and formulation of public relations strategies for public enagement. This study explores intertwined relationships between public relations strategies and organizational factors. A total of 22 qualitative interviews were conducted with a diverse pool of communication consultants. Results show that the two public relations strategies, bridging and buffering, are frequently observed and linked with key factors such as size, organizational culture, environment specificity, and strategic orientation. Implications for future public relations and corporate governance research are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Globalization and Divergent Paths of Industrial Development: Mobile Phone Manufacturing in China,Japan, South Korea and Taiwan

Globalisation has challenged the way industrial development takes place. Fragmented and decentralised global production and the rapid growth of consumer markets in emerging economies demand a more sophisticated framework to analyse development paths than does the dichotomy of export orientation and import substitution. This article proposes a typology based on (a) specialisation in the global value chain and (b) market orientation to distinguish different development trajectories and then applies the typology to mobile phone manufacturing in four East Asian countries. This study finds that globalisation does not lead to the convergence of development paths, but promotes cross-national divergence depending on countries’ positions in the value chain and market niches. Both Korea and Taiwan emerge as key players in global markets, yet in different parts of the global value chain. Their common orientation toward global markets strikingly contrasts the inability of Japanese firms to translate their domestic success overseas. Finally, Chinese firms concurrently engage in different development paths, making the country’s multi-path approach unique. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of industrial development in East Asia in an era of globalisation.     

Working Overtime in East Asia: Convergence or Divergence?

Working long hours has become a routinised part of life in East Asia. The different patterns of overtime across this region are understudied, however. This study represents a first systematic attempt to analyse overtime and its determinants in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China by testing hypotheses that specify the distinctive influences of employment status and job contracts on work hours. Class exploitation, post-industrialism and flexibility theories are mobilised to identify distinctive but supplementary factors in long working hours. Using data from a recent four-country survey, a Tobit regression analysis of full-time workers’ hours reveals that employers and self-employed people work longer hours than hired workers across this region. Despite this convergence, there is a contrast across occupations. In Japan, overtime is positively associated with occupational prestige, while a reverse pattern operates in China, where low-skilled workers work more overtime. Contract workers in the private sector in South Korea and China also have longer overtime when compared to public sector employees. In sum, this study highlights more divergence than convergence of working conditions within East Asia.     

The effects of the IMF on expropriation of foreign firms

This paper seeks to explain the determinants of foreign expropriation in the developing world. We argue that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) helps to reduce the likelihood of nationalization because of the direct leverage the Fund holds over borrowers, especially as expropriation is a blatant violation of international property rights. Using expropriation data from 1961 to 2006, and several different measures for the Fund, we find that countries under IMF agreements are less likely to nationalize foreign firms. We also show that the Fund’s influence is greatest when the IMF loan represents a larger share of the borrower country’s gross domestic product (GDP) as well as in countries with weaker political institutions. The takeaway is that IMF continues to influence policy choices in the developing world.     

Why Japan and Russia have failed to solve the territorial dispute: the 1956 Joint Declaration and the mechanism of political coherence

Despite the several chances of agreement, Japan and Russia have failed to solve the dispute over the Northern Territories/South Kuril Islands. The 1956 model seems to be the most plausible method, but the lack of political coherence of the central politics and the will of negotiation became the factors that hinder the two countries from reaching an agreement. By reviewing the conflicting footprints and strategies of the two countries, the authors argue that the more democratized and diffused a political system is, the more difficult it is to come to an agreement in negotiations. This intensifies the existing theory of foreign policy decision-making process emphasizing the influence of domestic constituents.     

Identifying Classes of Explanations for Crime Drop: Period and Cohort Effects for New York State

Objective

This paper advances current understanding of the contemporary crime drop by focusing on the changes in the age distribution of arrests from 1990 to 2010. Using the New York State Computerized Criminal History (CCH) file, which tracks every arrest in the state, we apply standard demographic methods to examine age-specific arrest rates over time. We test whether the 25 % drop in the felony arrest rate can be best explained by period or cohort effects with special attention to how the phenomenon varies across crime types and regions within the state.

Methods

Following the analytic approach of O’Brien and Stockard (J Quant Criminol 25(1):79–101, 2009), we fit the age–period–cohort (APC) model using the generalized inverse matrix, which creates an estimable model. We partition the model variation into each factor by subtracting the variation of the two-factor model from the variation of the three-factor model to provide a direct comparison of the two different classes of explanations for crime drop: period and cohort.

Results

Our analysis supports a cohort explanation over a period explanation. Controlling for the (substantial) variation due to age, the cohort effect accounts for twice as much of the remaining variation as the period effect. Specifically, the drop in arrest rates is concentrated in more recent birth cohorts across all ages. Although we found statistically significant age–period interaction effects for the younger age group (ages 16–20) in 1990 and 1995, the cohort effect was still a much stronger predictor of felony arrest rates than the period explanation, even with the age–period interaction.

Conclusions

The current study reports that the overall drop in felony arrest rates from 1990 to 2010 is mostly due to decreased arrests among those who were born after 1970 rather than a universal drop across different age groups. We discuss but do not test two potential explanations—the legalization of abortion and the ban on leaded gasoline—for the underlying factors associated with a different criminal propensity among birth cohorts.

     

Juror adjustments to the reasonable doubt standard of proof

The standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is based on the law's primary motivation to avoid false conviction even at the expense of increasing the probability of false acquittal. Individual jurors, however, have common sense motivations to make factually correct decisions by avoiding both types of error. As a result jurors may interpret the standard of reasonable doubt correctly but deviate from that interpretation in predictable ways when they apply the standard in court. This study makes three hypotheses: (1) jurors are less confident when deciding on acquittal than when deciding upon conviction, (2) conviction is associated with a downward adjustment of the interpreted stringency of the standard at the time of application, and (3) a highly stringent interpretation of the standard is associated with a severe downward adjustment of that stringency at the time of application. The study asked 260 juror-eligible participants to examine a trial scenario. The participants first interpreted the stringency of the legal standard on a probability scale. They then judged the probability of the defendant's guilt, decided on a verdict, and rated their confidence in that verdict. The findings strongly supported all three hypotheses. Application and implication of the study were discussed.