Shareholder value and Financialization: consultancy promises,management moves

In the pages of the daily financial press, 'shareholder value' is a loose rhetoric. For business consultants who sell financial metrics and implementation, shareholder value is also a product and a promise that purposive management action will be rewarded. This paper begins by considering the consultant's promise and the more guarded academic responses. It then presents empirics on micro performance and the meso limits to shareholder value and argues that most corporate managements cannot easily deliver what consultants promise and the capital markets demand. The paper ends by taking a broader view of value-based management as part of a process of financialization. If the results are contradictory and disappointing, a persistent gap between expectations and outcomes can nevertheless drive management behaviours, which change the world.     

Why They Join: Pathways into Indonesian Jihadist Organizations

ABSTRACT

Why do Indonesian Muslims join Islamist extremist groups? This article explores four pathways to entry into Indonesian militant groups: study sessions, local conflict, kinship, and schools. It argues that within all four of these pathways, social bonds and relationships are the common thread in encouraging entry as well as in fostering commitment. Specifically, these relationships contribute to the formation and eventual consolidation of one’s identity as a member of the jihadi group through regular participation in activities, attending meetings, narrowing the circle of friends to those within the group, and participating in increasingly risky and possibly violent activities together. Drawing on original fieldwork including 49 interviews with current and former members of Jemaah Islamiyah, Mujahidin KOMPAK, Darul Islam, Mujahidin Tanah Runtuh, Indonesia’s pro-ISIS network, and other jihadist groups as well as 57 depositions and court documents, this article explores the development and evolution of these pathways and how relational ties play a role in each.     

Welfare Loss with Municipal Amalgamations and the Willingness-to-Pay for the Municipality Name

Functional advantages and drawbacks are commonly mentioned to rationally justify or condemn municipality amalgamations. However, many consolidation projects are resisted by local governments or citizens on the grounds that amalgamation would dampen local identity. A municipality’s name change is probably the most visible sign of the loss of community bond experienced by citizens at amalgamation time. This article aims to put a value on this loss by measuring citizen willingness to pay for their city name. This methodological approach innovates upon the literature on municipal amalgamation and place branding by exploiting the versatility of the so-called contingent valuation method (CVM). CVM confronts respondents, in a survey setting, with a hypothetical market in which a characteristic of interest is exchanged. Here the characteristic is the possibility to retain one’s city name for an amalgamated jurisdiction. The article presents the estimates provided by a survey conducted in four Swiss cities.     

Toward a measurement tool for the monitoring of media diversity and pluralism in South Africa: A public-centred approach

Abstract

This article responds to recent debates within South African media politics regarding the diversity and transformation of the print sector in the country, by suggesting a necessary refocus of previously used methods of measuring media diversity and proposing a more audience-centred approach. This audience-centred method is discussed with regard to meeting the demands of the normative understanding of media diversity, where the media are viewed as central to an individual's formulation of opinions and ideas, thus rendering the media – and particularly the news media – vital in fostering an enabled and informed citizenry. The argument proposes a bottom-up instead of a top-down methodology for measuring media diversity, by placing the primary focus on the public as the starting point, rather than the end point of the analysis, and validating this position through the normative view of the media's role in assisting citizens to formulate personal views. The article concludes by listing four key areas in which current debates on media diversity in South Africa should be realigned and refocused, including at a parliamentary level.     

Helping the Homeless: The Role of Empathy,Race and Deservingness in Motivating Policy Support and Charitable Giving

Political Behavior - What will motivate citizens to support efforts to help those in need? Charitable organizations seeking support for their cause will often use the story of a specific individual...     

Dominance of pre-analytical over analytical variation for measurement of methadone and its main metabolite in postmortem femoral blood

On the basis of simultaneously sampled postmortem blood specimens from the left and right femoral veins the pre-analytical variation of methadone measurements was evaluated and compared to the analytical variation. The material consisted of a series of 27 duplicate samples from routine autopsy cases comprising mainly drug addicts. A chiral LC-MS/MS method was used for measurement of the R- and S-enantiomers of methadone and its main metabolite 2-ethyl-1,5-dimethyl-3,3-diphenylpyrrolinium (EDDP). The analytical CV% was determined to be in the range 3-4% for methadone enantiomers and 4-6% for EDDP enantiomers. The total measurement uncertainty (CV(T)) was estimated from the pre-analytical variation (CV(PA)), analytical variation proper (CV(A)), and variation related to calibration (traceability) (CV(Cal)) according to the relationship CV(T) = [CV(2)(PA) + CV(2)(A) + CV(2)(cal)](0.5). Uncertainty related to calibration concerned a component related to the purity of drug reference compound and a contribution from the production of calibrator solutions (CV(Cal)<1%). Pre-analytical sampling variation was estimated from the duplicate measurements of blood samples after subtraction of the analytical component. The pre-analytical variation amounted to a CV% of 19-21% for R- and S-methadone and 30-38% for R- and S-EDDP, i.e. considerably larger than the other components. Due to the squared addition principle, the resulting total uncertainty (CV(T)) became largely identical to the CV(PA), i.e. 19-21% for R- and S-methadone and 31-38% for R- and S-EDDP enantiomers. Accordingly, CV(T) exceeded CV(A) by a factor 5 or more. Dominance of the pre-analytical component of variation may also be likely for other compounds measured in postmortem blood samples. Thus, the width of the 95%-uncertainty interval (+/-2CV(T)) for a postmortem measurement is largely determined by the pre-analytical component of variation. This should be kept in mind when judging on the uncertainty of postmortem measurement results.     

Magnetic law: Designing environmental enforcement laws to encourage us to go further

The European Union has some of the world's most ambitious and highly developed environmental laws on its books, but their effectiveness is severely compromised by non-compliance. With the UNECE Aarhus Convention (1998), Europe launched an innovative legal experiment, democratizing environmental enforcement by conferring third party citizens and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) with legal rights of access to environmental information, public participation, and access to justice in environmental matters. Based on some 2000 surveys and over 150 interviews with stakeholders from three Member States – France, Ireland, and the Netherlands – we adopt a holistic, 360° perspective, capturing the views of regulated parties, NGOs, and the general public on this private governance experiment. Our data provide important new insights into the practical effectiveness of Europe's laws enabling private environmental enforcement, its (intended and unintended) effects on farmers' compliance decisions in the vital area of nature conservation, and how law might be used to stimulate pro-environmental predispositions.