Directors’ duties under the 2019 Companies Act of Ghana

The scope of directors’ duties forms perhaps the most important part of corporate governance. This paper considers the trajectory of the regulation of directors’ duties under Ghanaian company law from the Companies Act, 1963 (Act 179) to the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). Using the 2017 to 2019 financial institutions’ insolvencies in Ghana as a backdrop, it considers whether the scope, formulation and structure of directors’ duties within the new legislation is capable of promoting corporately-beneficial director behaviour. It also discusses whether the framework is apt to deal with similar lapses in corporate governance marked by reckless and opportunistic director behaviour. It discovers that Act 992 places a greater reliance on specific rules while retaining the largely principles-based regulatory technique adopted for regulating director conduct under Act 179. The overall tenor of the framework of directors’ duties under the new Act points to a firmer legislative view of the serious consequences of reckless director conduct. The paper concludes that the language of the framework regulating director conduct is capable of promoting corporately beneficially director behaviour and is also apt to deal with the kind of lapses in corporate governance which led to mass financial sector insolvencies in Ghana.     

Speaking of Justice: A Qualitative Interview Study on Perceived Procedural Justice Among Defendants in Dutch Criminal Cases

Qualitative interviews with one hundred defendants in Dutch criminal cases examine whether perceived procedural justice is a relevant concern for defendants, and, if so, which procedural justice components they refer to. The study provides a point of epistemological departure from the quantitative studies dominating the field, as it assessed which components of procedural justice (if any) respondents put forward themselves rather than asking about predetermined procedural justice components. The large majority of respondents mentioned procedural justice issues themselves, and six components were at the core of their procedural justice perceptions: (1) information on which decisions are based, (2) interpersonal treatment, (3) due consideration, (4) neutrality, (5) voice, and (6) accuracy. Although these procedural justice components largely correspond with the literature, respondents thus mentioned some components more often, and others less often, than the literature would suggest. In particular, neutrality plays an important role in the Dutch legal context examined here.     

农村青年干部为何留不住——基于社会认同视角下的实证分析

青年对农村干部这一职业群体社会认同程度在入职前后出现的由高到低转变,导致了其从选择进入农村干部群体到主动从乡镇村岗位中流出,在其中,自我认同、社会及组织环境发挥了重要作用。在重构自我认同和追逐自尊的过程中,择业青年选择进入农村干部队伍。但由于现代性社会风险的压力,青年在基于追求安全感的自我认同建构中呈现出高度的危机意识和带有焦虑色彩的上进意识,并在职业的稳定性中表现出来。同时,在社会比较、体制内的政策冲突和组织隐性规则下,农村青年干部遭受了群体外部积极性构建失败和群体内部合法性的持续瓦解。在目前,构建农村干部群体的社会意义系统应成为维持农村青年干部稳定性的重要方向。     

The End of Wilderness: Conflict and Defeat of Wilderness in the Grand Canyon

In the early 1970s, Grand Canyon National Park intended to designate its land to “Wilderness,” including the controversial Colorado River corridor. However, by the end of the 1970s the potential for Wilderness designation was off the table, and would never seriously return for genuine consideration. Using Schattschneider's model of conflict, we explain how the organization of this conflict privileges the “causal story” of Wilderness opponents, and therefore why the canyon is not designated. It is our contention that members of Congress will not stand forward to support Wilderness designations without simultaneously providing benefits for extractive land use because (1) congressional representatives are more penalized for supporting than opposing Wilderness designations, (2) Wilderness advocacy groups do not pressure congressional delegates as firmly as opposition groups, and (3) key local congressional members are not likely to see Wilderness as a salient issue worth the risk of negative exposure. If these findings hold, the implication is that we may have reached the end of significant Wilderness designations in highly visible areas, unless critical aspects in land use conflict change.     

Assessing the Performance of the Price Cap Plan for Local Exchange Carriers in the United States

In 1991 the FCC implemented a price cap plan for local exchange carriers' interstate access service designed to deal with the regulatory boundaries problem arising from the breakup of AT&T in 1984. The experience with the price cap plan demonstrates the difficulty of predicting productivity growth accurately and makes clear that regulators cannot depend upon a pure price cap plan to keep prices within a reasonable range of costs. With periodic reviews to readjust plan parameters, however, a price cap plan can maintain the rate-of-return close to the target rate-of-return without diminishing the price cap plan's incentives for efficient production. A simple method of recalculating the X-factor based on the rate-of-return over the previous three years worked well in simulations. If this procedure had been used over the price cap period 1991 to 2000, prices would have been 20 percent lower and expenditures on LECs' telecommunications service subject to a price cap would have been $3.8 billion lower.     

Race and Ethnicity: Responsible Use from Epidemiological and Public Health Perspectives

While the concepts of race and ethnicity have been abused historically, they are potentially invaluable in epidemiology and public health. Epidemiology relies upon variables that help differentiate populations by health status, thereby refining public health and health care policy, and offering insights for medical science. Race and ethnicity are powerful tools for doing this. The prerequisite for their responsible use is a society committed to reducing inequalities and inequities in health status. When this condition is met, it is irresponsible not to utilize these concepts.     

The Effect of Negotiation Practices on the Relationship between Suppliers and Customers

This article examines the effects of negotiation practices, such as coercion and contract formality, on how suppliers and customers perceived the resulting business relationship. We conducted a purchasing negotiation simulation with students in a classroom setting in which participants competed for resources in a mock supply-chain context. The participants were surveyed at key stages of the ongoing negotiation in order to measure their behaviors as a customer–supplier relationship developed. The data were used to test several hypotheses developed from the marketing and purchasing literature. The hypotheses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results demonstrated that the use of coercive techniques by negotiators during negotiation had a negative effect on satisfaction. In addition, the findings showed that, as expected, negotiators entering a negotiation with a cooperative orientation would tend to avoid the use of coercive practices during negotiation. The cooperative orientation also exhibited an unexpected positive effect on the formalization of the design of the contract between the parties. This study contributes to the current knowledge base focusing on the creation of agreements between companies and will, we hope, encourage the integration of suppliers and customers in an operating context within a supply-chain setting.     

刑事技术学科时态与发展探究

文章按不同历史时期,探索研究了刑事技术学科的发展状况,揭示了刑事技术学科的历史形成过程,总结了现代刑事技术学科的发展状况,推测了未来刑事技术学科的发展趋势。     

Demand Pull Technology Transfer Applied to the Field of Assistive Technology

Technology transfer has generally had little impact on the assistive technology industries serving small, highly fragmented “disability markets.” Persons with disabilities often require specialized, relatively sophisticated technology. Third-party payer reimbursement rates and the low levels of disposable income among disability populations often cap product pricing. Transferring technology to these industry segments therefore poses special challenges. In October 1998, the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer initiated the “Demand-Pull Project on Wheeled Mobility.” Successful transfers resulting from this project demonstrate that a systematic technology transfer process can be successfully applied to industries serving specialized and underserved niche markets.