Continuity and Pragmatism: How Chinese State-Owned Banks Adapted to Hong Kong’s Free Market (1949–1978)

One of the puzzling features of China’s post-1978 economic reforms is how quickly its enterprises adapted to the new business environment. An insight into this puzzle is provided by Chinese state-owned banks in Hong Kong. From 1949–78 these banks, led by the Bank of China, represented China’s primary financial interface with the outside world. What distinguished the management of these banks from their peers was their loyalty to communist values. Yet, despite Mao Zedong’s anti-imperialist anti-capitalist ideology, the Bank of China demonstrated extraordinary business pragmatism in its engagement with the international financial system. It also exemplified a high level of management continuity which enabled it to see beyond a volatile and often hostile political environment. The article shows that the post-1978 retreat from ideology and its replacement with commercial incentives proved costly in terms of professional standards. A homogenisation of bank management also made it more difficult to recruit senior management whose loyalty to the Communist Party could be assumed. These findings highlight the importance of rule variation in explaining international differences in management behaviour. More generally the article shows the long-term importance of Hong Kong’s role as an internationalising force for China’s business and financial sectors.     

The rebellion in Chinese Turkestan

La Politique Islamique d'Allemagne. By B. Vernier. Paris : Centre d'Études de Politique Étrangère. Sect. d'Information Pub. 15. 1939. Ed. Hartmann.

Publication of the Institute for Spreading Information about the East. Editor, A. P. Barannikov. Academy of Science, U.S.S.R. Leningrad. 1939.

Islam in the World. By Dr. Zaki Ali. Pp. 428. Lahore: Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf. 1938.

Survey of the Import Trade of India for the Fiscal Year, April 1, 1938, to March 31, 1939. H.M. Stationery Office.

India's North‐West Frontier. By Sir William Barton. John Murray. ros. 6d.

The Naked Nagas. By Christoph von Fürer‐Haimendorf. Pp. ix + 243. 24 plates and map. Methuen. 1939. 15s.

Peaks and Lamas. By Marco Pallis. 9½×3½”. Pp. xx+423. 95 photogravure illustrations and 3 maps. London : Cassell. 18s.

John Nicholson—The Hero of Delhi. By Hesketh Pearson. Collins.

Syria As It Is. By Helen Cameron Gordon (Lady Russell). 9½” × 5½”. Pp. 197. 24 gravure plates, 3 maps, glossary, bibliography, and index. London : Methuen. 1939. ros. 6d.

Minaret and Pipeline. By Margaret Baneri. Translated from the German by L. M. Sieveking. 8¾” × 6″. Pp. 422. Oxford : University Press.

Ataturk, and the True Nature of Modern Turkey. By Gerard Tongas. Translated from the French by Major F. F. Rynd.

China Fights for the World. By J. Gunnar Andcrsson. Translated from die Swedish by Arthur G. Chater. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd. 12s. 6d.

The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages. By A. S. Attiya. With 2 coloured and 8 monotone plates and 4 maps. Methuen and Co. 30s.

Buried Empires : The Earliest Civilisations of the Middle East. By Patrick Carleton. 9” × 6”. Pp. 290. 13 plates, 2 maps. London : Edward Arnold and Co. 10s. 6d.

The Cull Chinese Bronzes. By W. Perceval Yetts, Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology in the University of London. Pp. x +197. 35 plates, 44 figs. London : Courtauld Institute of Art. 1939. £2 2s.

Last Lectures. By Roger Fry. Introduction by Sir Kenneth Clark. 10”×8”. Pp. xxix + 370. Illustrations. Cambridge University Press. 21s.

Berichte des Asien Arbeitskreises. Siebenberg‐Verlag, Wien and Peking. No. 1, February, 1939; No. 2, June, 1939.

The Annual of the East, 1939–40. Published by the Syndicate of the Annual of the East, 160, Shaftesbury Avenue, London. Pp. 148. Price 3s.     

Information Technology and Organizational Morphology: The Case of the Korean Central Government

This study explores the effects of information technology (IT) in terms of longitudinal changes in organizational structures at the central government level. Interestingly, although IT has increased the ratio of middle managers to subordinates, the number of middle managers has not changed radically and, in some cases, has steadily increased, while the proportion of lower‐level employees has decreased. Contrary to the belief in a pyramid structure, the actual form of an agency looks like a rocket. The analysis shows that IT effects on the agency’s morphology differ according to the core technology of the agency. However, these effects seem to be constrained by the rigidity of the Korean government in terms of organizational management. This article proposes that agency autonomy in fitting the organizational structure to the real work situation is a necessary condition for seeing the full effects of e‐government.     

When BITs have some bite: The political-economic environment for bilateral investment treaties

Political risk frequently impedes the flow of capital into developing countries. In response, governments often adopt innovative institutions that aim to attract greater flows of international investment and trade by changing the institutional environment and limiting the risk to outside investors. One primary example of this is the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), aimed specifically at increasing the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to developing countries. Yet the literature in political science and economics is inconclusive about whether or not BITs do indeed stimulate FDI, and it provides conflicting theoretical reasoning for the claimed connection. This article argues that BITs do attract FDI to developing countries, but the story is a complicated one. Two important factors must be taken into account. First, BITs cannot entirely substitute for an otherwise weak investment environment. Countries must have the necessary domestic institutions in place that interact with BITs to make these international commitments credible and valuable to investors. Second, as the coverage of BITs increases, overall FDI flows to developing countries increase. However, although remaining positive, the marginal effect of a country’s BITs on its own FDI may fall because of heightened competition for FDI from other BIT countries. Using data from 97 countries for 1984–2007, we provide empirical evidence consistent with both of these theoretical claims.     

Does Decentralization Reform Always Increase Economic Growth?: A Cross Country Comparison of the Performance

This study aims to test the impact of decentralization on the economic growth of a country. Based on the longitudinal data set of 63 countries with a time series spanning 1960 to 2007, the test result reveals that there is a negative relationship both between fiscal decentralization and GDP growth and between political decentralization and GDP growth. In order to examine the different impacts of decentralization, the same analysis was applied to subsets of countries categorized into three groups according to the economic stage of the country. This further analysis found that there is a negative relationship between political decentralization and growth in developing countries, between fiscal decentralization and growth in semi-developed countries, but no relationship in developed countries. These results show that decentralization is not always instrumental in economic growth, which means that the time variable, or more precisely the stage of economic development of a country, is an important factor when introducing decentralization reforms.     

Histological correlates of post mortem mitochondrial DNA damage in degraded hair

We have assessed the histological preservation of naturally degraded human hair shafts, and then assayed each for levels of amplifiable mitochondrial DNA and damage-associated DNA miscoding lesions. The results indicate that as sample histology is altered (i.e. as hairs degrade) levels of amplifiable mitochondrial DNA decrease, but no correlation is seen between histology and absolute levels of mitochondrial DNA miscoding lesions. Nevertheless, amplifiable mitochondrial DNA could be recovered across the complete range of the histological preservation spectrum. However, when template copy number is taken into consideration, a correlation of miscoding lesions with histology is again apparent. These relationships indicate that a potential route for the generation of misleading mitochondrial sequence data exists in samples of poor histology. Therefore, we argue that in the absence of molecular cloning, the histological screening of hair may be necessary in order to confirm the reliability of mitochondrial DNA sequences amplified from hair, and thus represents a useful tool in forensic mitochondrial DNA analyses.     

A metallurgical review of the interpretation of bullet lead compositional analysis

Comparison of the minor and trace element compositions of bullet lead alloys has been used by some forensic examiners to make definitive positive associations between bullets or lead fragments at a crime scene and samples of bullets linked to a suspect(s). Such conclusions have been based on the elemental analysis of isolated groups of bullets with no consideration of the metallurgical processes involved in the production and refining of the bullet lead alloys. An understanding of the metallurgy of lead refining reveals that the elements quantified in the forensic analysis are carefully controlled in the refining process and that there are logical reasons why some elements are more discriminatory than others. Data for lead alloys supplied to two major ammunition manufacturers confirm that multiple indistinguishable shipments of lead alloys from secondary lead refiners to the ammunition manufacturers are made each year and over a period of many years. The data also demonstrate that distinguishable compositions can come from the same melt or "source" of lead alloy. These results clearly indicate that bullets with indistinguishable compositions could have come from different lead "sources" produced in the same or different years. Furthermore, the observation that two bullets have a distinguishable composition does not necessarily mean that they came from a different "source".Our results show that the forensic examiner using a method of bullet lead alloy elemental analysis, which quantifies up to six elements is restricted to concluding only that indistinguishable bullets might have come from the same "source," not that they did come from the same "source". In addition, it is quite possible that multiple bullets with similar but distinguishable compositions could have come from the same "source". The authors therefore feel that there is no scientific validity to any conclusions more positive than attributing the possible association as to molten source among bullets from different samples. An understanding of the metallurgical principles operative in the melting/casting process as well as the data acquired for this study, indicate that any forensic conclusions which associate unknown bullets with the "same source", and/or "same box" should fail most or all Daubert criteria.     

An Exploratory Study of Time Stress and Its Causes among Government Employees

This article elucidates the temporal dimension of time stress among employees in public organizations. Employees working at five agencies in Indiana were surveyed. Job characteristics and personal variables such as overtime, repetitiveness, gender, family obligation, and age group were found to be insignificant as time stressors. However, political factors such as level of government, goal awareness, political sensitivity, and time allotted for meetings were significant independent variables affecting time stress. To enhance performance in the public sector, especially when a merit pay system is not fully instituted, more attention needs to be paid to the time dimension.