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A significant country differences in the attributional properties in the institutional setting of performance explanations in management commentary reports is found. Companies from Canada and the U.S. were found to be less defensive and less assertive in causal explanations that were offered, compared to firms in the UK and Australia. Other findings are discussed.

Researchers have examined several factors that influence the extent to which the values of individuals are congruent with the values of the organizations in which they are employed. These factors include personal characteristics, satisfaction with corporate policies, and job/task competence. Additionally, recent studies have suggested the importance of such person-organization (P-O) fit measures in overall employee effectiveness and performance. This study examines the impact of a specific personal characteristic--certification and licensure (credentials)--on the person-organization fit between corporate tax executives and their work environments. Two hundred twenty-three corporate tax executives provided questionnaire information regarding P-O fit in four resource areas--staffing preferences, continuing professional education, availability of inside and outside tax guidance, and support for participation in professional organizations. Our overall finding is that tax executive credentials impact person-organization fit in terms of resource allocation and availability. A significant credential effect is found in three of four P-O fit areas--satisfaction with staffing levels of tax professionals, availability of outside tax consultants, and participation in professional organizations. Implications for tax executive performance and effectiveness are discussed., INTRODUCTION Researchers in organization management and applied psychology have suggested that the ability of corporate executives to effectively manage and produce desired results is related to the extent to which [...]

An externality is a cost that a corporation's actions impose on society. For example, a power plant may emit mercury but might not pay for the cost of that pollution to the people living near the plant. It is possible to analyze a diverse range of problems of society in these terms, including the health effects of corporate practices, the unsustainability of manufacturing processes, and the marketing of products contributing to environmental damage, and economic policies that maintain high levels of poverty due to effective lobbying by the business community. This article examines the problem of externalities in terms of metacontingencies. Externalities continue precisely because there is no cost to the organizations for practices that impose these costs on third parties. The article describes the cultural practices needed to motivate governments to make corporations bear the true costs of their practices--costs that are currently imposed on others. KEYWORDS advocacy, externalities, cost, cultural practices, risk factor

The article emphasizes the importance of strategic management of working capital. Six common mistakes are identified, and how correcting them can release needed cash.

The article discusses designing and implementing a successful finance function in a global setting. Topics include the internal capital market, and managing risk and budgeting capital internationally.

The works and ideas of business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. contributed greatly to the understanding of Japanese industrial development. His studies on large corporations in the US were useful in the management of Japanese corporations.

The objective of this research is to identify and quantify the factors that influence the corporate financing for engineering consulting companies in Taiwan. The quantification, thus derived based on statistical analyses, expresses the features of the engineering consulting market that fit the company's criteria for considerations of corporate financing. An initial survey of 118 professionals serving in both the financial and engineering consulting markets was conducted from which 36 points that influence the approval of corporate financing were summarized. The significance and quantification of the financing factors were determined from a comprehensive survey, via questionnaire, and factor analysis of two populations, comprised of a total of 1,124 firms and institutions. The conclusions give us 14 significant factors that can be classified into four component groups: For repayment-explained financing purposes, the corporate perspective, project features and public relations, and financing protection with corresponding weights being 0.328, 0.270, 0.214, and 0.188, respectively. In comparison with the most commonly accepted principle of financing, five principles, accepted by financial institutions for years, these four weighted components provide a better basis for conducting corporate financing, and a quantification measurement method for corporate financing for both practice and research. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(2008)24:2(96) CE Database subject headings: Financial management; Engineering firms; Consulting services; Construction management.

The question whether corporations should be used as a means for administering distributive justice is crucial. There are two fundamental issues associated with this. Firstly, would the introduction of rules have any distributional effect? Secondly, what would be the efficiency cost? In this paper, we explore both questions with reference to a job-security corporate rule. We show that the job-security rule will always produce distributional consequences which are consistent with its objectives. However, whether or not it is a socially desirable policy depends on whether the economy is at an efficient allocation and what motivated the policy. It can be shown that under some conditions, even if the initial allocation is efficient, yet not the socially desirable one, a corporate rule--like the job security one--may produce socially desirable gains. The same can be said in the case where the initial allocation is inefficient even in the presence of competitive markets (due to incompleteness problems). However, these social gains would come at the expense of competitiveness. In an internationally open environment this may offset the initial social gains from this policy. Whether or not this happens would then depend on whether agents have a social dimension to their preferences or not. If they do, their response to the initiative may offset the initial loss of competitiveness. Alternatively, society may face the dilemma whether to remain open to uphold local conceptions of distributive justice

A presidential task force on external funding was established by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2003 to review APA policies, procedures, and practices regarding the acceptance of funding and support from private corporations for educational and training programs; continuing education offerings; research projects; publications; advertising; scientific and professional meetings and conferences; and consulting, practice, and advocacy relationships. This article, based on the Executive Summary of the APA Task Force on External Funding Final Report, presents the findings and unanimous recommendations of the task force in the areas of association income, annual convention, research and journals, continuing education, education, practice, and conflicts of interest and ethics. The task force concluded that it is important for both APA and individual psychologists to become familiar with the challenges that corporate funding can pose to their integrity. The nature and extent of those challenges led the task force to recommend that APA develop explicit policies, educational materials, and continuing education programs to preserve the independence of psychological science, practice, and education. Keywords: Task Force on External Funding, conflicts of interest, ethics, pharmaceutical industry, APA governance

The influence of transaction costs on the manner in which businesses and investors organize mutually beneficial exchanges resulting in positive social changes and the collaboration between corporations and environmental stakeholders to reduce social costs are presented.

Hierarchy can function as an instrument to channel influence activities or power struggles in organizations. Contrary to what has frequently been argued, we show that multi-divisional organizations may involve lower influence costs than single-tier organizations, even though they offer more scope for organizational conflict and have more executives that can be influenced. These benefits derive from two effects. First, part of the conflict in multi-divisional organizations takes place on the division level, where a small number of agents fight over only a fraction of the overall prize. Second, by grouping agents into common divisions, multi-divisional organizations create freerider problems in rent-seeking. Our model sheds new light on the desirability of divestitures and the transition from the U- to the M-form by US corporations in the 1920s. JEL classification: C72; D74; G31; G34 Keywords: Hierarchy; Conflict; Influence activities; U-form vs. M-form

Raising the issue of corporate moral agency in our examination of the morality of corporate speech is important for two fundamental reasons. Each reason suggests we exercise caution in conflating corporations and individuals as the law often does. First, raising the issue of corporate moral agency is important to the aim of providing a framework for ethically evaluating corporate speech is self-evident. But this is hardly the case. Corporations are not natural persons, and we mustn't assume corporate speech is indistinguisable from human speech. Before we can ethically evaluate corporate speech, we must first clarify what corporate speech is. This requires an understanding of the fundamental nature of the corporate entity, including its moral status. Second, raising the issue of corporate moral agency is imporatant if we wish to promote morally responsible corporate speech. Any diminished moral capacity on the corporation's part would sugges a core role for the strong legal reinforcement of any ethical aspirations here. In promoting morally responsible corporate speech, ethical injunctions uncoupled from an effective legal regime may hold only limited promise.

This article explores the processes of change that enable corporations to move towards sustainable practices, focusing on the human resource and business strategies that support rather than diminish global ecology and human/social capabilities. We argue that this unified approach is necessary to bring about a change in the interpretation of corporate sustainability and to support the activities of change agents (managers, consultants, and community activists) in managing the massive corporate change needed to move corporations toward sustainable practices in a systematic way. We propose a schema in the form of an integrated phase model for understanding how corporations move from compliance modes to the attainment of strategic sustainability and beyond to the 'ideal' or sustaining corporation. We discuss the leadership of change and the roles and strategies that corporate change agents can employ to bring about both incremental and transformational change for sustainability.

Financialization can be defined as the growing and systemic power of finance and financial engineering and the financialized techniques have helped to cement the pact between the financial elite and the corporate elite. The different aspects of financialization at the level of corporation and some of the fourth-dimensional operations of hedge funds, private equity, investment banks and pension funds, as well as some of the misleading aspects of financial practice are examined.

The research on the Soviet economy in the state, party, and military archives of the Stalin era is analyzed. The behavior of economic managers, the scope and significance of corruption and market oriented behavior and the prospects of economic reforms in large corporations are discussed.

Byline: Alessandra Canepa (1), Paul Stoneman (2) Keywords: technological diffusion; CNC; financial constraints Abstract: This paper explores why finance constraints may impact upon the inter firm diffusion of new technology, incorporates these arguments in a hazard rate formulation of a diffusion model and then estimates that model using data relating to the adoption of CNC machine tools in the UK. The results indicate that financial constraints can be a significant factor in the diffusion process. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economics and Department of Mathematics, University of York, Heslington, York, Y010 5DD, United Kingdom (2) Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom Article History: Registration Date: 30/12/2004

Byline: Jyrki Niskanen (1), Mervi Niskanen (2) Abstract: This study examines the use and determinants of covenants in Finnish small firms' loans. The results show that 72 of the 642 loan contracts examined include at least one covenant. Negative covenants are more common than affirmative covenants in our sample. We use loan characteristics, firm characteristics, and bank relationship variables to explain the use of covenants. Our results suggest that loans with real estate collateral are less likely to contain covenants than loans with other types of collateral. Larger firms are more likely to offer covenants, while the inverse holds for manager-owned firms. Firms with high corporate leverage, a high level of investments and a high sales growth rate offer covenants more often than other firms. Bank relationship length, changes of main bank and interbank competition also affect the use of covenants. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Business and Management, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland (2) Pohjois-Savo Polytechnic Business School, Finland Article History: Registration Date: 02/10/2004

The contingent claim analysis is used to investigate the effect of leverage and the volatility of earnings asset value on the behavior of risk premia between firm debts with different credit ratings. The findings indicate that the quality spread differential (QSD) can be explained by the differences in leverage and volatility.

Byline: Jack Mintz (1) Keywords: international tax co-ordination; business taxes; multinational firms Abstract: Although the hope may be to reduce economic distortions in captial markets, the primary focus of corporate tax consolidation among member states of a federation is to reduce compliance and administrative burdens. For example, the Canadian provinces have sufficient flexibility to determine their corporate tax policies, and effective tax rates on captial vary considerably by province, but they still have achieved a considerable degree of harmonization of tax bases. The European Union should also try to implement a consolidated tax base for companies. A compulsory base would be best, but it is likely that the optional consolidated tax base is most practical at this time. Author Affiliation: (1) J.L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and the C. D. Howe Institute, Canada Article History: Registration Date: 02/10/2004

Byline: George R. Zodrow (1) Keywords: tax competition; fiscal competition; tax coordination; tax harmonization; service underprovision Abstract: This paper examines the tax competition literature and attempts to draw out its implications for the debate on corporate tax coordination within the EU. It begins with the early basic tax competition model, which derives conditions under which underprovision of public services occurs and tax harmonization unambiguously improves welfare for all states in the union. The paper then turns to a wide variety of extensions of this model, some of which reinforce its results and others that yield rather different conclusions. The analysis concludes by considering the implications of the tax competition literature for the debate on EU corporate tax coordination, drawing on some recent efforts to synthesize this vast literature by estimating the efficiency costs of tax competition and simulating the efficiency gains from various tax coordination palns. Author Affiliation: (1) Economics Department, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77251-1892, USA Article History: Registration Date: 05/10/2004

This article points out that once-successful billion dollar companies are now finding it increasingly harder to return the same level of profits of the past. Companies that continue to perform well are able to quickly adapt to changes often by introducing new and/or unconventional ideas.

Firm relatedness and its further relationship to accounting and market-based performance measures within a sample of European firms are investigated. The results confirm a positive and significant relationship between resource-based relatedness and firm performance for German, Swiss and Austrian multi-business firms.

Companies with the best connections to their customers unwaveringly focus their orientation, configuration and use of information on the people and businesses that buy from them. In most markets, there [...]

Most calls for reforming corporate governance are aimed at ensuring board independence. But what directors may need most is the information contained in a relatively simple financial tool. The scandals [...]

Being responsive to customers requires businesses to be fast and right. If the business is right, the customer gets what he/she needs. Value depends on how fast the response is delivered. Topics include an explanation and examples of customer responsiveness and the four key elements of customer responsiveness, and how organizations transform.

Chief financial officers have been noticeable absent from criticism during the recent rash corporate scandals, with the deception of Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom, where the CFOs were directly implicated. The question of what has happened over the past 10 years that has contributed to CFOs and finance organizations not being award of problems is addressed.

Analysis of one's competitors has long been a staple of firms' competitive preparation. Much has been written about why and how competitive analysis should be performed (Fuld, 1985; Porter, 1980). [...]

Byline: Leonardo Becchetti (1), Giovanni Trovato (2) Abstract: We present an empirical analysis of the determinants of growth for a sample of Italian small and medium sized firms. We show that, when investigating a sample which includes firms between 10 and 50 employees and a set of variables larger than those usually considered in the literature, growth -- net of industry characteristics and ex ante market power -- turns out to be significantly affected not only by size and age, but also by state subsidies, export capacity and credit rationing. By adopting a multivariate approach we also show that these findings are confirmed after controlling for heteroskedasticity, survivorship bias and serial correlation. Our results suggest that the hypothesis of independence of firm growth from the initial size and other factors (usually referred to as Gibrat's law in the literature) is not rejected for large firms, while it does not hold for small and medium sized firms under financial constraints in a 'bank-oriented' financial system in which access to external finance is difficult. Author Affiliation: (1) Dipartimento di Economia e Istituzioni, Universita Tor Vergata, Facolta di Economia, 00133, Roma, Italy (2) Fondazione CaRiSal, Corso Garibaldi 194, 84100, Salerno Article History: Registration Date: 13/10/2004

Two expert bird-watchers discuss the skills necessary to identify patterns in the field and how these skills can be applied to recognizing industry patterns and anticipating change.

An analysis of use of music theory to study the timing issue in organizational actions is offered. Additional information on the use of P5 model to analyze timing problems is included.

This article states that corporate capital asset pricing models are flawed, and provides a new analysis technique.

This article reviews the complexities, and pitfalls associated with efforts to boost operating productivity at factories. This effort invariably also requires employees learning new skills, and transferring those skills to other parts of the factory or company.

This fictitious letter to the head of a company explores managerial faults within large companies that have recently been in the news, and that have challenged many long-held beliefs and misconceptions.