We examine whether "rating shopping" or "rating catering" is a more accurate characterization of rating agency interactions regarding collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Although investors paid a ...premium for dual ratings, AAA CDO tranches rated by both Moody's and S&P defaulted more frequently than tranches rated by only one of them, which is inconsistent with pure rating shopping. Rating agencies made upward adjustments beyond their model when their competitor had more lenient assumptions. Finally, consistent with rating catering, S&P's and Moody's adjustments and disagreements at security issuance were reflected in subsequent rating downgrades, suggesting that adjustments were harmful.
This study explores how entrepreneurs respond when their expectations misalign with the capabilities, behaviours and priorities of angel and venture capital investors in a maturing entrepreneurial ...ecosystem. Based on 38 interviews with New Zealand founders, we theorize three qualitatively different behavioural strategies - endure, escape or engage - that entrepreneurs enact in the face of such misalignment. We also consider the ramifications of these strategies for the broader context in which entrepreneurial activity occurs. Some strategies reproduce the suboptimal ecosystem conditions that entrepreneurs encounter, whereas others contribute to the sustainable growth and maturity of the ecosystem. Grounded in an institutional logics perspective, our findings offer a nuanced view of entrepreneurial agency in the face of an entrepreneurial ecosystem's institutional constraints. We challenge the deterministic notion of contextual forces that prevails in the literature and reveal how and when resource-sourcing decisions and actions stimulate endogenous change in entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Reforming the African Public Sector: Retrospect and Prospectsis an in-depth and wide-ranging review of the available literature on African public sector reforms. It illustrates several differing ...country experiences to buttress the main observations and conclusions. It adopts a structural/institutional approach which underpins most of the reform efforts on the continent. To contextualize reform of the public sector and understand its processes, dynamics and intricacies, the book examines the state and state capacity building in Africa, especially when there can be no state without an efficient public sector. In addition, the book addresses a number of theories such as the new institutional economics, public choice and new public management, which have in one way or another influenced most of the initiatives implemented under public sector reform in Africa. There is also a survey of the three phases of public sector reform which have emerged and the balance sheet of reform strategies, namely, decentralization, privatization, deregulation, agencification, co-production and public-private partnerships. It concludes by identifying possible alternative approaches such as developing a vigorous public sector ethos and sustained capacity building to promote and enhance the renewal and reconstruction of the African public sector within the context of the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD), good governance and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
As one of the most powerful executive actions, rulemaking by U.S. federal agencies involves all three branches and governs many issue areas, but some rules are routine and others are highly ...consequential. We build a new rule universe composed of nearly forty-thousand considered rules listed in the Unified Agenda since Spring 1995 and employ an item response model with 15 raters to generate integrated estimates of rule significance for each of the rules. To showcase the usefulness of this new measure, we propose and test competing models on agency productivity, finding that the president and Congress influence rule promulgation in a nuanced way. The president is dominant when agencies consider moderately noteworthy rules, and Congress has more influence over the most significant regulations, suggesting that the branches’ influences vary with the consequential nature of the issues considered.
This article analyzes the empowerment and disempowerment of credit rating agencies (CRAs) as private regulatory intermediaries. Until the recent financial crisis, regulators heavily relied on private ...credit ratings to impose risk-sensitive requirements on financial market actors (targets). Regulatory use of credit ratings was instrumental in empowering CRAs because regulatory authority was delegated to them and their own private power was bolstered by public endorsement. But regulators' subsequent efforts to disempower the CRAs—more recently regarded as dysfunctional "runaway" intermediaries—have proven costly, complicated to do, and hardly consequential in limiting CRAs' de facto power. This dynamic reveals a path-dependent power shift in favor of private intermediaries that is more pronounced (1) the larger the intermediary's own sources of power when an RIT arrangement is established, (2) the larger the transfer of authority to the intermediary, and (3) the longer regulators rely on the intermediary.
Business and NGOs are seen by many to be locked in a perpetual war of values and ideologies. What this book demonstrates is that the war has moved on. Many companies are now engaging with their ...stakeholders – even those with which they have traditionally had antagonistic relationships – as part of their strategies for improved social and environmental performance. With contributions from an outstanding and diverse group of experts from business, consultancy, research institutes, NGOs and academia, Terms for Endearment investigates the how and why of these new collaborations and provides concrete examples of business working with stakeholder pressure for sustainable development. The book forcibly argues the notion of organizations of civil society setting the standards for business behaviour in the 21st century. For those companies that choose not to pursue high standards of social and environmental performance, confrontation with NGOs must be expected, with negative consequences for sales, costs and social capital, i.e. the bottom line. Terms for Endearment therefore presents business with both a threat and opportunity as we move closer to establishing a social basis for global economic activity.
Terms for Endearment is useful for the essential task of achieving a better understanding of where power lies and what drives NGOs, businesses and the political process. - Caspar Henderson, The Ecologist || Reading this book will not guarantee you success. But it will give you a better insight into the dynamics at work. Partnership, dialogue, and engagement are the sexy words of the moment, and good fodder for a future library of books to follow. - Suzannah Lansdell, Elements (The Environment Council, UK) || ... it provides meaty evidence of the evolving relationship between businesses and the societies in which they operate. Informative and well-argued. - Community Affairs Briefing || The contributing editor should be commended highly for his contributions ... I find the text informative and the writing very accessible ... it should be a library source for societal, environmental and ethical accounting and management courses. - Social and Environmental Accounting || With increased attention being paid to both corporate responsibility and global civil society, a collection that examines the interaction between the two is particularly timely. Terms for Endearment should be notable for both practitioners and analysts of business/NGO relations. - Environment magazine || With contributions form a diverse group of experts from business, consultancy, research institutes, NGOs and academia, Terms for Endearment investigates the how and why of these new collaborations and provides concrete examples of business working with stakeholder pressure for sustainable development and therefore presents business with both a threat and opportunity as we move closer to establishing a social basis for global economic activity. - Connections – UNED Forum Quarterly Newsletter || ... the book is a must-read for those who champion corporate responsibility and wish to truly engage with stakeholders. - Sustain magazine || Terms for Endearment is an interesting and groundbreaking book, bringing new voices to the debate on the future of business. - Scottish Environmental Protection Agency
Foreword Anita Roddick, Founder and Co-Chair, The Body Shop International; Founder, New Academy of Business, UK Foreword Georg Kell, Senior Officer, Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General Foreword Kumi Naidoo, President, CIVICUS Introduction: Working with stakeholder pressure for sustainable development Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK Part 1: Driving factors for business–NGO engagement1. Globalisation and the new politics of sustainable development Peter Newell, Institute of Development Studies, UK 2. Making it legit: new ways of generating corporate legitimacy in a global economy Cheryl Rodgers, University of Portsmouth, UK 3. Web wars: business, NGOs and governments in an Internet-connected world John Bray, Control Risks Group, UK Part 2: Examples from industry sectors4. Planting the seeds of change: business-NGO relations and tropical deforestation David F. Murphy and Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK 5. Shades of green: mining, NGOs and the pursuit of negotiating power Saleem H. Ali, MIT, USA 6. A no win-win situation? GMOs, NGOs and sustainable development Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK 7. The listening banks: the development of relations with NGOs Mike Lachowicz, SERM Rating Agency Ltd, UK Part 3: Organisations' experiences 8. Meeting social and environmental objectives through partnership: the experience of Unilever Anne Weir, Unilever, UK 9. Working non-"STOP" for sustainable development: case study of a Canadian environmental NGO's relationships with businesses since 1970 Marie-France Turcotte, Concordia University, Canada 10. Bridging troubled waters: the Marine Stewardship Council Simon Heap, INTRAC, UK, and Penny Fowler, Trade Policy Advisor, Oxfam UK Part 4: Seeking and managing collaboration11. Partners for sustainability John Elkington and Shelly Fennell, SustainAbility Ltd, UK 12. Culture clash and mediation: exploring the cultural dynamics of business-NGO collaboration Andy Crane, Cardiff Business School, UK 13. The art of collaboration: emerging business-NGO relations in Asia Christopher C. Plante, The Asia Foundation, USA, and Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK Part 5: Concepts14. Complementary resources: the win-win rationale for partnership with NGOs Steve Waddell, Organizational Futures, USA 15. Thinking partners: business, NGOs and the partnership concept David F. Murphy and Gill Coleman, New Academy of Business, UK 16. Change the rules! Business–NGO relations and structuration theory Uwe Schneidewind and Holger Petersen, University of Oldenburg, Germany Part 6: Future directions17. New frontiers: emerging NGO activities to strengthen transparency and accountability in business Rob Lake, Traidcraft, UK, and Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK 18. Civil regulation: a new form of democratic governance for the global economy? Jem Bendell, New Academy of Business, UK
Although a contextual perspective in HRM research has been strongly advocated, empirical evidence on how context shapes HRM is still lacking. This study explored HRM philosophies and policies in ...Dutch semi-autonomous government agencies and how they are shaped. These agencies were given considerable autonomy by central government with regard to their HRM philosophies and policies in order to make more effective use of their human capital. Based on our findings from thirty semi-structured interviews with HRM managers, we identified that (a) facilitation philosophies are dominant, while accumulation philosophies are less present and utilization philosophies nonexistent; (b) mixed philosophies are present in some cases; (c) ability- and motivation-enhancing policies are dominant, while opportunity-enhancing policies are less present; (d) similarities in HRM are strongly shaped by external factors; and that (e) differences in HRM are strongly shaped by internal factors.
Some scholars consider that European Union agencies (EAs) were created as independent bodies in order to enhance the credibility of the European Union decision-making process. Scholars have typically ...focused on analysing the relationship that these agencies have with politicians. However, relatively little attention has been paid to their relationship with stakeholders. This study examines the professional trajectory of EA board members, identifying their career ties with politicians and stakeholders. Using an original dataset on the career trajectories of 338 top officials in 33 EAs, the findings provide evidence that the type of appointing body matters: on the one hand, the European Parliament is more likely - than the Commission - to appoint individuals having career ties to politicians; on the other hand, multiple veto players are less likely to designate board members linked to political players. Additionally, the findings suggest that agencies performing regulatory tasks seem to be more inclined to have lower levels of de facto independence from politicians.
The purpose of this study is to examine how credit rating agencies’ decisions impact the stock market using a systematic and quantitative review of existing empirical studies. Specifically, we employ ...a meta‐regression analysis (MRA) to investigate the extent and nature of the effect of rating agencies’ decisions on the stock market. We survey 62 studies published between 1978 and 2015. Our first finding is that the cumulative average abnormal returns calculated from this empirical literature are affected by publication bias. After controlling for publication bias, the main findings of our meta‐analysis indicate that negative rating decisions cause statistically significant negative abnormal returns. This evidence suggests an informational effect. Our results also indicate that positive rating decisions do not have a significant effect. Finally, the MRA results reveal the importance of several factors related to primary study design, as well as to the nature of the data.
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