9 resultados para Shareholders vote in conflict of interests
em Aston University Research Archive
Resumo:
After thirty years of vacillation, the Tanzanian government has made a firm decision to Swahilize its secondary education system. It has also embarked on an ambitious economic and social development programme (Vision 2025) to transform its peasant society into a modern agricultural community. However, there is a faction in Tanzania opposed to Kiswahili as the medium of education. Already many members of the middle and upper class their children to English medium primary schools to avoid the Kiswahili medium public schools and to prepare their children for the English medium secondary system presently in place. Within the education system, particularly at university level, there is a desire to maintain English as the medium of education. English is seen to provide access to the international scientific community, to cutting edge technology and to the global economy. My interest in this conflict of interests stems from several years' experience teaching English to students at Sokoine University of Agriculture. Students specialise in agriculture and are expected to work with the peasant population on graduation. The students experience difficulties studying in English and then find their Kiswahili skills insufficient to explain to farmers the new techniques and technologies that they have studied in English. They are hampered by a complex triglossic situation in which they use their mother tongue with family and friends, Kiswahili, the national language for early education and most public communication within Tanzania, and English for advanced studies. My aim in this thesis was - to study the language policy in Tanzania and see how it is understood and implemented; - to examine the attitudes towards the various languages and their various roles; - to investigate actual language behaviour in Tanzanian higher education. My conclusion is that the dysfunctionality of the present study has to be addressed. Diglossic public life in Tanzania has to be accommodated. The only solution appears to be a compromise, namely a bilingual education system which supports from all cases of society by using Kiswahili, together with an early introduction of English and its promotion as a privileged foreign language, so that Tanzania can continue to develop internally through Kiswahili and at the same time retain access to the globalising world through the medium of English.
Resumo:
The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of a firm's strategy to invest in a conflict location. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been done before. We examine this using a standard model of international business, overlaid with the fundamental approach to corporate social responsibility. We start with the population of multinationals who have chosen to invest in low income countries with weak institutions. We then split this sample in order to distinguish between firms that have invested in conflict regions compared to those that have not. Our analysis then proceeds to explain the decision of those firms to invest in conflict locations using a simple Probit model. We find that countries with weaker institutions and less concern about corporate social responsibility (CSR) are more likely to invest in conflict regions. Finally, firms with more concentrated ownership are more likely to invest in such locations. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.
Resumo:
Policy towards planning presents scholars of politics and public policy with a significant puzzle. Since 1947, there has been a surprising level of stability in the system used to plan the use of land. On the other hand, there has been growing evidence that insufficient land has been released for development. The paper considers the question why, in spite of the planning system demonstrably failing to allocate sufficient land, fundamental reform of the system has not been achieved. In answering the question, the paper considers in particular attempts at reform under the Labour governments from 1997 to 2010. It argues that there is an interplay of interests, ideas and institutions: public attitudes, the interests of certain sections of the population, and institutions which are responsive to these attitudes and interests combined to stymie policy reform. As a consequence, radical reform was not achieved, and the paper concludes that attempt to find a technical “fix” to the planning system are unlikely to succeed. A diagnosis recognising the political and distributive nature of the problem will be required.
Resumo:
The presidential and legislative elections of 2007 are widely seen to have marked the end of the far right as a major political force in France. How could this occur only five years after Le Pen’s qualification for the presidential run-off, and with his party seemingly in the ascendant? This article discusses recent fluctuations in far-right electoral performance in France. It focuses largely on the presidential elections of 2002 and 2007, re-examining the (supposed) upswell of far-right support in 2002 and its (supposed) subsidence in 2007. Both elections require nuanced interpretation. Both confounded poll predictions, which in 2007 failed to measure the effect of Sarkozy’s hard-right campaign and, crucially, the extent to which the border between “mainstream right” and “far right” had shifted since 2002. This allowed Sarkozy to drain part of Le Pen’s electorate, and raises questions over the longer-term impact of Le Pen and the FN on the political agenda in France.
Resumo:
The purpose of this paper is to examine, using panel data econometric techniques, the determinants of a firm’s strategy to invest in a conflict location. To the best of our knowledge this has not been done before. We use a large database of firm-level data that includes 2858 multinational firms that have a subsidiary in a developing country (during 1999-2006). Out of these firms 290 are classified as having a subsidiary in a conflict location. The choice of a conflict location is based on data from the Inter Country Risk Guide (ICRG). We start with the population of multinationals who have chosen to invest in low income countries with weak institutions. Our analysis then proceeds to explain the decision of those firms to invest in conflict locations. We have four hypotheses: (1) Firms with concentrated ownership are more likely to invest in a conflict region; (2) Firms from countries with weaker institutions are more likely to invest in conflict regions; (3) Firms and Countries with less concern over corporate social responsibility are more likely to invest in conflict countries; and (4) that there is large sector level differences in the propensity to invest in a conflict region. The results suggest that all of these hypotheses can be confirmed.
Resumo:
The present study explores strategies used to legitimize the transfer of organizational practices in a situation of institutional upheaval. We apply the logic of social action (Risse, 2000) to analyze the effectiveness of consequence-based action and communication-based action, in terms of higher coordination, lower conflict, and overall higher economic performance. Consequence-based legitimation is obtained by using a system of distributor incentives tied to performance of specific tasks, while communicative legitimation can be achieved by recommendations and warnings. Our setting is an export channel to European emerging economies. Our results indicate that in the absence of legitimacy, as manifested in discretionary legal enforcement, consequence-based legitimation is more effective than communicative legitimation in reducing conflict, increasing coordination, and ultimately in improving the performance of the export dyad. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.
Resumo:
Hope is a positive emotion that plays a pivotal role in intractable conflicts and conflict resolution processes by inducing conciliatory attitudes for peace. As a catalyser for conflict resolution, it is important to further understand hope in such contexts. In this paper we present a novel framework for understanding hope in contexts of intergroup conflict. Utilizing appraisal theory of emotions and heavily relying on the implicit theories framework, we describe three targets upon which hope appraisals focus in intractable conflict - the conflict, the outgroup, and the ingroup. Next, we describe the importance of developing ways to experimentally induce hope, and utilize the appraisal-target framework to describe and classify existing and potential interventions for inducing hope in intractable conflict resolution.
Resumo:
Schurz and Tholen (2016) argue that common approaches to studying the neural basis of “theory of mind” (ToM) obscure a potentially important role for inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in managing conflict between perspectives, and urge new work to address this question: “to gain a full understanding of the IFG's role in ToM, we encourage future imaging studies to use a wider range of control conditions.” (p332). We wholeheartedly agree, but note that this observation has been made before, and has already led to a programme of work that provides evidence from fMRI, EEG, and TMS on the role of IFG in managing conflict between self and other perspectives in ToM. We highlight these works, and in particular we demonstrate how careful manipulation within ToM tasks has been used to act as an internal control condition, wherein conflict has been manipulated within-subject. We further add to the discussion by framing key questions that remain regarding IFG in the context of these. Using limitations in the existing research, we outline how best researchers can proceed with the challenge set by Schurz and Tholen (2016).