Berthold Kuhn argues with his four theses for a reconsideration of China in political science. He rightly notes here that the predictions of an impending political upheaval have so far always proven wrong. Their heyday had such analyzes after the suppression of the protest movement of 1989 and the simultaneous transitions of the Soviet Union and its socialist allies in Central and Eastern Europe. Last saw contributions following the transition paradigm to mark the change in China's party and government in late 2012 and early 2013 a renewed economic (see Li 2012; Pei 2012; Nathan, 2013). Adapted from the source document.
AbstractManuscript TypeEmpiricalResearch Question/IssueDo firms take advantage of the flexibility of the "comply or explain" corporate governance disclosure regime to adopt governance practices that are best suited to their needs and value‐added to the firms as predicted by economic theories of the firm? Using the Canadian "comply or explain" corporate governance disclosure regime, we construct a board score measure based on the Canadian code's 47 "best practices." We employ a unique approach by positing that the "explain" disclosures indicate higher agency costs of best practice adoption or indicate the ability of the firm to improve its governance practices relative to "best practices" in light of firm specific circumstances.Research Findings/InsightsWe find that our measure is strongly and positively associated with higher firm value and weakly and positively associated with better operational performance. Further, our measure is more strongly associated with both than best practice adoption measures.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsOur unique measure of governance quality reveals differences in governance efficiency and effectiveness that are consistent with the theorized advantages of "comply or explain" governance disclosure regimes. Further, our results suggest that firms in a "comply or explain" regime are not employing, on average, the discretion permitted by such a regime to avoid improvements to their corporate governance practices.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsOur results support the proposition that the flexibility of a "comply or explain" governance regime provides tangible financial benefits to shareholders in terms of higher firm value and returns on shareholders' equity investment.
Technology platform strategies offer a novel way to orchestrate a rich portfolio of contributions made by the many independent actors who form an ecosystem of heterogeneous complementors around a stable platform core. This form of organising has been successfully used in smartphone, gaming, commercial software, and industrial sectors. Technology ecosystems require stability and homogeneity to leverage common investments in standard components, but they also need variability and heterogeneity to meet evolving market demand. Although the required balance between stability and evolvability in the ecosystem has been addressed conceptually in the literature, we have less understanding of its underlying mechanics or appropriate governance. Through an extensive case study of a business software ecosystem consisting of a major multinational manufacturer of enterprise resource planning software at the core and a heterogeneous system of independent implementation partners and solution developers on the periphery, our research identifies three salient tensions that characterize the ecosystem: standard–variety, control–autonomy, and collective–individual. We then highlight the specific ecosystem governance mechanisms designed to simultaneously manage desirable and undesirable variance across each tension. Paradoxical tensions may manifest as dualities, where tensions are framed as complementary and mutually enabling. Alternatively, they may manifest as dualisms, where actors are faced with contradictory and disabling "either…or" decisions. We identify conditions where latent, complementary tensions become manifest as salient, contradictory tensions. By identifying conditions in which complementary logics are overshadowed by contradictory logics, our study further contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of technology ecosystems, as well as the effective design of technology ecosystem governance that can explicitly embrace paradoxical tensions toward generative outcomes.
This article outlines the concept of Global Experimentalist Governance (GXG). GXG is an institutionalized transnational process of participatory and multilevel problem solving, in which particular problems (and the means of addressing them) are framed in an open-ended way, and subjected to periodic revision by various forms of peer review in light of locally generated knowledge. GXG differs from other forms of international organization and transnational governance, and is emerging in various issue areas. The Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances is used to illustrate how GXG functions. The conditions for the emergence of GXG are specified, as well as some of its possible benefits.
