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Book part
Publication date: 30 October 2020

Pierre de Saint-Phalle

In 1767, did Sir James Steuart predict the political and financial crises that started the French Revolution? Étienne de Sénovert, the editor and translator of Steuart’s work…

Abstract

In 1767, did Sir James Steuart predict the political and financial crises that started the French Revolution? Étienne de Sénovert, the editor and translator of Steuart’s work, seems to argue to this effect in the introduction to the first French edition of An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy in 1789. The visionary “prediction” set forth by Steuart was the following: if the king of France had introduced public credit, this would have changed the political balance in French political society, making it very unstable. The English and the French governments used different ways of borrowing money in 1760: the French king contracted debts with a network of financiers close to the government, while the English government borrowed on the credit markets through the intermediary of the Bank of England. The second of these methods constitutes public credit and has proved its efficiency. According to Steuart, implementing the English public credit system in France could have dangerous consequences. Landed interests and moneyed interests would compete for the control of the State. The author realized that the French nobility, the landowners, as a social and economic group would have no chance in facing such a powerful rival (the public creditors). In this chapter, the author analyzes Steuart’s “prediction” as a coherent part of his systematic and original approach to political economy. Steuart’s theories about the role of political economy and the role of “interest” are connected to his understanding of institutions. Introducing such a complex support for the value as public credit might have different consequences in France and England. Steuart thinks each country’s economy should be analyzed according to its own institutional and social context.

Steuart’s work was still relevant in 1789 for two reasons. Firstly, the author’s prediction of political antagonism between capitalists and nobility anticipated the political conflict about debt expressed by pamphleteers such as Sieyès, Mirabeau, and Clavière between 1787 and 1789. This is the context of Étienne de Sénovert’s claim: the political narrative built by the revolutionaries of 1789 (rescuing the “sacred” public debt from royal despotism) fitted Steuart’s prediction. This may have been the incentive for the translation and publication of his work in 1789 and 1790. Secondly, Steuart’s financial and monetary theory was at the heart of the project of financial reform that would lead to the assignats. Steuart’s (1767) theory of public finance and state power in 1789 provides a key to the understanding the events of the time, and to how actors tried to make sense of them. Steuart made another crucial observation about the deep effect of what he called “the modern economy” upon the power of the governments of Europe: even an absolute monarch could not damage public credit without destroying his own sovereignty.

Details

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Sir James Steuart: The Political Economy of Money and Trade
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-707-7

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1951

JAMES FRENCH

My subject is not so easy as the two simple words, Books and Industry, might imply. Books are voluminous, of their writing there is no end. Industry is as wide as the needs of…

Abstract

My subject is not so easy as the two simple words, Books and Industry, might imply. Books are voluminous, of their writing there is no end. Industry is as wide as the needs of mankind. Some demarcation and limitation of the field to be considered is essential.

Details

Aslib Proceedings, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

Expert briefing
Publication date: 24 September 2020

He travelled to Beirut the day after the devastating port explosion on August 6, calling on the political elite to implement far-reaching reforms while directly promising the…

Details

DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB256463

ISSN: 2633-304X

Keywords

Geographic
Topical
Article
Publication date: 14 December 2017

Mary Vigier and Helen Spencer-Oatey

The purpose of this paper is to explore how newly formed culturally diverse project teams develop and implement rules, and how these processes may be affected by language-fluency…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how newly formed culturally diverse project teams develop and implement rules, and how these processes may be affected by language-fluency asymmetries.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a case-study research design, the authors investigated three multicultural project teams within a management integration program in a multinational company in France. Their complete data set includes 37.5 hours of observations and 49 hours of semi-structured interviews.

Findings

Findings revealed that subgroups formed on the basis of language-fluency and this affected the development and implementation of rules. While rule-setting mechanisms emerged across teams, they varied in form. On the one hand, tightly structured rules emerged and rules were rigidly applied when there were greater language inequalities. In contrast, implicit behavior controls guided interactions when language-fluency subgroupings were less salient. The findings also revealed that the alignment of other individual attributes with language fluency reinforced subgroup divisions, further impacting the rule development and implementation processes.

Practical implications

Understanding rule development and implementation in culturally diverse teams and how these processes are impacted by language disparities enables managers to help members develop more successful behavioral patterns by keeping language-fluency (and other) attributes in mind.

Originality/value

The study extends and complements previous team research by providing in-depth insights into the process of rule development and implementation. It demonstrates the impact of language-fluency asymmetries and subgroup dynamics on these processes. The authors propose a model to capture the processes by which culturally diverse teams create rules, and how the rule-setting mechanisms might be moderated by faultlines such as language-based disparities.

Details

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, vol. 25 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-5794

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1972

Brightman

26, 27, May; 21 June, 1971 Redundancy — Dismissal — Pensions fund providing for deferred pensions if “retiring with the consent of the company” — Whether employees entitled to…

Abstract

26, 27, May; 21 June, 1971 Redundancy — Dismissal — Pensions fund providing for deferred pensions if “retiring with the consent of the company” — Whether employees entitled to deferred pensions if dismissed as redundant — Terms of contract of employment entitling to certain payments under house agreement in case of redundancy — Whether house agreement still in force — Whether plaintiffs entitled to payments as contingently “earned”.

Details

Managerial Law, vol. 11 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0558

Article
Publication date: 1 September 1909

In the days of our childhood we were told that the process of picking tea in China involved a preliminary purificatory ritual on the part of the picker. Thus, he ate no fish…

Abstract

In the days of our childhood we were told that the process of picking tea in China involved a preliminary purificatory ritual on the part of the picker. Thus, he ate no fish, indulged in baths, and dressed himself in clean clothes as essential preliminaries before pursuing his occupation. This may have been true so far as the tea that was to be consumed by the Chinese went. So far as this country was concerned, it is on record that somewhere about the year of grace 1850 the ingenious Celestial was sending us consignments alleged to contain silkworm‐dung faced with tea‐dust and a little Prussian blue, sand, and gum, and so forth, a decoction of this being drunk by certain inhabitants of this happy land under the firm belief that they were partaking of the “cup that cheers but not inebriates.” Such frauds were possible, as at that time but little attention had been paid to the subject of food chemistry, and no attention at all to the kind of food that was being eaten by the people of London and elsewhere. The subject of food was chiefly dealt with from the point of view of the requirements of the inland revenue, and so long as the Government obtained the duty that was demanded, but little heed was paid to the quality of the product taxed. Very recently we have had arriving at the docks a carge of foods from Hankow, China, consisting largely of frozen pigs. We are assured that these redoubtable porkers have been fed on rice, and while alive have been carefully tended. It is not stated that they were fed from golden troughs, or that they were slaughtered by, say, members of the Chinese aristocracy, but it is stated and assumed that they are all that any self‐respecting Englishman can possibly desire. A point in their favour is also made of the cheapness of the pork yielded by them. At the present time our food is nothing if not cheap, and “cheap food” has become a party cry whose success depends on the obsession of the minds of a large number of ill‐informed persons with the idea that the only attribute of a food which is worthy of consideration is its cheapness. The fact that we are receiving foodstuffs of the nature of meat from China is one that demands special and more serious consideration from the authorities in view of its possible prejudicial influence on public health, and the important changes that may take place in the nature and origin of our meat supplies. The consignment in question consists of game of various kinds, eggs, ducks, and pork. About 4,600 frozen pig carcases were unloaded. It is asserted that the pigs were fed on rice, or at all events on clean food, and there seem no grounds for disbelieving the truth of this statement; but the increase in this trade which is looked for from those financially interested in it does not necessarily mean that the goodness of future consignments is assured. The fact that the trade may greatly develop makes it difficult to see how a proper supervision can be maintained over the Chinese farmers who will presumably furnish the material of future consignments. Inspection in China is, however, imperatively demanded in the interests of public health on this side. Only a small proportion of the consignment we refer to has been put on the market up to the present, and this was subjected to a very careful and thorough inspection at this end before it was put on the market. The process of inspecting every carcase that may be landed is one that from the mere amount of time and labour involved presents serious difficulties, and the thawing process necessarily leads to a certain amount of deterioration. But if the trade in Chinese pork increases, and the resources of China to supply pigs to the world's markets are practically illimitable, we do not see how it will be possible to adequately inspect every consignment that comes across, while on the other hand no country requires more careful looking after than China in this respect. Inspection on the other side must apparently be left in the hands of the exporters, a most undesirable course to adopt, and one that should therefore not be encouraged. It need hardly be pointed out that the Chinese authorities can or will do nothing in the matter. For a system of inspection to be thorough and adequate, and such inspection is absolutely necessary in this case, it is needful to have inspectors who are experts at their work, capable of exercising independent judgment, and who are above suspicion. It is hopeless to expect to find such people among the ranks of the ordinary Chinese. The farmers whose stock and premises are to be inspected must also be people with some elementary notions of what is required of them. It need hardly he pointed out that no such state of affairs exists in China, and indeed, under present circumstances, is unthinkable, nor is it right that we in this country should run risks while a system of adequate inspection is worked out; in other words, that we should educate the Chinese farmer for his own benefit while running risks ourselves. It is stated that the stockyards and plant are well adapted for the work they have to do, and this we readily believe, but in an Oriental country in which there are no such things as health laws in existence, and where each man in this respect may do very much as seems right in his own eyes, the fact that we are obtaining from it an important article of food wherewith to feed large numbers of our poorer population is not one that can be viewed without serious apprehension as to the possible consequences. Stress has been laid on the fact that the pork is cheap, and that when an adequate system of inspection has been devised, the complete thawing out of the consignment will be no longer necessary and that Chinese pork will rank with the meat supplies that we obtain from the colonies. We have heard of the Greek Kalends, and it is possible that by the time they arrive the Chinese pig breeder and coolie will be a sufficiently cleanly person to be trusted with matters of this sort, but until that time does arrive we most strongly dissent from any line of action that would tend to shift any responsibility on to his shoulders. The pig is a dirty feeder, and the Chinese variety of the genus sus has the fullest opportunity for indulging his propensities for filth. He is also an animal peculiarly liable to various forms of disease of which swine fever is not the least objectionable. The care that is taken by the local authorities in this country regarding swine is sufficient evidence of this. But to make the British farmer conform to certain regulations while permitting pigs to be imported from China where no such regulations, or indeed, any at all, are enforced, seems to us to be the limit of hardship and absurdity. Sir PATRICK MANSON in the year 1881, at the request of the Chinese Government, made a careful examination of the bazaar pigs in Amoy. As a result of this examination he came to the conclusion that the flesh of such pigs was not sufficiently healthy to allow of its being safely eaten by Europeans at least. Though the proportion of pigs affected by Trichina spiralis was about 1 per cent., his conclusion was that with pork “cooked as the natives cook it, there can be little danger, but a roast leg of pork cooked in foreign style would certainly be a most dangerous dish.” The method adopted by natives was to cut the pork into small pieces and very thoroughly cook it. These were bazaar pigs, and of Amoy, which is far south of Hankow, but the bazaar pig in Hankow is probably not very different to his southern brother, and the conditions now in China are probably not much altered for the better since 1881. The pigs for the English market must be obtained from native breeders, and unless these breeders exercise unusual care in the feeding and housing of their stock, it is unlikely that any somewhat perfunctory system of inspection will do much towards‐mitigating the danger arising from The consumption of their pork It may be remarked that no people are more conservative than the Chinese, and to expect a Chinese peasant to radically alter his method of treating his stock, for reasons that he is entirely unable to appreciate, because there happens to be a market in England for the pork is really expecting too much. Nor does it seem that a consular invoice would be any real remedy. The time for insisting on consular invoices would probably be at the end of another series of “revelations,” and moreover, to attempt to make a consul professionally responsible for the soundness of large quantities of such pork, would be to impose a strange burden upon him.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 11 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2005

Paolo Saona Hoffmann and Eleuterio Vallelado González

Our aim is to analyze the type of lender and the debt maturity of Chilean firms as a function of their ownership structure and their growth opportunities. We perform the empirical…

Abstract

Our aim is to analyze the type of lender and the debt maturity of Chilean firms as a function of their ownership structure and their growth opportunities. We perform the empirical analysis using an unbalanced panel data of 169 firms from 1990 to 2001. Our results show that Chilean firms with growth opportunities, ownership concentration, and a need for external funds issue short‐term bank debt to finance their new investments. This financing source is an efficient mechanism in Chile to alleviate agency and asymmetric information problems. The Chilean institutional environment influences firms’ decisions on banking debt.

Details

Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1536-5433

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1995

Berna L. Heyman, James C. French, Glen L. Bull and Francis P. Bretherton

The U.S. government has been proactively seeking solutions to the growing concern with issues relating to global change through several initiatives. A major global change…

Abstract

The U.S. government has been proactively seeking solutions to the growing concern with issues relating to global change through several initiatives. A major global change initiative in 1993 supported by both President Clinton and Vice President Gore was announced with the release of the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan. The objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. At that time, President Clinton also committed his administration to begin actively working on negotiations of international agreements on desertification and forestry. President Clinton's Earth Day announcement on 21 April 1993 stated,

Details

Library Hi Tech, vol. 13 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-8831

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2007

Nick French and Laura Gabrielli

In January 2005, the International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC) published the International Valuation Guidance Note No. 8 entitled The Cost Approach for Financial

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Abstract

Purpose

In January 2005, the International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC) published the International Valuation Guidance Note No. 8 entitled The Cost Approach for Financial Reporting – (DRC). This guidance note provides background to the use of depreciated replacement cost (DRC) in connection with International Valuation Application 1 (IVA 1), Valuation for Financial Reporting and suggests that the valuer reports the result of a DRC valuation as market value subject to the test of adequate profitability or service potential. This suggestion has caused a lot of debate and consternation in the UK where the DRC approach has always been considered as a method of last resort and not a market valuation. However, in continental Europe the cost approach (DRC) is often the principal method of valuation and has always been considered to produce market value. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of this change to valuation practice in the UK.

Methodology/design/approach

In this paper, we discuss the concept of market value and its relationship to DRC in an attempt to identify the principal areas of concern in the UK and, through the use of an Italian case study, show how the DRC approach can be adopted as an appropriate method (not basis) for calculating Market Value.

Findings

It is probable that most valuers will still provide the DRC valuation using exactly the same calculation as they did before. They are likely to provide the same (relative to the valuation date) figure; the difference is that they will feel less easy about the robustness of that figure

Originality/value

It is argued that the UK market has, for too long, hidden behind DRC being a basis of value that UK valuers now feel uncomfortable in reporting DRC as market value. They are uncertain with the valuation figure. However, this uncertainty can be addressed in other ways and a suggested “solution” to help the valuer overcome their discomfort with the market valuation is proffered.

Details

Journal of Property Investment & Finance, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-578X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 September 2020

Maria Gribling and Joanne Duberley

The purpose of this article is to compare the effects of global competitive pressures on the UK and French B-schools' management systems through the lens of career ecosystems.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to compare the effects of global competitive pressures on the UK and French B-schools' management systems through the lens of career ecosystems.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a qualitative inquiry employing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 44 business school academics in the two countries.

Findings

This paper demonstrates the importance of top-down and bottom-up ecosystem influences for creating contrasting performance management systems in competitive B-schools in the two countries, to different outcomes for institutions and faculty careers.

Research limitations/implications

The authors focus on faculty working in top business schools, which limits the generalizability of the findings. Future research could apply the ecosystem lens to other institutions and geographical areas to highlight best practices and evaluate their transferability across borders.

Practical implications

The study highlights alternative HR practices and potentially workable adjustments to current systems that could be envisaged in order to enhance performance of individuals and institutions without jeopardizing the chances of valuable human resources to bring their contributions to the success of B-schools.

Originality/value

This paper compares and contrasts different performance management systems, taking into account exogenous and endogenous influences on B-schools that operate in a highly competitive and rapidly changing global management education market.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 50 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

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