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This paper mainly focuses on how to induce all members to represent members' true preferences for supply and demand matching of E-commerce platform in order to generate stable matching schemes with more social welfare of Multi-agent Matching Platform (MMP) and individually stable advantages than traditional methods.

An MMP is designed. Meanwhile, a true preference inducing method, Lower-Bid Ranking (LBR), is proposed to reduce the number of false preferences, which is helpful to solve the problem that too much false preferences leads to low efficiency of platform operation and supply and demand matching. Then, a systematic model of LBR-based Stable Matching (SM-LBR) is proposed.

To obtain an ideal transaction partner, the adequate preference ordering and modifying according to market environment is needed for everyone, and the platform should give full play to the platforms' information advantages and process historical transaction and cooperation data. Meanwhile, the appropriate supply and demand matching is beneficial to improve the efficiency and quality of platform operation, and the design of matching guidance mechanism is essential.

The numerical experiments show that, the proposed model (SM-LBR) can induce members to represent the model's true preferences for stable matching and generate effective matchings with more social welfare of MMP and individually stable advantages than traditional methods, which may provide necessary method and model reference for the research of stable matching and E-commerce platform operation.

Promoting electric vehicles (EVs) is an effective way to achieve carbon neutrality. If EVs are widely adopted, this will undoubtedly be good for the environment. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of network externalities and subsidy on the strategies of manufacturer under a carbon neutrality constraint.

In this paper, the authors propose a game-theoretic framework in an EVs supply chain consisting of a government, a manufacturer and a group of consumers. The authors examine two subsidy options and explain the choice of optimal strategies for government and manufacturer.

First, the authors find that the both network externalities of charging stations and government subsidy can promote the EV market. Second, under a relaxed carbon neutrality constraint, even if the government’s purchase subsidy investment is larger than the carbon emission reduction technology subsidy investment, the purchase subsidy policy is still optimal. Third, under a strict carbon neutrality constraint, when the cost coefficient of carbon emission reduction and the effectiveness of carbon emission reduction technology are larger, social welfare will instead decrease with the increase of the effectiveness of emission reduction technology and then, the manufacturer’s investment in carbon emission reduction technology is lower. In the extended model, the authors find the effectiveness of carbon emission reduction technology can also promote the EV market and social welfare (or consumer surplus) is the same whatever the subsidy strategy.

The network externalities of charging stations and the subsidy effect of the government have a superimposition effect on the promotion of EVs. When the network effect of charging stations is relatively strong, government can withdraw from the subsidized market. When the network effect of charging stations is relatively weak, government can intervene appropriately.

Comparing previous studies, this study reveals the impact of government intervention, network effects and carbon neutrality constraints on the EV supply chain. From a sustainability perspective, these insights are compelling for both EV manufacturers and policymakers.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize the topics, conceptualizations and measurements of value-based management (VBM) and to suggest a research agenda covering its next evolution as sustainable governance.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 80 seminal studies published between 1979 and 2022. The authors synthesized the studies by their conceptualizations of VBM in an inductively developed framework.

The authors find that scholars explore diverse topics related to VBM with a prevailing focus on shareholder primacy. There is a paucity of studies that focus on the integration of shareholder maximization and stakeholder management practices. The authors explain which studies will form a promising foundation for advanced research on sustainable governance that will reach beyond current VBM research.

The authors' research agenda addresses new future topics on conflicting goals within and between shareholder groups, offers specific suggestions for using new research methods and untapped data sources for VBM and paves the way to substantially extend the boundaries of the firm in VBM research to include stakeholders, strategic alignment and new sustainability measures.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This study examines specific budget execution items (as proxies of vulnerability and sustainability) along with political factors to identify earnings management (EM) practices in Greek municipalities.

The study employs a sample of 1,831 financial and budget execution statements for the period 2011–2019. EM is proxied by unsigned discretionary accruals that are assessed through the performance-matched modified-Jones model and the modified-Jones model.

The findings provide evidence that the municipality’s dependence on subsidies (or its self-sufficiency) affects EM, especially during the pre-election year. Municipalities that maintain their financial autonomy engage less in EM in pre-election years. Lastly, it is proven that electoral cycles, weak opposition and other variables exert an effect on the size of EM. Sensitivity analysis confirms the results.

This paper contributes to the literature on EM by analyzing for the first time budget execution items (as proxies of vulnerability and sustainability) and their impact on the size of unsigned discretionary accruals.

In Chapter 1, we critically reviewed the foundations of the free enterprise capital system (FECS), which has been successful primarily because of its wealth and asset accumulation potentiality and actuality. In this chapter, we critically argue that this capacity has been grounded upon the profit maximization (PM) theories, models, and paradigms of FECS. The intent of this chapter is not anti-PM. The PM models of FECS have worked and performed well for more than 200 years of the economic history of the United States and other developed countries, and this phenomenon is celebrated and featured as “market performativity.” However, market performativity has not truly benefitted the poor and the marginalized; on the contrary, market performativity has wittingly or unwittingly created gaping inequalities of wealth, income, opportunity, and prosperity. Critical thinking does not combat PM but challenges it with alternative models of profit sharing that promote social wealth, social welfare, social progress, and opportunity for all, which we explore here. Economic development without social progress breeds economic inequality and social injustice. Economic development alone is not enough; we should create a new paradigm in which economic development is the servant of social progress, not vice versa. Such a paradigm shift involves integrating the creativity and innovativity of market performativity and the goals and drives of social performativity together with PM, that is, from market performativity to social performativity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which of the two carbon allowance allocation methods (CAAMs), i.e. grandfathered system carbon allowance allocation (GCAA) and baseline system carbon allowance allocation (BCAA), is more beneficial to capital-constrained supply chains under the carbon emission allowance repurchase strategy (CEARS).

Adopting CEARS to ease the capital-constrained supply chains, this study develops two-period game models with manufacturers as leaders and retailers as followers from the perspective of profit and social welfare maximization under two CAAMs (GCAA and BCAA), where the first period produces normal products, and the second period produces low-carbon products.

First, higher carbon-saving can better use CEARS and achieve a higher supply chain profit under the two CAAMs. However, the higher the end-of-period carbon price is, the lower the social welfare is. Second, when carbon-saving is small, GCAA achieves both economic and environmental benefits; BCAA reduces carbon emissions at the expense of economic benefit. Third, the supply chain members gain higher profits and social welfare under GCAA, so the government and supply chain members are more inclined to choose GCAA.

By analyzing the profits and total carbon emissions of capital-constrained supply chains under GCAA and BCAA, this study provides theoretical references for retailers and capital-constrained manufacturers. In addition, by comparing the difference in social welfare under GCAA and BCAA, it provides a basis for the government to choose a reasonable CAAM.

This study aims to help develop “business principles for stakeholder capitalism” in two steps. First, the study defines internal logic of three theories of capitalism and two variants within each theory. Second, it examines approaches to integration into modern democratic capitalism. Treating the three theories as substitutes identifies relative strengths and weaknesses; complementarity and partial overlap approaches to integration study the institutional settings within which stakeholder capitalism operates. Empirical outcomes reflect competition between market and stakeholder businesses for participants, with institutional conditions determining the scope of collective action.

The approach aligns three typologies in a unique conceptual arrangement defining the three theories of capitalism: forms of capitalism, potential failures of each form and associated types of goods. The first method examines the internal logic of each theory of capitalism. The second draws on traditional narrative review of references documenting each theory of capitalism and variants together with modern Marxist anti-capitalism.

Three typologies align uniquely with the theories of capitalism, each having two variants. Both variants of stakeholder capitalism are compatible with compassionate capitalism, constitutional government or polycentric governance but not with self-interest capitalism, dictatorship or Marxism. A theory of modern democratic capitalism allocates roles for private, club and social goods with empirically variable mixes occurring across countries. Competition among different types of enterprises provides an empirical test for comparative advantages of stakeholder capitalism. Future research should consider approaches for testing the proposed conceptual scheme in practice concerning capacity to deal with grand challenges, wicked problems and black swan events.

Research approach is limited to logical examination of theories and literature documentation without direct empirical confirmation. The study does not address practical implications for managers and public officials or social implications concerning private incentives, stakeholder cooperation or collective action.

Originality lies in shifting terms of debate about stakeholder capitalism from advocacy of substitute theories to understanding of its relationship to market capitalism and collective action capitalism. Value lies in explaining desirability of theoretical integration of three types of capitalism into a comprehensive framework for modern democratic capitalism.

Public willingness to pay for extra public benefits and services may demonstrate a tension between the common good (more services) and economic motives (higher taxes for all). In this article, the authors present an analysis of this trade-off by drawing upon the Bourdieusian theory of social reproduction and habitus.

Employing the European Social Survey (2016), the authors first examine the patterns of relationships between the agents' position in the social structure and their attitudes across care regimes in Europe. The authors then analyse whether this link is mediated by agents' individual trajectories and dispositions, such as their beliefs towards equality or tradition, political orientation, or religiosity.

The findings support the importance of both sociation and individuation in habitus formation, albeit to varying degrees across the regimes. Individual attitudes are therefore shaped not only by interests of reproducing or maximising social positions but also by more reflexive propensities to think about the common good.

In this article, the authors draw upon the theory of social reproduction and habitus by Pierre Bourdieu, who has been thus far rarely employed in the study of welfare attitudes. The article also contributes to the literature that studies the trade-off between the expansion and financing of reconciliation policies.