This paper examines the role of mutual funds in corporate social responsibility. Using a fund-level, holdings-based CSR score, we find that CSR-friendly mutual funds improve firms’ CSR standings. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher mutual fund ownership and stronger corporate governance. We further show that while CSR-friendly mutual funds have influence on almost all CSR categories, they focus on increasing CSR strengths rather than reducing CSR concerns. We also discover that CSR-friendly funds are more likely to vote (...) in favor of CSR proposals, and that firms owned by CSR-friendly funds are more likely to link their CEO compensation to CSR outcomes. These results suggest that actively managed mutual funds, which were previously thought to be indifferent to social and ethical issues, play a significant role in corporate social outcomes of the firms they invest in. (shrink)

We link the corporate governance literature in financial economics to the agency cost perspective of corporate social responsibility to derive theoretical predictions about the relationship between corporate governance and the existence of executive compensation incentives for CSR. We test our predictions using novel executive compensation contract data, and find that firms with more shareholder-friendly corporate governance are more likely to provide compensation to executives linked to firm social performance outcomes. Also, providing executives with direct incentives for CSR is an effective (...) tool to increase firm social performance. The findings provide evidence identifying corporate governance as a determinant of managerial incentives for social performance, and suggest that CSR activities are more likely to be beneficial to shareholders, as opposed to an agency cost. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Beijing version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment are the most commonly used scales to screen for Alzheimer’s disease among Chinese patients; however, their consistency varies according to populations and languages. Equivalent conversion of MMSE-C and MoCA-BJ scores is important for meta-analysis.Materials and methodsMMSE-C and MoCA-BJ scoring were performed on the enrolled patients with AD. Consistency analysis of MMSE-C and MoCA-BJ scores of patients in the conversion groups was performed. The circle-arc (...) method was used to convert the MMSE-C scores of the conversion groups into MoCA-BJ scores, and the conversion formula was generated. The MMSE-C data of the verification group was converted to MoCA-BJ according to the formula, and the consistency analysis of the original MoCA-BJ of the verification group and the converted MoCA-BJ was performed to verify the conversion model.ResultsThe results of the consistency analysis of MMSE-C and MoCA-BJ in group A showed that the correlation coefficients of the total group, high education years subgroup, medium education years subgroup, and low education years subgroup were 0.905, 0.874, 0.949, and 0.874, respectively, with high consistency and statistical significance. After applying the circle-arc method for equivalent conversion, the consistency analysis results of the original and the converted MoCA-BJ of the patients in group B of the total group, high education years subgroup, medium education years subgroup, and low education years subgroup were 0.891, 0.894, 0.781, 0.909, respectively, with high consistency and statistical significance.ConclusionWe established and validated a model of MMSE-C and MoCA-BJ score conversion for Chinese patients with AD using the circle-arc method. This model could be useful for multi-centers clinical trials and meta-analysis. (shrink)

Newcomb’s problem involves a decision-maker faced with a choice and a predictor forecasting this choice. The agents’ interaction seems to generate a choice dilemma once the decision-maker seeks to apply two basic principles of rational choice theory : maximize expected utility ; adopt the dominant strategy. We review unsuccessful attempts at pacifying the dilemma by excluding Newcomb’s problem as an RCT-application, by restricting MEU and ADS, and by allowing for backward causation. A probability approach shows that Newcomb’s original problem-formulation lacks (...) causal information. This makes it impossible to specify the probability structure of Newcomb’s univocally. Once missing information is added, Newcomb’s problem and RCT re-align, thus explaining Newcomb’s problem as a seeming dilemma. Building on Wolpert and Benford :1637–1646, 2013), we supply additional details and offer a crucial correction to their formal proof. (shrink)

Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) is the online journals publishing service of Cambridge University Press. CJO hosts leading journals across multiple disciplines.

We examine the equity valuation effect of press releases of upgrades or downgrades reflected in the Covalence Ethical Quote, an index ranking the ethical performance of multinational firms. The index is updated quarterly and is comprehensive enough to include 45 criteria reflecting working conditions, impact of product, impact of production, and company institutional impact. Thus, it captures many dimensions of firms’ ethical performance that are not accounted for in previous research. Our research encompasses a joint test of the value relevance (...) of the index itself and the impact of ethical reputation on a firm’s value. We find first a significant causal relationship between stock market reactions and changes in the CEQ. Specifically, disclosures of positive changes in firm ethical performance cause increases in firm value. Second, cross-sectional analysis indicates a positive association between changes in firm ethical performance and both its financial performance and its financial reporting quality. Collectively, these results suggest that the CEQ conveys information that is useful to investors. Further, corporate measures taken to increase ethical performance are associated with positive benefits to shareholders. Finally, investors have concluded that good news about their firms’ efforts to be ethical is worth the cost. (shrink)

This book provides a discussion of the philosophy of being according to three major traditions in Western philosophy, the Analytic, the Continental, and the Thomistic. The origin of the point of view of each of these traditions is associated with a seminal figure, Gottlob Frege, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Aquinas, respectively. The questions addressed in this book are constitutional for the philosophy of being, considering the meaning of being, the relationship between thinking and being, and the methods for using thought (...) to access being. On the one hand, the book honors diversity and pluralism, as it highlights how the three traditions may be clearly and distinctly differentiated regarding the philosophy of being. On the other hand, it honors a sense of solidarity and ecumenism, as it demonstrates how the methods and focal points of these traditions constitute, and continue to shape, the development of Western philosophy. This book contributes toward an essential overview of Western metaphysics and will be of particular interest to those working in the history of philosophy and in the philosophy of being. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine preservice Chinese language teachers’ cognition in teaching intercultural communicative competence. In the study we collected data through in-depth interviews with seven preservice teachers in a Master of Education program at a university in Hong Kong SAR, China. The findings indicated that the participants had a relatively positive attitude and inclination toward the development of students’ intercultural communicative competence, while their conceptualizations of culture tended to be static and ambiguous. In addition, the participants’ (...) objectives in teaching intercultural communicative competence were found to be more attitude-than knowledge- or skill-oriented. The study offers valuable insights that preservice language teachers’ cognition plays a crucial role in their future professional development and calls for curricular innovations with intercultural aims in teacher education programs. (shrink)

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

The papers where Gerhard Gentzen introduced natural deduction and sequent calculi suggest that his conception of logic differs substantially from the now dominant views introduced by Hilbert, Gödel, Tarski, and others. Specifically, (1) the definitive features of natural deduction calculi allowed Gentzen to assert that his classical system nk is complete based purely on the sort of evidence that Hilbert called ?experimental?, and (2) the structure of the sequent calculi li and lk allowed Gentzen to conceptualize completeness as a question (...) about the relationships among a system's individual rules (as opposed to the relationship between a system as a whole and its ?semantics?). Gentzen's conception of logic is compelling in its own right. It is also of historical interest, because it allows for a better understanding of the invention of natural deduction and sequent calculi. (shrink)

Al-Ġazālī und der Sufismus. By Merdan Güneş. Arabisch-Islamische Welt in Tradition und Moderne, vol. 8. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011. Pp. 306. €56.

This paper examines the market response to the events leading up to the passage of Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to explore whether investors value mandatory human rights disclosures of conflict mineral usage. Using a sample of 3639 US registrants from January 1, 2008 to September 30, 2014, we document a significant negative stock market reaction to the passage of the Act. Using a sample of 1206 filers, we also find a negative (...) market reaction to conflict mineral disclosures under the Act. The market reaction is more negative and limited to companies that source their minerals from the DRC and adjoining countries, companies with prior records of human rights violations, and companies with ambiguous disclosures. However, the market appears to reward firms that use risk-mitigation strategies. This paper provides preliminary evidence that the mandatory disclosure of conflict mineral information on Form SD poses a threat to firms’ legitimacy, resulting in a net cost to investors. The results of this study provide economic justification for companies with poor records of conflict mineral sourcing to improve their practices for the purpose of avoiding the high costs that will arise if they are forced to disclose human rights abuses related to conflict mineral use. (shrink)

В книге представлены примеры современных, главным образом, отечественных исследований творчества русского философа С. Л. Франка (1877-1950).

Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī. Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary. Edited by Georges Tamer and Frank Griffel. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: Texts and Studies, vols. 94, 98. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Pp. xxiv + 454, xx + 344. $202, €154 ; $59, €49.

This article aims to offer a refined way of understanding what we mean by the concepts of meaningfulness and meaning in life. The first step is to separate worthwhileness, as the broadest evaluation of life taking all types of values into account, from meaningfulness, which is seen as one type of intrinsic value along with, for example, well-being, moral praiseworthiness, and authenticity, which I argue are also separate types of intrinsic value. After discussing why we should not settle with the (...) currently popular fitting attitudes analysis of meaningfulness, I argue that the meaningfulness of a life should be seen to be about the positive contribution beyond itself that this particular life is able to make. I show how this analysis is different from previous similar accounts and how it is able to avoid a number of challenges that have troubled these previous accounts, such as the pleasure machine challenge, the results machine challenge, and the doing good unintentionally challenge. I also demonstrate how it is able to account for prototypical examples of meaningful and meaningless lives and how it is compatible with subjectivism, supernaturalism, and objective naturalism, which is seen as a merit. Finally, I conclude with some notes about what could make life meaningful, given the current analysis of meaningfulness itself. (shrink)

This essay explores a seeming mystery in the philosophy of Xunzi (荀子310-238 BCE), namely how goodness could have emerged in a world of people with only a bad human nature. I will examine existing interpretations and present a new reading of Xunzi. My purpose is to reconstruct a coherent view in Xunzi‟s philosophy as presented in the book of the Xunzi rather than defend the truth of his claims regarding human history.

This article provides a brief selective overview and discussion of recent research into natural language argumentation that may inform the study of human reasoning on the assumption that an episode of argumentation issues an invitation to accept a corresponding inference. As this research shows, arguers typically seek to establish new consequences based on prior information. And they typically do so vis-à-vis a real or an imagined opponent, or an opponent-position, in ways that remain sensitive to considerations of context, audiences, and (...) goals. Deductively valid inferences remain a limiting case of such reasoning. In view of these insights, it may appear less surprising that allegedly “irrational” behavior can regularly be produced in experimental settings that expose subjects to standardized reasoning tasks. (shrink)

We present empirical evidence from social psychological research which suggests that standard methods employed when teaching the heuristics and biases program in the context of critical thinking instruction are likelier to facilitate the discernment and correction of biases in others’ reasoning than to have a similar effect in the self-monitoring case. Exemplified by the social phenomenon of false polarization, we suggest that CT instruction may be improved by fostering student’s abilities at counterfactual meta-cognition, and present a corresponding teaching and learning (...) activity. (shrink)

Increasingly, medicine is used to remodel, revise, and revamp as much as to heal and mend. It is tempting to say that people make merely personal choices about these new uses. But such choices have implications for everybody, and they ought to be made cautiously, slowly, and in a way that opens them to discussion.

Die {raquo}Revolution der Denkart{laquo} hat nicht nur den Anlauf genommen, welchem sie ihren Namen verdankt.! Gezahlt werden noch weitere Umstellungen der Theorie bildung als bloG die kopernikanische Kants. Hier interessieren gleich zwei. Die eine liefert den Gegenstand, die entsprechende, RevolutionPhanomenologie.

Pursuing world-class universities, China has emerged in recent decades as an increasingly popular destination for internationally mobile academics. The goal of this study was to identify current education policy dispositions toward foreign faculty at the national and institutional levels in China. Findings indicate that within China’s higher education policy discourse, foreign faculty are identified as an advantage, and a source of conflict, ultimately having an ambiguous role as they attempt to manage their complicated status in Chinese higher education institutions. Foreign (...) faculty are typically regarded as an international asset, accelerating global competitiveness and international rankings to enhance the acceleration of China’s higher education system. They are also considered controversial in relation to Chinese culture, values, and traditions. However, the most prevalent policy disposition explored in this study was that of vagueness and marginality, indicating underlying ambiguity toward foreign faculty. The study concludes with implications for future scholars and policymakers to consider. (shrink)

A theory is usually said to be time reversible if whenever a sequence of states S 1, S 2, S 3 is possible according to that theory, then the reverse sequence of time reversed states S 3 T, S 2 T, S 1 T is also possible according to that theory; i.e., one normally not only inverts the sequence of states, but also operates on the states with a time reversal operator T. David Albert and Paul Horwich have suggested that (...) one should not allow such time reversal operations T on states. I will argue that time reversal operations on fundamental states should be allowed. I will furthermore argue that the form that time reversal operations take is determined by the type of fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature and that we have good reason to believe that the fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature correspond to irreducible representations of the Lorentz transformations. Finally, I will argue that we have good reason to believe that space-time has a temporal orientation. (shrink)

The federalisation of the Belgian state requires a rethinking of the legislature, especially of the Senate. A 'Second Chamber' seems a necessary prerequisite for a federal system. It usually serves as a forum of representation of the different components of the federation, deliberation and national cohesion. In the future the Senate could also become closer involved into European politics.As far as the specific redrawing of the powers of the new Senate concerns, opinions differ considerably. Firstly, nearly all parties agree the (...) Senate should have the same powers as the House of Representatives to revise the Constitution and laws on the political institutions. Secondly, there is far less unanimity on the question whether the control powers of the Senate should be as extensive as the House of Representatives. In the current state reform the Senate retains its right of investigation. Thirdly, the role that the Senate and the House of Representativesin the 'ordinary' legislative work can play has to be well defined. There are many ways to redistribute the legislative power. Whatever the principle will be, it is essential to work out a reasonable arbitration procedure between the two chambers. Fourthly, the Senate should retain its power to propose candidatures for the high courts and to act together with the House of Representatives in matters of the monarchy. Fifthly, the Senate should grow into the principal body of mediation for conflicts between the different components of the federal state. The last point of discussion in the reform of the Senate is its future composition. Guiding principles should be : a certain allegiance between the councils of regions and communities and the national Senate, an expression of political experience, no increase of the total number of representatives and a fair representation of the minorities. (shrink)