Lineage Solidarity and Rhetorical Resonance: Village Strategies to Retain Primary Schools in Rural China

As the state has shifted its priorities towards social harmony and poverty alleviation, this study finds rhetorical resonance, combined with strong lineage solidarity, as an emerging strategy for villages to compete for government resources and investments. By articulating grassroots needs as being in line with local cadres’ performance goals, villages have successfully converted their needs into development proposals and mobilized lineage solidarity to persuade local cadres of the feasibility of such proposals. Drawing on three villages’ school-saving efforts in Fujian province, our fieldwork illustrates how one village retained its school by mobilizing lineage solidarity and converting education into a “model” village project to boost cultural tourism. Others failed to do so and lost their schools. Under the target-based cadre management system, the bottom-up competition for government support is largely shaped by the villages’ pre-existing development and resource structures, which may maximize management efficiency but may also reinforce socioeconomic inequalities between villages.

Accounting Performance Goals in CEO Compensation Contracts and Corporate Risk Taking

This study provides the first large-sample archival evidence on the impact of three commonly used accounting performance goals (thresholds, targets, and maximums) in CEO compensation contracts on corporate risk taking. Using proxy statement disclosure on performance goals for CEOs of U.S. public companies, we find that lower thresholds and higher maximums are associated with greater corporate risk taking, and these results are more pronounced when CEOs have greater incentives to achieve accounting performance goals or have lower innate risk aversion. In addition, we find that target difficulty is not significantly associated with corporate risk taking after controlling for thresholds and maximums. Finally, we find that CEO compensation contracts are more likely to have lower thresholds and higher maximums when risk taking is more value-enhancing or when R&D investment is more profitable, consistent with boards setting performance goals to induce an appropriate amount of corporate risk taking. Our study contributes to the accounting literature on target setting and corporate risk taking by identifying accounting performance goals as a tool in executive compensation contract design to influence risk taking. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting.

Evaluating The Role Of Project Management On Technical And Behavioral Competence In The Success Of Road Construction Project

The objective o to study the role of project management technical and behavioral competencies on project performance. The unique nature of the construction industry, coupled with challenges of global competitiveness, and changing regulatory requirements have created excessive demand for highly knowledgeable and competent project management. Project management is a philosophy and technique that allows users the maximum utilization of their potential with limited sources, together with the increase of profitability. Competency is capacities and attributes that project manager should possess to realize project aims and objectives. Effective project performance can be achieved with relating competency of an individual, requirement of the job and project environment. Findings indicate the role of project management technical and behavioral competencies is undeniable in the success of a project. Besides, technical competencies have a substantial effect on project performance. Projects meet their technical performance goals, efficiency of the project management effort, and projects meet their operational performance goals are perceived as successful projects. Since, both technological factor and ethical factors are the biggest challenge in Sodo Town construction industry, recommended that the sector must have ways to overcome these challenges and all concerned stakeholders work intensively on remedial measures.

“You are useful objects”: Economic inequality leads people to approach instrumental others

Economic inequality has been shown to increase the social distance between groups. We proposed that in more unequal societies, people’s affiliation with others depends on whether a relationship partner is instrumental for self-enhancement goals. The results from four experiments supported our proposition. We found that inequality increased people’s focus on the instrumentality aspects of others (Experiment 1). In a work setting, economic inequality prompted people to choose colleagues who were instrumental in achieving their performance goals as partners (Experiment 2). Moreover, the effect could be extended to situations where there is no clear benefit. Specifically, participants in high inequality contexts tended to approach instrumental people with instrumentality more than participants in low inequality contexts, and the effect was driven by self-enhancement goals (Experiments 3-4). Taken together, our findings suggest that economic inequality leads to an instrumentality orientation in social interactions, which changes how people view relationships and interact with others.