Using a signaling framework, we argue that ethical behavior as evidenced by charitable donations is viewed more positively by investors when seen not to be based on self-serving motives but rather on authentic generosity that builds moral capital. The affirmed religiosity of CEOs may make their ethical position more credible, while their embeddedness within a family business suggests that CEOs are backed by powerful owners with long-time horizons and a desire to build moral capital with stakeholders. We find in a (...) study of market responses to 1572 corporate donations by S&P 1500 firms that financial markets react more positively to charitable initiatives from firms with religion-declared CEOs, but only if these are family businesses. (shrink)

We investigate how state involvement in the ownership of non-listed entrepreneurial firms affects pollution fees levied by national and provincial governments in China. While the national government sets minimum environmental standards, provincial governments can enact requirements that exceed these minimums, and they are largely responsible for enforcing even the national standards, so environmental levies can measure concessions that provinces make to encourage development and employment. Furthermore, state ownership is a good proxy for a firm’s political connections, which can influence the (...) relationship between the firm and the environmental authorities. We find that firms with state ownership pay lower environmental levies, which indicates that concessions are made for political or economic purposes. However, these concessions are conditional on the level of development of the province offering them, with better developed provinces providing fewer concessions. (shrink)

Algorithms increasingly make managerial decisions that people used to make. Perceptions of algorithms, regardless of the algorithms' actual performance, can significantly influence their adoption, yet we do not fully understand how people perceive decisions made by algorithms as compared with decisions made by humans. To explore perceptions of algorithmic management, we conducted an online experiment using four managerial decisions that required either mechanical or human skills. We manipulated the decision-maker, and measured perceived fairness, trust, and emotional response. With the mechanical (...) tasks, algorithmic and human-made decisions were perceived as equally fair and trustworthy and evoked similar emotions; however, human managers' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to the manager's authority, whereas algorithms' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to their perceived efficiency and objectivity. Human decisions evoked some positive emotion due to the possibility of social recognition, whereas algorithmic decisions generated a more mixed response – algorithms were seen as helpful tools but also possible tracking mechanisms. With the human tasks, algorithmic decisions were perceived as less fair and trustworthy and evoked more negative emotion than human decisions. Algorithms' perceived lack of intuition and subjective judgment capabilities contributed to the lower fairness and trustworthiness judgments. Positive emotion from human decisions was attributed to social recognition, while negative emotion from algorithmic decisions was attributed to the dehumanizing experience of being evaluated by machines. This work reveals people's lay concepts of algorithmic versus human decisions in a management context and suggests that task characteristics matter in understanding people's experiences with algorithmic technologies. (shrink)

The idea of a hybrid bicameral system combining election and sortition is investigated. More precisely, the article imagines how an elected and a sortition chamber would interact, taking into account their public perception and their competing legitimacies. The article draws on a survey of a representative sample of the Belgian population and Belgian members of parliament assessing their views about sortition in political representation. Findings are combined with theoretical reflections on election’s and sortition’s respective sources of legitimacy. The possibility of (...) conflicting legitimacies and mutually detrimental interactions leads to considerations of the effects of different possible distributions of power between the chambers as a crucial determinant of their interactions and perceived legitimacy. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall argue that philosophy proper is a Western cultural practice and cannot refer to traditional Chinese thinking unless in an analogical or metaphorical sense. Likewise, the Chinese idiom ‘Zhongguo zhexue’ has evolved its independent cultural meaning and has no need to be considered as philosophy in the Western academic sense. For the purpose of elucidating the culturally autonomous status of Zhongguo zhexue, as well as the possible counterparts of Western philosophy in other cultures, I contend that (...) Davidsonian anomalous monism may provide a proper explanatory framework for the intercultural relationships between different ‘sophias’ from various traditions. As for the equivocal English term ‘Chinese philosophy’, I suggest replacing it with a more precise new word: ‘sinosophy’. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has brought about unprecedented uncertainty and challenges to the worldwide economy and people’s everyday life. Anecdotal and scientific evidence has documented the existence of a positive relationship between the experience of crisis and creativity. Though this appears to be ubiquitous, the crisis-creativity-well-being relationship has not been sufficiently examined across countries and using a working adult sample. The current study drew on a sample consisting of 1,420 employees from China, Germany, and the United States to examine (...) whether creativity can function as an effective means to cope with crisis and to achieve both flourishing and social well-being. Multivariate analyses showed that perceived impact of COVID-19 was positively related to creative process engagement, which was positively related to employees’ self-reported creative growth. Creative growth was associated with a higher level of flourishing well-being. This sequential mediation model was significant across the three samples. Creativity also mediated the relationship between perceived impact of COVID-19 and social well-being, but this connection was only found for the Chinese sample. Further data analyses revealed that individualism moderated this serial mediation model in that the positive coping effect of creativity on both flourishing and social well-being was stronger for individuals who hold more collectivistic views. Results of the study have implications for crisis management, personal development, and positive functioning of individuals and society. (shrink)

Previous research has discovered a curious phenomenon: groups cooperate less than individuals in a deterministic prisoner’s dilemma game, but cooperate more than individuals when uncertainty is introduced into the game. We conducted two studies to examine three possible processes that might drive groups to be more cooperative than individuals in reducing risks: group risk concern, group cooperation expectation, and pressure to conform to social norms. We found that ex post guilt aversion and ex-post blame avoidance cause group members to be (...) more risk concerned than individuals under uncertainty. These concerns drive groups to choose the cooperation (and risk-reduction) strategy more frequently than individuals. Groups also have higher cooperation expectations for their corresponding groups than individuals have for their corresponding individuals. We found no evidence of pressure to conform to social norms driving groups to be more cooperative than individuals. (shrink)

Using an experimental design, this paper tackles the question of the framing impact of metaphors by focusing on the opportunity to implement a basic income system in a given polity. We take advantage of the preliminary stage of the BI debate in Belgium to study the influence of discursive strategies on the opinion formation process of individuals, since carefully choosing the arguments employed to address this question can help increase its psychological feasibility. Our experiment aims at determining to what extent (...) the confrontation of individuals to metaphors illustrating the BI system impacts the way they apprehend its implementation. We show that very light variations in an informative text can induce major differences in the opinion formation process of the participants. BI proponents should thus pay attention to which metaphors are put forward in the public debate, as this could modify its outcome. (shrink)

With the expansion of clientele’s demographics and international transactions, many law firms began to open doors to non-mainstreamers—minority lawyers to join the legal workforce. Decades have passed and the inequality in compensation between minority and non-minority attorneys is still one of the most controversial issues in the legal profession. Based on human capital and labor discrimination theory, we examine the productivity and compensation differences between minority attorneys and non-minority counterparts. The sample consists of 554 firm-year observations of the 200 largest (...) U.S law firms from 2013 to 2016. We use OLS with clustered standard errors by year. We find minority partners are more likely to provide relatively routine and template-based services, which do not command fee premium, which results in low productivity of minority partners. We find that minority partners are compensated less than their non-minority counterparts after controlling for productivity. This paper aids in the understanding of diversity in the workplace and the effect of diversity on a firms’ productivity and the type of services to provide. Also, this paper has implications on the compensation gap between minorities and their non-minority counterparts. (shrink)

With the expansion of clientele’s demographics and international transactions, many law firms began to open doors to non-mainstreamers—minority lawyers to join the legal workforce. Decades have passed and the inequality in compensation between minority and non-minority attorneys is still one of the most controversial issues in the legal profession. Based on human capital and labor discrimination theory, we examine the productivity and compensation differences between minority attorneys and non-minority counterparts. The sample consists of 554 firm-year observations of the 200 largest (...) U.S law firms from 2013 to 2016. We use OLS with clustered standard errors by year. We find minority partners are more likely to provide relatively routine and template-based services, which do not command fee premium, which results in low productivity of minority partners. We find that minority partners are compensated less than their non-minority counterparts after controlling for productivity. This paper aids in the understanding of diversity in the workplace and the effect of diversity on a firms’ productivity and the type of services to provide. Also, this paper has implications on the compensation gap between minorities and their non-minority counterparts. (shrink)

Based on entrepreneurial psychology, the current situation of foreign students’ use of learning strategies in Chinese learning is explored, the overall situation of learning strategies in this process is analyzed, and the relationship between foreign students’ use of learning strategies and various factors are obtained through the designed questionnaire survey. First, a questionnaire suitable for the research respondents is designed to investigate the current situation of foreign students’ use of learning strategies in Chinese learning; second, 200 questionnaires are distributed, and (...) 195 questionnaires are recovered, with a recovery rate of 97.5%. After the invalid questionnaire is excluded, the effective rate is 95%; furthermore, the reliability of the questionnaire data is analyzed by SPSS25 software, and Cronbach’s α coefficient is 0.869, which proves that the questionnaire has high reliability; finally, the overall situation of foreign students’ use of learning strategies in Chinese learning is analyzed from the aspects of their majors, their levels of Chinese proficiency, Chinese learning time, age and personality. The results show that the frequency of using cognitive strategies in learning Chinese is the highest, with a score of 3.689; There is a positive correlation between the use of learning strategies and the degree of proficiency of Chinese; Among them, the foreign students who have studied for 2–3 years use learning strategies the most frequently, and the students aged 28–32 use learning strategies the most frequently in the Chinese level test 4. This study provides new ideas for foreign students’ Chinese teaching and has a certain reference for foreign students’ Chinese teaching strategies. (shrink)

With the close of the twentieth century, people feel the need to cast a reflective eye over the many facets of the turbulent past one hundred years.