Protection of Domestic bank Ownership in France and Germany: The Functional Equivalency of Institutional Diversity in Takeovers

We investigate the character of the market for corporate control (i.e. takeovers) in French and German banking. The key feature of this character is the marked ability of French and German banks to resist unsolicited takeover bids, especially – although not exclusively– those from foreign competitors. We present an institutional perspective to account for the restrained character of takeovers in French and German banking. Our perspective is composed of two elements. First, institutional arrangements are important since they structure power relations among firm stakeholders by providing opportunities, as well as imposing constraints, to influence the decision-making process in which takeover transactions take place. Second, institutional arrangements provide firm stakeholders with several potential opportunities, not just one, to block unsolicited bids since takeover contests are composed of sequences of decisions for which approval is needed at each stage. French and German banks have used different mixes of institutional arrangements, themselves located at different stages of takeover transactions, to secure restrained markets for corporate control. Our institutional analysis, in turn, also illustrates an important shortcoming of banking sector protectionism, namely the contribution of protection from unsolicited takeover bids to the building of banks carrying systemic risks

Contested firm governance, institutions and the undertaking of corporate restructuring practices in Germany

This article investigates the undertaking of corporate restructuring practices (employee downsizing and wage moderation) in Germany from 2008 to 2015. The article presents a political perspective that draws on the insights of the power resources approach and of institutional analyses. The theoretical framework highlights how institutional arrangements structure power relations within companies by empowering, in an asymmetrical manner, different categories of firm stakeholders (employees, managers and shareholders) as well as shaping how they relate to each other in an interactive manner. The article’s empirical findings point to the importance of extensive, but contingent, corporate restructuring in Germany. Companies are more likely to implement ‘defensive’ corporate restructuring practices under conditions of high leverage/debt than when confronted by shareholder value driven investors, thereby reflecting the presence of overlapping interests between employees and managers

The OSU1/QUA2/TSD2-Encoded Putative Methyltransferase Is a Critical Modulator of Carbon and Nitrogen Nutrient Balance Response in Arabidopsis

The balance between carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) nutrients must be tightly coordinated so that cells can optimize their opportunity for metabolism, growth and development. However, the C and N nutrient balance perception and signaling mechanism remains poorly understood. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of two allelic oversensitive to sugar1 mutants (osu1-1, osu1-2) in Arabidopsis thaliana. Using the cotyledon anthocyanin accumulation and root growth inhibition assays, we show that the osu1 mutants are more sensitive than wild-type to both of the imbalanced C/N conditions, high C/low N and low C/high N. However, under the balanced C/N conditions (low C/low N or high C/high N), the osu1 mutants have similar anthocyanin levels and root lengths as wild-type. Consistently, the genes encoding two MYB transcription factors (MYB75 and MYB90) and an Asn synthetase isoform (ASN1) are strongly up-regulated by the OSU1 mutation in response to high C/low N and low C/high N, respectively. Furthermore, the enhanced sensitivity of osu1-1 to high C/low N with respect to anthocyanin accumulation but not root growth inhibition can be suppressed by co-suppression of MYB75, indicating that MYB75 acts downstream of OSU1 in the high C/low N imbalance response. Map-based cloning reveals that OSU1 encodes a member of a large family of putative methyltransferases and is allelic to the recently reported QUA2/TSD2 locus identified in genetic screens for cell-adhesion-defective mutants. Accumulation of OSU1/QUA2/TSD2 transcript was not regulated by C and N balance, but the OSU1 promoter was slightly more active in the vascular system. Taken together, our results show that the OSU1/QUA2/TSD2-encoded putative methyltransferase is required for normal C/N nutrient balance response in plants

Simultaneous Genome-Wide Inference of Physical, Genetic, Regulatory, and Functional Pathway Components

Biomolecular pathways are built from diverse types of pairwise interactions, ranging from physical protein-protein interactions and modifications to indirect regulatory relationships. One goal of systems biology is to bridge three aspects of this complexity: the growing body of high-throughput data assaying these interactions; the specific interactions in which individual genes participate; and the genome-wide patterns of interactions in a system of interest. Here, we describe methodology for simultaneously predicting specific types of biomolecular interactions using high-throughput genomic data. This results in a comprehensive compendium of whole-genome networks for yeast, derived from ∼3,500 experimental conditions and describing 30 interaction types, which range from general (e.g. physical or regulatory) to specific (e.g. phosphorylation or transcriptional regulation). We used these networks to investigate molecular pathways in carbon metabolism and cellular transport, proposing a novel connection between glycogen breakdown and glucose utilization supported by recent publications. Additionally, 14 specific predicted interactions in DNA topological change and protein biosynthesis were experimentally validated. We analyzed the systems-level network features within all interactomes, verifying the presence of small-world properties and enrichment for recurring network motifs. This compendium of physical, synthetic, regulatory, and functional interaction networks has been made publicly available through an interactive web interface for investigators to utilize in future research at http://function.princeton.edu/bioweaver/

A managerial revolution in reverse: finance market control of the corporation and the triumph of the agency theory model

Corporate governance denotes different practices and procedures in economic sociology and in the economic theory literature; while economic sociologists are concerned about understanding the institutional features of corporate law and other corporate governance vehicles, economists are primarily interested in theorizing how capital owners can reduce agency costs. In pursuing the latter objective, agency theory has been remarkably successful in advancing shareholder value creation as the only legitimate objective of firms. This accomplishment is deeply entangled with a series of political, macroeconomic and institutional changes in (primarily) the US economy and political life, including the financialization of the world economy. The article examines these changes and stresses the capital funding of free-market advocates in academic communities as a decisive factor that contributes to the popularity of shareholder value creation. The study thus calls for a broader institutional view of the political economy of corporate governance and in the study of the ‘managerial revolution in reverse’ taking place as managerial capitalism is displaced by investor capitalism. \ua9 2015, Taylor & Francis

A vision of international HRM research

This editorial was written as a vision of IHRM research, to be both thought-provoking and to start a conversation that can continue to move the field forward. Starting with a brief outline of the field, the editorial emphasizes distinct research route trajectories charting the landscape and anatomy of HRM in an international context, focusing on HRM in multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as Comparative HRM and the related, but distinct, cross-cultural management thread. Additionally, the editorial accentuates the importance of context in IHRM research, explaining the resultant debate on adopting a universalist vs. a contextual paradigm. The editorial presents a future agenda for IHRM research, focusing on challenges of research sampling, appropriate methodologies, social impact and interdisciplinary research. Finally, the editorial introduces four featured articles from the 2nd Global Conference on IHRM. Each article represents an interesting take on comparative HRM and/or strategic IHRM in MNCs. The studies are clear examples of how context can be used to explain the phenomena being studied