Journal articles on the topic '180109 Corporations and Associations Law'

The growth of the scale of business in the modern world leads to the inevitable processes of concentration of capital, which, in turn, strengthens the position of large corporate associations in various industry and geographical markets. Large corporations and their associations are becoming major players in various markets. As a result, a significant number of small companies are taken over or squeezed out of the markets by large players. The article presents current trends in the development of antimonopoly regulation in relation to corporations, provides examples of the most high-profile litigation relating to violations of competition law. The authors analyze the current state of the Russian antimonopoly legislation in terms of the definition of corporate associations, highlight the directions of development in relation to corporate associations. The importance of developing a system of internal compliance with the requirements of the antimonopoly legislation is noted, and the positive and negative aspects of the voluntariness of the introduction of such a system are also indicated. It is proposed that antimonopoly compliance be mandatory for large corporations. Mitigation of liability if the corporate association has antimonopoly compliance,

The importance of voluntary associations is apparent to all who study the development of American society in the nineteenth century. Observations made by the perceptive nineteenth-century traveler Alexis de Tocqueville have become an obligatory cliché in historical writing on the subject:Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies,… but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.

Abstract Grotius is the father of modern international law. The indivisibility of sovereignty was the sine qua non of early-modern conceptual innovation in law. Both statements are axiomatic in the mainstream literature of the last two centuries. Both are profoundly and interestingly wrong. This article shows that Grotius’ systematisation of public and international law involved defining corporations as potentially (and the VOC actually) integral to reason of state, and able to bear and exercise marks of sovereignty under certain conditions. For Grotius, some corporations were not subsumed under the state’s legal authority, nor were they hybrid ‘company-states’. Instead, states and such corporations, able and forced to cooperate, fell under dovetailing natural, international, and municipal systems of law. The article reexamines Grotius’ notion of international trade, public debt, private corporation, and public and private war through the reassembled prism of these dovetailing laws and the category of societas that underpins Grotian associations. It is argued that although formulated around the new East India trade, the actual reality of legal pluralism was available to Grotius in the Dutch trade experience of the sixteenth century.

The article deals with the corporate nature of associations and unions. Problems of conceptual apparatus, namely such definitions as “corporation”, “corporate organization”, “non-profit corporate organization”, “association (union)”, “corporate rights” are analysed in the article. This leads to the conclusion that it is difficult to identify the necessary and sufficient corporate characteristics, whether associations and unions are full-fledged corporate organizations or can be considered as quasi-corporations. These issues are considered in the light of the non-profit nature of the corporation, in view of the purposes for which it was established, of its public or public functions.

In this text, I begin from a brief presentation of Edith Stein's neglected theory of collective identity in contemporary social ontology, in order to, building on and resisting her conclusions, elaborate a new differentiation of various forms of collective identity. The thesis is that there are only three basic forms of communal living and action which have a feeling of collective belonging and solidarity, that is, collective identity: the masses, associations (corporations) and communities. I go on to further develop their respective particularities through the use of the terms of mimesis, (established) law and struggle, and by using certain insights from Hegel regarding the nature of ?objective spirit?.

This article challenges the liberal, contractual theory of the corporation and argues for replacing it with a political theory of the corporation. Corporations are government-like in their powers, and government grants them both their external “personhood” and their internal governing authority. They are thus not simply private. Yet they are privately organized and financed and therefore not simply public. Corporations transgress all the basic dichotomies that structure liberal treatments of law, economics, and politics: public/private, government/market, privilege/equality, and status/contract. They are “franchise governments” that cannot be satisfactorily assimilated to liberalism. The liberal effort to assimilate them, treating them as contractually constituted associations of private property owners, endows them with rights they ought not have, exacerbates their irresponsibility, and compromises their principal public benefit of generating long-term growth. Instead, corporations need to be placed in a distinct category—neither public nor private, but “corporate”—to be regulated by distinct rules and norms.

The article is devoted to the study of legal nature of the mechanism for association of legal entities. Such associations of legal entities are realized in order to attract not only capital and other production resources, including labor, but also in order to satisfy nonproperty interests.Legal capacity of legal entities in the process of their merger is analyzed, based on what – statutory or contractual – association of corporations is determined. The statutory association does not lead to the creation of another fiction other than a legal entity, due to which it is ensured through its inherent organizational legal forms. The contractual association does not require the formation of a new legal entity (concern, consortium, association (union), syndicate, conglomerate, cartel, pool).In the event of such consolidation of legal entities, the contractual structure of a simple company or other joint activity is formed, formally close to such person at law as a legal entity. The difference between the above procedure of merging from the first option lies in the degree of autonomy of the members from each other, as well as in the expected result of such merger.

After the cold war, the trends of legal globalization became more and more obvious. People’s Republic of China (PRC) began its connection with the international community and the global market, and its legal reform after the launch of the “reform and opening-up” policy. By examining China’s labor law reform, we can see how legal globalization has influenced China’s legal system. China introduced and transplanted many institutions, terms of ILO conventions during its labor law reform. It also accepted many principles and conceptions of ILO conventions in its labor law and constitutional law, which would shape China’s labor law reform. Multinational corporations (MNC) and transnational civil society organizations (TCSO) influenced Chinese labor law reform through lobbying, advocacy, public education, and litigations. Informal norms such as Corporate Social Responsibility standards developed by MNCs and TSCOs also inspired Chinese legislators to improve China’s labor law and Chinese SCOs or business associations to develop labor standards to fill the gaps in China’s labor law and regulations. In conclusion, in the age of legal globalization, the labor law reform in China is a kind of legal transplantation. International norms, actions by multinational corporations and transnational civil society, and their informal norms together constitute the force which promotes the transplantation and the reform of China’s legal system. Key Words: legal globalization, global governance, labor law, law reform

Sustainable initiatives have been widely fulfilled by corporations, which can acquire better reputations by performing environmental, social, and economic responsibilities. However, if a corporation’s propaganda about sustainable orientation is contrary to the actual action, or even does not have a clear orientation, then it may also fall into the reputation of hypocrisy. In this study, from the perspective of consumer behavior and based on the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability, we identify six types of sustainable corporations by their orientations toward sustainability, including value, goals, and structure. We empirically examine their direct effects on consumers’ sustainable quality perception and trust, as well as the moderating effects of corporate social responsibility associations and consumer–corporation identity. Data are collected in China; 203 adults participated in the survey. The results reveal that the types of sustainable goals and structure have a significant effect on consumers’ sustainable quality perception and trust. Furthermore, consumers’ perception is also positively associated with their trust in a corporation. Moreover, the consumer–corporation identity negatively moderates the relationship between perception and trust. These findings also bring theoretical and practical insights for governments and corporations.

Two models of farmers’ institutions have developed in Europe: a) the French model, resulting from the decentralization of public administration and taking the form of agricultural chambers, or corporations under public law, administratively imposing obligatory membership, and b) the Anglo-Saxon model of voluntary agricultural associations with no administrative power. The purpose of this paper is to compare the first model, using the example of the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture and the Wielkopolska Chamber of Agriculture. The differences are presented in terms of their respective legal structures and the tasks each chamber performs in the state administration of FRG and Poland.

Introduction: the paper is devoted to the joint ventures, international economic associations established and operating in the territory of the USSR. It is one of the first studies in the modern legal literature devoted to the analysis of the Soviet legislation determining the status of these types of economic entities. The aim of the study is to determine the legal nature of the joint venture as a legal entity, to identify the features of its legal capacity from the perspective of the civil law theory and practice. Results: the main problems that arise in the creation and operation of joint ventures, as well as the existing gaps in the Soviet legal space in the mechanism of the legal regulation of the organization and activities of entities with foreign participation are revealed. The peculiarity of the policy of the Soviet state in relation to business corporations, including joint ventures and international business associations, was a combination of administrative, legal and civil law methods of regulating their organization and activities.

Contractual techniques have known a remarkable development in French administrative law. Contractual relations between different government agencies and individuals have reflected a change in the relationship between the State, central agencies and corporations on one side, and local authorities, associations and individuals on the other. « Inequality, Hierarchy and Government Supervision » have been partially replaced by « Equality, Participation and Autonomy ». In this article, the author describes some instances where contractual techniques were used to promote the participation of local interests in energy decisions. He points out the consequences of such a technique of participation and concludes that its main problem is the representativeness of the participants

To foster sustainability pursuits, regulation by state-imposed legislation is often crucial, but self-regulation by corporations, associations, and other non-state actors increasingly exerts pressures and provides incentives for sustainable practices. In order to shed more light on the complex interplay among sustainability regulations and self-regulation, this study focused on a highly regulated field: the German wine industry. Using a social network analysis, this study identified the most central actors (e.g., associations, regulatory institutions) that need to be addressed in order to ensure the enforcement of sustainability. By analyzing 15 semi-structured interviews with the key actors, we outlined their understanding of sustainability, and classified three distinctive governance patterns. These mixed methods and in-depth analyses revealed that self-regulation by associations plays a crucial role in terms of enhancing sustainability, but regulation remains an important trigger in this context. This article concludes with some lessons for regulation and self-regulation policies that can ensure sustainability within an organizational field.

1. When touching upon the question of the nature of corporate personality most lawyers will at best make a link with some paragraphs from the introduction to their commercial law course. They will remember that during the nineteenth century fierce theoretical battles were fought on questions such as whether we should treat supra-individual and non-individual entities as “persons”, under what conditions we should recognize their personality and what should be the legal consequences of such recognition. But no matter how interesting this debate must have been, to revive it is tantamount to becoming a public menace. Already in 1953 H.L.A. Hart, certainly an authority on legal theory, declared that “the juristic controversy over the nature of corporate personality is dead”. In many respects this assessment is correct. Despite the numerous differences about the conditions of recognition, about the possible types of corporations and associations which are subject to corporate personality, about the solidity of the corporate veil, we can observe that nearly all legal systems in the world adopt the notion of corporate personality as such. We may assume the notion will become even more important in the former socialist world, as these countries try hard to reshape their economies along the lines of the market economies in the Western world.

The Internet facilitates connections between a range of Dutch actors with a stake in the energy transition, including governments, environmental organizations, media outlets and corporations. These connections tease a hyperlink network affecting public access to information on energy transition issues. Despite its societal relevance, however, the characteristics of this network remain understudied. The main goals of this study are to shed some light on the topological characteristics of the Dutch energy transition hyperlink network and reveal the main topics discussed in the network. To do so, we longitudinally collected data from the interactions between key Dutch actors with a stake in the energy transition. Then, these data were analyzed by employing a mixed-method approach, social network analysis and topic modeling. The results of the social network analyses reveal the existence of a sparse network in which few private companies and associations emerge as the most authoritative actors and brokers. Furthermore, our analyses show substantial differences among the communication agendas of the organizations of the Dutch energy transition hyperlink network; while public institutions focus on global, national and local policy issues, private companies, associations and NGOs pay much more attention to employment issues.

We introduce the review of the all-Russian scientific conference “25 years of the Constitution of the Russian Federation: Traditions and Innovations of State and Legal Development”, which took place on October 19–20, 2018 and organized by the Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin in the framework of the grant project № 18-411-681005 (р_г), supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the administration of the Tambov Region. Also noted are other co-organizers of the conference, which were the Tambov regional branch of the all-Russian public organization “Association of Lawyers of Russia”, Academy of Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, Tambov regional notary chamber, the company “Plus Guarantee”. The conference was aimed at discussing and understanding the current state of the constitutional foundations of Russian statehood, its stability, the role and importance of the basic law of the country in the prism of its existence, implementation and application for a quarter century. The participants of the conference were scientists in the field of general theory of state and law, constitutional law, as well as other areas of law, representatives of authorities, public associations, legal corporations. The review highlights the content of the plenary and breakout sessions, which were called: “Constitutional and Legal Principles of Russian Statehood: History and Modernity”, “State, Law, Personality: Theoretical and Practical Models of Interaction”, “Constitutional Foundations of State Structure at the Present Stage”.

The article analyzes the scientific views on the concepts of «legal entity» and «corporation» formed in different legal systems, indicating either the identity of these concepts, or their heterogeneity by deducing a number of common and distinct features. Determined that in the Anglo-American legal system, the corporation is seen as a collective term, which should be understood by business associations and nonbusiness capital entities created to meet social objectives. It is proved that in EU law the concept of «corporation» is not identical with that of a legal entity, although a considerable number of types of legal entities are proposed to be included in the list of legal entities. In the countries of the continental legal system (France, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, etc.) the term «corporation» is rarely used in the law. This concept is used mainly in literary sources. Corporations include: various types of companies (full and limited partnerships, joint stock companies and other companies, members of which are limited liability for the obligations of the company), business associations (groups, trade unions, holdings, etc.), cooperatives, leases and state-owned enterprises, as well as various non-economic unions and associations. The main difference between the range of legal entities in the Anglo-American and Continental legal families is that in the first case, the terms «legal entity» and «corporation» are correlated as interchangeable concepts, and in the other case, the possibility of correlation between the concepts of «legal entity» and «corporation» depends on the approach of the legislation of the country to the definition of their organizational and legal forms and the formation in the scientific circles of the criteria for their separation or integration into one or another concept, or the introduction of this concept into the existing legislation of the EU country with a clear list of organizational and legal forms. Therefore, every legal family has their own approaches to the concept of «corporation».

AbstractOver 40 million people around the world are victims of modern forms of slavery: forced labour and human trafficking. People are tricked into working under onerous conditions, and unable to leave or return home due to physical, psychological or financial coercion, and many of these trafficking victims produce goods for United States (US) and other multinational corporations that profit by relying on the lower wages earned by workers in their global supply chains. Well-developed legal standards prohibit these practices, and governments, intergovernmental organizations, business associations and non-governmental organizations have developed mechanisms to prevent, detect and provide redress to victims. Some businesses lead or comply with the standards and enforcement mechanisms, but too many do not. US law offers a powerful but under-utilized tool to address trafficking: the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which imposes civil liability on those who ‘knew or should have known’ about forced labour or human trafficking in their corporate ventures. Unfortunately, courts have ignored or misinterpreted this standard, at times confusing civil and criminal provisions of the statute. Correct and vigorous legal enforcement is key to addressing the accountability gap between the well-developed standards and the continuing use of forced labour and human trafficking. This article is the first to demonstrate that, with regard to the TVPRA standard, corporations have long been on notice of both the obligation to effectively monitor labour conditions and the mechanisms that would accomplish that task. US courts must enforce the ‘knew or should have known’ standard to protect workers – the most vulnerable people in the supply chain – and to prevent an unfair competitive advantage over companies that have established compliance programmes that actually prevent and punish human trafficking and forced labour.

Digital technology is an integral part of our daily lives. Regardless of whether we have a computer at home, whether we use the possibilities of obtaining state and municipal services in digital form or simply operate electronic gadgets, society's dependence on technology is increasing. A secure digital environment enhances trust and contributes to the creation of a stable and prosperous nation. Government and the business community are also taking advantage of the technological revolution through greater adoption and use of digital technologies. Traditional forms of crime have also evolved, as criminal associations increasingly use the information and telecommunications network - the Internet - to commit cybercrimes and increase their profits. Digital crime is developing at an incredibly fast pace, and new types of criminal acts are constantly emerging. So we need to keep up with digital technologies, understand the opportunities they create for cybercriminals, and how they can be used as a tool to combat cybercrime. The active use of digital technologies in all spheres of social life in the last three decades formed a background for the emergence of a special type of criminals - the so-called hackers. Criminal groups of hackers pose a public danger because, if they unite, they are capable of planning a large-scale computer attack which could target, among other things, critically important information infrastructure objects. Besides, hacker groups have become a real danger for both governments, large corporations, the military, and for private persons. The trend for blurring the boundaries between hacker groups and organized crime, that the experts predicted a few years ago, has now become a reality. In fact, it is possible to say that a new independent type of organized crime has emerged - the hacking community. These circumstances make it necessary to develop a special norm that provides for the liability for organizing hacking community or participating in it. Such a norm will allow for a complex approach to the criminal law counteraction against such criminal groups by ensuring an adequate criminal law assessment of the actions of the organizers and coordinators of hackers organizations.

This article analyzes outsourcing job practice in contemporary business activities in Indonesia, focusing on types and factors that contribute to human rights abuse in the outsourcing business, based on academic literature and regulations on business and human rights. In today's Indonesian labor market, outsourcing jobs are a kind of phantom. Laborers risked not receiving adequate wages, work insurance, or equal bargaining power with the outsourcing company under this job recruitment system. Laborers' associations protested almost every May Day moment, demanding that the outsourcing job system be abolished. They also demanded to be hired directly by the company rather than by the outsourcing firm. Unfortunately, the government responded to the demand by enacting the Workforce Act No. 13 of 2013. This law endorsed outsourcing with specific requirements that provide clear guidance for both employers and employees. However, in practice, companies frequently break outsourcing roles by hiring workers to staff their core business activities. On the other hand, outsourcing corporations also violate the Act's basic rights for outsourcing laborers. As a result, it implies human rights violations. Laborers were frequently threatened with losing their right to a healthy working environment, being fired from their contract without consultation, and having their fundamental rights violated. Human rights violations in outsourcing job activities are primarily caused by a lack of government oversight and law enforcement.

AbstractFor the first time in four decades, leading business associations, corporations, and the corporate law and governance community are seriously debating moving beyond shareholder primacy toward some form of ‘stakeholder governance. But the how question unveils significant differences of opinion as well as difficulties. We focus on a pathway that complements the ambition of stakeholder governance, but which current reform proposals have largely overlooked. We draw on practical experience in the field of business and human rights, where leading companies are increasingly embedding human rights due diligence processes into their strategic decision-making. We contend that as human rights due diligence is made mandatory for companies, which it is in a growing number of jurisdictions, including for foreign firms with a significant business presence in them, risks to stakeholders become a material corporate governance issue. That makes it necessary for firms to address stakeholder concerns and to demonstrate that they are, with possible legal consequences for having failed to do where harm occurs. Such changes by themselves may not constitute a full-blown system of multi-fiduciary obligations, but they mark substantial strides on the path toward it, and they are doing it in the relatively near-term.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose joint stock company with variable capital (JSCVC), as financial sharing funds and banks necessitate that their capital and number of shareholders be instantaneously variable. Legal personality and accounts clearing of this type of corporations are different from conventional companies. Design/methodology/approach – JSCVC is a corporation in which capital and shares of shareholders vary by new entrance or withdrawal of shareholders at any point of time. Findings – Interest rate-based calculations were removed and Rastin Sharing Accounting was applied for JSCVS. Shareholders of JSCVC share the company’s nominal capital proportional to nominal values of their shares. Financial outcome of JSCVC is proportional to values of shares weighted by shares duration of participation. Research limitations/implications – To prevent spoiling of shareholders’ rights, legal procedure of issuing shares for JSCVC should be defined in compliance with domestic commerce laws in any country. Practical implications – JSCVC can be used by majority of investment funds, credit unions, saving and loan associations, pension and provident funds, thrift saving plans as well as Islamic banks and financial sharing activities. In JSCVC, deposit at a bank is treated as a share of the company (bank). Social implications – JSCVC has fair profit distribution and accounts clearing arrangements. Originality/value – Different variable capital companies have been defined in many countries’ laws, but essential modifications are presented in JSCVC definition to regulate financial sharing arrangements and bank’s performances.

The subject of this research is the sovereignty of the state in modern world. The author underlines the contradictory nature of globalization and contrasts of opinions of various social groups on it. It is noted that the antagonists of globalization confirm the importance of this process. This article examines the history of the development of state sovereignty and its current significance. The author explores and generalizes the factors that influence sovereignty of the state in modern world, believing that high level of national culture plays the key role and allows avoiding negative consequences of globalization and take all possible advantages. The scientific novelty lies in comprehensive analysis of the impact of globalization upon sovereignty of the state, as well as in original classification of the factors influencing globalization, among which is the emergence of uncontrolled spheres of life, strengthening of the role of international organizations, existence of transnational corporations, international law, creation of integration associations, dominance of the United States in modern world. It is also noted that sovereignty of the state has never been absolute. The author summarizes the views of researchers on the importance and consequences of globalization, as well as advances and substantiates the thesis on the key role of national culture in the struggle against negative consequences of globalization.

An approach to planning, research, and management, that relates people to ecosystems of which they are part, is described and related to the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements of 1972, 1978, and 1987. Factors favouring the development of an ‘ecosystem approach’ in the Great Lakes Basin include: a shared, highly valued resource; the long residence-times of ‘conservative’ pollutants in the Lakes; use of the Lakes for drinking-water supplies by c. 23 million people; threats to the integrity of the Lakes (pollution, water diversion); advances in ecosystem theory; the rise of voluntary membership associations with interests in the resource; institutional arrangements for managing nationally shared resources; and common economic ties and cultural heritages.The principal obstacle to implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach in the Great Lakes Basin is the lack of policies for comparable approaches in the political jurisdictions surrounding the Great Lakes. The principal obstacle to global implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach is the lack of international institutional arrangements for joint advice and operational capabilities in respect of the management of nationally shared resources. Another impediment is the widespread egocentricity of governments, corporations, individuals, and the general public.

Integrated reporting is a key instrument used to inform stakeholders about the sustainability issues of a company. Only an assured report can effectively instill confidence in its users regarding the sustainability of the company. Based on the International Integrated Reporting Framework issued by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the authors solicited perceptions from auditors and audit report users about several aspects of integrated reporting assurance. An analysis of the responses suggests that integrated reporting assurance is important, but there are many challenges (both methodological and related to the characteristics of non-financial information) for auditors to overcome. Reporting companies and auditors must work to overcome these problems. The former ones must improve the quality of non-financial information and the later must adapt their audit procedures. This paper provides valuable insights into preferences regarding the form and content of the audit report on integrated reporting. This study is useful to regulators of audit activity, auditors’ corporations, the IIRC, and other international associations, academics, and audit report users, and contributes to the current integrated reporting literature by examining the perceptions of auditors and users regarding the assurance of integrated reporting. Integrated reporting assurance is still an under-explored field of research.

AbstractFrom the early twentieth century, Hindu socio-religious and political bodies debated the use thatmaths(monastic establishments) made of their wealth, amassed in large part throughdana(socio religious gifts). From the early nineteenth century, Anglo Hindu law on inheritance, and thereafter the Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts, had enabled the autonomy ofmathsby classifying them as private religious corporations, not charitable endowments. This article suggests that themathreform campaign between 1920 and 1940 in north India was impelled by the preoccupations of heterogeneous Hindu political and socio-religious organizations withdanaand its potential to fund cultural and political projects regenerating an imagined Hindu socio-religious community. Specifically, the Hindu Mahasabha yokeddanato its Hindusangathan(unity) campaign to strategically craft an integrated ‘Hindu public’ transcendingsampraday(religious traditions) to protect its interests from ‘external enemies’. My discussion probes how the Hindu Mahasabha and its ‘reformist’ allies urged the conversion ofmathsinto public charitable trusts, or endowments accountable to an ephemeral ‘Hindu public’ and the regulation of their expenditure. Monastic orders,guru-based associations like the Bharat Dharma Mahamandala, and the majority of orthodox Hindus successfully opposed this campaign, defending the interests ofmathsandsampradaybefore and after independence. In so doing, they challenged Hindusangathanby articulating alternative visions of the socio-religious publics and communities to be revitalized through philanthropy. Through this discussion, the article charts the uneasy relationship between monasticism and an emerging Hindu nationalist cultural and political consciousness that remained fractured and internally contested.

Corporate governance is a process that aims to allocate corporate resources in a manner that maximizes value for all stakeholders — shareholders, investors, employees, customers, suppliers, environment and the community at large and holds those at the helms to account by evaluating their decisions on transparency, inclusivity, equity and responsibility. Corporate governance has been commonly defined as the rules and procedures in place for governing an organization. It is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions affecting the way a corporation (or company) is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many stakeholders involved and the goals for which the corporation is governed. Corporate governance principles and codes have been developed in different countries and issued from stock exchanges, corporations, institutional investors, or associations (institutes) of directors and managers with the support of governments and international organizations. As a rule, compliance with these governance recommendations is not mandated by law, although the codes linked to stock exchange listing requirements may have a coercive effect. However, given the rapid developments within the field and the increasing prominence of corporate governance in the modern world, this definition may be considered too narrow. Corporate governance, while a topic that has been examined in considerable depth in many areas, is widely applicable to a vast array of topics and issues. This study contributes to the literature by extending the mainly based on board literature to where there are important institutional differences and issues in ownership structure and corporate governance system and seeks to address new and emerging issues which have yet to be closely examined and have, to a degree, been overlooked.

Financial institutions not only influence the profit/loss of its shareholders but also drive the economy of the whole nation. So it should be concerned about its social obligation and responsibilities. Social responsibility refers to the obligation of a firm, beyond the required by law of economics, to pursue long-term goals that are good for society. The idea that firms, corporations, and other organizations have social responsibilities leads to the development of the concept labelled as “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)” and has evoked widespread interests and concerns both in business and among academicians. Banking sector is under massive pressure from its shareholders, investors, media, as well as its customers to carry out business in a socially responsible and ethical manner. This descriptive study attempts to analyse CSR reporting practices in banking sector of Nepal. For the purpose, ten commercial banks and 4 development banks were selected randomly and their website was scanned to collect data developing a Report Sheet. The total CSR reports were outlined and categorized into different groups. Later on quantitative analysis was also performed and presented using suitable statistical techniques. This study found that CSR is not mandatory in Nepal and all the banks that have made the disclosure of social responsibility have done it in voluntary basis. Among the disclosed information education, training and welfare of underprivileged; arts/heritage and culture protection; contribution to associations, clubs and other organizations; contributions to healthcare and environment; etc were the most commonly reported CSR activities. Child and women developments, religious activity, games and sports activities, blood donations were also among the thrust area for CSR reporting. The disclosures were mostly qualitative with exception of donation and sponsorship amounts. The analysis also shows that most of the Nepalese banks, especially public sector banks, do not mentyion CSR explicitly on their websites. This study strongly recommends the development of uniform standards and framework for reporting of CSR activities, which could be applied to compare it at national levels with other banks and/or industries as well as for the international comparisons. Bank can play a leading role to establish the CSR concepts in Nepalese business and corporations. It is expected that this paper will stimulate more studies in this direction. More such studies should be conducted, especially on developing countries like Nepal, where CSR is at an infant stage of development. In addition to tracing the trend of social disclosure, impacts of social and economic developments on CSR practices, there is also a need to develop a framework for CSR reporting. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/bj.v3i1.7511 Banking Journal Vol.3(2) 2013 pp.61-78

So far the Internet has been conceived as the network of people connected to one another. Recently, a lot of things works in connection with one another connected via the Internet. Thus this Internet is called Internet of Things(IoT). The things include not only the electronic devices for personal use such as smartphones and notebooks but also the variety of home appliances, cars, airplanes and even the satellite in the space. The things in the IoT are working based upon the most important two technologies, which are Artificial Intelligence and 5G Telecommunication Technology. Though IoT can be defined a bit differently by scholars and institutions, it is a common understanding that AI and 5G Telecommunication are the key elements. On one hand IoT’s capacity to sense, collect, analyze the informations and make decisions in a very high speed and effective way, makes possible the smart home, smart factory, smart city and even the smart government. On the other hand, it may also generate high risk and problems that it makes personal information leak and misused, person’s privacy is invaded, and even the national security can be threatened. The goals of benefiting IoT at the same time protecting people from the risks caused by IoT could be achieved through variety of efforts including setting up appropriate policies and enacting rules and regulations. This article addressed the alternative solutions for the achievement of the goals such as making soft laws, implementing governance process, and the application of blockchain. In sum, with all the pros and cons, this article strongly recommends people (including corporations, consumers, and other groups and associations), as the members of the community they belong to, that they adopt their own soft law best fit for their purpose and community environment to regulate themselves first and to make the soft law to regulate the society general as a de facto binding rules. While doing so we may go through the governance process to harmonize the conflicting interests of the constituents of the society and also adopt the new technology such as blockchain to strengthen the practicability of the soft law at the same time. Any soft law standards regarding the IoT should be purported to assure individuals that their data will not be misused or hacked, and that they facilitate trust and communication, and avoid the premature and heavy-handed stifling of innovation. Soft law can help these technologies proliferate while giving people the confidence that, contrary to the current belief, the benefits of the IoT far outweigh the risks. Soft law for IoT can be enhanced by convening a multistakeholder process, as one of the public governance process, to develop best practices for protecting the privacy and security of IoT data, including implementing security by blockchain solutions for the IoT.

PurposeDecarbonising the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today, which is getting the attention not only from policymakers but also from social housing corporations, financial organisations and users. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch cities and housing associations have embraced this challenge with the ambitions to become carbon neutral in 2050. To reach such goals, both the rate and depth of renovation need to increase. Several technical solutions to eliminate the energy demand in dwelling have been developed and tested. Nevertheless, the intake rate of deep retrofitting is low. Despite recent developments, there are still significant barriers related to financing, lack of information and user acceptance. To address those barriers, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between energy efficiency upgrades and the cost of living.Design/methodology/approachFocusing on walk-up apartments in the Netherlands, a framework of refurbishment measures that affect the energy efficiency was identified, and their performance was calculated. Furthermore, the rental price adjustment was estimated, taking into account the refurbishment investment and the exploitation cost of the renovated dwellings.FindingsThe comparison of the energy use and rental price for the different options demonstrated how the different renovation measures affect the energy cost, the energy use, rent and cost of living. The tenants are more likely to accept the solutions that take into account the total cost of living and sustainability benefits. The study gives a holistic standpoint to the issue of energy upgrades, by quantifying the effect of the potential measures for the whole exploitation period. It has shown the potential of the different interventions to improve the performance and living conditions, without necessarily increasing the total cost of living.Practical implicationsSuch results aim at supporting the decision making between the stakeholders, primarily housing associations and tenants.Originality/valueThe importance of the study is that it gives a holistic standpoint to the issue of energy upgrades, by quantifying the effect of the potential measures for the whole exploitation period. The cost, as a key, if not the more most decisive, issue, is put into perspective in relation to the benefit, in order to give a direction to the renovation design and arguments for the stakeholders’ dialogue. The approach of the study goes beyond cost-optimality of measures and investigated the relation between energy upgrades and cost, as a way to evaluate design variation and address the lack of information barrier in renovations. Moreover, it also proves that deep renovation is feasible without increasing in the total cost of living, which is a principal argument to promote renovations.

The International American Studies Association is dismayed to see the explosion of anger, bitterness and desperation that has been triggered by yet another senseless, cruel and wanton act of racialized violence in the United States. We stand in solidarity with and support the ongoing struggle by African Americans, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants and the marginalized against the racialized violence perpetrated against them. As scholars of the United States, we see the killing of George Floyd and many before them as acts on the continuum of the history of the powerful committing racialized violence against the powerless in the United States from before the birth of that country to the here and now of the present day. This continuum stretches from the transatlantic slave trade, the genocide of the indigenous population, the denial of rights and liberties to women, through the exploitation of American workers, slavery and Jim Crow, to the exclusion and inhumane treatment of the same migrants who make a profit for American corporations and keep prices low for the U.S. consumer. As scholars of the United States, we are acutely aware of how racialized violence is systemic, of how it has been woven into the fabric of U.S. society and cultures by the powerful, and of how the struggle against it has produced some of the greatest contributions of U.S. society to world culture and heritage. The desperate rebellion of the powerless against racialized violence by the powerful is in turn propagandized as unreasonable or malicious. It is neither. It is an uprising to defend their own lives, their last resort after waiting for generations for justice and equal treatment from law enforcement, law makers, and the courts. In too many instances, those in power have answered such uprisings with deadly force—and in every instance, they have had alternatives to this response. We are calling on those in power and the people with the guns in the United States now to exercise their choices and choose an alternative to deadly force as a response to the struggle against racialized violence. You have the power and the weapons—you have a choice to do the right thing and make peace. We are calling on U.S. law makers to listen and address the issues of injustice and racialized violence through systemic reform that remakes the very fabric of the United States justice system, including independent accountability oversight for law enforcement. We are calling on our IASA members and Americanists around the world to redouble their efforts at teaching their students and educating the public of the truth about the struggle against racialized violence in the United States. We are calling on our IASA members and Americanists around the world to become allies in the struggle against racialized violence in the United States and in their home societies by publicizing scholarship on the truth, by listening to and amplifying the voices of black people, ethnic minorities and the marginalized, and supporting them in this struggle on their own terms. We are calling on all fellow scholarly associations to explore all the ways in which they can put pressure with those in power at all levels in the United States to do the right thing and end racialized violence. There will be no peace in our hearts and souls until justice is done and racialized violence is ended—until all of us are able “to breathe free.” Dr Manpreet Kaur Kang, President of the International American Studies Association, Professor of English and Dean, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India;Dr Jennifer Frost, President of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association, Associate Professor of History, University of Auckland, New Zealand;Dr S. Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş, Associate Professor, Department of American Culture and Literature, Hacettepe University, Turkey;Dr Gabriela Vargas-Cetina, Professor of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mexico;Dr Paweł Jędrzejko, Associate Professor of American Literature, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland;Dr Marietta Messmer, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands;Dr Kryštof Kozák, Department of North American Studies, Charles University, Prague;Dr Giorgio Mariani, Professor of English and American Languages and Literatures, Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies, Università “Sapienza” of Rome;Dr György Tóth, Lecturer, History, Heritage and Politics, University of Stirling, Scotland, United Kingdom;Dr Manuel Broncano, Professor of American Literature and Director of English, Spanish, and Translation, Texas A&M International University, Laredo, USA;Dr Jiaying Cai, Lecturer at the School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, China;Dr Alessandro Buffa, Secretary, Center for Postcolonial and Gender Studies, University of Naples L’Orientale, Italy;

В статье выявлена специфика формирования объединенной дворянской организации в условиях формирования российской партийно-политической системы в годы первой российской революции. Отмечается, что самодержавная власть во второй половине XIX - начале XX в. блокировала проявления инициатив губернских дворянских обществ, направленных на создание всероссийского представительства сословия и обусловленным стремлением сословия к политической самостоятельности. Политическая активизация общества в условиях первой российской революции способствовала трансформации гражданского сознания дворянства, оформлению его политических позиций. Необходимость защиты экономических интересов привела к созданию общероссийской дворянской организации, что стало завершающим этапом консолидации сословия. Выявлены организационные и правовые принципы общероссийской дворянской организации. Анализ редакций Устава съездов уполномоченных объединенных дворянских обществ позволил определить правовой статус дворянского объединения. Доказано, что юридический статус общероссийского дворянского объединения базировался на принципах общегражданского законодательства, регламентирующих деятельность общественных объединений Российской империи. Правовой статус организации порождал ряд юридических противоречий, которые проявились при обсуждении Устава на съездах организации. С одной стороны, объединение основывалось на принципах добровольности, с другой стороны, формировалось по сословному принципу. Оно позиционировалось ее лидерами не только как политическая партия, но и как сословная организация. Выявлен спектр оценок правового статуса Объединенного дворянства региональными дворянскими корпорациями, доказано влияние политических взглядов дворянских лидеров на отношение к объединению. Отмечено, что разногласия по правовому статусу объединенной дворянской организации стали причиной выхода ряда дворянских собраний из ее состава. The article revealed the specifics of the formation of a united noble organization in the conditions of the formation of the Russian party-political system during the first Russian revolution. It is noted that autocratic power in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries blocked the manifestations of initiatives of provincial noble societies aimed at creating an all-Russian representation of the estate and due to the desire of the estate for political independence. The political activation of society in the conditions of the first Russian revolution contributed to the transformation of the civic consciousness of the nobility, the formalization of its political positions. The need to protect economic interests led to the creation of an all-Russian noble organization, which was the final stage of the consolidation of the estate. Organizational and legal principles of the all-Russian noble organization have been identified. The analysis of the revisions of the Charter of congresses of authorized united noble societies made it possible to determine the legal status of the noble association. It has been proved that the legal status of the all-Russian noble association was based on the principles of general civil law governing the activities of public associations of the Russian Empire. The legal status of the organization gave rise to a number of legal contradictions that manifested themselves when discussing the Charter at the congresses of the organization. On the one hand, the association was based on the principles of volunteerism, on the other hand, it was formed on the basis of class principle. It was positioned by its leaders not only as a political party, but also as an estate organization. A range of assessments of the legal status of the United Nobility by regional noble corporations has been identified, the influence of the political views of noble leaders on the attitude towards unification has been proved. It is noted that disagreements on the legal status of the united noble organization caused the withdrawal of a number of noble assemblies from its composition

Transnational corporations are currently the leading economic entities, in view of this, the article explored the main approaches to the definition of TNCs and the selection of those features that reveal their legal nature. Particular attention is paid to the peculiarities of management of transnational corporations in the context of globalization of economic activity. It is concluded that in the field of international economic relations TNCs are a generally recognized subject of economic activity. The legal status of TNCs is controversial. At present, TNCs are not an independent legal model, as they do not have a stable and limited set of legal features that are applied on the basis of appropriate legal regulation at the international or national level. The author draws attention to the fact that the main purpose of TNCs is to make a profit. Therefore, any associations that pursue other goals as the main one (public, purely organizational) should be excluded from the scope of study of TNCs. A feature of TNCs in this context is the desire to make a profit internationally. At the same time, it is noted that the national law establishes the rules of law for the regulation of associations (groups) of legal entities, determining for them a specific organizational form. There is no appeal directly to TNCs, due to the inexpediency of regulating their activities only within the framework of national law. It is indicated that the concept of TNCs may be suitable for several types of associations that have the characteristics that are reflected in the documents of international organizations devoted to the study and regulation of TNCs. Therefore, the author noted that the characterization of TNCs should be based on those features that are enshrined in international documents developed within international organizations and aimed at research and regulation of TNCs. Currently, the most detailed concept of TNCs is developed in global investment reports.

The article is devoted to the consideration of topical issues of obtaining by citizens and other subjects of information relations, information on relevant requests. The importance of the role of the institution of the legal profession in the field of protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens and legislative regulation of obtaining information on a lawyer's request is highlighted. It is noted that a response to a lawyer's request must be provided within a legally defined and compressed timeframe, and failure to provide information or providing incomplete information to a lawyer's request is punishable as an administrative offense. Analysis of scientific research in the field of advocacy allows us to conclude that the issue of gaps in the legal regulation of obtaining information on a lawyer's request has not yet been studied by domestic legal scholars. The article analyzes the list of subjects, defined by law, who are obliged to provide information to lawyer inquiries. Identified and highlighted those subjects in respect of which such a duty is not legally defined or is not properly regulated by the rules of law. Possible ways of resolving the legal uncertainty of this issue are proposed. The Law of Ukraine "On the Bar and Advocate Activity" defines a lawyer's request as a written appeal of a lawyer to a public authority, local self- government body, their professional and official persons, forms of enterprises and organizations, regardless of ownership and subordination, public associations on the provision of copies of documents required a lawyer to provide legal assistance to a client. The specified determines that state authorities, local self-government bodies, authorities and officials, governments of organizations, organizations, public associations, the required lawyer's request requires the lawyer to provide relevant information, copies except with limited access and copies of documents containing information with limited access. The authors analyze the legislative and legal norms that define the concepts: enterprise, institution, organization and manager. It was found that the normatively formed definitions according to which a society, institution and public association are defined through the concept of "organization", and therefore are the appropriate types of organization. It is established that such entities as cooperatives, associations, corporations, consortiums, concerns, etc., which the legislator does not refer to enterprises, institutions and organizations, may not be forced to provide information at the request of a lawyer due to legal uncertainty and due to constitutional requirements according to which no one can be forced to do what is not provided by law. The authors propose to clearly define the concept of "organization" and propose an appropriate classification of organizations. All existing enterprises, consortia, associations, cooperatives, etc. should be defined precisely through the concept of "organization" and refer to a certain type of organization.Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Advocacy and Advocacy Activity” have been proposed, which will make it possible to eliminate the existing shortcomings of the legal regulation of obtaining information at the request of a lawyer.

What is a machine? As part of his answer to this, historian and philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford cites a classic definition: "a machine is a combination of resistant bodies so arranged that by their means the mechanical forces of nature can be compelled to do work accompanied by certain determinant motions" (Reuleaux [1876], qtd. in Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 9). Mumford's own definition is focussed on machines as part of a technological continuum between human body and automaton: Machines have developed out of a complex of non-organic agents for converting energy, for performing work, for enlarging the mechanical or sensory capacities of the human body, or for reducing to a mensurable order and regularity the processes of life. The automaton is the last step in a process that began with the use of one part or another of the human body as a tool. (9-10) The tool and the machine can be distinguished along this technological continuum, with the tool more dependent on "the skill and motive power of the operator", subject to "manipulation", and potentially more flexible in its uses, whereas the machine lends itself more to "automatic action" of a specialised kind. However, it is difficult to ultimately separate them, since the embodied skill of the tool-user becomes more mechanical and reflexive with practice (Technics and Civilisation 10), while the machine also evolves along increasingly organic lines (367), and there are common examples of hybrid machine-tools like the lathe or drill, which combine "the accuracy of the finest machine ... with the skilled attendance of the workman" (10). A powerfully attractive feature of the computer is that it is an effective hybrid of machine and tool: like a machine it performs many specialised functions at super-human speed and accuracy on command, but like a tool it is flexible and adaptable (through add-on software and plug-in peripherals) to a seemingly endless variety of users and uses. Fascinating Assemblages The automatic machine ... involves the notion of an external source of power, a more or less complicated inter-relation of parts, and a limited kind of activity. From the beginning the machine was a sort of minor organism, designed to perform a single set of functions. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 11) The autonomy of the machine is perhaps its most fascinating aspect. That the machine is an assemblage of parts and restricted functions -- a "minor organism" as Mumford puts it -- suggests to us a body. There is something ineluctably erotic about scenes of lubricated pistons moving in and out of cylinders, or greased gear wheels moving around each other, and a masturbatory energy seems to be involved in the machine that repetitively and by itself performs the same limited actions over and over and over. While there are parallels between masculine masturbation and machinic repetition, there are also associations with femininity. As Andreas Huyssen pointed out, the modern machine became associated with a dangerous female sexuality and took the place of the early moderns' untamed Mother Nature as the principal representative of non-human forces with autonomy and agency that could evade human control. But arguably, expressed fears of machinic autonomy are the flip side of a wish for it, arising from masculine reproductive fantasies that have been played out in technoscience by generations of fictional and real-life Frankensteins fanatically seeking to create artificial life in the form of technoscientific brainchildren (who are nevertheless often neglected and left to run wild at birth). At a conscious level, machines express what may be interpreted as anal-sadistic desires for order, regularity and control, but unconsciously there is an element of masochistic pleasure in being passive, in yielding up control to the machine, in letting it set the scene and determine the actions and roles for the humans as well as non-humans (Sofia, "Contested Zones", and "Mythic Machine" 44-8). Machinic Zeal What is the use of conquering nature if we fall a prey to nature in the form of unbridled men? What is the use of equipping mankind with mighty powers to move and build and communicate, if the final result of this secure food supply and this excellent organisation is to enthrone the morbid impulses of a thwarted humanity? (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 366) With his emphasis on the social context and drives towards technology, Mumford (Technics and Civilisation 364-5) suggests that while some kinds of machines have existed for thousands of years, what we have come to think of as the mechanical age only arose with the widespread adoption of the machine as a way of securing order, regularity and calculability of physical and human resources, coupled with the ideological shift which made the machine into "a goal of desire" and an object of almost obsessive veneration from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century. Now, he said (writing first in the early 1930s) faith in the machine has been somewhat shaken, and it is no longer seen as "the paragon of progress" but as "merely a series of instruments" to be used when useful; yet despite this loss of faith the machine in capitalist contexts continues to be "over-worked, over-enlarged, over-exploited because of the possibility of making money out of it" (Technics and Civilisation 367). Almost seventy years after Mumford was writing, the obsessive zeal for the machine still has not completely disappeared, but has been displaced from giant smoke-puffing steel assemblages, whirling cogs and gearwheels, or the motors driving trains, cars and planes, and onto the silicon, plastic and light of computers (whose machineries of production and assembly are largely hidden off-shore to the bulk of users, thereby producing the illusion of "post-industrial" societies). The computer is now the paragon of progress and has become the "defining technology" of our age (Bolter), its place reinforced by an actively boosterist popular press (e.g. popular computing magazines; regular computer supplements in newspapers). Sociotechnical Not Posthuman Mumford continually makes the point that questions posed by/in technology are never answerable only technologically. It always comes down to human choices, and even when the results of these "are uncontrollable they are not external" to human culture: Choice manifests itself in society in small increments and moment-to-moment decisions as well as in loud dramatic struggles; and he who does not see choice in the development of the machine merely betrays his incapacity to observe cumulative effects until they are bunched together so closely that they seem completely external and impersonal. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 6) In a certain way Mumford's perspective anticipates actor-network theory, which looks at artefacts -- including machines -- as parts of sociotechnical networks that involve human decisions, including about the distribution of agency to non-humans. Even in the most automated machine, Mumford argues "there must intervene somewhere, at the beginning and end of the process ... the conscious participation of a human agent" (10). Actor-network studies of the development of scientific and technological artefacts aim in part to critique the sense of the external, impersonal or inevitable in scientific and technical 'progress' by insisting that "things might have been otherwise" (Bijker & Law 3), not just at the beginning and end, but all the way through the process of an artefact's development and use. The artefact is studied as a particular outcome of a set of decisions and performances made in the midst of contingencies affecting human and non-human actors with conflicting goals and contested powers within a dynamic sociotechnical network. Although actor-network theory is very interested in non-human agents, it does not, as do some recent participants in and theorists of cyberculture, celebrate the so-called post-human. There can be no agentic machines without there having been human competencies downloaded into them; there can be no technical order that is not also social and cultural. As Latour argues, the modernist work of purification has tried vainly to impose a separation between the social and technical, denying their mutual inextricability. From this Latourian perspective, the notion of the "post-human" is not, as it appears to be, post modern, but thoroughly modern. It carries through the quintessentially modernist project of denying after the fact the human agency and capacities that have been invested in producing hybrid artefacts which are then proclaimed as extra-human; it denies the cumulative effects of sociotechnical choices and instead represents the machinic imperative as somehow impersonal and external to human affairs. The notion of the posthuman can readily reinforce the pervasive popular cultural myths of technological inevitability and dominance, conveniently for those humans and corporations who actually do profit from decisions they make about developing and marketing machines of increasing autonomy, intelligence and subtlety. Machines and Provision The role of the machine has been overemphasised in histories of technology, according to Mumford. For aside from tools and machines which perform dynamic actions, there are technologies of containment and supply, which he categorizes as utensils (like baskets or pots), apparatus (such as dye vats, brick kilns), utilities (reservoirs, aqueducts, roads, buildings) and the modern power utility (railroad tracks, electric transmission lines). Some of the most effective adaptations of the environment came, not from the invention of machines, but from the equally admirable invention of utensils, apparatus, and utilities. ... But since people's attention is directed most easily to the noisier and more active parts of the environment, the role of the utility and the apparatus has been neglected ... both [tool and utensil] have played an enormous part in the development of the modern environment and at no stage in history can the two means of adaptation be split apart. Every technological complex includes both: not least our modern one. (Technics and Civilisation, 11-2). The development of various utensils and apparatus for storage (urns, granaries) and flow (irrigation, aqueducts) was essential for the emergence of settled agricultural communities in the neolithic period (Mumford, Technics and Human Development 140-1). As I explore in a related article (Sofia, "Container"), Mumford finds a prudish sexism in the relative neglect of technologies evocative of the female organs of storage, nutrition and transformation, compared with the overemphasis on technologies that are extensions of the muscular masculine body (Technics and Human Development, 140). However, the contrast between dynamic, noisy, active and autonomous machines, and passive, quiet, backgrounded containers cannot be sustained. For one the utensil even in its most basic form, has something machinic about it: a container can perform its function autonomously, without needing manipulation like a tool. Further, it is arguable that holding or containing is not simply a property of a shaped space, but a form of action in itself. Moreover in practice there are many hybrids of machine and utensil or utility, for example in domestic technologies like the food processor, a container with a machine-driven blade, or the washing machine, featuring a tub with mechanical agitation and rotary motion. Although Mumford is primarily interested in the machine, he observes that as modern "neotechnics" proceeds to develop ever more sophisticated machinery, so does it evolve more complex technologies of containment, as described in this passage which depicts both machines and utilities as active agents: Behind the façade [of the crisp lines of steel and glass that define the modern built environment] are rows and rows of machines, weaving cotton, transporting coal ... [etc.], machines with steel fingers and lean muscular arms, with perfect reflexes, sometimes even with electric eyes. Alongside them are the new utilities -- the coke oven, the transformer, the dye vats -- chemically cooperating with these mechanical processes, assembling new qualities in chemical compounds and materials. Every effective part in this whole environment represents an effort of the collective mind to widen the province of order and control and provision. (Technics and Civilisation, 356) Another way of getting the over-emphasised machine back into proportion is to look more closely at what it is used for, what purposes it serves. Mumford writes of the machine as part of the effort to produce "order and regularity" into the processes of life (10); to "widen the province of order and control and provision" (356) or to produce a "secure food supply and ... excellent organisation" (366). In other words, the machine is serving the goals typically associated with utensils, utilities and apparatus: smoothing out fluctuations in supply and distributing resources more evenly. Likewise Mumford suggests that in the back of developments of machine and tool is the effort to adapt by extending the body's powers and/or by altering the environment, so that, for example, instead of a physiological adaptation to cold through hair growth or hibernation, "there is an environmental adaptation, such as that made possible by the use of clothes and the erection of shelters" (10). These technologies are not machines, but container technologies, in the province of what philosopher of technology Don Ihde would call "background technics". We can think of the shift in emphasis here in relation to the example of road works. The large machines for bulldozing a path and laying down layers of road surface are very impressive in their size, power and technical capacity. But the road surface could not be laid down without there being technologies (including hybrids of machine and container, like the pick-up truck) for transporting, storing and mixing the materials used. And when it is done, the big machines lumber off elsewhere, and what we have before us is a road, a utility which facilitates orderly communication, transport and the supply of people and materials. In other words, these machines have served the goal of provisioning. The machine can enthral us with its autonomy, its alterity, its thingness, but as Heidegger has claimed, even such a powerful and seemingly stand-alone machine as a plane on a runway ready for take-off is ultimately just a "completely unautonomous" element when considered as part of a global system ordered "to ensure the possibility of transportation" (17). Like other modern machines, its own objectness and machinic resistance is dissolved as it becomes part of the "standing reserve", which can be understood as a macro-technology of provisioning through a matrix of mobilisable human and non-human resources. In the broader project of which this piece is a fragment, I want to investigate more closely the role and relative importance of machines compared to other kinds of equipment, especially for containment, supply or provisioning in contemporary technoculture, on the suspicion that it is apparatus and utilities rather than machines that define our contemporary lifeworld. References Bijker, Wiebe E., and John Law. General Introduction. Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Eds. Bijker and Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1992. Bolter, Jay David. "The Computer as a Defining Technology." Computers in the Human Context: Information Technology, Production, and People. Ed. Tom Forester. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. "The Question Concerning Technology." The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Andreas Huyssen. "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis." New German Critique 24-25 (1982), 221-37. Also in Huyssen. After the Great Divide. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. Ihde, Don. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1993. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilisation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962 [1934]. ---. Technics and Human Development. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1966. Sofia, Zoë. "Container Technologies." Hypatia, Spring 2000 (forthcoming). ---. "Contested Zones: Futurity and Technological Art." Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology 29.1 (1996): 59-66. ---. "The Mythic Machine: Gendered Irrationalities and Computer Culture." Education/Technology/Power: Educational Computing as a Social Practice. Eds. Hank Bromley and Michael W. Apple. Albany NY: SUNY, 1998. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Zoë Sofoulis. "Machinic Musings with Mumford." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.6 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php>. Chicago style: Zoë Sofoulis, "Machinic Musings with Mumford," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 6 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Zoë Sofoulis. (1999) Machinic musings with Mumford. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(6). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]).