Sustaining entrepreneurial business: A complexity perspective on processes that produce emergent practice

This article examines the management practices in an entrepreneurial small firm which sustain the business. Using a longitudinal qualitative case study, four general processes are identified (experimentation, reflexivity, organising and sensing), that together provide a mechanism to sustain the enterprise. The analysis draws on concepts from entrepreneurship and complexity science. We suggest that an entrepreneur’s awareness of the role of these parallel processes will facilitate their approaches to sustaining and developing enterprises. We also suggest that these processes operate in parallel at multiple levels, including the self, the business and inter-firm networks. This finding contributes to a general theory of entrepreneurship. A number of areas for further research are discussed arising from this result.     

融合生态学观点的业态与业态创新：兼论与商业模式的比较

引入生态学观点,重新界定业态的概念,提出包含营业形态、经营形态、企业形态、企业生态、产业形态和产业生态的“六位双层一体”架构;从概念范畴、表现形式、可复制性、创新来源、社会责任侧重以及关注焦点等方面探讨了业态与商业模式的区别;在此基础上,凝练了业态创新的路径,即从企业内要素的整合到企业间要素的协同,结合价值创造流程创建企业开放式创新生态网络,以开放式协同创新和企业自主创新撬动产业形态变革和产业结构升级,以及明确生态位,在产业共生中形成产业生态系统。     

A monetary business cycle model with unemployment

To reproduce key features of the post-war U.S. data, most monetary business cycle models must assume there are high price markups and that agents have high labour supply elasticities despite the existence of contradictory microeconomic evidence. This paper eliminates the need for these assumptions by introducing imperfectly observed effort into a limited participation model. The estimated model is better able to capture the sluggish price response to a monetary policy shock than the standard model, and is consistent with evidence regarding the qualitative responses of the U.S. economy to technology shocks, fiscal policy shocks and monetary policy shocks.     

商业视窗

印度兴起海归潮;中国的能源危机;微软是如何“汉化”的？中国缘何没有真正的创新？     

壳牌中国——强力拓展下游业务

英国/荷兰壳牌石油集团(RoyalDutch/ShellGroup)——世界著名石油生产商,多年来稳居美国《财富》杂志500强排名前列(2003、2004和2005年均列第四位)。然而,在近一时期内,壳牌却在诸多领域遭遇BP(英国石油公司)等强劲对手咄咄逼人的进攻。     

华人经营之神的三个创业角度

1917年,台湾台北县一个贫寒茶农之家出生了一个小孩,他就是王永庆,今天被誉为华人经营之神、"主宰台湾的第一大企业家"的台塑集团董事长.王永庆自小就体会到贫穷的悲哀,内心殊多感触.小学毕业后,他到嘉义当米店的小工,而后创办小米店、碾米厂、砖厂、木材厂、台塑集团等,如今名列台湾首富.王永庆是怎样取得辉煌的呢?他最近的自述,有助于我们对他作一个深入的了解.下面是他所说的几个精彩人生片断.     

Variable pricing business solutions in a decomposed business environment

Evolving business models and technology advances have facilitated the creation of innovative pricing strategies. Variable pricing represents the ability to configure a pricing schedule from a set of pricing options such as fixed cost, usage, shared benefit, and performance. The objective of variable pricing is to improve a pricing schedule for the mutual benefits of the provider and consumer, based on an evaluation of criteria that results in the setting of a price as a function of the expected value to be derived, as well as the time and materials used. In this paper, we focus on the variable pricing of ‘business solutions’, which is abstractly defined as the capabilities that enable or add value to the purposes of an enterprise. In a decomposed business environment, the structure of a business is partitioned into discrete business components that are assigned specific purposes and are endowed with resources to meet them. Business components interact to achieve business goals, and do so by exposing their capabilities through business services they offer. Business services have suitable levels of granularity offering constituent units of function, which, when selectively chosen and composed, form business solutions. We assert that business services are also suitable units for variable pricing, the implication being that pricing for a given business solution is an evaluation of the variable pricing of its assemblage of business services. The benefits of this ‘variable price composition’ approach offer greater accuracy for the pricing plan, coupled with increased flexibility to compose, modify, calculate and articulate pricing for business solutions.     

裁员：富有人情味的理性策略

裁员是个十分敏感的问题,任何国家、任何社会都将其摆在极其重要的位置.我们不能从过去以牺牲效益换取就业和社会稳定的极端,走向以牺牲就业和社会稳定来换取所谓"效益"的另一个极端.     

Tax smoothing in a business cycle model with capital-skill complementarity

This paper undertakes a normative investigation of the quantitative properties of optimal tax smoothing in a business cycle model with state contingent debt, capital-skill complementarity and endogenous skill acquisition under technology and public expenditure shocks. We find that skilled and unskilled labour tax smoothing maintain quantitatively under externalities and exogenous shocks in skill acquisition, as well as when the relative skill supply is exogenously determined. We further find that the government finds it optimal to reduce both the size of the wedge between the marginal rates of substitution and transformation in skill attainment in the long-run and the standard deviation of this wedge over the business cycle. This is achieved by subsidising skill creation and taxing both types of labour income.     

The business cycle model with a unique stable limit cycle

This paper provides the mathematical foundation to the long-standing academic belief that Goodwin's 1951 nonlinear business cycle model has a unique stable limit cycle. In spite of the asymmetric nonlinearity of investment function, the model has certainly a unique stable limit cycle in an economically meaningful region. Once solution paths start from any initial point in the region, they all tend to the limit cycle without escaping from the region or hitting the ceiling or floor of investment during a transition period. The structural stability of the model prevents the limit cycle from vanishing in the face of small perturbations.     

Repeated implementation and complexity considerations

A game form is commitment-free if single actions of players do not have physical consequences, i.e., affect the continuation game. Such game can be thought to represent inifinite interaction with complete patience. A choice rule can be Nash implemented via a commitment-free mechanism if and only if it coincides with the feasible set of a normal form game. However, when players are complexity averse (in the lexicographic sense), then any Nash implementable choice rule becomes available. I am very grateful to Matt Jackson and a referee for their comments. I also thank Klaus Kultti and Hannu Salonen for useful conversations.     

协同预测应对牛鞭效应

牛鞭效应是一种在企业经营中广泛存在的普遍现象．对企业的生产经营产生了极大负面影响。针对此现象．本文通过包含一个供应商和一个零售商的两级供应链中的需求预测问题的研究分析得出，在供应链成员问实行协同预测、共同处理需求信号是减小牛鞭效应负面影响的有效途径。     

No business is an island: The network concept of business strategy

The purpose of this article is to explore the contributions that could be made to the conceptual frame of reference for business strategy management by one of the research programmes which focuses on the organization–environment interface, and to which a network approach has been applied. We start by examining some of the assumptions underlying the current “strategy management doctrine”. The network model of the organization–environment interface is then reviewed and three central issues of the strategy management doctrine are discussed from the viewpoint of the network model: (1) organizational boundaries, (2) determinants of organizational effectiveness, and (3) the process of managing business strategy.The conclusion reached is that in all three areas changes are required in the assumptions of the business strategy model. Our arguments stem from a basic proposition about the situations described by the network model: continuous interaction with other parties constituting the context with which the organization interacts endows the organization with meaning and a role. When this proposition applies, any attempt to manage the behaviour of the organization will require a shift in focus away from the way the organization allocates and structures its internal resources and towards the way it relates its own activities and resources to those of the other parties constituting its context. Such a shift in focus entails a somewhat different view of the meaning of organizational effectiveness: what does it depend on and how can it be managed?     

商战中的不等式

世界上没有一成不变的定式,市场竞争的变量之间并非是完全对应的关系.加入WTO后的中国全球化竞争日趋激烈,国内企业自然要克服传统思维的影响,尽早破除陈规,积极创新发展.尤其要注意以下六个方面的"不等式".     

城市及其区域——一个典型的开放的复杂巨系统

建筑科学本是一门古老的学科。近 5 0年来 ,随着社会经济和科学技术的进步以及城市化的迅速推进 ,这门学科已大大向广度和深度发展 ,现在论建筑 ,已离不开城市及其区域。城市及其区域已经形成了一个开放的复杂的巨系统 ,从实践角度可分为 :建筑、城市、风景园林、建筑工程四大分支。分析证明 ,这一复杂的巨系统具有一切复杂巨系统的特点 :即具有联系紧密的层次和系列 ,系统作用大于系统各部的简单之和 ,上一层次大系统决定性地影响下一层次的小系统 ,有边界并总是和更大的系统、旁系统进行种种交换 ,具有非匀质性和相互作用 ,具自组织和自适应性 ,复杂性和运行的非定常性。     

虚拟企业:网络经济下企业创新的新平台

文章论述了在网络经济下的虚拟企业能够突出核心竞争力,能有效加强组织协调,能克服创新本身所具有的不确定性、路径依赖性、不可逆性以及系统集成性特征所引起的创新障碍,为企业创新的成功提供了一个崭新的平台。     

小企业的定价策略

随着市场经济的进一步深入,小企业的定价策略渐渐成为一个突出的问题。以往的定价方法大多是为大型公司服务,而小企业(包括新技术企业)没有一套理论上完整、实践中可操作的统一定价方法。本文主要说明小企业的定价特点,同时介绍了几个小企业(包括服务型小企业和新技术小企业)的定价方法。     

Building business through partnerships

In a request-driven environment, human resources can be pressured to "do a program," which solves the immediate problem. Such procedures result in a reactive mode of operation, which may not address the more global needs of the organization.