Emerging managerial competencies of professionals in the Tanzanian construction industry

The managerial competencies required by professionals in the construction industry in Tanzania to operate effectively in a business environment which is changing as a result of a transition from a socialist to a free-enterprise economy, economic liberalization, globalization and regionalization are explored through a qualitative study. The study reveals that local Tanzanian construction firms are finding it difficult to compete with foreign companies for projects. This is mainly because Tanzanian professionals lack the competencies required to compete and manage projects in a liberalized market economy.

The study thus highlights the need for Tanzanian construction professionals to acquire a better grasp of both occupational and organizational competencies. In this respect, it is suggested that they need post-experience training in order to acquire the competencies required to function successfully in a commercial environment.     

Tenure choice and the riskiness of non-housing consumption

This paper analyzes a household's choice of housing tenure within a dynamic utility maximization model that yields simple analytical results under uncertainty of income, housing prices, and rents. Given a housing consumption plan, we show that a decrease in the covariance between a household's earnings and housing rents increases the likelihood of ownership. A household who plans to remain in its home over a long period is more likely to own; a household who plans to remain in its home over a short period is more likely to rent. The higher the covariance between the user cost of a home and that of other properties a household is likely to consider in the future, the more likely the household is to own this home. These predictions of our model find support in recent empirical studies.     

Japan

Growth is set to struggle this year against a background of weak exports and a cyclical deceleration in capex spending. Weak demand from Asia (particularly China) and a slowdown in IT continue to cloud the external outlook. Sluggish industrial production and a loss of momentum in business investment will weigh on growth in 2019. We now expect real GDP to register a slight decline in Q1. For 2019, we forecast GDP to grow only 0.5% (down from 1.0% previously) before slowing to 0.4% in 2020 due to the consumption tax hike in Q4.     

Employee Rights, Employee Responsibilities and Knowledge Sharing in Intelligent Organization

Much is currently being written about the need to encourage employees to share knowledge in order for companies to maintain a role as an intelligent organization in a technologically sophisticated environment. However, there is little written of the relationship between employee rights to satisfactory employment conditions, employee responsibilities in decision-making, and employee willingness to share their knowledge collaboratively. This paper seeks to redress this gap by discussing the importance of the relationship between employee rights and responsibilities and employee willingness to share knowledge. The reaction of a group of employees (academics) employed in an Intelligent Organization (university) to a reduction in their rights and responsibilities is discussed in order to design a framework of employee rights and responsibilities required for knowledge sharing in intelligent organizations.     

基于单片机的四路抢答器的设计

抢答器是一种应用非常广泛的设备,在各类竞赛中,特别是做抢答题时,在抢答过程中,为了知道哪一组或哪一名选手先答题,必须要有一个系统来完成这个任务。如果在抢答过程中,只靠人的视觉是很难判断出哪组先答题。利用单片机来设计抢答器,使以上问题得以解决,即使有两组的抢答时间相差几微秒,也可分辨出哪组优先答题。抢答器已经发展到了用单片机的控制来实现其功能,制作过程简单,准确性与可靠性高,安装维护简单,而且功能齐全,电路简单,成本低,性能高,真正朝着更先进实用的方向发展。     

Stackelberg leadership and transfers in private provision of public goods

We consider transfers in a Stackelberg game of private provision of a public good. It turns out that the agent who is the follower in the process of making voluntary contributions to a public good may have an incentive to make monetary transfers to the Stackelberg leader even in a situation where neither has a comparative advantage in making contributions to the public good. The Stackelberg leader is willing to accept such transfers if the actual contribution game is fully non-cooperative because the transfer generates a Pareto superior outcome. If the contributions in the Stackelberg equilibrium is the threat point of a possible cooperative Nash bargaining game, the Stackelberg leader will refuse to accept the transfer if she can. Received: 30 June 1995 / Accepted: 18 February 1997     

The impact of a firm's make, pseudo-make, or buy strategy on product performance

The bulk of the product architecture and make-buy choice literature deals with product architecture changes from integral to modular form. This development is often associated with a firm's tendency to change from a make to a buy strategy. However, a few studies investigate the change of product architecture in the reverse direction - from modular to integral form - and the subsequent change in the firm sourcing decision from a buy to a make strategy. These studies hold to the presumption that a firm following a make strategy will outperform firms following a buy strategy in dealing with integral product architectures. Based on the knowledge-based view, we argue for the viability of a sourcing strategy between the pure make and buy strategies - a pseudo-make strategy. We also argue that as product architecture changes from a modular to integral form, firms adopting this pseudo-make strategy are likely to show better product performance than firms following a pure make or buy strategy due to the relative knowledge advantages of the pseudo-make strategy in dealing with the integral product architecture. We examine the impact of the make/pseudo-make/buy strategies on product performance in the U.S. bicycle derailleur and freewheel market from 1980 to 1992 and provide theoretical and managerial implications of our results. Our findings highlight an important distinction between the pseudo-make and make-buy strategies that has not previously been fully appreciated in the extant literature, and as a result increases our understanding of why some firms do not switch strategies from a buy to a make strategy when product architecture changes from modular to integral form as previously expected.     

ENACTING NEW PERSPECTIVES THROUGH WORK ACTIVITIES DURING ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

This article explores a behavioural counterpart to the changes in interpretive schemes that characterize organizational transformation. It investigates the experiences of organizational members (especially lower level members) who introduce new perspectives through the work they carry out during transformation. Results of a multi-year study in a religious order undergoing transformation indicated that members engaged in work that enacted a new perspective were less likely than other members to be appointed to organizational committees and more likely to leave the order. Members involved in work enacting a new perspective who remained in the order came to perceive themselves as less important to leaders but more influential in the order than other members did.     

The restricted convex risk measures in actuarial solvency

In this article, we propose a class of convex risk measures defined on appropriate wedges of a space of financial positions which denote the cumulative surplus variables created by undertaking risks by either an insurance or a reinsurance company. The form of the wedge which is the domain of such a risk measure expresses the form of the company, and it is a subspace in the case of reinsurance companies and a cone in the case of the insurance companies. The value of such a risk measure on an insurance position denotes the capital that the corresponding company has to receive or to keep in advance so that it will not be exposed to risk due to this position. We prove some dual representation and continuity results being similar to the unrestricted case. Finally, we contribute to a decision theory related to the choice of a numeraire asset when the space in which the positions lie in is reflexive.     

Entrepreneurship and the prospects of development in the West Bank

The study is a survey research designed to find out how a specific group of people perceives entrepreneurship and its relationship to economic growth. The group, composed entirely of economics and business administration majors in their last semester of the undergraduate programme, represents a crucial segment of the resource pool of future entrepreneurs iri the country. Hence, their perceptions of and attitude towards entrepreneurial activity is a significant determinant in the decision to launch business ventures should the opportunity arise.

The results of the study reveal a reserved managerial perception of entrepl:eneunhip among the majority of the respondents. The general reaction indicates a lack of readiness to take risks in an uncertain environment. The implication is that a change in perception, spurred on by a re-design of the academic programme in economics and business, is called for if there is to be any serious attempt to enhance the chances of economic growth in the region.     

The gradual transition to a team-based environment: the success story of a medium-sized manufacturing facility

This article will review the case in which a medium-sized manufacturing facility in upstate New York underwent the transition to a team-based environment. As with any change, this transition involved a decision process, a design process, and an implementation process. The transition took place gradually over a period of several years, allowing each stage to be studied in some detail. The degree to which these approaches are applicable to an organization will depend in part on how similar that organization is to the study facility; therefore, this article will begin with a background discussion of the nature of that facility.     

Multinationals and human resource practices in Ireland: a rejection of the 'new conformance thesis': a reply

This paper reports on a study of 398 people employed in two UK service organizations: a hospital and two divisions of a high street bank. The main purpose of the study was to determine the degree to which dispositional factors (predisposition to trust and trait anxiety) and situational factors (seven aspects of the job environment) predicted a person's reported trust in their managers. Two types of managers were investigated: a person's immediate line manager and ‘senior managers in their industry’. It was hypothesized that the dispositional factors would have a greater influence on trust in managers in the industry and that situational factors would have a greater influence on trust in one's immediate line manager. The first hypothesis was supported, but the second was not. It was found that trust in both types of managers was best predicted by a combination of general disposition to trust (not trait anxiety) and situational factors: five of the seven situational factors had a role in predicting intention to trust. This reflects the complexity involved in predicting trust at work and the managerial challenge of creating a trusting culture.     

Price distortion in the transition process: A CGE analysis of China's case

The correct evaluation of price distortion is a prerequisite for designing the correct price reform policy which is of tremendous importance in the transitions process from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the advantages and shortcomings of various criteria for evaluating price distortion. Based on the characteristics of a two-tiered planned-market system in Chinese economic reform, a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model has been built to evaluate quantitatively the degree of price distortion in the prevailing price system and the effects of price adjustments in order to propose a reasonable price reform policy. The difference between the planned price and the equilibrium price seems to be a better indicator for evaluating the degree of price distortion than others. Furthermore, this difference provides more accurate feedback for price reform policies in order to ensure a stable and controllable price reform process.     

Political selection of public servants and parliamentary oversight

In this paper, we propose a framework to integrate the identity of legislators in a politico-economic analysis of parliamentary oversight. Legislators decide about the effort they invest in oversight activities depending on their individual control costs and the level of electoral competition. We focus on public servants elected to parliament who face a conflict of interests but also have lower control costs due to their experience and information advantage. If held accountable, oversight becomes a relatively attractive activity for them to win votes. For German Laender, we find that the fraction of public servants in parliament is positively related to the number of submitted parliamentary interpellations. This result holds when instrumenting the fraction of public servants in parliament with its institutional determinants. Moreover, a mixed-member electoral system as well as a tighter race between the two biggest parties is related to more, a larger number of parties in parliament to less minor interpellations.     

WORLDOUTLOOK

German monetary unification is expected to result in a major expansion in autonomous demand from East Germany. In economic terms this is equivalent to a fiscal shock to West Germany broadly similar to that experienced in the US in the early years of Mr. Reagan's Presidency. Led by the Bundes bank, the monetary authorities' response is again likely to be a tightening of policy, leading to several years of high real interest rates. Overall, the combined monetary-fiscal shock should strengthen growth with only moderate increases in inflation. Germany is expected to grow very rapidly in the -per cent range for several years, with only a slight upturn in inflation. Japan, after a pause over the next year, should be able to return to its under lying growth path fairly quickly. However the US situation is more precarious. FUN adjustment from the previous Reagan shock has not yet taken place, leaving the US vulnerably dependent on increasingly scarce imported capital. In the absence of a significant *peace dividend: the result is the necessity of continued tight policy and sluggish growth in the American economy. US growth stays around 2 per cent, but this allows a substantial reduction in the current account deficit.     

Geographical and cognitive proximity effects on innovation performance in SMEs: a way through knowledge acquisition

This study explores the relative influence of geographical and cognitive proximity to explain innovation performance. This paper deepens the controversy between the significance of both types of proximity, contributing to a better understand their interconnections. The study further analyzes to what extent knowledge acquisition provides a congruent explanation of the effectiveness of innovation in proximity contexts. The paper has tested a structural model based on a sample of 224 Spanish footwear firms. Footwear industry is a mature and traditional industry with a significant presence of the territorial agglomeration of firms all over Spain. Findings suggest both a direct and indirect effect of cognitive proximity on innovation performance. However, an excess of geographical proximity produces spatial lock-in, thus limiting the access to new knowledge and lowering innovations. By contrast, proximity in terms of goals and culture leads firms belonging to a territorial cluster to achieve knowledge acquisition resulting in relevant innovation. Findings suggest that although transferable valuable knowledge exists in clustered contexts firms should adopt a proactive behavior to have access common knowledge and in order to generate effective innovations.     

Quantitative easing and the loan to collateral value ratio

We study optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model at the zero bound interest rate where households use cash alongside house equity borrowing to conduct transactions. The amount of borrowing is limited by a collateral constraint. When either the loan to value ratio declines or house prices fall, we observe a decrease in the money multiplier. We argue that the central bank should respond to the fall in the money multiplier and therefore to the reduction in house prices or the loan to collateral value ratio. We also find that optimal monetary policy generates a large and persistent fall in the money multiplier in response to the drop in the loan to collateral value ratio.     

Some results on analytic optimal control solution of a simple rational expectations model

In this note, we correct a technical error in a well-known stabilization analysis in the context of a simple macroeconomic model, formulated as an optimal control problem. This error originated in a slip in an unpublished but widely circulated paper by D.A. Livesey, suggesting a procedure for obtaining a solution to a class of optimal control problems frequently encountered in a stabilization literature. We then propose an ad hoc solution method which makes clear the intuition of the solution to the particular model to which the Livesey method was applied, and of the larger class of models to which it belongs. Our solution is so formulated that the contrast between it and the Livesey result is made transparent.     

The economics of decision making in the new manufacturing firm

Decision making in a modern manufacturing firm producing a variety of products while meeting order deadlines appears at first to have little basis in the economic Theory of the Firm. It is shown that optimal budget allocations, the fractions of revenue expended on inputs, are likely to remain constant for a succession of orders for each of a family of products, thus simplifying the decision process. Well-known heuristic decision rules may not only have a sound basis in economic theory but are evidently the best way to incorporate economic logic into a stream of fast-moving decisions. The discussion is extended to an explanation of the economic value of decision making to the firm, and why this value is usually assumed to be zero in theory.